Resistance: Fall Of Man
- Sony PS3 RESISTENCE FALL OF MAN
Resistance: Fall of Man PS3 Resistance: Fall of Man, the U.S. and Britain band together in a last-ditch effort to save Europe and Asia from a horrific scourge. In mere decades, the Chimera — a species of unknown origin propagating a virus that converts other life forms into more Chimera — has overrun Russia and all of Europe. Humanity’s hope for survival is slim, and the tide of the battle rests on the shoulders of U.S. Army Ranger, Sgt. Nathan Hale. Players dive into a deep frightening story
Rating: 
(out of 301 reviews)
List Price: $ 29.99
Price: $ 23.00
Infamous
- Change the outcome of the game at every turn as citizens and city environment itself react to, and are impacted by your in-game actions.
- Take on the role of Cole, an everyday guy who develops a super-human powers and must decide whether to use these for the good of Empire City and its people or their detriment.
- Discover, grow and wield a wide range of electricity-based super powers against enemies using standard weapons as wells as comparable special abilities.
- Utilize Cole¿s climbing skills as you scale the cityscape and discover new vantage points, vaious offense and defensive tactics and employ inFAMOUS’ vertical combat system.
- Experience the complete freedom to accept structured mission play options, or to explore the deep, open-world design of Empire City.
A massive explosion rips through six square blocks of Empire City, leveling everything and everyone in its path. At the center of the blast crater a lone man stands up miraculously unharmed… gifted with incredible powers. From the creators of the award-winning Sly Cooper series, Sucker Punch brings you Infamous, the first open-world action/adventure title by SCEA, for the PlayStation 3. Players experience what happens when a real person suddenly starts developing super powers. Exac
Rating: (out of 315 reviews)
List Price: $ 29.99
Price: $ 22.88
Review by Sky for Resistance: Fall Of Man
Rating:
No one can resist the urge to keep playing Resistance: Fall of Man once the game is started. Chapter after chapter of exhilarating battles against a plethora of creatures that you use a plethora of weapons to defeat (and they’ll use them against you too).
To really put the plot of the game in context (if you care about the plot), it’s well worth the visit to the official Resistance: Fall of Man web site; there’s a ton of story there that I’d bet 90% of the people who start the game are unaware of. For me, the story helped me “get into character” for the game. If you just want to start wasting some nasty beasts, “Get to it, soldier!” Rest assured, the story won’t help you beat the enemies or evade the barrage of defenses that will be fired at you by them.
As a relatively new gamer, I’m glad that I played Call of Duty 3 Call of Duty 3 before I cracked open Resistance: Fall of Man. It was good FPS training (set in approximately the same time period) for this much more difficult PS3 title.
Resistance has an M (mature gamers only) rating which miffs me a bit, but then I’m a bit more liberal when it comes to what I think might warp the little minds of kids these days. I’ve seen this classified as a Horror title, but I think that Sci-fi Action is much more fitting. Resistance deserved a T (teen) rating. My kids and I get hung up all too often on sunny days playing Resistance’s Co-op Mode when we should be outside playing ball. And hopefully that alone speaks volumes as to how addictively fun this game is.
Co-op Mode is split screen of course because the game is FPS; it would be nice if some games could give the option of switching to a single screen, third person view for Co-op in order to negate the need for split screen, but that would distinctly change to look, range, feel and some of the weaponry…so I assume that’s why it’s never offered on Co-op mode.
Multi-player is very cool. Multi-player is not like Co-op where you play the Campaign Mode with a partner. In Multi-player you battle against your friends offline (4 player max/split screen) or online (40 player max/full screen). You get some areas of battle to play in that you encountered in Campaign Mode and some new map scematics.
But Resistance’s real challenge is in single player Campaign Mode.
Your weapons are plentiful. You start with a pretty standard machine gun (M5A2) that includes a grenade launcher that will become your best “little friend” in the game. It’s very useful on the enemies that you encounter most throughout the game. You also get several mean weapons that you pick up from your fallen comrades and defeated beasts including the enemy’s main machine gun (The Bullseye…very handy), grenades, a shotgun, a sniper rifle, a radiation blaster (The Auger), a mine thrower, a rapid fire subsonic bolt dispenser (The Hailstorm) and a rocket launcher.
