InFamous (PS3) Review

 InFamous (PS3) 9/10

“Nearly all men can stand the test of adversity, but if you really want to test a man's character, give him power.”

[THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!]

Hello and welcome to another game review. Today’s review will be about a game that I hold near and dear to my heart. A game that I would go as far as to say has changed my life forever and made me the gaming maniac that I am now. Developed by Sucker Punch Studios and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, InFamous was released on May 26, 2009 to critical acclaim. The game was released exclusively for the Playstation 3 and to this day is still stuck on the console. The game was released alongside another title, [PROTOTYPE], in which both games are very similar to each other despite being made by different developers. While a lot of people flocked over to [PROTOTYPE], InFamous created its own dedicated fanbase and spawned a small franchise.

I absolutely love this game to pieces. I love its story, characters, gameplay, and many other things about it. I can not put into words just how much I love this game. Personally, InFamous is my top favorite game of all time, beating out many other classic and well beloved titles. There’s just something about this game that I have yet to see replicated, and honestly I don’t think any other title (within its genre) would be able to come close to this game’s near-perfection. I am going to be biased in this review, but I also want you to know that I do have some minor gripes with the game. Let’s begin.

Our story takes place in Empire City (aka New York lol). This is the story of Cole MacGrath, a bike courier who got caught in the middle of a massive explosion. Even though he was in the dead center of the blast, he survived while thousands did not. As it turns out, Cole has been granted superpowers because of this whole ordeal. Now wielding electrical superpowers, Cole must learn to control and expand his powers, deal with the local gangs rising in power, and uncover a massive conspiracy about the blast and how everything seems to point back to Cole, in more ways than one.

Did I mention I love this story? The way this whole story unravels as Cole decides to play either hero or villain is just brilliant. And on top of that, the game has insane replayability due to its incredibly fun gameplay and alternate story. I’ll dive more into the Karma system later, but for now, let’s talk about Cole. Cole is the perfect blueprint for a person with superpowers. Through his character development and plot progression (and the way his personality is designed), it makes perfect sense for him to go either the hero route or the evil route. You can either build up his strong moral compass and become Empire City’s protector or corrupt him with power and hold the city in the palm of your hand. And again, it’s how exactly the game goes about both routes that makes this so incredibly well written. And Cole himself is such a blast to be around, whether you are good or evil.

Another character that’s fun to be around is his best friend Zeke. Zeke starts off as nothing more than a party type of guy but he’s as loyal as a guard dog. He’s got your back through thick and thin, and it’s when his character arc happens, that makes him all the more compelling. Zeke doesn’t get talked about enough in terms of side characters, but he’s honestly one of the best out there. The game has plenty of other characters too, such as Cole’s girlfriend Trish; Sasha, leader of The Reapers; Alden, leader of the Dust Men; Kessler, leader of the First Sons and mastermind behind everything; Moya, your government contact; and John, your McGuffin that you spend the whole game looking for. All of these characters are memorable in their own ways and personally, these are characters (and stories) that I can revisit at any time.

Kessler is one of the best “villains” to ever be written. I honestly can not call him a villain because his motivation is that understandable. Since I put a spoiler, I’m going to be going over everything. Kessler is Cole from an alternate timeline. His nemesis, The Beast, ruined his world beyond saving and even killed his family. Kessler used his new power to travel back in time and align things to have everything be played by his hand. He sped up the Ray Sphere’s development, found Cole and company, set up the Blast, and set up everything else afterward to test Cole and make him the ruthless hero he needs to be to counter The Beast. Everything Kessler did was not only for his benefit, but for Cole’s and for the world. He needed Cole to become powerful and mentally ready, to have him become the person he failed to be. Yes, Kessler did some fucked up things, but in the grander scheme of things, he was 100% right with what he did. I can’t call him a villain or a bad guy. He’s simply the antagonist that Cole needed to become the person he needed to become. It’s because of this dynamic between Cole and Kessler and the context behind each character that makes them so memorable. Sasha, Alden, Zeke, Trish, and everyone else are all great characters too because the writers needed everything to fall into place for Cole’s ultimate moment.

I also love the world building. The game draws clear inspiration from the X-Men with the whole Conduit gene. However, the game tackles this “mutant” gene a little differently. A lot of this won’t be tackled until InFamous 2 and even Second Son, but I greatly appreciate how this game handled all of this without it being a blatant rip-off of an older story. I love how the game built up the different gangs, their leaders and how they are all connected, and the game even went into some background information with the most important faction: The First Sons. How they are a different breed of the Illuminati that focused more on superpowers and unlocking the secrets of the Conduit gene. All of this implies that there are two different kinds of Conduits, but again this won’t be tackled until the later games. Regardless, I really appreciate how the writers took lore and world building seriously, adding even more depth to this universe. 

