Infamous 2 (PS3) Review

 

After the success of the first Infamous, Sucker Punch immediately worked on the sequel and was released two years later. How well does it live up to the original? Does it surpass it in every way? Let's find out.

Story and Characters:

Infamous 2 takes place a month after the first game where Cole MacGrath was warned about a Beast that will bring destruction on the world. As he and Zeke prepare to go to New Marais, the Beast attacks Empire City and devastates it, despite Cole's best efforts in stopping him.

Cole and Zeke arrive in New Marais alongside NSA agent, Lucy Kuo, to search for Doctor Sebastian Wolfe, the scientist who constructed the Ray Sphere, who can make Cole stronger. Upon meeting him, however, Wolfe's lab is destroyed and the Blast Cores needed to make Cole stronger are scattered throughout the city. Cole must now find all the Blast Cores which will make him powerful enough to power up the RFI (Ray Field Inhibitor) in order to put a stop to the Beast once and for all.



(from left to right) Kuo, Cole, and Nix

Cole and Zeke also make new allies such as Nix, a Conduit swamp dweller, and Laroche, the leader of the anti-Militia group. While the Beast is the primary antagonist of the game, Joseph Bertrand is the secondary antagonist. He is the de facto leader of New Marais with a religious belief that God destined him for greatness and wishes for the destruction of all Conduits. Throughout the game, he launches a propaganda against Cole in order to turn the whole city against him.

I do feel that the story is much more intriguing than the first one, because the characters were more memorable and the stakes are even higher. It makes me wonder how things will turn out in the end (or ends). Unlike the first game in which the ending is the same but the post-credits scene is different depending on your Karma, there are two endings to the game, which gives you a reason to play it at least the second time.

Gameplay

For starters, at the start menu, you are given the choice to continue your good or evil playthrough from the first game, similar to the Mass Effect series. In addition, you can import your trophy data which will affect the game in certain ways like earning extra XP or battery cores at the very beginning.

Like its predecessor, Infamous 2 is an open-world sandbox game, with elements of platforming, third-person shooting, and role-playing. Cole can explore New Marais by scaling buildings and walking on tightropes, a la Sly Cooper. Throughout the game, Cole learns new electric-based powers in order to go up against enemies more easily and each one of those powers are very useful. Due to having electric powers, Cole cannot drive vehicles, use guns, or even swim, the latter which can kill him. Melee combat has been improved with the addition of the Amp, a weapon Cole can use to whack enemies and perform finishers.

As Cole absorbs a new Blast Core, he earns a new power, and upgrades are available afterwards. Most of the powers from the first game like the grenades, shock wave, and rockets remain, but they took away the shield power, which was sometimes pretty useful. Upgrades can be unlocked by performing stunts. The Stunts in the first game were like the Skill Points from the Ratchet & Clank series in which they are additional tasks you can perform. Here they are much simpler to do (blow up three enemies at once, get a number of head shocks, etc.) and not once were they irritating to accomplish.

Similar to the Sly Cooper series' gadget select screen, you can quickly equip a variation of a certain power at the press of a button, making it more convenient than to just go to pause menu and press the "Powers" tab to gain access to it.

The game contains role-playing elements in which Cole can earn experience points for doing various actions, like completing story or side missions, defeating enemies, or helping or harming citizens. You can spend these experience points in the Powers menu to upgrade his powers, but those upgrades will appear when Cole's Karmic rank increases.

Just like the first game, Karma is the biggest aspect, which is basically the game's morality system. Starting in a neutral position, your Karma will increase if you do good actions like protecting the citizens and defeating enemies. Your Karma will also decrease if you do evil actions like harming the citizens or choosing a certain evil action. As your Karma increases or decreases, your rank will change and Cole's appearance will change. People's reactions when they see you will also depend on whether your Karma is good or bad.

As you explore, there are some side missions you can take part of in order to take back parts of New Marais one by one. There is also a Good Karma and Bad Karma mission once in a while and you can choose which one to take. If that Good Karma mission is completed, the Bad Karma mission disappears, and vice versa. Completing a certain number will earn you more powers.