Grenades are key to survival…use them, but you’ll want to keep in mind that you can run out real real fast…so use them pretty much exclusively to take down groups of enemies.
(And five other weapons aside from the ones that I mentioned above are unlocked only after beating/completing the game once on medium difficulty or higher.)
If you missed the countless gamer magazines’ synopsises of the creature types and the power of the individual weapons, there are some great gamer help web sites that are worth taking a look at to help you strategize (just click on my profile above and email me if you’d like me to point you in the right direction).
And speaking of getting pointed in the right direction, part of the fun of this game is figuring out on your own how to get from chapter to chapter. There are no maps, which at times was frustrating. Let me tell you that if the phrase “the best route is not always the most obvious” ever applied to trying to get from here to there it applies in this game on more than one occasion.
You’ll also need to at times navigate a jeep and a tank.
So what exactly are you fighting? Where exactly did they come from? If you’re up to the challenge to find out….You’re Sgt. Nathan Hale, and you’re the only one with a Resistance to the Fall of Man. Prepare for some serious battle.
Review by Lisa Shea for Resistance: Fall Of Man
Rating:
Resistance – Fall of Man is a first person shooter that combines World War II era environments with Doom-like horrific enemies to fight. It also offers great online multiplayer gameplay.
The plot is that, around the time of World War II, enemies attacked the world, starting with Russia and moving westward through Europe and England. In the 50s, the US launched a counter-attack, landing in England. You’re fighting, at least to start with, with WWII era weapons and outfits through the streets of England.
Let’s start with the graphics. The game goes for a very Call of Duty style of look – not quite realistic, more “cartooney” or stylized. Textures are smoothed out, some objects are simplified. That’s not to say this is a Disney kiddie look. The monsters are grimey and nasty looking, the war-torn streets are very gritty. If anything, because this is set in a WWII type atmosphere, much of the game is brown, grimy and shell-shocked.
The HUD is reasonably well done and not intrusive. A small series of bars on the left indicates your health. An equally small but useful display on the right tracks your ammo, magazines and grenades.
The sound leans towards epic thundering scores, a la Gladiator or Conan. Players who love heavy rock music might not enjoy this, but I actually love this kind of music. I own both of the soundtracks I mentioned
. So to me, this really draws you into the atmosphere. The yells, gun noises and so on seem relatively realistic to help you feel you’re really in the middle of a fight. I also like that, during gameplay, it’s usually done without music. If I’m trying to sneak somewhere and listen for enemy movement, I don’t want that objective made difficult by a soundtrack.
Gameplay itself is typical FPS fare. You can crouch, jump over things, zoom in on your enemy, throw grenades, strafe, and so on. Your friends and enemies are rather good about taking cover and not just rushing an enemy head-on. There are a few situations which seem quite scripted – if your pals are meant to die, you could play perfectly and take out every enemy quickly and your friends will still be killed by mysterious off-screen snipers. Still, the game needs to keep you on course for the plot so this is to be expected.
Checkpointing is reasonably good, although sometimes it sends you further back then you might like to start again. Healing is done via canisters you find, but depending on your skill you might wish there were more canisters scattered around
. That’s why they have 3 levels of difficulty here.
The interactivity with your environment is pretty impressive. Say your enemy is hiding behind a car. You can shoot out the car’s windows and then shoot the enemy through the open space. Or you can shoot the car to damage it, and have it explode a la the infamous ‘red exploding barrels’ found in most shooting games. If you shoot at a window a few times, it will first crack, then pieces will fall out.
Not only is the game great in single player mode, but you can play co-op with a friend at your home, or online in larger groups with friends or strangers from around the world. This helps turn the game from a play-for-a-few-months-at-home style game to a play-eternally-with-friends-online game.
Well recommended!
Review by Michael A. Conforti for Resistance: Fall Of Man
Rating:
I don’t know how any one can get the real picture on this game with reviews from the fanboys and haters being so predominant. I hope my review is helpful to you.
