inFamous - Platinum Edition (PS3)

I've had Infamous for a while now and bought it because of all its 4 and 5 star reviews. I think the city is a great place for the action to take place as there's just so much space.

STORY
Cole is the superhero and finds himself with electric powers after being in an explosion of strange sorts. I will not ruin anymore of the story as this is just a game that must be played by any ps3 gamer.

GAMEPLAY
Cole's range of electrical abilities are incredibly fun to use and definitely make this game a great superhero adventure. He is almost invincible if you can master his range of moves and use them wisely. Another great thing about this game is that you have a certain amount of "battery cores" which will be drained by using special moves. This means one must spare his electricity if they aren't near an electrical source. This adds to the games length and makes it more difficult which is great!

GRAPHICS AND REPLAYABILITY
The graphics of Infamous are not the best seen on the PS3 and titles such as uncharted 2 and metal gear solid 4 are obviously more detailed. HOWEVER the graphics are still fantastic and the entire city seems well detailed which is wonderful for a large scale game. Infamous' story is a relatively long one, and unless you start out on hard you'll definitely want a second playthrough on a more difficult setting. And you'll probably want another playthrough to choose the opposite karma.

NOT TO MENTION all the side missions and blast shard findings which aren't all that fun but you may want to attempt 100% completion for the trophies.

Overall Infamous is a well rounded and solid game with plenty of depth and variety. One of the best PS3 exclusives at the moment and is up there with the like of LittleBigPlanet and Uncharted.

I'd Give it 92% and a must buy for ps3 owners. Its a platinum game for a reason =)

Though it may not seem it, superhero adventure inFamous isn't such a huge leap from its Sly Cooper cutesy platformer predecessors as it first appears. Like fellow Stateside Sony developers Naughty Dog and Insomniac, Sucker Punch have eschewed the cartoony nature of their PS2 work to focus on a more mature premise with a dark comic book inspired superhero tale, replete with betrayals, vengeance and redemption.

The crux of inFamous is protagonist Cole, an everyday courier who is caught at the epicentre of a catastrophic explosion which destroys part of Empire City and kills thousands, but gives him superhuman powers as a result. He attains the ability to control and command electricity, making him a walking conduit with the power to become the city's protector or its destroyer. In the days and weeks after the explosion, a plague breaks out in the city prompting the government to quarantine it, and as the limited authorities within its boundaries fall apart vicious and well-equipped gangs take control and plunge the city ever further into chaos.

Cole is a gifted urban explorer, meaning he's a bit dishy at jumping and climbing, in much the same way as Assassin's Creed's Altair. Almost any edge or outcrop can be grabbed or jumped on to, meaning that scaling almost any surface is simply a case of getting his hands dirty. He can also run along thin ledges and cables and survive long drops unhindered, so getting around the city is a joy; if anything Cole is more at home leaping around on top of skyscrapers than on the streets. The means of traversing the city is accentuated when he gains more abilities, such as gliding through the air or grinding along electric rails. Getting across the city is consistently enjoyable and possibly the game's strongest aspect.

Of course, Cole is going to need his new powers to take down his new found enemies. His standard `weapon' is a simple, underpowered electric blast which never runs out; it will eventually take down pretty much any foe, but is best used in conjunction with his other attacks. Elsewhere there are essentially the standard shooter requirements, albeit in electric form - grenades, a rocket launcher, a sniper rifle and so on. The best aspect of the combat is its accessibility - Cole can shoot from pretty much any surface (hanging from cables, climbing up a building, even when falling) and can flit between movement and fighting instantly, which gives the game an extremely fast-paced and playable feel. inFamous doesn't do anything particularly outstanding with its combat but it's never less than solid, and some of the later moves really evoke a sense of power and awe.

Empire City itself is a mixed environment. It's perfectly sized for traversing on foot, and comes with a mixture of huge skyscrapers, two storey buildings and park lands. Rooftops are littered with cables Cole can grind across, meaning that getting around the city can be speedy and enjoyable -- and if nothing else, he can always hitch a ride on a train. However, the city's three districts really need some visual landmarks or differing style to distinguish each from the other - the second island, the Warren, has a lot of rubble buildings, shipping cranes and crates, and the third has the blast area where it all began, but aside from that there's nothing here to separate each, which is a bit of a shame. Empire City is always fun to travel around, but since it looks so repetitive it's hard to become accustomed to it in the way you would with Liberty City or Renaissance Italy.

At some point, criticisms of repetition can be leveled at most open world games, and inFamous is no different. However, this is mainly in the optional side missions, where Cole must help freeing prisoners, attacking strongholds, racing through checkpoints, and the like. Sucker Punch have delivered just enough variety to to ensure playing through everything isn't a chore, and while the game starts well, it has a bit of a lull in its middle third before going on to a strong finish with some excellent missions and a lot of plot exposition in the final stages. There are a slew of collectibles, various stunts to perform and audio drops which are the narrative's most interesting point, giving back-story and depth to the main villain.

Surprisingly for a first-party production, the visuals are a bit rough, and definitely could have used a bit more finesse and polish. Cole has high levels of detail and smooth, authentic animations, and likewise the city is as intricate and detailed as one would expect, but it's really the NPCs who let the side down, with very sub-par lip syncing and unnatural animations. Similarly, the frame rate can sometimes slow up a little, and there are quite a few technical issues, such as random invisible barriers and pop-in. None of it significantly mars the experience, but from the team who created the beautiful Sly Cooper series it's fair to have expected a little more.

The character voices and ambient sounds are not overly successful, with the city never really sounding particularly alive or endangered. The script is fairly weak, and despite the fact Cole is more of a superhero akin to the likes of Daredevil or Spider-Man, he still looks and sounds like a gruff, generic marine, which is a real shame. Support characters range from annoying (Zeke) to fascinating and underexposed (John), and given that the premise is pretty interesting, it's disappointing that the characters and scripting lets the side down.

inFamous isn't quite the triple-A system-seller it could have been, but nonetheless it's a solid entry into the open world genre and a worthwhile purchase for fans of Sucker Punch's previous output. Surprisingly for a game with such a strong comic book feel, it sometimes seems like the world and characters lack personality, but if in future instalments the developers can address these few flaws and perhaps develop the narrative in a more evocative environment, they could easily have one of the best games in the genre on their hands. As it stands, inFamous is a lot of fun but slightly lacking in just a couple of key areas.

The gameplay in my opinion could be better, sometimes it's hard to control the character.
As the game itself is good, have good graphics and a good story, I liked.