Making good
The game's ethical choices prove equally as facile. Although more meaningful than the original's, the system of good and bad karma works simply as a binary branching narrative determining which missions are available to you. With no repercussions other than at the Star Wars Force Unleashed-style ending, the karma system offers little more than the option to replay the game through the alternative moral path.
Need a jump start, y'say?
If an entire replay doesn't appeal, Infamous 2 has one unique superpower that just might. In a first for open-world sandbox games, you can create and play User Generated Content (UGC). A powerful visual scripting language helps you create an infinite variety of content, from setting up complex parkour races through rings, to creating combat engagements with specific rule-sets. There's even a clever filter and voting system to determine which UGC appears in your world.
It's a system of huge potential, one that compensates for increasing repetition in the campaign's latter stages. Even at this early stage, I managed to find content that surpassed developer Sucker Punch's own missions, so it will be interesting to see just how much the game develops as the community of modders improve their art.
Die full-tower
Verdict
The irony is that for all its electricity, Infamous 2 lacks magnetism. It's a highly polished, beautiful looking game. Cole MacGrath is an awesome superhero, and his powers are always a joy to control, but he's let down by a lack of worthy enemies. As his powers increase, the challenge fizzles out. The glimmer of hope, then, is that where developer Sucker Punch fails, the modding community will replace that missing spark. ®
More Games Reviews |
||||
 Duke Nukem
Forever |
 Red Faction:
Armageddon |
 Hunted:
The Demons Forge |
 LA Noire |
 Dirt 3 |
Infamous 2
COMMENTS
level backwards
Wouldn't a superhero sequel be the perfect setting to try out reverse levelling?
You start out a master of all your powers but each battle takes its toll, you slowly start to lose strength and stamina over time as your exhaustion from battle wrecks your physique. With that you lose grip on your more powerful attacks as you're simply not in shape to perform them.
This then ever increases the challenge throughout the game, instead of becoming a near unstoppable behemoth by the mid-point, battling tanks away as if they were flies, you have to become more tactical in your engagements - should I risk fighting that horde or work my way around, conserving strength for those unavoidable confrontations..
I suppose adding a dimension of realism to a man who can shoot lighting from his bare hands (not bear hands as I initially wrote, he would be too awesome for one game) might not gel that well though :)
Screenshot query
Bottom of page 2 - isn't that one of the early missions from the first game? When you're still being introduced to climb+shoot they have you get that food drop down, and then you can choose whether or not to slaughter the crowd that comes looking. That square is definitely Empire City.
Not sure about this one
I've only played the demo of Infamous 2 whereas I had played the original through a couple of times (good and evil) but my immediate feeling was that the controls felt like they had been overcomplicated. I didn't like the way that at least a couple of the buttons now seem to have dual functions (L3 I think is one - depending if you are in range of a power source or not?), and they seem to have done away with the standard attack lightning "bolt" and gone for some sort of ball of electricity.
I was going to buy the new version, but based upon the experience of the demo I decided to wait until I can get it cheaply, probably as a preowned copy.
original game is fun
And pretty good for free
thanks Sony
Tempted to buy this for the Uncharted 3 multiplayer beta code
@Greg J Preece
Yes it is - Cole doesn't have his big thwacky prongs in it, which is another thing the reviewer failed to mention.
The melee combat is much improved, making it more fun to get right into the middle of the group and start beating them with your electrified metal tuning fork!
And your powers DO get taken away from you. I still don't have my shield or missile attacks back yet - sure they're given back quite quickly, but I'd say it's more the way the game works now that makes things easier, rather than the full arsenal of Cole's powers.
Also, no mention of the different choices? The good/evil missions are far better than last time around.
I remember when game reviews actually talked about the features of the game, rather than just a select few of them heavily layered with the reviewers opinion.
Score's probably about right, but I'd add another 10% just for the joy of moving around the city on its own.
It's fun. That's all the qualifier I need.