The Dead Drops return, but in the form of carrier pigeons. You can knock them out as they are flying and once they fall into the ground, you can retrieve the data and listen to the audio diaries in order to provide background information on the game's plot. Some of the Dead Drops even reference your past actions from the first game, depending on which playthrough you were continuing from.

 

The newest aspect in the series is the User-Generated Content, in which PSN users can design their own missions and share them to the community, just like the LittleBigPlanet series. Though I don't design my own custom levels (the reason I couldn't get into LittleBigPlanet), I've played my share of UGCs and I'm really enjoying with what the community has offered. Also, this is sort of a nice throwback to Sucker Punch's first game, Rocket: Robot on Wheels, in which there was a level where you could design your own roller coaster.

Graphics and Level Design

Infamous 2 now takes place in New Marais, which is a fictional version of New Orleans. It's basically like Empire City, but with more variety in locations such as a flooded town and an industrial zone.

The animations have also improved, but that's mainly because of the new motion capture technology. That means the stiff, Sly Cooper-esque animations have been replaced for a more cinematic look. The 2D comic book-styled cutscenes still remain, only playing in much bigger moments of the game.

Music and Sound

 

One thing to note is the change in Cole's voice actor. In the first game, he was voiced by Jason Cottle and had a sort of gravely voice. Here, he is voiced by Eric Ladin (Ellis from Left 4 Dead 2) and his voice is less gravely. The reason Cottle was replaced was because Sucker Punch felt that they needed someone who could perform Cole's physical reactions as well as his voice to improve the use of their new motion capture technology. I suppose his voice is a little better this time around.

The rest of the voice cast is spot on. Caleb Moody reprises his role as Zeke, and he's just as entertaining as he was in the first game. Other actors include Dawn Olivieri as Kuo, Nika Futterman as Nix, Graham McTavish (Lazarevic from Uncharted 2) as Bertrand, and Michael Ensign (N. Tropy from Crash Bandicoot 3) as Wolfe.

Jim Dooley returns to compose the game's score, alongside other artists like Brain and JD Mayer. In addition, jazz jam band Galactic provide their music to capture the feel of New Orleans in the New Marais setting ("7th Ward" for example). Overall, I really like the score much better this time around, making the soundtrack of the first game pale in comparison. A lot of tracks like "Cole MacGrath", "Plight", "Lucy Kuo", and "The Beast" really stand out. When I listened to "Cole MacGrath", I knew I was in for an even greater experience.

Like the first game, Infamous 2 has an ending theme, this time being "Fade Away" performed by The Black Heart Procession. It has to be one of the saddest video game tracks I have ever listened to. When you play the game up until the end (Good or Evil) and this song plays, you'll know why.

 

Conclusion



Raise your hand if you enjoy fighting these. None? Thought so.

Despite some improvements, some of the problems from the first game still remain, but it's mostly centered on the combat. Some of the enemies are pretty irritating to fight, especially the bigger ones. The bigger enemies throw projectiles that are nearly impossible to dodge. Seriously, those Devourers keep launching those mucus balls that hurt me even after I dodge them.

 

Also, the game feels more linear. In the first game, there are times when you have two story missions available and can be done in any order. Here, you only have one mission to complete and once you complete that, the next one appears. Multiple story missions in sandbox games exist so that when you have a hard time with one mission, you can do it later. Thankfully, some of the missions only take a few tries.

 

Other than those however, Infamous 2 is one of the greatest video game sequels of all time. It's not only just as good as the first one, but it surpasses it in almost every way:

1. The story is much more epic and engaging, filled with more memorable characters and raising the stakes even higher. In the end, it's the final decision that will impact the player deeply and emotionally.
2. The designs and animations are a step up from the previous game, with much more variety in the locations and even smoother animations thanks to the motion capture.
3. Gameplay is even better, with even cooler powers and a better combo system with Cole's Amp.
4. More replayability thanks to the User-Generated Content.
5. Better soundtrack this time around, with more tracks that stood out to me.

If you haven't played the Infamous duology, do yourself a favor and pick up the Infamous Collection. They are two of the greatest PS3 games of all time.

 

And that wraps up my review on the Infamous series and just in time before the release of the upcoming Infamous: Second Son on the PS4. While I won't be getting a PS4 for a while (I'm waiting for more interesting titles), I'm confident that Second Son will be just as good as the first two games.

 

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