- AKA
- TresDias
With the release of "inFAMOUS: Second Son" approaching in just a few months, I thought I would finally get around to playing the second game after finishing the first well over a year ago.
The first was and remains one of my absolute favorite gaming experiences. Even now, it's fresh in my mind. There are other games on the PS3 with better stories and characters, perhaps (the "Uncharted" series springs to mind), but I can't think of any that have been more engrossing.
This game fulfilled all the dreams of a comic book nerd who has been playing video games since the late 80s -- because that's what you're doing when you play "inFAMOUS." You're entering a comic book and playing out a superhero origin story.
I say this not just because of the comic book stylings of the game's art design and movie sequences, but because it really brings to life all the things you love (or don't, I suppose) about comics. The (apparent) accident that bestows superpowers on a rather ordinary person, special names for these abilities, the flashy villains who appear in short order thereafter to take control of the city, the crises suffered in the superhero's personal life as result of their newfound power and responsibility, a great loss or tragedy that becomes the guide for the rest of the character's journey -- the game is much like playing as Spider-Man if his Spider Sense and web shooters got swapped out for electrical powers.
Hell, even time travel, warnings of a coming apocalypse and a great malevolent entity with a straightforward, unimaginative name (i.e. The Beast) come into play by the end. The game really hits all those "comic book story" beats.
With respect to that story and the playable character's powers, the game borrows more than a little from "Static Shock" -- not that this is a bad thing. Static's co-creator, Dwayne McDuffie, himself said that he borrowed much from Spider-Man.
The Q-Juice experiment from "Static Shock" becomes the Ray Sphere incident; the Bang Babies become the Conduits; and 15-year-old, geeky Black teenager Virgil Hawkins becomes 20-something White urban explorer Cole MacGrath.
One of the first things you notice as you begin playing: this game can be hard. Unforgiving, at least. You aren't just going to put the game in and start frying waves of the gang members trying to control Empire City. They're going to make you work for it.
Armed at first only with Cole's parkour skills and the ability to fire electrical bolts, you won't be jumping into the middle of an enemy horde and picking them apart any time soon. Try that early on, and they will just tear you to pieces.
That brings us to one of the other things you'll notice early on: These aren't "Walker: Texas Ranger" bad guys. They can actually shoot. Even from a distance, their aim is pretty damn impressive.
You're going to have to learn to fight strategically by using the environment to your advantage -- for example, finding positions where the edge of a building shields you from most gunfire while you can still hit your targets. This is particularly going to be necessary if you venture into blackout zones where there's no ambient electricity with which to restore your powers and health. You'll need to learn to aim as well. Headshots are your friend when you have little battery charge to work with. You're also going to have to run away at times. Just get used to that fact.
Stick at it for a while, though, and as you restore power to sections of Empire City and free them from gang control, your powers will grow. As part of your evolution, you'll gain the ability to slide across power lines and train rails, you'll begin throwing lightning grenades that stick to the enemies they touch, you'll be able to generate an electrical shield that protects you from all that gunfire you were eating early on, and more. Eventually, you'll find yourself becoming a high-flying superconductor of justice -- or villainy, if you so prefer, as the game allows you that option as well. But being a supervillain was never my childhood dream, so that's not the path I ventured down.
I wanted to save a train full of hostages. I wanted to take on a heavily-armed gang alongside police. I wanted to inspire hope in people. "inFAMOUS" allowed me to do all of that and more. I got to defeat supervillains in epic battles, heal people in need, chase a helicopter, fire lightning bolts at bad guys from another helicopter, save accused thieves from lynch mobs, and defend both a prison as well as a police station from ridiculous, intense assaults.
That's not even half of it, but that alone is enough to get any geek like me salivating.
In a lot of ways, this game allowed me to live out fantasies like no other ever has. No doubt, that's why, when the adventure came to an end, I was so eager for more that I went on to collect every Blast Shard in Empire City, having read that when I started "inFAMOUS 2," I would be given two additional battery cores with which to start the next stage of the adventure.
I also made a point to track down all the game's Dead Drops, which reveal additional backstory and world-building details not present in the main course of the story. I simply couldn't get enough.
