Review: inFamous

[Shamus Young]

This one just went into my "I no longer care" list.

Binding the leveling system to a dead-stupid binary good/evil path is just silly. The more "roleplaying" you do, the weaker your character. The more you blindly embrace one path or the other, the stronger you get. This is made worse by the endless hype promising us interesting choices. And in the end we get: Self-sacrifice vs. senseless murder.

I've been hoping RPG's would move away from the binary morality and experiment with more interesting choices (as The Witcher did), but instead they're embracing the idea and yoking the leveling system to it.

Why don't you just give me a popup: Do you want the good points or the evil points?

 

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

Judging by the demo and this review, I guess I can say that-

1. The climbing is awesome and not as bad as it sounds, and it's fun to just run around the city taking out the baddies that see you from miles away.

2. The powers are awesome too, and a blast to play with

3. The karma system is tacked on so I stopped caring about it.

This game isn't being panned and it keeps looking good and I'm playing the hell out of the demo, but since I'm a cheap bastard I'll be renting this. Then I'll see if it's as good as it looks.

 

[D_987]

Disappointing.

I'm not a fanboy, either.

Just the fact you said that makes me think you are...

 

[Tikicobra]

Disappointing.

I'm not a fanboy, either.

Just the fact you said that makes me think you are...

There's some good logic there.

 

[ThePeaceFrog]

its a pity really, it seemed for a few fleeting seconds that the Ps3 may have finally got an exclusive with true broad appeal...ah well...*sigh*

 

[Kellerb]

I was thinking of getting this as soon as it came out... but now I'm a little skeptical. Still, I haven't gotten used to Jordan's game tastes as of yet... so I think I'll give it a rental as per recommendation rather than being sure of the hit or miss of it.

Gametrailers, who are notoriously 360 Biased, gave inFAMOUS a 9.0/10, So It's got to be good.

wait, so people you know to be biased (you might just be saying that because your biased to ps3) gave it a high, so you trust them fully?

right ^^

 

[Hazy]

I was thinking of getting this as soon as it came out... but now I'm a little skeptical. Still, I haven't gotten used to Jordan's game tastes as of yet... so I think I'll give it a rental as per recommendation rather than being sure of the hit or miss of it.

Gametrailers, who are notoriously 360 Biased, gave inFAMOUS a 9.0/10, So It's got to be good.

wait, so people you know to be biased (you might just be saying that because your biased to ps3) gave it a high, so you trust them fully?

right ^^

Uhh.. No.
Case in point: They gave Halo 3 a higher score than Metal Gear Solid 4. Now I know that ratings are opinions, and subjective, and all that good stuff, but thats where I call BS.
And I'm not biased in any way towards my PS3. I certainly have my fair share of complaints with it. I think you misunderstood my post a bit, because I never claimed to trust them fully. I was simply making an opinionated observation based upon the grounds that GT ellegedly favors the 360 to the PS3, and that they gave inFAMOUS a good score. Any moron could put two and two together, and realize that with the odds against it, and it still recieves a good score, it might be a good game. Right, so are we done here?

EDIT: I can't fully convince you that GT is biased, but rest assured, there are plenty who would agree with me.

 

[hopeneverdies]

So in the end it is baby eater, Mother Theresa, or some weak combination of both? I know a Yahtzeeism but it fits. I think the game is missing the point slightly on the karma thing. Not everyone is perfectly good or fully evil. By weakening a person for being a bit of both seems wrong in some way. It's almost like in Genre Wars in its early days where having a balanced army would still cause you to lose to someone with 50 of one character and that was it.
I like the idea of your avatar and his powers changing to fit his moral alignment though.

 

[Slycne]

EDIT: I can't fully convince you that GT is biased, but rest assured, there are plenty who would agree with me.

Lots of people thought the earth was flat too, just saying. So what if they liked Halo 3 better then Metal Gear Solid 4, that doesn't prove bias just that everyone has different experiences, likes and dislikes.

Getting back to inFamous though, the more I thought about it the better I think their mortality system does work in the context of the world they have generated. It's a system based on comic book logic. Heck the girlfriend decision seems to be pulled straight from the scene in Dark Knight.

So while the karma moments are laughably only two sided, I think they were designed that way. The game is promoting you to the polar ends of the spectrum. Villains are psychotic douche bags and heroes are Jesus with a cooler skill set. It certainly fails to deliver mirroring a real moral decisions, but that's not its intent, from what I saw at least. The marketing hype did seem to latch on to that though. I think this might be a victim of a PR unit being out of touch with the game design.

 

[Hazy]

EDIT: I can't fully convince you that GT is biased, but rest assured, there are plenty who would agree with me.

Lots of people thought the earth was flat too, just saying. So what if they liked Halo 3 better then Metal Gear Solid 4, that doesn't prove bias just that everyone has different experiences, likes and dislikes.

Indeed. I try not to over-analyze it too much, because it all just comes down to preferences. There really is no way to resolve that conflict, and frankly, (Hypocrite moment on my part) we would be alot better off without debating it.

