Festival of Blood delivers some good Halloween-themed fun in this fine standalone release.
Festival of Blood revolves around the city of New Marris being suddenly invaded by vampires. It all begins on a city even known as Pyre Night, New Marris' way of celebrating Halloween. The streets are alive with parades and bonfires all across the city, giving the place a darker, spookier tone. Unbeknownst to the town's citizens, however, are the sinister events taking place underground.
While making a run through the Church's underground after hearing about an accident that took place there, electric-powered superhero Cole MacGrath encounters something way unexpected: vampires. He's captured, the vampires planning to use his blood (it contains special properties being a conduit -- that is, one capable of obtaining superpowers -- and all) to revive their leader, Bloody Mary. Upon awakening, she bits Cole and turns him into a vampire. Not being enthusiastic about the idea of becoming a blood-sucker, he has only one night to defeat Bloody Mary to free himself from her grasp, for if he doesn't kill her by sunrise, he'll forever be under her control.
The tale is narrated by Cole's close friend Zeke. The set-up is that Zeke's trying to pick up a lady at the bar, and so he spins a yarn about Pyre night to grab her attention. It's a brief story, the main mission line clocking in at 3-4 hours, but an entertaining one nonetheless. It ends almost as quickly as it begins, steadily moving from the introduction to the conclusion with haste, especially if you only play the story missions and all but ignore the side-content. One moment Cole will be coming to gripes with his new-found vampirism, the next heading off to confront ol' Mary.
At $10, you'll likely want your money's worth, so indulging in the side-content becomes more than a worthwhile pursuit. There are no side-missions to take on (though the user-generated missions open up once you've beaten the game), so you're left only with scavenger hunts to partake in. Jars of blood to smash and glyphs containing back-story on Mary to find are what's available. Neither are terribly engaging without anything to break up the monotony of searching, but the rewards make at least give them value.
Mary's Teachings, as the glyphs are known, are the better of the two by far. Unlocked after harnessing Cole's new vampire senses (think "detective vision" but more supernatural), these messages left by Mary explore her past exploits and flesh out her character slightly. Not in a way that makes her a better character, mind you (she always retains that "evil person doing evil things for the sake of evil" shtick), but enough to keep her from being yet another faceless, throwaway villain.
Canopic jars carry a more gameplay oriented use. You see, now that Cole's a vampire, he's obtained a few new abilities. Chief among them is the ability to transform into a pack of bats and fly. Using this ability, however, requires blood. And to get blood, you have to feed on humans (or stake fellow vampires, but more on that later). The karma system's been done away with here, so there isn't anything stopping you from feeding, apart from you're own moral stance, of course. What the jars do is increase your blood meter, located in the upper-right part of the screen. You're required to break a certain number of them before you receive any upgrades, which serves as ample motivation to seek them out, if only to be able to fly about for longer than a couple of seconds.
Flight is easily one of the best parts of this game. Though Infamous was already adept at making traversal a breeze and actually fun, the ability of flight is a huge boon. Festival of Blood delivers one whole half of New Marris to explore. With all the tall buildings it harbors, having a quick and easy way of scaling the cityscape makes getting around a lot easier than simply climbing by hand would. It still has its uses, granted, and for the majority of the game you'll still be relying on his own athletic prowess to get around, but once you get that blood meter maxed out, there's very little use in climbing around the old fashioned way.
Combat remains the same as ever. Cole primarily throws bolts of lightning to attack, though he can also create grenades and rockets. Ranged combat has always been Infamous' bread and butter, the gameplay resembling that of a third-person shooter complete with a cover system. Your adversaries stick to ranged combat as well, the blood-suckers wielding crossbows and automatic handguns, making them hardly anymore menacing than the militia from Infamous 2 proper. About the only difference between the two is that these guys love to teleport about the environment, often hanging from the sides of buildings or other high spots, which tends to complicate things a bit and generally annoy. For the most part, fighting them is easy. You already start the game with almost all of Cole's powers, albeit without any of the upgrades applied. (You have to earn those by completing certain conditions, like taking down a specified number of vampire packs.) Thus, you can easily take down a pack of vampires by launching a few rockets their way before they have time to react to defeat them, or at least knock them over so that you can stake them.
Ah, that's another thing: In place of his "amp" from Infamous 2, Cole's picked up a large wooden stake to use as his melee weapon of choice. Staking foes is the only way to truly kill them, as pumping them full of electricity only disables them. They won't get back up if you pummel them enough, but they won't actually be defeated until you stab them. Given the focus on ranged combat, however, having to run up and stab enemies to kill them can be a hassle sometimes. In particular, when dealing with the large, bat-like monstrosities known as "firstborns," whom already take quite a while to vanquish, having to stake them before they recover just unnecessarily prolongs already long struggles. The same problem existed with Infamous 2 and its own mini-bosses of sorts like that, and the same still rings true here.
Still, as a $10 download, those annoyances are easily tolerated. If you've been starving for more Infamous, then Festival of Blood will more than satisfy. It's a fun retread, and a good entry point for anyone looking to give the series a shot.