Almost a year to the day I travelled to my local game store to purchase a game to take my time up. I wanted something that was good, I needed something that would take my mind off real life for a while, something I could get lost in. It was a difficult time in my personal life, my girlfriend and newborn son having both been admitted to hospital a few hundred miles away, I was moving house and of course had full-time work getting in the way of everything. Eventually I settled on inFamous at £9.99 which after playing the first in the series to death was a bargain. I think due to my emotional attachment at the time thanks to my personal circumstances and the fact that any free time I did have was devoted to infamous 1, had I of reviewed it it certainly would have got a higher score than it deserved. That's not to say this review of the sequel, cunningly named inFamous 2 will be reviewed incorrectly. It perhaps means that I expect more than I usually would from a sequel, infamous one captivated it's audience and turned Sucker Punch Productions from Sly creators and Banjo-Kazooie wannabe's into a real player in the industry, behind Uncharted, inFamous is now arguably the second biggest Playstation brand, overtaking, Resistance, Ratchet and perhaps even Killzone and they've cemented their position within the Playstation family here.
inFamous 2 see's the return of Cole McGrath, just an average courier boy who get's caught up in an explosion and gains electrical super powers, the premise is simple but the execution is superb. This time Cole has travelled south to New Marais as he's being chased by 'the beast' an almighty being revealed at the end of the original, Cole's goal is to grow strong enough to defeat him by finding blast cores in New Marais and continues the excellent story building blocks from the first game. Thankfully inFamous 2 doesn't pull a 'God of War' and take all your powers away from the first game, you keep all you earned and learn new more powerful moves, imagine summoning an electrical hurricane, you can do that here.
A new gameplay addition is 'the amp' a metal electrical rod that Cole wields for melee combat. A few quick taps of the Square button hits the opponent and a hit of the Triangle is the cue for one of the sweet finishers that end your opponent. The melee naturally fits into the game and changes the gameplay enough from the first one where it could be accused that holding L1 and mashing R1 to fire lightning bolts was enough to get through most troubles, but not here, the combat is varied enough from powers to melee where you'll want to switch it up, plus there's nothing more satisfying than jumping off a 4 storey building and slamming to the ground causing an electrical shockwave that kills four guys at once.
If you've never played inFamous one don't fear, you can jump right into the sequel without playing the first (although I highly recommend you to try it). The first game's story is beautifully told the minute you hit start with a loving crafted comic strip style cut scene, these comic strips were littered throughout the original but unfortunately take a bit of a back seat in the sequel. There is no doubt the biggest difference between the original and the sequel is the set-pieces. Dramatic helicopter fights and large explosion's really deliver a Hollywood feel and I've not even told you half the story (and I won't for fear of spoilers). Uncharted 2's train and building set-pieces have gone down as folk-lore at Sony and have set a new industry standard in the video games. The boys and gals at Sucker Punch have taken note and have 'Unchartedised' inFamous 2. Copying off Uncharted 2 isn't a bad thing as the core comic-book super hero gameplay style still reigns supreme but taking tips off Naughty Dog has definitely upped their game. The in-game explosions, even when your just walking around New Marais can be spectacular, needless to say the set-pieces included in the story can be breath-taking, unfortunately nothing to match Uncharted 2, but very few can.
Missions in inFamous 2 are varied enough, more so than the original which tended to repeat some situations over and over but there's enough variety and more importantly fun missions to keep you going through the campaign and onto the side missions which can be completed at any time. The addition of user-generated content was a slightly left-field decision for a game that isn't LittleBigPlanet but it's certainly a welcome one. Some of the early UGC missions I've played were interesting enough without being amazing, but this is down to the lack of time after launch rather than the tools. The UGC interface is quite awkward to create with no real manual but as a starting point for future releases it's certainly a solid platform to build upon.
However it's not all plain sailing for the sequel, during amp and explosion sequences the camera can somewhat go awol. There was a situation with an early boss I encountered who grabbed me by the tongue and tried to pull me in, the idea to get out of this is to shoot inside his mouth to get him to let go, but because I was running away at the time he grabbed me, the camera showed the view behind me and away from the monster so there was no way to save myself. This can be annoying especially when trying to combo melee moves from one guy to another but it's a small annoyance and really shouldn't spoil your enjoyment of this game too much.
Sequel's are supposed to be bigger and better in everyway, inFamous 2 ticks both these boxes with flying colours and stands out in an industry with a lot of wannabe's. It falls short of being on a par with an Uncharted or Mass Effect but it's certainly worthy of it's place as a big gaming franchise, Sucker Punch, welcome to the big time, I'm sure you'll be here to stay.
9/10