This is the best first-person-shooter for a SONY platform. The gameplay is fun and solid. Controls are responsive and, as stated by another reviewer, hit detection is accurate. It’s a must own launch title for the PS3.
The graphics are in a bit “flat”. They don’t have that multi-dimension feel that I expected from a next-gen title on such a powerful system. There’s no depth to inanimate objects such as grass, boxes, chairs and so forth. Also, you can just run right through dead characters. You don’t have the ability to push the bodies around. Also, when walking through grass you literally walk “through” it. It doesn’t move you just pass through it. The environments also aren’t very interactive. There’s not much more you can do besides run, hide and shoot.
The smoothness of the gameplay is impressive. Even when there are loads of characters on screen everything still runs smoothly. This is a testament to the PS3′s power. That being said, it also means that this game doesn’t really stress the hardware. Resistance delivers and goods and does everything well.
We have to remember that the PS3 is still in its infancy and has a way to go before the software catches up to the hardware. We’ll have to wait for the next round of high end games to find out just what the PS3 is capable of.
Review by IMALLVOL7 for Resistance: Fall Of Man
Rating:
I am really, really picky about my FPS’s. Over the years, only Halo, Halo 2, Half Life 2, Socom 2, and Counterstrike have been able to make me say “wow” and keep playing for months. My games have to have it all (story, gameplay, online, sound). This is another one to add to that list. Resistance is all around incredible. I would say this is one of my favorite games ever (and thats saying a ton for a launch title). The single player comes second only to Half Life 2 and the multiplayer is on par and may be even a little better than the rest of the titles I mentioned. I have been playing relentlessly since launch and plan to play for months to come. Throw in the coop op mode and all the unlockables and leveling up in the online game and you have an instant classic.
Probably the biggest stand out in the game are the weapons. This game has a weapon that shoots through walls for goodness sake. The sniper rifle slows down time. Even the rocket launcher can be stopped in midair, fire its own volley of rockets, and then be aimed again and launched in another direction. Its just amazing how much thought and innovation went into these weapons. The sound is great, the story in engaging, and the graphics are very good. They aren’t Gears of War good, but then again, Resistance puts more than 4 creatures on the screen at ones and keeps a steady framerate.
And last but not least, the online play (20 vs 20) is LAG FREE. I have yet to see one instance of lag in my entire time playing the online game, and everyone else seems to have the same results.
All in all, this game is amazing, and the fact that it is a launch title makes it all the more impressive. BUY THIS NOW. If your waiting to buy your ps3, BUY IT THEN.
Review by Aekero for Resistance: Fall Of Man
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One thing you’re sure to hear from 360 fanboys is how Gears of War blows away Resistance, etc etc. Since I own both systems, I went ahead and gave this game a shot a couple days ago, and I was _not_ disappointed. The game may not be as pretty, but it still looks great, and is a blast to play. I wished for a while that there was a cover feature like Gears, but really every other shooter I’ve played doesn’t have it, and I was used to it within minutes.
Pros –
* Campaign plays like a story, feels like you’re playing through history.
* Co-op campaign mode, I’m a big fan of this, for me it makes the game much more enjoyable.
* Great gameplay and graphics, not quite GoW quality, but looks awesome on an HDTV, controls and gameplay are standard, but pretty much flawless.
* Easy to launch into multiplayer play, I downloaded the patch and was playing (for free even) within a couple of minutes with 39 other people in the game, fun stuff.
* Atmospheric, great AI. Challenging for all skills levels, get a feeling of immersion playing through.
* Weapons! These can make or break a shooter…if the weapons aren’t fun to shoot, then a shooter can lose it’s appeal quickly. I enjoyed pretty much every gun you get, but I didn’t really understand why you need to beat the game to get access to a few new weapons…not a good reason to replay a game in my opinion.
Cons –
* Not _quite_ the graphics I expected from PS3, but it’s first gen, so very minute complaint. Only supports 720p – I’m actually not sure if this going to be standard for PS3 games, or later games will be 1080p, (ala blu-ray)but it would have been that much nicer for it to look that much better. If you don’t own an HDTV, don’t worry about this, if you do, you might not even have 1080p resolution, so this “problem” really doesn’t apply to most people.