For many reasons, it would be a good while before I would begin the second half of Cole MacGrath's journey -- my own journey as a superhero. Having now done so, however, I wish to share my impressions and feelings as I go.
So, here we go.
Having somehow managed to avoid spoilers about the second game's story developments, the first thing to come to my attention is pleasant surprise that the plot thread involving The Beast is being immediately addressed at the beginning of this second game. I rather expected the matter to be ignored for nearly the entire duration of "inFAMOUS 2" while dealing with a different threat in order to drag this storyline out into a forced trilogy, as that sort of thing is so common these days.
Hell, if we're looking at movies, we can expect what should be the final chapter to get split into two titles, a la "Harry Potter," "Twilight" and soon "The Hunger Games."
Not so here. We're dropped right into the apocalyptic prediction left us at the end of the first game by Cole's future self from a now alternate timeline, Kessler, the supervillain with good intentions who engineered the awakening of Cole's powers and all the heartbreak, death and destruction that followed.
Having set out to prepare Cole for the challenge of facing The Beast and protecting Empire City rather than fleeing for the sake of his loved ones, Kessler's morally questionable crusade almost immediately becomes pointless -- along with all of Cole's efforts. My efforts.
Relighting sections of the city one by one, freeing the people of each district from the gangs that had taken over their homes, healing, rescuing, climbing, recharing, struggling -- all of it was rendered moot in an instant as Cole takes on The Beast in the game's playable opening sequence and is soundly defeated before the massive entity goes on to annihilate Empire City one building at a time.
The city I worked so hard to save for days in the original game was destroyed after only five minutes of gameplay in the sequel. Kind of a downer.
Soon, I'm tasked with the salvation of a new city. New Marais. A second chance to get things right. I won't let them down too.
Before long, I'm back into the old swing of things. Climbing buildings. Gliding from great heights. Zapping stuff. Saving civilians from muggings at the hands of a superhuman-hating militia that has taken over.
I'm delighted to find that the control scheme has been kept the same and at how quickly the controls have come back to me despite my long absence from "inFAMOUS." I'm somewhat taken aback, however, by how much easier this game feels from the outset than did its predecessor.
I got killed a lot when I first started playing the original. Now, it happens rarely, even in blackout zones, which have made a welcome -- though occasionally challenging and stressful -- return. Whether my grasp of the controls from the first game is more to thank for this or whether it be that the designers intuitively decided that a Cole MacGrath with more powers should have less of a hard time, I don't know.
Less than a quarter of the way through what I've read is the total number of the game's main storyline missions ("Bertrand Takes the Stage" was the last story mission I completed), I've been mostly working on Side Missions, User-Generated Content missions and collecting all the Blast Shards as I go this time, even from the blackout zones, rather than waiting to the endgame for that. I'm also hard at work on shooting down carrier pigeons to collect this game's newest Dead Drops, which provide more backstory for both games, and also seem to be hinting at a return of the seemingly deceased John White from the first game.
I always somewhat doubted his death, the circumstances being what they were and this being a comic book world as it is. Having now learned that John had the potential to become a Conduit like Cole, I have no doubt that the character will be making a return with superpowers at some point in this sequel. As far as I know, the Ray Sphere would only kill ordinary humans with no Conduit potential. Someone like John should have, instead, had his dormant powers awakened.
With all the focus I've been putting into Side Missions, exploring New Marais and taking down every enemy I encounter, acquiring Hero status early on has been easy, as has activating most of Cole's lightning powers. I assume a few will require further developments in the story before they become available.
I already know that I'm supposed to be getting a grappling hook-like ability called "Lightning Tether" at some point. Apparently, it's supposed to be required for defeating this excellent UGC robot boss fight:
I managed to do it after a frustrating hour or so once I figured out how to use his telekinetic power to lift cars against him and that I could scale his arm to his head as though he were one of the colossi from "Shadow of the Colossus."
As you can probably tell, I'm having a blast with this game so far. I can't wait to see where it goes from here.
Share your thoughts on this amazing game series as well -- where it's been and where you believe or hope it may go. Looking forward to reading your thoughts.
P.S. Let me just say I can't thank my wife enough for buying me the PS3 a couple years ago in the first place, as well as these games. I have a terrible habit of saving money and not treating myself, and probably never would get cool stuff for me if someone else didn't.
