inFamous 2 is a shocking sequel

Posted by: Kristastrxphe

Hello gamers! Kris here for my next game review! This time, it is Sucker Punch's follow-up to the PS3's exclusive title, inFamous!

First of all, the story to inFamous is of a unique comic-book super hero. An ordinary bike messenger, Cole MacGrath, is to deliver a package in fictional Empire City that explodes, destroying half the city, and awakens Cole's new electric super powers (called a Conduit).
During the events of the first inFamous, he defeats a man named Kessler, who then warns Cole of the coming of a monster called "The Beast", and Cole is the only one who can stop him, if he is ready.
With the help of Cole's old friend Zeke, and his new Conduit-allies Lucy Kuo and Nix, Cole must travel to the city of New Marais and train to get stronger so he can stop The Beast.

On top of The Beast, Cole faces a new array of enemies, The Militia, who are ran by a radical human purist group leader named Bertrand, who thinks Cole is a demon, a monster, and an enemy of New Marais. There are also a group of Ice-Conduits that have appeared who wants some of the action, but I won't spoil anything for you.

The Gameplay in inFamous 2 is much like the first game, with a lot of platforming and parkour-style hopping on buildings, cars, powerlines, etc... It still flows rather well, but I have noticed some really silly glitches in the system that can makes things rather frustrating. I mean, wouldn't you be pissed if you somehow accidentally tried climbing a building, and somehow falling into the blackness of bad camera angles and dying? Yeah, silly and stupid glitches like that. Although, it didn't happen very frequently in my experience, but it still got frustrating when they did happen.

InFamous 2 has a huge sandbox map to travel in, and you can go pretty much anywhere whenever you want, as long as the story allows it (there are two islands on New Marais, but you can only visit the first one until a certain plot point, otherwise, the entire map is explorable at all times). Scattered throughout the map are things called Blast Shards, which when collected will eventually add to your maximum energy storage for using your abilities. There are 305 of them total, not including random ones you can find from side missions. There are also 29 carrier pigeons called Dead Drops, which when shot down and picked up, you unlock an audio log between Dr. Wolfe, Lucy Kuo, and a man named John White. This adds more to the backstory of the game and I urge everyone to spend the time hunting them down for the extra story (and the trophy).

The graphics are slightly improved from inFamous. Yeah, there are some popping in the background as you get closer to them, which is to be expected, but it's nothing worth complaining about.
Using your powers in the heat of battle look fantastic, and don't cause any lag that I've noticed. The new melee combat with Cole's weapon is pretty sweet too, and even has a slow-motion super attack by pressing the Triangle button when a small meter fills up.

You gain new abilities by gaining Experience from the story and side missions, and by doing special stunts with certain abilities (i.e, getting 10 headshots on enemies, etc...) The main story missions are labeled by a white icon on the mini map, side missions are yellow, Good Karma missions are blue, and Evil Karma missions are red. Oh yeah, by the way, you can choose to be good or evil. The story even slightly changes depending on which you choose.
Personally, for my first playthrough, I went pure Good for the story, but I will most definitely be experiencing the Evil side in the near future.

Sucker Punch added a new feature called UGC Missions, which are User Generated Missions, made by the players themselves. They are labeled on the map as green icons. I haven't made any myself yet, but I've tried a couple of them, and they seem to work really well. I'm excited to see how this feature grows in the community.

Another note-worthy point about inFamous 2 is the soundtrack. Tracks created by Jim Dooley, JD Mayer, Galactic, Brain, The Black Heart Procession. I believe there are 2 versions of the Soundtrack: the Blue and Red versions. I own the Red Soundtrack, as I bought the Collector's Edition of the game, but I haven't heard the Blue Soundtrack. So I'm pretty sure there are two completely different soundtracks to the game, which is pretty awesome. What's even more awesome, is that the soundtrack fucking rocks. There is no other way to put it. The score to the game is absolutely incredible, one of the best I've ever heard in a game before. It fits the tone so perfectly that it makes everything feel much more intense, as if the story didn't make it intense enough.

To close up this review... If you have a PS3 and enjoy platform action games with a great story, get this game. If you haven't played the first inFamous, get that, then get this game. Because you won't experience the full awesome story without playing inFamous first.

Regardless, I give inFamous 2 a 9.5 out of 10 (knocked down for silly glitches).