* I’m noticing a trend here with games like this where the campaign is only around 10 hrs…it’s a great 10, but it kinda sucks to be done in a couple of days, and I don’t gain much satisfaction from beating it on a harder difficulty. (I beat it on medium)That being said, the free multiplayer option is nice. (Also, it’s about 10hrs not including restarts, moving at a fairly fast clip through the game, it could take novice players double that at medium difficulty)
Overall -
Very fun to play through the story, I honestly got as much of a kick out of it as I did GoW…very similar yet somehow not as mindless in presentation. If you want to play through the story once, and don’t enjoy multiplayer, _RENT IT_. If you like playing through on different difficulties, or especially if you enjoy multiplayer shooters, _BUY IT_.
4.5 stars.
Review by Bearcat for Infamous
Rating:
Infamous is a great game. Just how great it is depends on your taste in games. This is not a run and gun shooter like Killzone 2 or Resistance. This game is more a mix of a shooter with platform game elements. You play Cole who through some mysterious manner (explosion) has developed electrical “super powers”. You are basically locked on an island ala “Escape from New York” style. You can scale buildings, poles, train tracks, almost any structure you can get your hands on. Scaling up the side of a building or up the beams supporting the train tracks is a lot more fun than I thought it would be. The best part of your super powers are your electrical abilities. You can zap enemies with lighting similar to Star Wars Jedi, you can throw “energy grenades” which are lethal and you can develop other powers. The powers you develop depend on whether you choose to be “good” or “evil”. You get certain special powers down each path you take. If you help civilians and do other good deeds/missions you are basically taking the “good” path. If you decide to crisp the good old civilians like bacon and do “evil” missions then you go down the “evil” path.
This “good vs. evil” choice is actually implemented very well, much better than I thought it would be. I will be playing this game through a second time in order to see how the other path develops and ends. Overall the graphics are very good and the controls are pretty much spot on. I never had problems with targeting, etc. This is a great exclusive for the PS3. I waffled between giving this game 4 stars or 5 stars and ultimately decided on giving it 5 stars. I gave the game 5 stars because I felt the originality, story and gameplay were some of the best for a PS3 game. That’s ultimately how I judged this, compared to other PS3 games since this is a PS3 exclusive. This is definitely one of the top titles on the PS3 and for me personally is one of my top 5 PS3 games. If you are unsure about this game I recommend downloading the demo from the Playstation Store as it is a good representation of the game’s feel.
Review by D. C. Blanton for Infamous
Rating:
inFAMOUS is a superhero game about a guy named Cole who wakes up in the rubble of a large blast that killed thousands. When he awakes, he realizes he now has incredible powers, allowing him to absorb and control electricity. Shortly after the blast, the government has quarantined the city, Empire City. Empire City is made up of 3 islands, and each one has now been taken over by a different gang. The Neon is controlled by the druggies the Reapears, the Warrens has been taken over by the homeless now calling themselves The Dust Men, and the Historic District has been taken over by a secret organization called The First Sons.
Early in the game Cole gets in contact with an FBI agent named Moya who gives him information and missions, and tells him that if he can find her husband John, who disappeared after the blast, and bring her the Ray Sphere, the bomb that caused Cole to get his powers, she can get him out of Empire City.
The game is an open world sandbox type game, allowing you take on missions as you see fit. Early in the game Cole doesn’t have very many powers, but as you progress, you earn new powers by restoring power to the blacked out portions of the city.
Your basic attack, which also doesn’t spend any of your energy, is a lightning shot or bolt that Cole fires from his hand as quickly as you can press the R1 button (also while holding L1 to aim). You’ll also earn such powers as throwing electrical grenades, fire a rocket of elecrticity, summon a lightning storm, perform a sniper like precision shot, fire off a shock wave, and some others.
