Electricity, a big to city to discover and a great story... Hell yeah, bring it on!
A lot of people like stories about superhero's. They read comics, watch movies and in InFamous you've now got the opportunity to play as one. And as it turns out, InFamous is a great game. The game isn't perfect, but most of the flaws are only minor problems. When you get InFamous, you get a great game. It is fun to play, has a great atmosphere and totally worth your money.
First off… The story. InFamous tells you the tale of a man named Cole. He is a normal man, living in Empire City with his girlfriend Trish and his best friend Zeke. He works there as a courier and everything goes fine until he has to deliver a certain package. The package turns out to be some kind of bomb, called the Ray Sphere, and Cole lets it go off. A lot of people die, the city is in ruins and small criminal groups start to take over control. Somehow Cole survives the blast and gets supernatural powers. With his new powers to control electricity he tries to help the people of Empire City, until he meets his nemesis…
I won't spoil how the story goes on, but I can tell you the story is simply awesome. I won't say that the story is the most original tale you'll ever hear, but the way things are told is splendid. A lot of things happen and a lot of them won't seem all that important till you get to the end. But all these event are a great way to build the tension and keeps you playing the game. The visual style in which the story is told is very cool. The story is told as were you were reading a coming and thus uses pictures most of the time. The story isn't perfect though. There are some small plotholes, but in the end they don't make the story bad, they are just a bit annoying.
The game is really fun to play too. Using you powers is cool and since you have a lot of them, you will always find an enjoyable way to crush your enemies. You don't get all you powers at the beginning of the game though, which is good. Every time you provide a part of the city off power you get a new skill, like throwing bombs, floating or a shield. The rhythm in which you get your new powers is great and creates a great flow for the missions. There also is some kind of RPG element. With each action, you gain Xp that you can use to make your powers stronger, something you really want to do since some parts of the game can be difficult.
Jumping and climbing on top of the various buildings isn't done as well though. You sometimes feel like the game just doesn't let you hold some ledges although you really know you can hold them. This results sometimes in some frustrating and slow platforming. It doesn't break the game, but it feels somewhat unfinished sometimes.
A great part of the game is the karma system that's implemented. You can choose to be the savior of the city or to use you powers for your own well-being. This results in having some different powers you can use and two possible game endings. During the story, the player will also have to make 'karma choices', but apart from a different ending, these don't change the storyline, which is a missed chance to me. Most missions can be played in a good and bad way and according to what you did you'll get good or bad karma. Most of the time this works great, although sometimes I got bad karma when I did something good, so not everything about the karma system is fine-tuned enough.
Apart from the main story which contains about forty missions, there are also various side missions to complete. Every time you complete one, you gain control of a part of the city. In the beginning these missions are fun to do, but after some time you'll have to do the same kind of missions over and over again. A bit more variety in these missions would have been well. Only the missions that are karma-based are really original and keep being fun to play.
A choice made by the developers I don't understand though is way you can't swim. When you fall into the water you are being electrified, which kills you. In fact this is really stupid because you use electricity to regain health all the time and you even have to use yourself as an electric wire to power up generators. So in fact you get electrified all the time, but it only kills you when you are in the water. Again this isn't a game-breaker, but I've encountered some annoying deaths because I couldn't swim.
An important part of the game is of course the city, and well, I have some complains about that as well. The city consist of three main parts of which two of them have to be unlocked while continuing the main story. The environment is quite big and it really feels alive because all the pedestrians and cars that roam around. In general the city also looks good although I came across some minor graphical flaws, but these don't spoil the overall visual experience. A bigger problem is that most parts of the city look the same. After some time you often have the feeling like you've been to that area already although you didn't. The three different parts of the city should have had a different feeling, but unfortunately this isn't the case.
Overall InFamous is a great game and totally worth a try. You get a great story, awesome powers and blasting your way through waves of enemies is visually and gameplay-wise fun throughout the whole game. Some platforming parts can be annoying, the side quest aren't always that much fun and the karma-system isn't 100 per cent perfect, but after all Sucker Punch delivered us a great and enjoyable game.