Review 2nd Opinion: Infamous 2

The original Infamous was a game that had a well of potential as an up-and-coming franchise on Sony's newest platform. Not only was this a game with a well designed world, it was memorable for it's inspiring world traversal and comic-book inspired atmosphere and presentation. Upon release, the game was widely compared to Prototype, a game with similar components but little in the way of personality. Unfortunately, the original game fell short on certain aspects of open-world game design that simply couldn't be ignored. Of course, these flaws were far from game breaking but they did water down an otherwise excellent gaming experience. With a little more than two years to make improvements to their original formula, some of those original flaws still remain intact but enough has been added to make InFamous 2 a more refined and enjoyable experience.

inFamous 2 (Playstation 3)
Developer: Sucker Punch Productions
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment of America
Release Date: June 7, 2011

My first thought after the first few hours of Infamous 2 was "why am I playing this again?" Much like the original Infamous, Infamous 2 takes ages to get the player invested in its storyline. After getting familiar with "The Beast", a 100 foot tall man made of fire, it's needless to say that I was a bit skeptical of the direction Infamous 2 was headed. A couple hours later, I was introduced to a group of enemies that made little or no sense in the context of the world that Sucker Punch had created. Luckily, Infamous 2 is game that gets better with time. Allowing yourself to suspend disbelief temporarily is a must, especially if you hope to find those moments where the story actually clicks.

Where Infamous 2 really begins to differentiate itself from it's predecessor is a turning point in which players actually choose between absorbing a different set of powers from one of two major characters. By giving the player a choice between two completely different styles of play, Infamous 2 sports impressive variety in regards to character abilities and combat as well as decent replay value. Depending on which power players choose to absorb, world traversal and combat completely change for the remainder of the game. In my play through, after absorbing ice powers from Kuo, my ability to navigate a combat zone changed tremendously. Thanks to the incredibly satisfying "ice launch" ability, I was able to traverse the world faster and go toe-to-toe with some of the more agile and challenging enemies later in the game. Thanks to an incredibly well designed user interface, switching active abilities on the fly is intuitive and convenient and made complex combat encounters a breeze.

Character upgrades were also handled rather well by incentivizing good combat behaviors with access to better abilities. For example, by electrocuting 10 enemies who are flying through the air, players will unlock a new ability in the "upgrade store." By using powers in new and creative ways and learning complex combat strategies, players will see their character increase in strength over the course of the game; A satisfying and beautifully crafted system.

Depending on your choice of powers (Ice or Fire), moral alignment becomes a major focus for the game. Unfortunately, this aspect of the game is handled sloppily to say the least. Instead of creating a real question in the players mind about the differences between right and wrong, the player is rarely handed a difficult decision and instead, it just becomes a question of good or evil. Other games like Dragon Age have handled moral choice in a more satisfying manner by developing true moral ambiguity. Luckily, there is a clever twist near the end game that will surprise a lot of players but it quickly made me realize what was missing from the rest of the game. In the end, moral ambiguity is practically non-existent, a major problem that carried over from the original and should be an area of major introspection for Sucker Punch in future entries in the series.

Perhaps the most interesting thing that Infamous 2 does is open a lot of doors for the series to walk through in future installments. By time the game reaches the end, Infamous is no longer a story about a guy with electrical powers; much like the recent TV hit, Heroes, Infamous is a series about humans with super powers. While Cole is certainly the star of the show in Infamous 2, he ultimately proves to be little more than a window into this universe. I personally can't wait to see where Sucker Punch takes this IP next.

In the end, Infamous 2 proved to be a much more satisfying game for players who take the time to learn the intricacies of combat. Thanks to it's innovative world traversal mechanics, complex combat scenarios, and beautiful user-interface, the game proves to be a major step forward for the series. It's a shame that certain flaws remained intact but they hardly tarnish the experience. One thing is for certain, Infamous is a series with a potentially bright future if Sucker Punch extrapolates the aspects that made this game so exciting.

Score: 80 out of 100
A beautifully crafted super hero experience, marred only by poorly constructed secondary mechanics.