As you complete story missions and side missions, you earn XP. You also earn XP for killing bad guys, healing people, capturing bad guys, or draining enemies of their life. You spend this XP on upgrading your powers. The upgrades will be different depending on whether you want to be good or evil. Certain upgrades won’t even become available until you’ve reached a certain level on your Karma, Cole’s good and evil meter.
Early on in the game you need to decide whether you want to be good or bad. The game doesn’t really allow you to be somewhere in between. Although you could, it wouldn’t really benifit you much because you would never unlock the more powerful versions of your superpowers.
Throughout the game you’ll be given the choice to do something good or bad. Early in the game the government has dropped some food crates into the city. You’re given the choice to let the people in the city take the food, or you can be selfish and scare the people away and take the food for yourself and your girlfriend, Trish, and your best friend, Zeke. There are many more choices throughout the game similar to this.
One of the best things about this game is Cole’s ability to scale buildings. Almost anything you see is climbable, allowing Cole to make his way up buildings and light poles and whatever else very easily and quickly. If you’ve played Assassins Creed, then you pretty much get the idea. I’ve had more fun scaling buildings in this game than I ever have in any of the Spiderman games.
Cole will also unlock the ability to slide along power lines and train tracks, and use static thrusters to glide, which adds even more fun and depth to traveling around the city.
The graphics in this game are good, but not great, but defiantly not terrible either. Unfortunetly the game suffers from some pop in, but this is easily forgiven due to the fact that the only load screen you’ll ever see is when you first boot the game up. You’ll also notice some jagged edges here and there. But the characters look great, especially Cole. Even more so when Cole becomes really evil, as his clothes become really dirty and grimy, and his skin turns pale.
The sound in this game is good, with all the proper special effects you’d expect to hear from someone who can shoot lightning from their hands. And the voice acting is really top notch too.
The cutscenes are a joy to watch as their told in comic book style, with added elements of 3D and movement.
As far as negatives, the game is a tad bit glitchy. Sometimes when Cole goes to restrain a villian or leech the life out of someone, he kinda gets stuck on something and jerks around for a moment before finally unfreezing from the spot. Also, in my time with the game, at one point an enemy threw a grenade at me and I somehow fell through the floor and to my death.
The other big annoyance is that Cole has very sticky fingers. While this often makes some of the platforming easier than in most games, it can also become very annoying when all you want to do is drop to the ground but Cole keeps grabing every little thing between where you were standing and where you want to land.
If you get bored in the game, there are blast shards to collect, and for every so many, you’ll add another power node (your energy bar basically). You can also collect Dead Drops, which is audio recordings that help fill in the background of the main story.
There are 15 good guy missions and 15 bad guy missions, but every time you complete one, you lock out one of the others. So like I said, it’s good to decide early on whether you want to be good or bad. There are 40 story missions and I don’t know how many side missions, but there are quite a few. To get through the game probably takes a good 15 hours if you take the time to do every side mission and take the time to do some serious blast shard collecting.
I’ve beaten the game both as good and evil, and I must say that I enjoyed being evil a lot more. You can be a lot more destructive, plus Cole just looks really cool when he’s evil. There are three difficulties, and playing on Easy is in fact easy. Plus, on a positive note, the game uses a very good checkpoint system, so if you die during a mission you never have to backtrack that far or replay the same mission over and over. If you die while not in a mission, just in free roam, then you just respawn at a med clinic at no cost to you.
I very much love this game. It’s one of the best super hero games that I’ve ever played. I certaintly recommend it to anyone who loves a good action/platformer or anyone whose ever wanted to know just what it would feel like to have super powers.
Review by onipar for Infamous
Rating:
I’ve only played about 5 hours of this game, but I can tell you now that it is an amazing accomplishment, and worth your time and money.
If you’ve read any of the reviews for this game, you’ll see most of the negative points are about the graphics, repetitiveness of missions, and controlling Cole (namely the platforming aspects).
Taking these concerns head on, I’ll admit that yes, the graphics are good, but not great. For a sandbox/open world game, I find the graphics to be stellar, but of course they don’t stand up to games such as Killzone. This should *not* deter you from playing this game.
