A great concept on paper that needs much more depth to be pulled off in an actual game.
What is adequacy? TheFreeDictionarydotcom defines it as 'Sufficient to satisfy a requirement or meet a need'. Yes, that definately descibes inFamous.
We all wish for games that give us open exploration and the ability to move anywhere. As a wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time born superhero we are given these two very important wishes in inFamous. On paper it looks like we have what we want. After playing the actual game, however, we discover that our wants and needs are much more complex than that.
inFamous basically plops you into an extremely stale, boring, and static world. Sure you can climb anything and go anywhere but it ends there. The buildings are just external figures, there is no opening doors and exploring inside buildings, basements, running up to the roof, etc.
Just imagine Grand Theft Auto IV without the inside environments. Ouch.
The graphics themselves aren't too great either. Its cartoony and objects in the distance lose their detail quickly. This is more of a downfall of consoles rather than inFamous but hey, the truth hurts and it applies here.
Gameplay can normally make up for questionable graphics and a bland world. inFamous, however, does not give great gameplay. You shoot electricity at bad guys and, over time, learn a few more electrical tricks. There are far too few though and you'll be left wishing your bag of tricks was larger. Perhaps letting the user combines items or powers to form more complex powers would have been a nice touch. It is 2009 afterall and these features are common in today's RPG games.
So after spending your first few hours climbing buildings, going through a sewer, and shooting enemies with electricity you're now wondering what's next? Well, more of what you just did is next. And more. And more. And more. Soon you realize the game is lacking depth and things start to look grim for the "What game will I play today?" scenario for inFamous. This may very well be the most repetitive game in modern gaming history.
I'm not completely knocking inFamous... I just feel its lacking some important features and depth that we should be seeing in 2009. Its a bland game that introduces a great concept but needs tons of refinement before it can be considered a success. In fact the concept is so great that I'll try inFamous 2 when it comes out but the fact is you're wasting money on this first inFamous and after a few days will stop playing this completely.
6.5: The concept is good but the implementation is poor and the game turns into complete repetition. Combined with average graphics and sound you'll find it hard to work up the motivation to finish the single player campaign.