Not to be outdone by its fellow Sony-platform developing brethren, Washington-based Sucker Punch Productions finally gets its chance to show off Playstation 3 owners what it’s been cooking for the past several years. But rather than sticking to its anthropomorphic animal parade of cel-shaded thievery and macking-it-up with police officials in quick-time ballroom dances, Sucker Punch brings an altogether new IP to the mix. inFamous is an open-world action thriller drenched in heavy comic book tones and one hell of an opening sequence. After waking up from a cataclysmic event, delivery boy Cole McGrath ends up in a hospital and learns that he’s the sole cause and survivor of an immense explosion in Empire City, caused by a package he was asked by an anonymous sender to unwrap. To put it in Zero Wing broken Engrish, somebody set up him the bomb. With his entire hometown (what’s left of it, anyway) tossed into mass hysteria, McGrath takes the center of public blame. All this trouble, and for what? Just for a silly plot-device to net Cole some killer electrical powers?

Actually, wait. That sounds quite the bitchin’ compensation deal.

inFamous, as it stands, is a sandbox. And much like other sandbox games, you’ll come across many a similarity. Where it stands to differentiate from them is something I refer to as the “less is more” philosophy. Initially, Empire City is broken up into three islands and you’re only given access to one of them. Each island is further divided into districts, each representing as a much mission for you to complete or otherwise. Completing a mission will liberate that district, thus allowing you to freely roam around that area without having to worry about any enemies cramping your style. The city itself feels “small” compared to other open-world titles, and for good reason. The amount of activities you’ll perform is significantly less and more focused to what moral alignment you represent to the citizens (do-gooder or douche bag?). Not being able to go in and outside of buildings, jack a car and ride it or even pick up a clearly dropped weapon almost seems a bit backwards on Sucker Punch’s part. In truth, inFamous doesn’t really need them.

What it does need is for you get acquainted to two of its most important elements that make up 99.9% of the experience. Exhibit A: Platforming. Cole channels his inner Altair to make it across practically every climbable surface possible, without the need of mapping the action as a button command. In a world that is nothing less but your parkour playground, inFamous does its best in trying to automate this for you but there will be times, crucial times even, where you’ll find yourself latching to an object unintentionally one too many times. I didn’t find this nearly as annoying during my first early run of the game and that especially went true for most of the combat sections, but then came those loveably, collectible blast shards. It’s like having a post Banjo-Kazooie period, once you get one, you have to get them all. Scattered throughout the city, certain blast shards won’t be revealed to you unless you Cole’s electrical-sensor starts tingling. Rest assured, when you come across one that requires just a wee bit more manual effort on your part, you can bet there will be a real jungle gym of a mess for you to navigate through if you can’t help sticking to a wall no matter how far apart you may thought you were from it.

The other major part of inFamous is, what else, those goddamn Thor powers of yours. Electricity to Cole is what Tommy Vercetti is to a mini-gun. Pure, unmediated happy hour upon happy hour. Surprisingly, inFamous makes a lot more sense to play as a third-person shooter than feeling like a natural mix of run-and-gunning and physical clobbering. Most abilities that Cole learns throughout the game mimics the effects of what you’d get if you were playing a normal by-the-numbers shoot ‘em up. And it’s never fully realized of what you’re capable of until you begin upgrading your current powers by earning experience points through performed stunts, enemy kills, and completing missions. Once the ball gets rolling, a variety of options become available to you through the *ahem* ethical choices you make. For instance, the Shockwave: a short-range blast that knocks opponents back. You can upgrade this in two fashions, let’s say as a goody two-shoes. When unleashing a Shockwave, you’ll now have innocent by-standers who are caught in the blast temporarily suspended in the air for some time – a great way to minimize causalities if you intend to keep your image as a protector to the weak. But what happens when you succumb to the dark side? Your Shockwave will release a much more dangerous after-effect, catching anything that gets hit by it, including innocents. A great way to keep devil-breeders fixated on maximum carnage. There is no real “neutral” ground to these two paths, which makes inFamous worth a second play-through just to see what other crazy techniques you missed out on.

A lot of times, though, you won’t feel the weight of your choices as much as you’d think. Doing what’s right or wrong doesn’t fit into the equation unless you get a statistical boost of out it, a common problem you’d find in a lot of these morality puzzles. So long as you’re wreaking havoc in a splendidly-realized world, these sorts of tribulations take a back seat to your better judgment. What doesn’t though is the plot. Let me make it clear that I think Cole, as a character, does more for me than the vastly forgettable faces from the last few dozen blockbuster-production shooters this industry is so fond of churning. I don’t know how someone can create a gruff-talking, gnarly-looking mofo like Cole McGrath, who is NOT voiced by Steve Blum, and still make him relatively likeable. Sucker Punch did, and you’d expect no less. But when compared to every other character, you get the feeling something was lost during the transition to darker themes. I’ll be blunt, I’ve read a lot a comics. And it sucks to see a force as creative as this team not being able to make a distinguishable mark to call their own, save for some really stunning set-pieces and generally pleasant artwork. The final scene of the game will draw comparisons to a certain Hollywood movie adaptation, and the conclusion itself just doesn’t seem as fulfilling.

I can look past the inconsistent frame rates. I can look past the repetitive mission goals. I can even look past the sticky controls. Maybe inFamous’ story won’t be your cup of tea, but that alone isn’t reason enough to ignore how fresh the gameplay comes to a person who can’t even bother to go through Grand Theft Auto IV in its entirety. The super hero quota does wonders to what Sucker Punch tries to achieve, and if you’re willing to give it a chance, you may end up playing one of the more interesting titles on the PS3. Just don’t expect anything ground-breaking and you’re all set.

8.0 / 10

Review Copy Courtesy:

Price: INR 2499

Distributor: Milestone Interactive

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• Ravi Sinha Says:
  Saturday, June 20th, 2009 02:32 pm GMT +5.5 at 2:32 pm

  “Somebody set up him the bomb” should be “somebody set him up with the bomb”.

  “That sounds quite the bitchin’ compensationd deal” should have “like” before “quite”. Why use compensation and deal in the same sentence? Just say compensation. Or deal. It’s like calling some one a “homo fag”: Ultimately redundant.

  inFamous is a sandbox GAME. Not a sandbox…You know what, screw it. This review is a mess of metaphors, descriptives and analogies. Even Edward Scissorhands would deem this impossible to cut down to size.