Granted, I’ve only put about 5 hours into the game so far, but I feel fairly confident in saying that anyone who complains about the missions being repetitive is just nit-picking. The main story missions are not only interesting and compelling, but move the story forward at the same time. The side missions range from the extremely short (I’m talking like less than 2 minutes–kill this group of reapers) to fairly long. In the missions you might have to destroy surveillance cameras, race across rooftops, usher a group of people through a barricade, or any number of other things.
Finally we come to Cole’s controls. This is another point that I happen to agree with (it can be hard to maneuver Cole into small spaces while climbing down a wall, for instance). And yet, once again, it’s nothing that should deter you from playing the game. It is, at most, a mild annoyance. Usually you won’t even notice a problem.
There is so much to do in this game (main missions, side missions, collect dead drops, collect shards, explore, upgrade powers, etc) that you will have a very hard time putting the game down. (That five hours I mentioned having played…that was in one session.) The developers were smart about the side missions and collectibles. You actually *want* to do it:
As you collect shards, it increases your power bar. As you collect dead drops, it uncovers new parts of the back story. As you do side missions, it opens up (clears) parts of the map. And for all these things, you’ll get trophies at certain check points (25% of shards collected for example).
The bottom line is this: 99% of the negative comments you’ve heard or read don’t take away from the fact that this game is FUN. Reviewers *have* to nitpick. It’s their jobs. But at the end of the day, none of the negatives amount to squat. Get this game, you will not regret it.
Review by Philip Norsworthy for Infamous
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Despite the game’s mostly positive reviews, there is a noticeable portion of professional reviewers who found it underwhelming. While the game does have a lot of good points, there are multiple issues that drag the game down.
Gameplay: The game lacks polish in many areas. I’ve encountered numerous glitchs, such as the camera suddenly going screwy when I go up against a wall, falling through the floor or sinking into buildings. While the glitches haven’t been as frequent for me as they are for other reviewers, they are definitely there. The Le Parkour aspect of the game is great, but Cole is too likely to cling to things that I’m not aiming for. The fact that you can’t climb chainlink surfaces is asinine. Combat is also often frustrating. The enemies are too accurate, and getting in the wrong position can lead to Cole getting killed before I can move him to a better tactical position. They also have slightly better range than Cole, and only show up on the radar at a certain distance, even if they can attack you and you can attack them.
A common criticism is that Cole’s electrical powers are just guns by a different name. This doesn’t bother me, but maybe I’m not creative enough to imagine different uses for them. It is very annoying that you can’t shock people by shooting metal objects near them, especially given how crowded the battlefield can be. The game’s primary attack requires you to go into an aiming mode, which can be problematic. You move slowly when in aiming mode, and you can’t see objects next to you, which sometimes blocks me when I’m trying to be a moving target. Another issue I have, even though it is a minor flaw (albiet one that makes battles more troublesome) is that in sniping mode, I don’t have fine enough control over the crosshair. It’s probably not a problem for most people, but the game has no auto aim, and when the enemies are in motion, and I’m sometimes in motion on a vehicle, I want as much control over the crosshair as possible, to be able to inch it into place instead of having it jump when I tilt the joystick slightly. Other problems are that the shockwave move has a very short range, and the grenade move bounces back easily, and can be difficult to throw behind objects.
Story: The story has some interesting bits, but it’s largely too straightforward for it’s own good. I had difficulty caring about the characters, and too much is left unresolved even for sequel hooks. I’m in the far minority here, even among negative critics, but I found the comic book cutscenes to be ultimately detrimental to the story. They’re an interesting gimmick, but by having the main character describe what happens, instead of showing us and hearing what the characters say, it’s harder to grow attached to them and to immerse yourself in the story. As for the supporting characters, they’re depressingly typical. Some of them have a little depth and charm, but not enough to overcome their faults. Of particular annoyance is the main character’s girlfriend, Trish (A reference to Devil May Cry? Who can say.) She initially blames you for what happens, and while it makes sense that someone who has gone through a tragedy would want someone to focus their grief on, she’s too snide about it (“You OWE us for what you did”) to remain likeable. Even in evil mode (where she has better reason to criticize you) she instantly blames you for every bad thing that happens, despite the gangs running loose in the city. They made her a nurse to establish that she cares about people, but it ends up feeling shallow and mostly serves to make her seem more self rightous. Finally, the main bad guy’s plan doesn’t make sense, but I’ll explain that in the comments for this review to avoid spoilers.
