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inFamous 2
Was hoping to have this one done much earlier to keep the review closer to the release date, but I failed on that one thanks to my ill-timed addiction to Dragon Age: Origins. But I'm all done now.
This game was a lot of fun, and a great sequel! The slight differences to Cole's appearance and voice acting were a little surprising at first, but I learned to appreciate them and ultimately decided that they were great improvements. They made him seem a little less "emotionless dude with powers" and a little more human. And thanks to motion capture, the cutscenes and facial animations are hugely improved over the previous title. Some of the exchanges with Cole and Zeke were genuinely funny, particularly one towards the end of the game where they didn't even say anything at all. You definitely get the impression this time that these two were longtime friends.
Whereas in the first game you need to work up to earning the ability to grind on power lines and glide between buildings, you start off with those powers intact in inFamous 2, as well as the lightning grenade. You don't start out full-powered, but it's not a lame "find a way to remove all powers" move that most superhero sequels tend to pull. It starts you off with things that make navigating the city more convenient, and that's much appreciated.
It's a cool sense of tension how the game tracks The Beast and its distance from New Marais (this game's replacement for Empire City). The plot wasn't really mindblowing, but it was decent enough to keep progress interesting during the great gameplay, and provided for an interesting ending as well.
The only outright complaint I have is that the moral decisions felt way too paint-by-number. After playing Dragon Age: Origins and L.A. Noire recently, moral grey areas are absolutely necessary for games like this, but inFamous 2 literallysays "this choice is evil, and this choice is good." So if you're deciding to play the "Hero," your choice is obvious, and if you're on an "Evil" playthrough, you know what to do. The game does nothing to reward you for changing it up mid-playthrough, so why it even bothers giving a choice other than at the very start, I don't know. It makes the moral decisions mid-game pretty pointless. There's never any thought involved. These days, if you're going to introduce a concept like this, you need consequences for every decision, something that will make you stop and think about what you're planning to do.
Otherwise, fun game, great sequel, and any fan of the first inFamous absolutely should play it. Full review will be up on Default Prime this weekend.
Post edited July 14, 2011 by bowlingotter
