Topic: inFamous

[iPPi]

Demo is out on PSN.  It's a pretty fun game from what I've played, and the reviews are quite favorable.

The game reminds me somewhat of Crackdown -- you've got superpowers and the city is essentially your playground to help save the city or wreck havoc in it.  The controls are pretty tight, and you can scale walls and jump from ledge to ledge much like in Assassin's Creed, and your electricity super powers are pretty cool as well.

[TheOtherBelmont]

I tried the demo out too and it was pretty fun.  It reminded me of Crackdown a little but the controls and camera are much better and everything just seems more fluid.  I love jumping down from building and doing the huge shockwave and "surfing" on the electric cables was pretty awesome too.  I'll probably pick it up at some point.

[Quemaqua]

It did look pretty cool when I saw some preview stuff before.  I'll probably pick it up at some point when I'm bored and need an action fix.

[Xessive]

I just checked it out. It's not bad. Requires too much manual aiming for my taste. The controls seem kinda wonky, especially jumping and dodging. The plot and storytelling devices seem pretty cool.

I like good/evil angle to the character development, though the game does feel like it has a Star Wars inspiration. Something about electric powers too.

[sirean_syan]

I'm pretty impressed by the demo. The game just has a cool feel to it that works and I'm really interested in seeing more of it. I may pick it up next week and play it over the summer.

[Quemaqua]

GSpot sure likes it.  And after watching that video, I'm pretty sold.

[iPPi]

The more I read about it the more I think I might pick it up.  The only thing that detracts me from video games right now is the fucking $70 price tag for a new game.

[MysterD]

Que mentioned in Sims 3 thread he bought this.
So, Que -- how is this one?

I don't have a PS3, but damn -- the commercial I seen on TV for this one looks cool.

[Quemaqua]

Thus far, pretty cool.  It basically feels like an extension of what made Crackdown so much fun, just tighter and less cheesy.  It's got that sort of superhero/supervillain sort of vibe, which is also fun, but otherwise seems to be a mix of Assassin's Creed, Crackdown, and maybe Fable 2 or something.  It feels like AC in the way you can climb stuff in sort of freeform fashion, and has that sense of  "go anywhere", but feels a lot like Crackdown in the way you're running across building rooftops, making crazy leaps from one place to another, and slamming down into the ground after leaping off a 10 story building.  It also feels like that game due to the fact that the city is sort of a grungy place with gangs that control various territories.  It isn't really a functional city, as the plot has to do with the thing going into quarantine and being shut down, which is why the gangs take over, but it still feels similar.  The Fable 2 angle is just because of the way you earn XP and buy powers/upgrades via a menu, and because of the karma tracking stuff.

But yeah, pretty cool.  It feels like a big warzone, but also like an open-world city explorer, and the powers are all pretty fun to play around with.  They also make it a little easier to pick the evil route in this game if you want to, by very quickly making the people hate you if you start acting like a creep.  So then they throw rocks at you and get mad and stuff, making them feel more adversarial rather than like helpless people you're wasting for no reason.

I'll post a bit more on it later, but it definitely seems like a keeper thus far.

[MysterD]

I just watched that G-Spot review, Que -- my God, this game looks pretty freakin' bad-ass; cross b/t PoP, AC, Fable 2, comic books, and the open-world nature of games like GTA and Saints Row series. Looks like it's a lot of fun to play and everything. The reviewer does say it's 30 hours to go through -- per path (good or evil). That sounds like a game you'd get your money's worth out of if you really like it, if you ask me.

Que, he complained about the graphics not being that great, clipping, and the texture-popping. Are those issues bugging you at all, Que? Or is it quite minor stuff here?

Oh, those comic book cut-scenes look pretty bad-ass -- reminds me of Max Payne's cut-scenes; but these have some motion to them, here and there.

Oh...how's the voice-acting? Any names doing some voice-acting here?

[Quemaqua]

The graphics issues are pretty inconsequential and not really worth talking about.  The game isn't the best looking ever, no, but it looks pretty darn good, and is steadier and less odd looking than GTAIV, say.  Frames do dip a bit below top speed, but it's only noticeable because scenes where you aren't viewing much run faster than the other 95% of the game, which isn't top-speed but is still consistent and fine.  The only graphical error worth mentioning so far is early in the game, when you knock guys to their deaths off this bridge, they go into the water but... they just lay on top of it like it was land.  That's actually pretty shoddy, but I haven't seen anything else like that so far.  That one circumstance isn't indicative of the rest of the game, at least so far.

The comic scenes are indeed pretty badass.  They did a great job directing them, and they're really something special.  The only odd thing is they sometimes use them to tell a whole lot of story in about 10 seconds, which is a bit off-putting.  For instance, at one point Cole runs into this woman who wants to use him to find someone, and instead of having this meeting where the characters talk and interact, it's a short comic scene where Cole just narrates it, and then suddenly you're back in the world with this chick talking on the cell phone.  It really makes no sense and is akin to a lazy writer of a novel saying "The guy needs a loan at the bank to fund his expedition.  He heads to the bank, and talks to the loan officer, and is rejected.  He then goes on a murderous rampage."  You really should *have* the scene where the guy gets rejected, or it throws everything else off.  Still, even with this somewhat off-kilter usage of cutscenes (there were a couple that did this sort of thing), the story actually seems pretty good, and the comic style really fits with the themes.

The voice acting is quite good.  I don't know about names because I really don't care, but it seems good thus far.  Cole might be that one dude who's in everything and sounds like David Hayter but isn't, but I'm not sure.

[MysterD]

Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee likes InFamous a hell of a lot, despite his complaints...