The Karma System: Many people complain that the moral choices are embarrassingly black and white, and the fact that the game stops to tell you your choices is akward. This is true, but it doesn’t bother me personally, since I’m not interested in karma systems beyond replay value. My complaints deal with how it affects the story and the side missions.
The main character, Cole McGrath is presented as a very average guy. He has little ambition, and doesn’t expect much from people. I think this is appropriate, even though Cole can sometimes be a little too apathetic to the situation at hand. The problem is that outside of a handful of cutscenes, Cole’s personality doesn’t change regardless of what you do. Combined with his largely neutral personality, it makes him hard to like, and takes some of the fun out of what morality you choose to be. For example, late in the game Cole has to make a particularly difficult moral choice. But even though I played as Good, I could not see Cole as the type of person who would be able to make the right choice in that situation.
This problem extends to side missions too. There are 2 different types of side missions, ones based on morality and generic ones. While playing as Good, these are no problem. But when playing as bad, they often don’t make sense. Why are civilians constantly making requests of Cole, if he’s always killing people who get in his way or tick him off? Some people might consider side missions irrelevant besides playing the mission and getting rewarded, but the fact that the gameplay and story separate so obviously show a lack of production values. The most blatant example in the game actually comes during a main mission where you have to team up with the police to guard a prisoner. Even if you’ve been playing the evil side missions that require you to kill a lot of cops, the game makes no attempt to explain away why they have no objections relying on him.
In my opinion, it’s hard to tell if someone will like this game. The problems have a lot to do with perception, and what the player expects from the game. But given how many people like it (and it is fun if you can work past it’s flaws) I’d at least recommend that someone try it out. But it’s best to go in expecting a good game, not one of the greatest games of the current generation.
Review by MARK DESANTO for Infamous
Rating:
After playing through one of the three islands in inFAMOUS I think I have a pretty good understanding of what inFAMOUS has to offer. In short–it’s the game I’ve been waiting to play for over 2 years. Ever since Crackdown’s release in early 2007 I’ve been itching for something that’s even remotely close to what that over-the-top, explosive world has to offers. Though different games overall it does seem to satiate the same appetite.
I love a game with a moral compass, at least when it’s put to good use, and inFAMOUS does a pretty decent job of doing that. To be frank–it’s not perfect though. inFAMOUS calls it’s moral system “Karma” and it takes form in a three-stage slide scale. The function of the Karma scale is to allow the player to unlock certain abilities, as they progress up the scale, to use and upgrade depending on your karmatic choices. Being a do-gooder will get you abilities that allow for more precise attacks, while acts of evil will allow for chaotic, power surging ones. For instance one exclusive evil power allows you the ability to slamming down onto the ground, shooting out electrical charges, in mid-jump.
The people of the city will act accordingly to you by cheering you on and taking your picture if you’re a hero, or gathering a mob around you booing and hissing as they throw rocks at you. It’s a pretty entertaining sight in some regards and really does help you feel like you’re affecting the world around you. It does remind me of the Fable series where people run up to you cheering and clapping over their head, but also like Fable I found myself wanting it to be a little more practical instead of for show. Assassin’s Creed did something relatively similar as well (though it’s a completely different scenario) where someone you save–which is effectively what you’re doing in inFAMOUS–actually physically restrain guards as you attempt to escape. I really would have liked to have seen Sucker Punch take this particular involvement with the cities people to the next level.
These morality choices are presented to you throughout the main story and then through side missions. There are two types of side missions: Regular ones, that are visible on your map in the form of a yellow exclamation mark, and then Karma based ones with either a red (evil) or green (good) circle around it. You will be offered to choose one of these karma-based missions and when completing, will wipe the alternate path off the map.
