I could be wrong and I could be a sucker for a
Sucker Punch game, but
I recently saw good reasons to anticipate the PS3s open-world Infamous.
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Some time this spring, Sonys PlayStation 3 gets another first-party exclusive to bolster a line-up that includes
LittleBigPlanet,
Uncharted and
Killzone 2.
Getting less hype has been the next one coming:
Infamous.
The game is an open-world dark super-hero game. Weve covered it here before, and you can read about it
in many places. But it seems to have flown under the radar a little.
The game comes from the developers of the
Sly Cooper series on PlayStation 2, a trio of platforming games that included an increasingly well-executed variety of other gameplay styles. For example, the second game had a great dialogue-tree-driven argument that you had to make one character conduct with himself, in order to convince himself that he should help the good guys. The third game has a brilliant section of pirate-ship combat that had the player steering the ship, firing cannons and directly controlling a sword duels on the deck of the ship all at the same time.
The new game, Infamous is far darker and grittier than the Sly games. Its rendered in a realistic graphical style that makes it seem like a modern-world
Assassins Creed, a quality abetted by the effortless climbing that the games protagonist, Cole, can do on just about any non-horizontal surface.
I played a slice of the game a couple of weeks ago and have been wanting to share some impressions. These may be vague or seem scatter-shot, but such are the impressions of open-world games. You only really know an open-world game is good once you have it for yourself and can see if quality fills its scope.
Here is some of what I saw that I liked that doesnt come through in screenshots and trailers:
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A good line: In the opening cut-scene, the heros voice-over includes the question: Have you ever been called a terrorist? I havent, but I find that line sharply encapsulates a role that seems interesting to play. An explosion in Coles city has left much of it lacking electricity or any rule of law. Cole is blamed by some and on the run. Its a good set-up.
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Defibrillator Powers: I knew Cole could shot electricity from his hands to charge things and fry enemies. I didnt realize he could hogtie enemies with bands of electricity, serve as a human defibrillator for wounded people and leech energy to the point of killing others. All these actions affect the heros moral alignment.
-This is a yes you can game: Thats what the games director, Nathan Fox, told me while showing me so many of the acrobatic climbing moves Cole can commit, the bosses he can fight, the choices for characters with which he can interact, and so on. He said the game is doling out a new power to the player every hour of play time. Given everything that the Sly Cooper games allowed players to do and given how many activities games like Grand Theft Auto IV compel players of open-world games to want to do the Obama-style yes you can design philosophy seems like a very good thing.
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A dash of Crackdown: While most of what I was shown in Infamous were main missions, I wanted to know about the side stuff. The peripheral missions and general life of the open-world are what make or break games in this genre.
I learned from Fox that, not only are there going to be many side missions, but that there will be a Crackdown-style dynamism to this game. Crackdown was a well-received open-world super-cop game for the Xbox 360. The city of Crackdown was unusually organic for a game of its type. The player was charged with hunting the leaders of enemy gangs. One member of the gang might be a weapons dealer, another a vehicle supplier. Attacking the weapons guy and defeating him would cause all of the gang members of his gang to have inferior guns. Locking up the vehicles guy would have a regional affect on enemy vehicle quality. There were several dynamics like this, all of which were affected by the order with which the player decided to attack the leaders of the gang.
What Infamous has that is like this is a system of civic morality that changes the rhythms of muncipal life. Helping civilians in one area might bring some safety and economic prosperity back to a part of the city. Assisting cops might improve police patrols and think the ranks of local gangs. Actions of a more nefarious bent are supposed to have grimier implications. This type of dynamism that allows player-chosen actions to begin to re-color the world not seen in even the ambitious GTA IV could greatly enrich the Infamous world.
Those are a few of the things that stood out to me, the kind of things you cant deduce form a screenshot or trailer. Im pleased with the graphics, the controls, the combat and action I experienced. But those are the relatively easy things to get right. They are common successes.
It is the uncommon qualities that Infamous has the possibility to get right that excites me.
Infamous is slated for a spring release for the PlayStation 3.
