inFamous Repetitions: an ambitious concept tainted by monotonous shades of gray.
Though the game is definitely ambitious and the gameplay itself original, it fails to keep you interested past the first third of the game.
You play as Cole, some guy we know very little about who was just caught in the blast of an electrical orb called the Ray Sphere. Following the devastation that occurred, you get powers in the form of electricity manipulation. You start the game with a few basic powers, and as you go on, more and more powerful abilities are introduced. From lightning shields to protect you to calling lightning from the sky, you get a range of offensive and defensive abilities that are all unique and interesting in their own way. Unlike many games that introduce powers, you get to use them all often.
Before I attend to the bad, let us concentrate on the good. As I've mentioned, the gameplay is unique and ambitious. Though it could have been a disaster, very fluid and responsive controls coupled fluid animations make the experience extremely pleasant. Much like Assassin's Creed, climbing buildings is a breeze. Surfing power lines or using your internal stabilizers to plane through the air, you feel very mobile and powerful.
Though the story isn't very engaging, the environment is and you get invested in Cole's life really quickly. That's because the city feels alive. Citizens will react to you differently whether you are good or bad, which brings me to the Karma system. You'll get the chance to make decisions as the story unfolds that will either earn you good or tug points. Your alignment will affect the color of your lightning powers (blue for good, red for red) and how you look. Citizens will attack you if you are bad or praise you in the streets if you're the town's vigilante, and as you ascend the ranks of evil thug or epic hero, you get new power unlocks. It's not a new or inventive system, but it works well in delivering a sense of immediacy and causality. The result is that you are that much more invested in Cole's life and the game.
The graphics are also good. Though not groundbreaking, Cole's animations are realistic and the figure wonderfully textured. It's too bad the bad guys got these awful animated movements that resemble a cartoon more than a person, but I believe this is what the developers were aiming for. This is also correlated by the cutscenes which are drawn and comic-like as well. Obviously the decision was due to a lack of funding, as proper CGI cutscenes are expansive to make.
The voice acting is convincing, but the writing suffers. Cheesy dialogue tended to make me cringe throughout the entire game, and the story itself is not only clichéd but derived of any soul or substance. The plot itself is ridden with holes and we learn very little about the first boss we fought (and her significance), about the voices we hear throughout the game, the purpose of the Ray Sphere, the situation at the end of the game as far as the life on the islands is concerned, or just what the frak is going on.
The story itself doesn't make much sense. You have government agencies quarantining the islands after the blast for some unexplained reason (there's talk of disease and epidemic, but little details) and a different band of organized criminals that reign over each of the three islands. The result is an extremely poor region filled with sick people. Police is struggling to survive as the terror of the evil street gangs advance and paralyze the populations. Whether you become the hero or the menace, that is your choice. The fun stops there. Characters die, betray or are pissed at you, but you don't care: you know very little about these guys and frankly, they're more annoying than useful. We are VERY far from Uncharted 2 as far as likeable characters are concerned. Lightyears away.
That being said, ALL of these negatives could be easily overlooked if the gameplay kept you interested and enticed for the entire game. This game should have been called "inFamous: Repetitions". I wouldn't want to spoil the story by saying what it is exactly you do, and when you discovers each mission the first time, it feels innovative and interesting. The MAJOR problem about inFamous and its biggest flaw is the god awful repetition of everything. The story barely manages to hold together, add to this the fact that'll you'll be doing the very same five side missions over and over and over again, you get bored after a few hours. I being the completionist that I am, I tend to want to do all missions, even the side ones. The game does give you a good incentive to do the side missions, as an area of the map will be cleared of bad guys for the rest of the game for each side mission that is completed. However, they hold no relevance in any shape or form to the main plot, which is very disappointing.
I might have put in twenty hours on inFamous, and I'd say that half of it felt monotone. After I beat the final boss, I simply couldn't bare it anymore. I ejected the disc, put it back in the case to store it back on the shelves, and I don't intend to ever revisit it. It would have been nice if some radical changes occurred between each island as you progress, but after you're done with the first, you'll be doing the very exact same things on the second, but against thugs in different outfits.
It's a shame that the writing couldn't be improved or the side missions be made more diverse. The innovative gameplay pulls you in immediately and for a good five to six hours, and you thirst for more inFamous. But slowly, it becomes bitter until you can no longer bare it.
Should you give inFamous a try? Absolutely. It is without a doubt a good game, perhaps even a great one. But it is many years of experience away from a superb game, and possibly many games away from perfection. The lack of diversity will inevitably force you to want breaks before you die from boredome. The inventive inclusions of exploration and imaginative force powers intertwined together are not enough to trump the monotonous writing and the grindy side missions.
There is simply no way that inFamous deserves anything more than a 7.5. I hope that inFamous 2 will benefit from a major overhaul of the writing team, as the first of the series could have been an instant classic were it not from its important shortcomings.