Infamous 2 is the sequel to Sucker Punch Studio’s Infamous. You play the role of Cole McGrath who by events from the first game is garnered with powers to control electricity.
Story: I felt like the story was a little lacking within Infamous 2. Granted it was still an amazing story, it however lacked the ability to truly grip me and hold onto me attention much like the first game could. The story in Infamous 2 centers much more a central gathering mission which pits you against the forces of New Marais. The stories are very intertwined between the first and second game. To avoid spoilers, I won’t give away many details between two. I will say the antagonist, Bertrand, is a decent evil force. However I feel his goals or ambitions seem muddled throughout the story. It’s made clear later on, but throughout the majority of the game, I felt lost to what exactly he wanted. This could simply be the story telling technique used by Sucker Punch, but a little more clarity would have been nice.
Game play: The game play is always the focal point of any video game. First all of Cole’s abilities return from the first game with some welcomed extras. The level in which you can purchase and equip powers is a welcomed addition to Infamous 2. This allows for the player to have the ability to switch weapons on the fly for any situation that they might encounter. However I felt like after a certain point I only keep certain powers within my arsenal, only switching out my Ionic attacks depending on what type of mayhem I wanted to produce. Honestly just about any combat situation Cole finds himself in can be solved with a few simply Grenade lobs. But this may be a simplification of the entire system. This is by no means to downplay the intensity and pure insanity that some battles offer. However this could be that I was playing on hard difficulty or my own lack of tactical skills set, but later on some battles with the Ice Enemies seem all together too cheap. There is a dodge feature which is welcomed, but I am not accustomed to using this feature to dodge a nearly 50ft piece of ice thrown by some unknown juggernaut. I found often sometimes in battles with enemies barreling down upon me with speed that I couldn’t hope to match only to be shot at a close range by a point-blank shot gun blast. This became a rather annoying occurrence, but thankfully with the amazing save system that Infamous 2 employs it didn’t make me want to turn off the game once in frustration.
Cole’s platforming abilities make a return as well. One could argue that with Sucker Punch’s Sly Cooper Series they were the original perfectors of vertical platforming. The first Infamous had amazing versatility when it came to ability to climb nearly surface without any hassle. Not much to this system has been tweaked in the second game; if anything it has been improved it’s the shear speed and all around nimbleness of Cole. But it doesn’t seem as seamless as it could be. With such game characters as Assassin Creed’s Enzio having the ability to scale a wall or building with dynamic ease is amazing. Cole on the other hand seems be almost reluctant at time to scale a tall building. There is certainly a pause while Cole tries to scramble to find his footing on even the narrowest wall or outcropping. But at times the platforming really surprises the player. I found that many of the times I died platforming where by my own hand and taking too much control over my jumping. In many ways the game wants you to have more faith in it, with a simple “Don’t worry, I got this” mentality. This same degree existed within the first one and would probably put off those who found the lack of total control frustrating.
As for mission design they were great. The central story missions where well told and always provided great variety in what they wanted. The side missions where the same, however they at times there where far more copy and paste then the main mission. The real variety came from the Karma missions. The evil or good missions provided a welcomed change. Working with either the proposed evil character in which you quite protestors who are demonstrating against your reign of terror or destroying the local police force provide ways to break up the main story. From what I played of the good missions, they focus on healing the sick or putting down militia uprisings to defusing bombs.
Audio and Visuals: Honestly I am not that big into this category as many of my gamers. Yes in some cases some visuals can be appalling with terrible voice acting. But any triple A title such as Infamous 2 does not suffer from these issues. The only thing that struck me was the different voice actor for Cole. I didn’t like him at first because I thought the voice actor for the first game was amazing. However the new voice actor does a great job conveying the emotions and often the frustrations that Cole has to go through dealing with his powers. And I thought the evil character that joins your side was probably one of the most annoying characters, but I can understand her. An uneducated child who is fueled by simple emotions and anger that is given power. But at the same time I had a hard time picking the evil side because of her.
Overall: Infamous 2 is a brilliant game. It it’s probably one of the best games this year. It is lacking in some areas compared to the first one, but I believe they are minor to the overall fun and satisfaction that really comes from Infamous 2. If an individual enjoys playing these type of games then Infamous 2 should be a definite pick up. But if you did not play the first one, I would recommend playing it first simply the get the benefit with the overlapping story lines.
Score: 9.0/10
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