Infamous Review (PS3)

The PS3 exclusive Infamous does the superhero game right. Without the recognition of an established character like a Batman or Spiderman, Sucker Punch Studios was free to explore and branch the game's story in multiple directions, while doing a great job maintaining a solid path through the hero's journey. So how does the rest of this game stack up with other sandbox games?

Quite well. Like other games in this genre, Infamous puts you in the shoes of one Cole McGrath, your everyman sandbox hero (or anti-hero) who struggles to find his place in the world. Unlike other games, Cole has a much larger presence, both in the game world and in your hands. From the get go, you're given the opportunity to be altruistic or be selfish. As the game progresses, the ever present pedestrians will both recognize your character and react according to your exploits - take pictures, ask you to heal their friends, beat up some thieves, throw rocks at you, or just run away in fear. Throwing junk and taunts at you is my favorite reaction, since it then kind of justifies your throwing cars on them. If you want to help people, that's up to you, conversely, if you want to crush all the police, there's also no force in the game to stop you from doing so.

While the flow of the game is great - this is a very story/choice driven game, there are some slights that take away from the experience. The graphics are sadly mid-tier, but still on par with most sandbox games these days. The side missions range from fun (blowing up lots of stuff) to mundane (removing surveillance devices - really?). The length is just perfect, however. I clocked about 20-25 hours my first play through as a good hero - exploring everything, finding all the blast shards - and maybe 10-12 hours my second play through on Hard difficulty while being devestatingly evil.

Definitely a fun game to enjoy if you like comic books, and the sequel will be another first day purchase for me.

kenholic rating: 8 out of 10.