inFAMOUS 2 Review

As Infamous 2 begins you are Cole MacGrath the electricity fueled superhuman who saved Empire City in the previous game. As the final moments of the first game are recounted in the opening cutscene you are reintroduced to your foul mouthed but good natured sidekick Zeke and meeting all new character Lucy Kuo NSA agent and former lab partner of scientist Sebastian Wolfe, the man who invented the Ray Sphere, the device which gave Cole his powers. Quickly you are told about the impending attack by the Beast, the creature that is said to be the destroyer of the world. And just as you are refamiliarizing yourself with the comic book inspired world of Infamous the Beast appears in the center of Empire City and begins laying waste. As the superhero you jump into action but are quickly thwarted as you are not powerful enough to defeat the Beast. You wake up on a boat heading to New Marias with the task of becoming powerful enough to stop the Beast.

Infamous 2 begins with an amazing action sequence with Cole at the height of his powers from the first game, and as most of these games go, you are stripped of your powers when the Beast wipes the floor with you, and you must then regain you powers as well as discover all new powers. Infamous 2 doesn’t change much from the first game, and that’s a good thing, the first Infamous was a surprise hit from Sucker Punch, developers of the PS2 era Sly Cooper games. The game had a great open world with smooth and fun traversal mechanics that are still here and slightly improved. The game is still structured similarly with main story missions popping up on the map one at a time, as well as side missions that are mostly unique with a few repeated missions like bringing power to parts of the city or taking pictures of incriminating things to rally the people of New Marias to your cause to overthrow the maniacal Joseph Bertrand who has the city in lockdown with his private military scaring the citizens with the threat of Conduits (superpowerd people) and the Corrupted (bug-like monsters) on top of the stress of a  plague that is slowly killing thousands.

The gameplay hasn’t changed either; the game is still an immensely polished open world game with parkour style traversal. Layered on top is a third person action game with fin tuned shooting mechanics as well as a more in-depth fighting system. Sucker Punch amazes me with the amount of time they spend on every detail, the game not only looks better than the first, with more colors and better looking effects and a entirely new city, New Marias; which is even slightly destructible with some building crumbling nicely. But it also improves on existing mechanics like traversal, where the first game as Cole you could climb, glide for seconds at a time and, grind on rails in Infamous 2 gliding has been improved with more maneuverability as well as all new ways to get around like an electric tether that acts like a grappling hook making getting to the tops of building that much easier and fun. Shooting has remained the same with quick bolts of lightning acting like an average gun as well as grenades and rocket launcher variations using electricity. All the powers from the first game return, but there are entirely new elements in Infamous 2 to master; Fire or Ice, or because it’s one or the other, you can’t have both. There is a integral choice moment where you can decide and it relates to which female character do you wish to side with Nix (fire) the feisty Cajun native who wants to scorch those who have scorned her; Or Kuo (ice) the NSA agent who is trying to control her newly discovered powers as well as right past wrongs.The game does right by not making this a Karma based moment, though Good and Evil decisions define the actions you take across the entire game, no matter which side you are on you can choose the power you want most.

Infamous 2 does have problems, the bosses are always giant monsters and their defeat boils down to "hit the glowing parts" until their animation loop changes then hit the new spot. The main villain, Bertrand’s motivations are strange and nearly contradictory, he is a generic bad guy who needs to be defeated and so his purpose is served, but it is a bit disappointing considering the strong characterization the rest of the cast has been given. Probably the biggest improvement in Infamous 2 is the story and characters, the weight of your actions are also much more apparent.  The story while more dark and dire is given a sense of urgency as the Beast makes its way down from Empire City to New Marias destroying everything in its path. The characters are more fleshed out and more sympathetic, Zeke having betrayed you in a significant part of the previous game is shown the proper amount of trepidation from the rest of the characters as well as from Cole. Kuo and Nix are also really well realized character each affected by this world in different ways and even when they are used to choose between a good or evil karma mission their reasoning behind their choice is always relatable and it makes the decisions that much harder and subsequently better.

Infamous 2 is more of the same but better, all the things that were in the original game are here again, except gone over with a fine tooth comb to make an almost shockingly polished game. The new elemental powers are fun even if they are only slight variation of your existing powers. And the new arrays of enemies are tons more fun to fight, even hand-to-hand fighting which has been greatly improved over the first game is now a viable option. Most fun is traversal which has been speed up and added to with unique traversal specific powers. Infamous 2 is a smart sequel and a good step if not a huge leap forward in this new and exciting franchise. 

(4 out of 5)