So if you've read in the subtext of this blog, you'll note that I have some pretty positive feelings towards the Infamous series. Just a good set of sandbox games that are well built, fun to play, and have a decent story. Neither of them ever really got a full write up on this blog. Now, I was pretty excited about the idea of a new Infamous on my shiny new PS4, but I wasn't crazy about the look of the main character and the story seemed all but wrapped up with nowhere to go. But why stop a good thing right? So with the first major PS4 exclusive I've been waiting on, lets knuckle down with...
INFAMOUS: SECOND SON (PS4)
It's been 7 years since the incident in New Marais back in Infamous 2, where Cole MacGrath fought back the Beast and used the Ray Field Inhibitor to kill the Beast, cure the plague sweeping the nation, and sacrifice himself and everyone carrying the conduit gene. Cole was given a hero's viking funeral and all seemed to be restored to order.
Now the conduit gene begins to resurface, and activated conduits are heralded as Bio-Terrorists and being rounded up and arrested by the DUP (Department of Unified Protection). The DUP is run by Brooke Augustine, a conduit with the power to control concrete at her whim, and has used said power to forcefully detain other conduits.
Delsin Rowe is an Akomish Native American, graffiti artist, and a small town delinquent. While tagging a billboard to harass his brother Reggie (the local sheriff) and his subsequent arrest by his brother, the DUP military convoy carrying a number of conduits crashes in front of them. While Reggie immediately goes into police mode and tries to pursue two of the escapees, Delsin finds a fallen conduit named Hank in the wreckage and tries to help him out, but by grabbing his hand the contact from an activated conduit activates his own conduit gene and awakes Delsin's latent abilities, allowing Delsin to copy the ability to absorb and use smoke like powers.
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| Reggie is obviously the straightman and moral compass to Delsin's "tude". He's a bit of a D-bag but his heart is generally in the right place. |
In a panic, Delsin pursues Hank try to get himself fixed, but they are stopped and confronted by Augustine. She encases Hank in concrete and confronts Delsin about what he had heard, stabbing through his leg bones with spears of concrete. Delsin blacks out from the pain, and comes to to realize Augustine tortured many of the Akomish tribe, leaving them with painful and terminal concrete shards in their bones. After a brief confrontation with his brother, Delsin realizes the only way to fix this is get Augustine (or her power) and bring her back.
I was somewhat curious if this game was going to follow along with the story line from the previous Infamous titles or not because it seemed like the story to the previous titles pretty much had a definitive ending, which is something you don't really see anymore these days. While it does find ways to link the stories together, Delsin's story really should be taken by its own merits since there is a significant portion of timeline between Cole's death and the events that start the Second Son story.
Infamous has always been a beacon of solidly built and fluid control in gaming, and for the most part I would say that remains consistent here. There are no wasted buttons for the most part, flying around town is easy, combat is fast and fun. Its pretty much everything that I would like in a sandbox title. If I had to nag on something, I would say that its climbing controls feel a bit more sticky this time around. Infamous 1 you could fly around and climb with relative ease, but you were occasionally only stopped by a chain link fence. Infamous 2 added the addition of the Ice Launch which would rocket you up the building making things even easier.
And to be fair Infamous: Second Son has something similar for rocketing up buildings depending on your powers, but if there are moments that require precision climbing or a ledge that might just be out of reach you will be falling to the old mash the jump standby to keep springing off the wall, and for whatever reason Delsin never seems to grab the section that I would like him to or I get caught in this loop of kicking off the same area of wall trying to get to the ledge I'm aiming for like 40 button presses. Its annoying, but not a common problem through game play to make it a jarring flaw.
The powers "bases" seem to be a bit more abstract this time around. Cole had the lighting which was a good base and fun to use, and the addition of fire and ice powers made sense in a logical standpoint. But Delsin didn't get something so cut and dry. After coming into contact with Hank, he absorbs the ability to manipulate smoke. Which is cool in concept, for example one of the fast ways to scale a building with smoke is to find a vent near the bottom and pass through that in smoke form, allowing you to rocket up the building a fire out the top like a cannon.
Although, with smoke a few liberties are taken as a good portion of his attacks could have easily been "fire" instead and had the same kinda effect. But since that was done with Nyx in Infamous 2 I suppose they didn't want to copy it straight off. There is a cool ability that nearly breaks the game in his smoke grenade. It does non-lethal damage but stuns that whole area for a few seconds. So instead of engaging a firefight you can smoke the area, charge in and then execute or subdue the enemies in a single pass. It may not get all of them but you can tear through the fodder with ease.
In addition to the smoke abilities, as you progress through the game you will also be able to harness the abilities of Neon and Video, which each have their own cool little tricks to it. A number of the main differences between them are more or less how you get around. Neon is weaker than smoke but it makes you move super fast and also functions as your snipe ability, and the grenade puts enemies in a stasis so you can pick your shot.
Video is more of a stealth options where you can leave an after image for the enemies to shoot at while you sneak behind them and pin them down with digital swords. They all have their varied strengths so you can opt to level them as you please if you put in the work to find the blast shards to level them all. There are melee attacks too with a chain, but they cease to be useful pretty much after the first few encounters. While they do enough to play differently, I felt some wider variance to the abilities might have been nice.
