inFAMOUS Review

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In the 2006 song “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” the band the Flaming Lips want listeners to question themselves and what they would do if they had all the power in the world. The game InFamous, published by Sony Entertainment ask gamers “what would you do if you had all the power in the world." The story of the game unfolds with the main character Cole McGrath making a delivery on a package for his job. The package explodes causing a massive disaster in the fictional Empire City. The electric blast does not kill Cole, but instead gives him super powers of electricity. Cole goes on a quest through Empire City to help rid the city of the crime that has overrun Empire City since the blast, and figure out who sent the package that exploded and caused such massive damage.  As the game plays out the gamer, along with Cole, are given choices to make. These choices are either good or bad, there is no in between. Depending on what the gamer picks Cole will have different powers, and the people of Empire City will react to Cole in different ways.  It is up to the gamer to decide whether they want Cole to be feared or loved.

The story line of this game is alright. There are parts of the plot that are left unexplained by the producers of the game. Cole works for the government and then for another person, but neither the government’s role or the other person’s role is really explained. The end of the game has a good twist, but since the main boss of the game does not have a lot of background the twist is pretty boring. A lot of the story in the games is developed through finding and intercepting messages left around the city. The problem with this part of the game is if you don’t find the messages it does not stop the main story line from continuing on. In fact, I beat this game in around 8 hours. I just followed the story line. I did not do any side missions to the game. The side missions have nothing to do with the main story line, the side missions just allow the player to clear out areas of the city of bad guys.  The way the story of the game was designed I found to be pretty weak. I wish they game forced you to play some of the side missions along the way to help advance the story, and clear out the city of bad guys.

The game play was not bad. The character really has some awesome super powers with electricity. Aiming with his main weapon takes a little practice, but can easily be mastered. The coolest power he has is a lightning storm; of course it drains his power quickly. The game has great open world. A player can jump from building to building, with great agility. Cole can ride around the city on electric wires, or on the subway rails. Jumping on and off the rails was a little difficult, but that takes some practice, and patience. The biggest problem I had with the game play was that if you are too close to an object, Cole will grab onto it whether or no you want him too. I found this to be most annoying in tight spaces where there were lots of things for Cole to grab onto.

Overall, I am going to give this game a 5 out of 10. I really wish the game had a stronger story. As I said, a lot of the story is tied up in discovering radio signals which you can choose to do, if you want. The game play is fine, unless you are in a small space. I think if there was a mechanism to allow you to grab onto objects instead of doing it automatically would have been a big benefit to the game. Really, in the end this game would have been stronger with a better story. I think this game is definitely worth a rental, but I am not sure if this game is worth buying. Once again, I am giving InFamous a 5 out of 10.    

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