Graphically, the game has a unique art style, and honestly one of the last of its kind. Right after this game came out, Sony started pushing their studios for more realistic graphics. Yeah there were a few unique looking games like Little Big Planet, Fat Princess, and even Metal Gear Rising, but most of the games after this were all looking similar. InFamous has a pseudo-comic style to it. It’s half comic, half realistic, ultimately giving us a very unique game that gives off its own charm like nothing else. Empire City looks good. Well, not good with all of the trash and diseased bodies everywhere, but that is exactly what the devs were going for. The city looks bleak as society is slowly falling apart. With the gangs taking control and the plague spinning out of control, it’s no wonder why Empire City looks like shit. But beneath all of the despair is a sense of hope. You still see people driving around, walking around, and some still going to work. It’s a society on its last lifeline, but it’s still a society trying to make things work. I also love how each district has a distinct feel to them. Neon feels modern, Warren is full of trash and debris, and Historic is, well, historic. Character designs are solid too. I love Cole’s bald head and leather jacket. If I could, I would definitely like to own his jacket. I also love Kessler’s design too with his robot hand and white hoodie. Also shout out to the First Sons and their sick ass gas mask helmets.

Music is rock solid too. Not the best soundtrack I’ve heard (from the series), but it fits the game really well. Amon Tobin, Jim Dooley, and the other artists did well with the game’s soundtrack. However, there are a few tracks here that I absolutely love. “Genesis”, “Rampage”, “End of the Road”, “The Truth”, “Pleasant Empire”, and “Silent Melody”. The game’s voice acting is solid too. Jason Cottle nailed Cole’s voice to a T. I’m still upset they replaced him in the second game. Also shout out to Caleb Moody (Zeke), Sam A. Mowry (Kessler), Phil LaMarr (John White), Kimberli Colbourne (Moya), and Jason Cottle again (Alden Tate).

From a technical standpoint, the game runs pretty smoothly on your standard Playstation 3 (idk how an emulator will perform for this. As far as I know, PS3 emulation is still a beast that’s trying to get tamed lol). Anyway, I hardly ever had any problems with the game. On occasion, the game’s framerate will drop when you are near the coast. Why it does this, I have no idea. I also found a funny glitch where if you are able to squeeze yourself between an NPC and the turret they are operating, you can stretch their arms until they let go and fall from the sky lol. There are also some clipping and unresponsive issues whenever you are trying to climb that one outlet area (above the tunnel) that leads from Warren back to Neon. I only mention this as there are a few Blast Shards in this area and grabbing them can be a pain. But other than these small issues that, in the greater scheme of things, don’t really matter as the game ran very smoothly. Good job QA testers.

InFamous is an open world action/adventure superhero power fantasy game. You’ll control Cole for the entire game as you run, climb, fly, and fight around Empire City and its three districts. The main story has 40 missions, with many more side missions. Completing each side mission will clear out sections of each district of enemies, making traversal less of a headache. The game has a decent amount of variety with both the main missions and side missions. Climb buildings and destroy surveillance, fight a group of enemies that are ambushing you, escort civilians across town as well as enemies to police precincts for booking, activating the trains in each district, helping Zeke get laid, and of course Karma missions.

What makes InFamous different compared to many other games is the Karma system. Your actions changing the course of the game isn’t a new concept (games like Deus Ex and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic did this prior), but InFamous tackles this in a way with two different playthroughs. Similar to KOTOR, you can choose to be either a hero or villain, and your actions will reflect this in many different ways. Depending on your choices, Cole himself will change into either a righteous savior or the embodiment of power and corruption, and with these changes will affect the story and how characters will treat you. Take the first Karmic mission with the food rations. After you fight off The Reapers, you have the choice to either allow everyone to get their fair share, or scare off everyone and hoard all the food for yourself. And depending on your choice will lead you down the path of good or evil. I really like this system and its simplistic view of good versus evil. As opposed to KOTOR 2 and many other games that try to gray the area between good and evil, I appreciate this game’s ability to stick with full-on good and full-on evil. Makes evil playthroughs feel liberating as the game isn’t trying to make me feel bad for bio-leeching poor souls on the sidewalks lol, or choosing to save your girlfriend instead of seven doctors. I know some people criticized the game for its narrow approach to these Karmic moments, but I absolutely love it. Again, its simple railroad allows the player to fully go into a heroic playthrough or villain playthrough with no issues.

