User Review : Infamous

A good superhero game.

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Story
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The story takes place in Empire City. Cole MacGrath, after delivering a package to the destination, causes a huge explosion that destroys a large area of the city, with destroyed buildings and loss of lives. Cole himself, endowed with electric powers that allow him to shoot lightning bolts and absorb electricity from electrical sources. Cole must find who is responsible for the delivery of package, which causes him to have superpowers and for causing the massive destruction in the city.

The story is very interesting, and I like the comic book cutscenes to illustrate the seriousness of the game's characters' expressions, actions and designs. In-game engine cutscenes however, look very mediocre and nothing groundbreaking. Many of the game's characters are very interesting, such as Cole, Alden, Sasha and Kessler. You can also gain more background story information by collecting Dead Drops in the game.

Your choices in the game will dictate how the Cole's personality shapes in the game, and some of it may affects the game's Ending.

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Gameplay
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This game is a superhero open-world game, where you can use your superpowers to take down enemy, namely, power of electricity. As you progress in the game, you will come across with myriads of new powers for you to use. As Cole, you can climb buildings, or run along beams without any issues. You may also dodge attacks by dodge rolling, and do other actions. As you progress in the game, you will gain new means of travelling such as grinding on train rails. The main bulk of your actions moveset would be your electric superpowers.

The game's map consists of three different districts, where you must unlock a new one as you progress in the game's main Missions. This game has lots of main Missions, which a number of it consists of you exploring the game's sewers to activate the substations, defeat a number of enemies, explore certain locked areas, and other types of missions. Most of the missions have different objectives, but many of them share the same progression style as well as having enemies to fight along the way. You may also opt to complete Side Missions in the game, to gain extra experience points as well as clearing certain areas of a district from enemies. Some of the Side Missions can be either Good aligned or Evil aligned missions, where it can increases your Karmic Rank depending on which Side Mission that you choose upon completing it.

Cole has access to electric superpowers, such as lightning bolts, electric grenades, and other electric related superpowers. As you progress in the game, you will gain new powers for him to use, both for combat or progressing in the game. Some of these powers you can choose to upgrade by spending your Experience Points. Experience Points are obtained by defeating enemies, do certain Good or Evil actions, and completing main Missions and Side Missions. You may also obtain different Karma based powers depending on your current Karma alignment and rank.

As you use certain powers, you will drain your energy reserve a lot. To remedy this, you need to drain electricity from electrical sources such as light posts, machines, generators, and others. Not only draining electricity will restore your energy, it will also restores your health. Although Cole's health regenerates naturally, it is slow, and it is faster to recover health by simply draining electricity from electrical sources during combat. You can increase your energy reserves by collecting items called Blast Shards during the game.

The Karma system is simply a good and evil rank based system. If you would like to increase your Good Karma, simply do good things such as healing people, choose the Good responses during missions, and other events. Or if you would like to increase your Evil Karma, simply do evil things such as hurting civilians, choose Evil responses during missions and absorb either enemy's or civilian's lifeforce using one of your Evil abilities. Not only having either Good or Evil Karma will affect what kinds of powers that you can purchase and upgrade in the game, it will also affect the civilian's behaviour towards Cole and some story aspects. For example, if you increase Cole's Good Karma to second rank called Champion, civilians may help throwing rocks at your enemies, and also cheer for you when you are nearby. Inversely, if you increase Cole's Evil Karma to second rank called Outlaw, civilians will hate you and may throw rocks at you to show their displeasure.

There are mainly two types of enemies in the game. The first type are regular enemies that use firearms, such as assault rifles and rocket launchers. The second type are Conduit enemies, who may also use powers like Cole against him. Needless to say, defeating Conduit enemies reward you more experience points, but are also harder to take down. All three different districts have different enemy designs and types. For example, one of the Conduits in the second district in the game can create crab-like robots enemies to fight you. As you progress in the game, you will fight a number of bosses. Although there are very few boss fights, the boss fights are rather creative, fun to play and well-designed.

Overall gameplay is solid, but not without faults. The main Missions designs could use more variety, as they felt repetitive to play each time while playing the game. Side Missions are also kind of repetitive, with many of them sharing the same objectives. Enemies could also use a bit more variety, as many of the enemies in the game are rather easy to take down with your brute electric powers. Melee combat is boring and repetitive, but it is practical to use melee moves to finish off enemies quickly however. Regardless, the boss fights are creatively done, solid overall combat, awesome powers to use, great Karma System, easy-to-learn gameplay controls and vast open-world exploration.

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Graphics
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The graphics are good, with nicely detailed environment and nice looking superpower animations by Cole. The character models however, look a bit dated, and some doesn't look really good. Despite the environments of destroyed buildings look great, you won't see much uniqueness of three different districts in the game as all three districts feature the almost same environment designs. NPC animations are very odd, unrealistic and sometimes laughable.

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Sound
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The voice acting is pretty good, fitting for every character in the game. The soundtrack is also good, as most of the themes played during the game are fitting in different occasions.

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Replay Value
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This game has good replay value. You can opt to complete all Side Missions post-game, collect all Blast Shards, collect Dead Drops, complete all Stunts or collect all Trophies. Also, you may try to opt playing the game on Hard mode, and try a new playthrough with a different Karma alignment than your first playthrough to enjoy a different set of powers to use.

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Conclusion
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This game is solid, hitting most of the right notes of a solid open-world game. However, this game is not perfect, as it's awkward and unrealistic characters animations, repetitive environments design, lack of enemies variety, and lack of Missions variety are major issues to me. Regardless, this game's fun combat, creative boss fights, good sound design, good replay value, great Karma system, and incredible storyline make this game a worthy purchase. Try this out if you like to play a superhero open-world game, and you may enjoy this game.

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Score
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Story: 10/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 8/10

Final Score: 8.5/10.0 or 34/40

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Pros and Cons
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Pros
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- Great storyline, with good plot twists.
- Great Karma system.
- Fun and exciting combat. using superpowers.
- Creative and fun boss fights.
- Vast exploration on three different districts of Empire City.
- Easy-to-learn gameplay controls.
- Good progression of learning new powers.
- Good replay value.
- Good overall graphics.
- Good voice acting.

Cons
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- Lack of Missions variety, both main Missions and Side Missions.
- Lack of enemy variety.
- Melee combat is uninteresting.
- Awkward and unrealistic characters' animations, especially the NPCs.
- Repetitive environments design on all three districts.