The first was and remains one of my absolute favorite gaming experiences. Even now, it's fresh in my mind. There are other games on the PS3 with better stories and characters, perhaps (the "Uncharted" series springs to mind), but I can't think of any that have been more engrossing.
This game fulfilled all the dreams of a comic book nerd who has been playing video games since the late 80s -- because that's what you're doing when you play "inFAMOUS." You're entering a comic book and playing out a superhero origin story.
I say this not just because of the comic book stylings of the game's art design and movie sequences, but because it really brings to life all the things you love (or don't, I suppose) about comics. The (apparent) accident that bestows superpowers on a rather ordinary person, special names for these abilities, the flashy villains who appear in short order thereafter to take control of the city, the crises suffered in the superhero's personal life as result of their newfound power and responsibility, a great loss or tragedy that becomes the guide for the rest of the character's journey -- the game is much like playing as Spider-Man if his Spider Sense and web shooters got swapped out for electrical powers.
Hell, even time travel, warnings of a coming apocalypse and a great malevolent entity with a straightforward, unimaginative name (i.e. The Beast) come into play by the end. The game really hits all those "comic book story" beats.
With respect to that story and the playable character's powers, the game borrows more than a little from "Static Shock" -- not that this is a bad thing. Static's co-creator, Dwayne McDuffie, himself said that he borrowed much from Spider-Man.
The Q-Juice experiment from "Static Shock" becomes the Ray Sphere incident; the Bang Babies become the Conduits; and 15-year-old, geeky Black teenager Virgil Hawkins becomes 20-something White urban explorer Cole MacGrath.
One of the first things you notice as you begin playing: this game can be hard. Unforgiving, at least. You aren't just going to put the game in and start frying waves of the gang members trying to control Empire City. They're going to make you work for it.
Armed at first only with Cole's parkour skills and the ability to fire electrical bolts, you won't be jumping into the middle of an enemy horde and picking them apart any time soon. Try that early on, and they will just tear you to pieces.
That brings us to one of the other things you'll notice early on: These aren't "Walker: Texas Ranger" bad guys. They can actually shoot. Even from a distance, their aim is pretty damn impressive.
You're going to have to learn to fight strategically by using the environment to your advantage -- for example, finding positions where the edge of a building shields you from most gunfire while you can still hit your targets. This is particularly going to be necessary if you venture into blackout zones where there's no ambient electricity with which to restore your powers and health. You'll need to learn to aim as well. Headshots are your friend when you have little battery charge to work with. You're also going to have to run away at times. Just get used to that fact.
Stick at it for a while, though, and as you restore power to sections of Empire City and free them from gang control, your powers will grow. As part of your evolution, you'll gain the ability to slide across power lines and train rails, you'll begin throwing lightning grenades that stick to the enemies they touch, you'll be able to generate an electrical shield that protects you from all that gunfire you were eating early on, and more. Eventually, you'll find yourself becoming a high-flying superconductor of justice -- or villainy, if you so prefer, as the game allows you that option as well. But being a supervillain was never my childhood dream, so that's not the path I ventured down.
I wanted to save a train full of hostages. I wanted to take on a heavily-armed gang alongside police. I wanted to inspire hope in people. "inFAMOUS" allowed me to do all of that and more. I got to defeat supervillains in epic battles, heal people in need, chase a helicopter, fire lightning bolts at bad guys from another helicopter, save accused thieves from lynch mobs, and defend both a prison as well as a police station from ridiculous, intense assaults.
That's not even half of it, but that alone is enough to get any geek like me salivating.
In a lot of ways, this game allowed me to live out fantasies like no other ever has. No doubt, that's why, when the adventure came to an end, I was so eager for more that I went on to collect every Blast Shard in Empire City, having read that when I started "inFAMOUS 2," I would be given two additional battery cores with which to start the next stage of the adventure.
I also made a point to track down all the game's Dead Drops, which reveal additional backstory and world-building details not present in the main course of the story. I simply couldn't get enough.
For many reasons, it would be a good while before I would begin the second half of Cole MacGrath's journey -- my own journey as a superhero. Having now done so, however, I wish to share my impressions and feelings as I go.