It just so happens that the single most important aspect of a video game is the one thing Sucker Punch really nailed–the gameplay. It just feels really really good to play! Running, jumping, dashing, climbing, sliding, punching..I mean I could go on and on for days here.
But being able to jump off of the main story’s mission line is an essential element to an open world game and inFAMOUS does this by offering a host of side quests that range anywhere from rescuing some captive civilians from some thugs (the Reapers gang) who are escorting them to certain death, to following–what is essentially a ghost–to where their killer is located. They’re interesting, fun and are repeated a few times throughout the first island (unsure of the second or third island). As you complete these side quests you are rewarded with experience (which is used to unlock more powers and upgrades) and a small “cleansed” segment of the cities territory. These cleansed segments will no long allow Reapers to respawn in their respective area. If you played Viking: Battle for Asgard, it very similar to that in that, aesthetically speaking, everything becomes a little brighter and cleaned up. It’s a nice and appreciated touch.
Initially one of my concerts about the game was transportation. I think Rockstar created a graceful solution, for an open world game, with the Taxi system that was introduced in GTAIV. They essentially act as a teleporter for the impatient (ME!), or a rollercoaster ‘o fun for the vacationers. But that particular system just wouldn’t make sense in inFAMOUS’s world, plus it would rob the game of it’s chance to remind you of how much of a bad mofo you really are. After a few hours of playing the game you unlock the ability to slide along power lines and it’s just a fast and fun way to get around. The first time you do it I guarantee it will pull a “woooo hooo!” out of you. But it really wasn’t until I repaired the cities train system that I stood up cheering for Cole. Once I hopped onto that crazy train (aaall aboooard HAHAHAHAHAH! -Ozzy) I realized that utilizing this system for transportation around the city would allow me to get from one side of the city to the other in no time. The sense of speed when you’re on top of one of these things just has to be experienced, and wait until you jump off that thing moving at those speeds.
For an open-world game I think the game, graphically speaking, looks great. After reading some comments on various gaming forums I think some people have too high of expectations for the current generations console’s rendering power (and the software that drives them). Rendering games like inFAMOUS and GTAIV are extremely taxing on these system’s resources because there is just so much going on. But to me, in the end, it really comes down to the art direction. It’s what separates the good from the bad (pun intended). If I had to pick, for comparisions sake, I would probably say GTAIV looking a bit better–mainly because of the impeccable city designs where nothing is copy & pasted. unofrtunately I did notice once or twice that the same building was being used in different areas of the same island, but just flipped around to disguise it. For some this is completely trival, but for me it was a bummer.
I do have a few others gripes too.
I adore the animated comic book style panel sequences that move the narrative along, but found the in-game cutscenes to be much lower in quality. It’s almost as if they were tacked on at the very end of development. They appears to be less polishing and are certainly not to the same levels of the rest of the game’s offerings. It actually left me wanting more of the well animated storyboarding instead.
The voice and general deign of Cole isn’t too spectacular either. Though I find his overall attire to be pretty cool, his face is rather bland. He looks like…well just some dude off of the street, which I suppose is the point, but now that he’s got all this power he’s not just some dude–he’s special. My point is that I think it would have done some good for the character to have some distinguishing physical marks (of some sort, just please no tattoos) left on him after the incident.
In regards to his voice, it appears to be straight out of the David Hayter school of video game voice acting but with less passion (and grunting). It’s dry and dull and does nothing to invoke more likability for Cole.
My final complaint might be insignificant to some, but for me it’s a point that is grating. There is a very slight and faint squeaking noise that is made when Cole runs. There are times when I completely forget about it and not hear it at all, but when I’ve been fighting or watching a cutscene for a while I immediately notice it as soon as I begin running again. I’m left scratching my head wondering why Sucker Punch left this in the game. What good does it add to the overall experience?
The good far outweigh the little gripes I have with inFAMOUS. With incredibly fun gameplay that just feels right, excellent graphics, spectacular music, a huge city to explore, excellent transport methods, a decent morality system, and wonderful fighting mechanics–this game is absolutely amazing!
For those that are interested there is more at eat-games.blogspot dot com