Shockingly Dull

With a track record like Sucker Punch's, I was very excited about their first game to make it to a next-gen platform. Add in moral choices, parkour, open world gameplay, and electricity - it had me hyped up and expecting a Qwarktastic Qwest.

inFamous is an odd mixture of great ideas, gameplay, with poor character design, and a weak story. It's like eating a delicious cake that is only half baked. When you pop in the game for the first time, there is no menu, no "press start". You see a huge explosion then find yourself in the middle of a giant crater. As your protagonist, Cole, tries to figure out what has just happened, you get your first chance to learn the basics. You soon discover that you have some interesting "side-effects" from the blast - the ability to shoot electricity out of your hands. Soon the city is quarantined and social anarchy sweeps the land with gangs rising up to take control of the little resources left. And you, as the only super-powered dude in town get to save the city . . . or take control of it for yourself. Cool right?

Unfortunately, everything about inFamous seems on the weak side. The moral choices are simplistic, the characters are shallow, and every unlocked city district just looks like a clone of the last one. The only character that I somewhat liked was Cole who was just your average guy ending up in the wrong place. His "friends" on the other hand, I would have killed right off the bat if I could have. Enemies were predictable which made the battles dull. It also became exceedingly tedious when you are just trying to get from one side of town to the other, being constantly attacked felt like I was playing an RPG with its random battles.

One thing I really enjoyed about inFamous was the progression of your character and his powers. Cole starts off just getting familiar with his new found abilities but soon, you'll find that you can do a lot more than just shoot a couple of sparks out. From electric sticky bombs to sliding across power lines - Cole's powers grow to give you variety both in battles and in free roaming the city. They are also "unlocked" at a nice and even pace. You never feel like you have to level up your character to get a new power nor do you get new abilities before you've completely mastered the last one. The down side is that you really only need two or three of these abilities and then you can just skip using the rest.

Graphical glitches, repetitive missions, and dull surroundings ruin most of the good things about this game. inFamous is not a complete failure and I definitely enjoyed my time in Empire City yet this is Sucker Punch we are talking about. I was expecting a fully encompassing game like Uncharted - with a solid story, characters that felt real, and a setting that was both unique and visually stunning. inFamous's strong suit is its gameplay with Cole's abilities both in parkour and electricity. Unfortunately the game is also very easy, even on hard difficulty the game is like taking candy from a baby. With its $30 price tag, I would still recommend picking up inFamous if you haven't already played the game. For all of its flaws, it is still worth having in your collection. With inFamous 2 ready to hit store shelves in 2011, I'm expecting Sucker Punch to really shock me this time. With Naughty Dog, Ubisoft, Insomniac Games, and others using a poor start to launch amazing GotY quality sequels - I am expecting nothing less from an A list team like Sucker Punch.

Drekfully Disappointing!

• Title: inFamous
• Developer: Sucker Punch
• Publisher: SCEA
• ESRB: Teen
• Original Release Date: 05.26.09
• Original Platform: PS3