Game Review: Infamous 2

In his first post for Culch.ie, Tony has plenty of good things to say about Infamous 2 for PS3. Make him welcome!

Ah sequels. As this generation of consoles have already hit their technical limitations and approach their autumn years, we are hit with ever more gimmicky add-ons (Kinect, Move, WiiU) and of course, sequels. In 2009 Infamous came along and - despite great reviews - seemed to go under a lot of people’s radar, mine included. So when it came time to review its sequel I jumped in and promptly found myself lost. Here is a serious caveat; if you haven’t played the original you should do so first before moving on to Infamous 2. Luckily PlayStation have included the first game as part of their Welcome Back offer on PSN, so you can download it and it is impossible to overstate how important this is – Infamous 2 presumes a knowledge of the story and abilities from the first game and playing the original first will greatly enhance your enjoyment of the second. I know this from personal experience, so learn from my mistakes.

On to the game itself. The story follows on directly from the end of the first game, and the premise is simple enough. Cole MacGrath, a superhero/villain who shoots electricity out of his hands, has fled Empire City after its destruction at the hands of the mysterious Beast. Realising he needs to be more powerful, he heads to New Marais, a take on New Orleans, in search of new abilities to help him tackle the Beast. That’s the whole premise, and unlike the first game, the story itself isn’t a huge motivator in playing Infamous 2. It’s good enough to not get in the way but falls some way short of more challenging fare currently on release. Luckily this doesn’t really matter, as the game has so much else going for it. Graphically it looks amazing. Sucker Punch have carried the comic-book stylizations from the first game and really ramped up the visuals, improving on a game which was already very attractive. The music is a wonderful orchestral sweep as Cole skips and glides across the beautifully rendered and diverse cityscape, and the voice acting, while unremarkable, is at least never annoying and progresses the story well enough.

The meat of any 3rd person action game though is the combat, and as it plays identically to its predecessor again a knowledge of the first game will help you out. Thankfully Sucker Punch have been kind and all of the abilities that Cole learned in the first game, such as grinding and hovering, are already known at the start of Infamous 2. There is no annoying Assassin’s Creed or God of War-style deus ex machina that puts him back to zero, which means you can start skimming across electrical wires and firing bolts of lightning like a badass right out of the gate. You also get a new melee weapon called the Amp, which is fun for close quarters combat and solves a slight issue from fight sequences in the first game where it was difficult to take on an enemy close-up. The only problem with the Amp, as with most of Cole’s movement and fighting, is that target selection is less than consistent. You can easily be beating down on a mutant with your glowing bludgeon-club and switch to a nearby civilian with no apparent control or reason. This isn’t an issue if you are playing the game as a villain, but if you are playing it as a hero wailing randomly on pedestrians is obviously a problem. Another issue with combat is the perennial 3rd person camera problem. Sometimes you just can’t see where you want to see and sometimes you get in your own way as the camera pivots and swivels around. This is annoying at times but the simple fact is that the combat in Infamous 2 - in spite of these very minor and occasional hiccups – is excellent. The game picks up from the brilliant original and adds a number of slight improvements, making it a joy to traverse the city. New abilities and weapons become available as the story progresses, just like in the first game, and some of the later electrical powers are truly amazing. Crucially, they’re also fun and relatively easy to execute. Your powers are different depending on if you play the game as good or evil, offering exceptional replayability.

Infamous 2 also offers some nice touches which other games would do well to copy. Completing side missions is necessary to unlock powers and abilities, but it also makes the main game easier. If you ignore the side missions enemies who you would have destroyed suddenly pop up and get in your way as you try to complete the main story. Making side missions valuable, instead of merely making them necessary to say 100% at the end of the game, is a really clever touch, but Sucker Punch have really outdone themselves with their mission editor and User Generated Content. The mission editor is very difficult to get to grips with at first, and it really does require some serious sitting-down-and-toggling just to make it work, but the trade-off is that it is incredibly intricate. You can adjust the areas, objects, enemies, and mission types, and even fiddle with AI settings. It’s an area I didn’t spend much time on but I know I will return to it after replaying the main game more. Again this extends the game life, and given that you can already play Infamous 2 twice through as either good or evil at about 20ish hours a pop, getting two different storylines, Infamous 2 packs in great value. The game comes with some pre-loaded User Generated Missions with more to download and, once you have them, they just appear on your map in-game. You can simply go to the green dots and play them out. While the couple I played weren’t amazing, the potential for creativity is huge and when more players get to grips with the mission editor I’m sure there’ll be some cracking add-ons that will keep me coming back to the game. Take note other developers; Sucker Punch have really nailed this.

So, as the follow-up to one of the most acclaimed PS3 exclusive games Infamous 2 always had some big boots to fill. I’m pleased to report that it’s a worthy successor to the original, adding new ideas and powers to an already impressive game while retaining the general sense of being a complete badass as you stroll around your city zapping people. It turns out lightning really can strike twice.