Infamous

(2009)

Developer: Sucker Punch Productions

Genre: Action/Adventure, Sandbox 

As anyone who has played a sandbox game lately can tell you, the market has gone a little stale after the intervention of Grand theft Auto IV. Sucker Punch, the developers behind the PS3 exclusive Infamous have gone above and beyond to change that. Infamous has not been hyped as being the most unique of gaming experiences but is does deliver on all fronts, even for gamers jaded to the format.

The game is a potent blend of mechanics from the GTA series, the climbing and free running of Assassin's Creed with the cinematic flair of force lightning found in Star Wars. It's a combination that, on paper, can sound incredibly simple and perhaps clone-ish. However, within an hour of game play you forget about conventions and get sucked in to Infamous' world.

A driving force here is the story, which, while not incredibly deep, is a lot of fun. This game presents major story points in Comic form rather than trying to impress with cut-scenes, a feature I was surprisingly happy with.  You also get the feeling that the missions you work through have a relevance to the arc of the story. Finally a game outside of GTAIV that I felt compelled to rush as fast as I could through the main story line.

When rushing from plot point to plot point, which you can easily get caught up doing, you get the opportunity to do side missions. The more of these you do the more parts of an incapacitated metropolitan city come back to life. Depending on how you complete these missions you gain or lose karma. Much like any of the recent open ended action RPG titles your character will gain healthy glowing qualities if you become good or ashen markings if you chose the opposite.

I've been harsh on games that tout the,“you choose” moniker but this one actually gives a crap if you chose one way or the other and the developers actually reward you for it. (!!!!!) Also, the amount of extra content in this game is impressive. You'll get caught up searching for every power shard (items that increase your overall energy, or, “more zappy zappy”) without even realizing it.

Do you want to save 12 hostages from their captors or just kill everyone in order to finish a mission that simply states: kill the three captors holding hostages in metropolitan square.” You'll notice that as you go down your chosen good or evil path that the people around you react differently to you. You are a savior or a destroyer, and for once there are consequences to your choices that actually make the game play different.

Certain powers like the ability to overcharge electrical devices to blanket areas of enemies in an electric shower can only be accessed by good characters while electrical grenades will split into five charges for an evil player. There are obvious differences between styles, but the fun part for me was when I realized that the subtle changes to main powers also depend on evil or good status, a feature that makes this game pretty much demand a second play through.

SHARP OBJEX Rating: 4 out of 4 

Infamous trailer 1