So, here we go.
Having somehow managed to avoid spoilers about the second game's story developments, the first thing to come to my attention is pleasant surprise that the plot thread involving The Beast is being immediately addressed at the beginning of this second game. I rather expected the matter to be ignored for nearly the entire duration of "inFAMOUS 2" while dealing with a different threat in order to drag this storyline out into a forced trilogy, as that sort of thing is so common these days.
Hell, if we're looking at movies, we can expect what should be the final chapter to get split into two titles, a la "Harry Potter," "Twilight" and soon "The Hunger Games."
Not so here. We're dropped right into the apocalyptic prediction left us at the end of the first game by Cole's future self from a now alternate timeline, Kessler, the supervillain with good intentions who engineered the awakening of Cole's powers and all the heartbreak, death and destruction that followed.
Having set out to prepare Cole for the challenge of facing The Beast and protecting Empire City rather than fleeing for the sake of his loved ones, Kessler's morally questionable crusade almost immediately becomes pointless -- along with all of Cole's efforts. My efforts.
Relighting sections of the city one by one, freeing the people of each district from the gangs that had taken over their homes, healing, rescuing, climbing, recharing, struggling -- all of it was rendered moot in an instant as Cole takes on The Beast in the game's playable opening sequence and is soundly defeated before the massive entity goes on to annihilate Empire City one building at a time.
The city I worked so hard to save for days in the original game was destroyed after only five minutes of gameplay in the sequel. Kind of a downer.
Soon, I'm tasked with the salvation of a new city. New Marais. A second chance to get things right. I won't let them down too.
Before long, I'm back into the old swing of things. Climbing buildings. Gliding from great heights. Zapping stuff. Saving civilians from muggings at the hands of a superhuman-hating militia that has taken over.
I'm delighted to find that the control scheme has been kept the same and at how quickly the controls have come back to me despite my long absence from "inFAMOUS." I'm somewhat taken aback, however, by how much easier this game feels from the outset than did its predecessor.
I got killed a lot when I first started playing the original. Now, it happens rarely, even in blackout zones, which have made a welcome -- though occasionally challenging and stressful -- return. Whether my grasp of the controls from the first game is more to thank for this or whether it be that the designers intuitively decided that a Cole MacGrath with more powers should have less of a hard time, I don't know.
Less than a quarter of the way through what I've read is the total number of the game's main storyline missions ("Bertrand Takes the Stage" was the last story mission I completed), I've been mostly working on Side Missions, User-Generated Content missions and collecting all the Blast Shards as I go this time, even from the blackout zones, rather than waiting to the endgame for that. I'm also hard at work on shooting down carrier pigeons to collect this game's newest Dead Drops, which provide more backstory for both games, and also seem to be hinting at a return of the seemingly deceased John White from the first game.
I always somewhat doubted his death, the circumstances being what they were and this being a comic book world as it is. Having now learned that John had the potential to become a Conduit like Cole, I have no doubt that the character will be making a return with superpowers at some point in this sequel. As far as I know, the Ray Sphere would only kill ordinary humans with no Conduit potential. Someone like John should have, instead, had his dormant powers awakened.
With all the focus I've been putting into Side Missions, exploring New Marais and taking down every enemy I encounter, acquiring Hero status early on has been easy, as has activating most of Cole's lightning powers. I assume a few will require further developments in the story before they become available.
I already know that I'm supposed to be getting a grappling hook-like ability called "Lightning Tether" at some point. Apparently, it's supposed to be required for defeating this excellent UGC robot boss fight:
I managed to do it after a frustrating hour or so once I figured out how to use his telekinetic power to lift cars against him and that I could scale his arm to his head as though he were one of the colossi from "Shadow of the Colossus."
As you can probably tell, I'm having a blast with this game so far. I can't wait to see where it goes from here.
Share your thoughts on this amazing game series as well -- where it's been and where you believe or hope it may go. Looking forward to reading your thoughts.
P.S. Let me just say I can't thank my wife enough for buying me the PS3 a couple years ago in the first place, as well as these games. I have a terrible habit of saving money and not treating myself, and probably never would get cool stuff for me if someone else didn't.
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but the game looks awesome.
