I’m writing a review for inFAMOUS and was going to reserve comment for that but after reading Kprata and Harris and Vixen’s thoughts, figured I may as well join in on the discussion, at least a little.

I never played Crackdown, and so I proclaim to neither like nor dislike it and thus can’t judge how relevant comparisons are to inFAMOUS. However, I’m surprised I haven’t read anyone comparing the combat in inFAMOUS to that in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Considering that Cole has the ability to spam what is pretty much a “force push” and send cars and rubbish skiffs flying into enemies for combos and crush bonuses, which are all elements that made The Force Unleashed fun. However, inFAMOUS pales in regards to combat. While you end up with many different powers, there’s never any incentive to think about what you’re going to use for what situation. Either you fling lightning grenades or lightning rockets or lightning bullets, and though they may all have a different method of delivery, each leads to pretty much the same result. I don’t agree with Kprata that Sucker Punch “should have reduced the number of Cole’s powers” but I do think the difference between enemy varieties should have been emphasised to force you to fully use the power set provided. (Funny how different this is in comparison to The Force Unleashed, when you were handed an awesome new power then confronted with an enemy immune to it.) If anything should be jettisoned, it’s the cover system, which never once in the entirety of the game came in useful.

I’m not convinced that inFAMOUS is as bad as Harris purports it to be. Though I agree the game has issues, such as the many instances in which I’ve found myself infinitely base jumping from a building, through the street, into the sky, then back through the street again, and the repetetive nature of the missions, these are not game-breaking. Where the AI for Harris was lacklustre, I found the enemies on the whole to be a tough and semi-intelligent mob to confront. That is, up until some of the stronger powers are unlocked and you can pretty much walk through anybody, which is, if you’ve made it to the end of the game, sort of the point. Again, the enemies themselves needed a wider array of actions, such as the ability to jump from buildings to ambush you, perhaps, in order to make the game more fun and varied and avoid being stuck. But alas, I sympathise with his abandonment only three hours in. I too had considered throwing down the lightning bolt after a few hours play, until I saw a review on Good Game, whereby Cole appeared to have the power to fly and zoom along train tracks. So, I continued playing a little while longer and must admit, the game is a slow-burner that takes some investment before revealing its potential.

PixelVixen707 comments on the moral choices in the game, and the way in which it doesn’t judge you based on your moral decisions:

“Choose to be a hero, and you can stop every five feet and heal someone who’s wounded and dying on the sidewalk. You get a few experience points for every save, but that’s just a “thank you”; knowing that you’ve saved hundreds of lives is the real reward…If you’re the villain-type, inFamous lets you wreak havoc on an already wrecked city, torturing the populace and even draining the last gasps of life from victims dying on the street. All these crimes will nudge your karma toward evil, but in the scheme of things, a few murders here and there don’t add up to much — and anyway, you’ll quickly learn how hard it is to do good.”

I disagree. To stop and heal is a much easier task to accomplish than sucking the life from someone and it seems like a conscious decision on the part of the developer. To heal, you simply stop by someone, press R1 and then hold triangle. To suck life, however, requires you to stop, hold R1 and repeatedly tap at square. The difference in energy exertion is, admittedly microscopic — you aren’t tasked with mashing a button for five minutes in order to make you gasp and sputter and understand how difficult it is to crawl through a microwave oven — but just mashing even a couple of times is definitely a more taxing task than just holding the button down. As a friend of mine says, “I love it when people hate me, it takes so much more energy to hate someone.” Sucker Punch seem to have emphasised this simple statement by forcing you to actively kill, or to charge and heal. Although, this does seem in contradiction to the other blunt moral choices presented, where apathy and inaction will throw you in the red, while helping may require additional work — and in this, I guess PixelVixen707’s statements do have some validity.

Thoughts?

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