I might be playing a superhero in inFAMOUS...

but the "evil" poster some guy painted of me was too awesome. So I decided to let the artist plaster copies of it all over Empire City. Thus my moral standing took a dip because of negative propaganda that I put my seal of approval on. :(

This post isn't a review of any kind, it basically is just giving me an excuse to talk about inFamous (spelling the game's title canonically is already getting tiresome).

It all began with Spider-man 2. Technology had progressed to the point that someone FINALLY got the bright idea of "Hey. These Grand Theft Auto games are pretty popular. Should we make Spider-man screw hookers and then drop them off skyscrapers? WAITAMINUTE what if we took the other fun part of GTA games and apply the open world "sandbox" philosophy to Spider-man instead?" The result is the template that (any notable) Spider-man game has followed ever since. While they have seen various levels of success quality-wise, what it did do was inspire other companies with dreams of "Superhero" games to apply the sandbox design to their characters.

Then Crackdown came along. Crackdown stands out in my mind because it was a successful fusion of the Superhero's Sandbox and the Thug's Sandbox. In Crackdown, you can hijack cars, pick up all manner of conventional weaponry (handguns, machineguns, rocket launchers, grenades, etc.) and go on huge rampages commonly seen in GTA games. At the same time, Crackdown puts you in the shoes of a genetically modified supercop. Your cop can develop superpowers that are most manifest in the ability to leap incredibly high (jumping from building to building, and scaling up ledges are commonplace in Crackdown) which you can eventually develop into the ability to LEAP OVER certain buildings. Combine this with the fact that you can improve your character's strength, and soon you are kicking cars at gang members or lifting semi-trucks, jumping onto a roof, and taking out an entire gang at once by throwing the truck at them. The vertical nature of the game combined with the varied toolset of your abilities plus the many weapons at your disposal gives Crackdown an incredibly versatile sandbox for you to enjoy.

What Crackdown opened my eyes to is that I have the most fun in the Superhero Sandboxes though. Spider-man 2 couldn't nail down that preference for me because outside of the incredibly fun webswinging, the depth of gameplay wasn't there. I could start to see my preference start to develop in Crackdown and I'm happy to say that my preference for superhero sandbox games (hereafter known as Open World Fuck Shit UP games) has come to fruition with inFamous.

I'll say upfront that I don't think inFamous quite has Crackdown's versatility. You can't do crazy barrel rolls and flips in cars because you can't drive vehicles in the game. This game seems to focus exclusively on the Superhero sandbox versus the Thug sandbox. But oh how inFamous revels in its Superhero trappings...

Like any great character driven action-adventure game, there's a tried-and-true experience point based character progression system that allows you to unlock new skills or upgrade old ones as you play the game more. Your powers range from a simple lightning bolt (which you can use infinitely) to lightning grenades, shockwaves to push foes away from you or juggle them, concentrated electrical bursts that explode on impact and more. While there are many enjoyable way to murder evildoers (or civilians...) the game also has some great travel powers that make traversing the city a pleasure. Your character Cole can scale virtually any building as long as there's a handhold somewhere (much like in Assassin's Creed) and will learn to grind off of power lines and train tracks (which will allow him to leech electricity to fuel his powers after an upgrade, natch). A typical encounter in inFamous for me (as of yesterday) has me grinding a power line, using precision to counter-snipe headshot an enemy which will chain lightning to his buddies, jumping off the powerline and coming down in a huge thunderstomp to clear the ground foes from around me, chucking a few grenades at the stragglers or throwing some orb bursts into the air and painting the targets with my primary bolt. Get a quick recharge to my batteries from a telephone booth and then I climb an apartment building and find a new powerline to grind.

Some people have complained that Cole's superpowers mimic conventional weaponry too much to be truly interesting (there are electrical equivalents to grenades, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers) But the fact that you have access to all of these powers and can combine them with each other seamlessly goes a long way toward selling the concept of "superhero" versus "thug" to me. Even better, the powers can for complementary effects as well as being modified by your moral alignment. A basic example is that my Good Shockwave slowly starts to make anyone hit by it float away helplessly, whereas my Evil Shockwave will actually electrocute foes unfortunate to be in the eye of the shockwave.

Long story short: I wish I could be at home playing this RIGHT NOW.