 

[Jumplion]

its a pity really, it seemed for a few fleeting seconds that the Ps3 may have finally got an exclusive with true broad appeal...ah well...*sigh*

I hope you're not taking this one review into account, because if so, you're being stupid.

The best thing to do is to gather all reviews of this game and form a general consensus, not just base everything off of one minuscule review. I have yet to play InFamous or the demo, so I will take these criticisms into account, but I'm not going to think "Oh, Escapist guy doesn't like it, that means it's bad!"

But anyway, I'll say right now I absolutely hate the way the Karma system was implemented, but other than that I am excited for the game and have it preordered.

I agree with the review on how the moral and karma system were not very well implemented, but I think it has less to do with the moral compass and more to do with what you personally want with your powers. Do you want more surgical and precise powers, then go good. If you just want to blow stuff up go the evil way.

This game seems more to want to have the player go through twice on the opposite spectrum, so a second playthrough seems reasonable to experience the entirety of the game.

And while a review isn't always going to have EVERYTHING in it, I'm still a little disappointed that the main focus of the game was just the karma system and hardly focused, if focused at all, on the climbing system, platforming, super powers, or the collectibles in the game.

Ah well.

 

[Jumplion]

Condense

Interesting proposition, and it does make sense, however I still HATE the way they implemented the karma system so that it's right in front of you the whole time. Especially when they were clamoring over the revolutionary stuff of the karma and crap.

 

[meatloaf231]

This is exactly why games need to stop attaching numbers to morality. You can't quantify it. All theses system do is make you think "I want to do X Good or Evil deed so I can advance on the Good or Evil slider so I get the reward/power for being all the way to the Good or Evil side." Fallout 3 also suffered greatly from the Karma system.

Morals aren't numbers.

 

[dnadns]

Disappointing.

Not the game, the review. You hardly mentioned anything other than the morality system, and frankly, I don't understand your complaints, nor do I understand how a flawed morality system could hurt the game to a point where it's not even worth buying. I'm not a fanboy, either. In fact, I'm not that hyped for this game, but this review seemed rather lame and off-putting.

I'll have to agree with you.
When I saw that the review was up here, I was really interested in seeing how it would go after reading/watching some other reviews.

It was a bit diappointing for me to read almost two pages about one feature of the game and the rest being thrown together somewhat into a single sentence.

Overall it seems a bit strange to see the game be compared to big titles like Bioshock and GTA4 in the beginning and reading more of a column about karmic game systems afterwards instead of a review that covers all aspects of the game.

 

[Nerdfury]

Oh, Susan, you almost had me confused there for a moment!

ALMOST! ¬¬

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Disappointing.

Not the game, the review. You hardly mentioned anything other than the morality system, and frankly, I don't understand your complaints, nor do I understand how a flawed morality system could hurt the game to a point where it's not even worth buying. I'm not a fanboy, either. In fact, I'm not that hyped for this game, but this review seemed rather lame and off-putting.

Did you watch the video suppliment because the morality system was mentioned at length and I think the complaints were very valid. I can't think of a game that has been able to reward "shades of grey" players yet.

Great, unbiased review by the way.

 

[Worsle]

Disappointing.

Not the game, the review. You hardly mentioned anything other than the morality system, and frankly, I don't understand your complaints, nor do I understand how a flawed morality system could hurt the game to a point where it's not even worth buying. I'm not a fanboy, either. In fact, I'm not that hyped for this game, but this review seemed rather lame and off-putting.

Did you watch the video suppliment because the morality system was mentioned at length and I think the complaints were very valid. I can't think of a game that has been able to reward "shades of grey" players yet.

Great, unbiased review by the way.

No the problem with the review is it is only the morality system, ok it is a fairly 1 dimensional affair I get it, really trust me I get it. Though really I was expecting a review of the game not a short essay about the problems of tying a 2 choice morality system to the advancement. That and if you can't think of a game that is pro-neutrality why does that make it is specific fault to this game? Or even why should this game be trying to give you that choice? Maybe it would have made the game better, maybe not but really this review boils down to a paragraph and a half that is not about the morality system.

 

[Jumplion]

Disappointing.

Not the game, the review. You hardly mentioned anything other than the morality system, and frankly, I don't understand your complaints, nor do I understand how a flawed morality system could hurt the game to a point where it's not even worth buying. I'm not a fanboy, either. In fact, I'm not that hyped for this game, but this review seemed rather lame and off-putting.

Did you watch the video suppliment because the morality system was mentioned at length and I think the complaints were very valid. I can't think of a game that has been able to reward "shades of grey" players yet.

Great, unbiased review by the way.

I agree, I hate the way the Karma system was implemented, but some others (like Omni's post [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.114492?page=2#2096119] and Virgil's post [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/6.114492#2094644] bring up some good points) do make good points to the system.

I still hate it....and how Sucker Punch were hyping up the morality system.