Cole himself is a very fun protagonist to play. You’ll be running around, climbing buildings, parkouring across rooftops, punching and kicking people, and of course shooting lightning out of your hands. And with the design of Empire City, you are free to tackle certain objectives however you want in terms of tactility. If you want to go head first into a group of enemies, be my guest. If you want to snipe them from afar (if you have Precision), you are more than welcome to. Or if you want to lure enemies to you so you can fight them one-on-one, that is an option as well. Also, depending on your Karmic alignment, the citizens of Empire City can either help or hinder your combat. It’s all really fun. And of course, we have the superpowers themselves. As you progress through the game, you’ll earn Exp Points for defeating enemies and performing stunts. (Examples of Stunts are headshotting an airborne enemy, jumping onto all four train tracks without touching the ground, hitting multiple enemies at once with a single grenade, etc. Personally, some of these stunts were pretty outrageous and you’ll have to go way out of your way want to perform all of them). Anyway, you can spend your Exp Points on upgrading Cole’s powers. Make his attacks stronger, tank more damage, add effects to certain abilities, and other things. Another small critique I have of the game is that you won’t be able to fully max out Cole’s abilities through natural gameplay. If you are casually upgrading Cole as you play the story, complete side missions, and doing stuff with civilians, you won’t be able to unlock all of the upgrades. Cole’s final upgrade for his basic lightning bolt is INCREDIBLY expensive. And since you’ll be using this the most out of all of his other attacks, it’s kinda ridiculous that you will be forced to either save your Exp Points of the final upgrade, or delegate your Exp to everything else. Reminder that all of your other electric attacks consume power that you’ll need to recharge, but the basic lightning attack costs nothing to use. So, you’ll either not upgrade your lightning bolt to the highest level, or you’ll be running around farming for minimal Exp for what feels like forever just to stay on top of your upgrades.

Anyway, I greatly appreciate the level of creativity the developers took with Cole’s powers. A lot of people mainly stick to your basic electric attacks (like shooting lightning like Palpatine, summoning thunder like Storm, or becoming electricity itself like Electro), so seeing a much more creative approach to electric powers is great. As you progress through the game and turn the power back on in the city, Cole will gain new powers. His powers range from a shockwave blast, grenades, rockets, a kinetic shield, static thrusters, rail grinding, Precision sniper shot, and thunderstorm. Cole will also gain some non-offensive abilities too. Again, super creative and I need to commend the devs on this.

The game has a decent variety of enemies too. Each faction has their own set of classes. Basic infantry, rockets, grenade launchers, shield bearers, and Conduits. The Reapers are the weakest of the bunch, the Dust Men are the most fun to fight against, and the First Sons are the tankiest. I mainly like fighting the Dust Men the most because their conduits are so fun to fight against, especially their golems lol. The Reapers have their teleporters, which are fine adversaries, but nothing to really write home about. While the First Sons are ultimately pretty annoying to deal with because they tank so many hits. Even if you are fully upgraded, they still take a while to take down, even for basic enemies. And their conduits aren’t really that enjoyable to deal with. They have invisible shotgunners that are annoying and their Psychic Conduits are super easy to counter. Their drones are annoying too, especially if you are fighting like 5 of them and they’re all shooting grenades at you while they fly in an awkward pattern. I will say, I do wish we go to see these factions fight against each other more often. There are two side missions where you have to put a stop to their turf war and even a few main story missions as well, but I can only recall one instance where you see Dust Men fighting Reapers outside of a mission, and this only appears in an open parking area in the Warren.

The game has a few bosses too. All of the conduits you fight start off as mini bosses for you to tangle with before the game throws them into regular rotation, and then there are the main bosses. Sasha’s fight was cool, Alden 1 at The Tower was more of a gauntlet, Alden 2 at the bridge was really cool but lasted way too short, and then the Kessler fight was awesome. I do wish Kessler had more attacks instead of having the same 4-5 attacks, but I am always so engrossed in the fight storywise that this doesn’t bother me too much. The setting, context of WHAT JUST HAPPENED PRIOR TO THE FIGHT, and the music blasting as you’re fighting the big bad will never not get me hyped, even if the fight itself is a bit underwhelming. 

Like with every open world game, we have collectables. The main collectables are Dead Drops from John and Blast Shards. Dead Drops are satellite dishes that contain hidden messages from John White cataloging his reports. These explain John’s side of things as well as give us some background info on The First Sons, Kessler, and other things. Blast Shards are irradiated fragments of earth that scattered all throughout the city when the Blast went off. Collecting these will expand Cole’s power storage, allowing you to stay in the fray for longer without needing to recharge as often. Grabbing all of the Dead Drops can be a bit tedious, but is doable. Grabbing all of the Blast Shards though is pretty ridiculous. There are 350 Blast Shards to find, which is an INSANE number. Unless you are following a guide and CAREFULLY logging every Blast Shard you collect, you will be missing some. In all of my times playing this game (I have played InFamous an unhealthy amount of times lmao), I have only collected all the Blast Shards twice. Every single playthrough, I always try and collect as many as I can, but I always find myself missing at least 10+.

To this day, InFamous is still my top favorite game of all time for a number of different reasons. It just sucks that Sony has basically forgotten about this incredible title and left it in the seventh console generation. I would love for this game to get a proper remaster one of these days as it is a hidden gem that everyone needs to play. At any given moment, I could pop the game in and start up a new playthrough as it’s that good. If you have access to InFamous, I can not recommend it enough. I’m sure you’ll be blown away just like I was when I first played it. I’ll be going over the second game in the near future, so stay tuned for that.

Thanks for reading.

This is Zorgak, signing off.