Like the previous Infamous titles, the story is also followed by a moral choice system. As you travel around the city, there are various little "to-do's" you can do to affect your alignment. You can fly around the city and stop drug deals from going down or released captured suspects for a moral boost, or you can just attack random street musicians or protesters descend into infamy.
But as you play through the game, there a handful of major story events where you have to make a moral decision, this will have a stronger affect on your alignment and it alters how the story conversations play out giving it either a more feel good or darker tone. Replaying the opening mission and then choosing different options showed me that the story can take two incredibly different vibes depending on how you chose, which is great because this means multiple play throughs.
What bugs me about it though is in the weeks up to the games release there were news rumblings on sites like Kotaku, Destructoid, or QJ saying that Sucker Punch Games "wanted you to really think about the decisions you made". Guess what, you failed. Each decisions that you make its literally sugar coated with GOOD and EVIL dressings. Aside from having bright blue and red text, the decisions are like "Turn yourself in" or "Sell out your tribe." Or when you are at points are about to get a new power, the options are "Redeem" or "Corrupt".
I love the concept of a moral choice system, but so far I don't think I have ever played a single game that has ever gotten the system actually right. There are two major problems for this is: One, you are rewarded for going all one direction or the other. If you make one good or bad decisions, you better be prepared to make all of them go that way because if you don't you are going to be stuck with middling abilities that are lack luster while all the real powerful gear or abilities are locked away because you tried to make your choices naturally. If someone chooses to play neutral why not just make their current abilities stronger, just having less of them?
Two, there is no fucking grey area with the decisions. Like I said a paragraph ago, there is no thought process required in making these decisions. For example, say in a game like this an elderly woman falls down in the street. The moral choices in a game like this would be something like "Stop all traffic and then help them up, carry them the hospital and cover the medical expenses and mow her lawn while she recovers" or "Strangle her brand new puppy to death in front of her while pissing in the face crying grandchild before walking away to back her car over her." Couldn't I just walk away? Why can't there be a middle ground, why is always the worst of two extremes? Or at the very least make the two options that you have viable but difficult for different reasons.
If you look at something like TellTale games The Walking Dead that is a game that at least gives you some difficult decisions to make that have some serious impacts on the game at large, and gives you varied degrees of middle ground in each case. It likes to put you in situations where you are basically fucked either way you pick so you have to deal with consequences regardless, and that never seems to be the case in moral choice games like these. Mass Effect has gotten close but again, its better to be all paragon or renegade than middle ground. Since we are getting to the point where games are taking up 50 gigs of space, I really want to see some serious thought coming in on future moral choices.
The game is visually stunning. I'm never one to throw a hissy fit when my game isn't constantly running at 60 frames a second, and the only time I every actually complain about it is when it gets as bad as Mugen Souls got. To the point where game play is so choppy it makes it almost unplayable. For the most part all of the animations and transitions are smooth, and the game never slows down. This is impressive with all the smoke and neon effects as you are constantly absorbing abilities and firing off beams and explosions.
When looking over the visualscape (which I think is a word I just made up), I did have concern that things were going to be dark and gritty since that appears to be the trend in games. There was also a concern that because the game was set in Seattle, I was afraid we'd get just a generic city setting and a constantly rainy atmosphere. To be fair, there is a fair amount of that, but when you are skimming the rooftops you will also be treated to beautiful sunsets, a glimmering coast line, and colorful neon lights around the city.
I think graphically the only thing that I am kind offset by is the actual character models. The Infamous games are actually pretty notorious for this in the fact that the characters somehow manage to look incredibly lifelike or cartoony at the exact same time. It is very strange to me and I can never seem to put my finger on why it is it just feels so... off. This game was mo-capped like Beyond: Two Souls was, but has a very different look. This was compounded by fact that I was already a little sketchy about Delsin's overall look. The beanie, the jean jacket it, the skinny jeans. Bleh.. that is so not my look, I don't care how punk rock he is supposed to be..
But then he spoke in a very familiar voice, and I think its official: I'm totally gay for Troy Baker. This guy's voice is in everything. Kanji from Persona 4, Joel from The Last of Us, Vincent in Catherine, Booker in Bioshock Infinite, Male voice 1 in Saints Row, even in roles I didn't much care for him in (James in Silent Hill 2), Baker just continues to knock it out of the park in every role he portrays in every video game he is in, and Infamous: Second Son is no exception. Inside of two or three cutscenes I went from "Delsin is a douchebag punk" to "Delsin is the coolest guy ever". Yeah, perhaps that is biased journalism but I don't care. Troy can have the lead role in every video game for the rest of ever for all I care.
I suppose the biggest problem in this game, is the one that everyone has already bandied about. The game is short. REALLY short. Like can beat in a 24 hour span kinda short. I received the game later on a Tuesday and by Wednesday evening I was pretty much already done with the story. Sure there were a handful of additional missions and collectibles to do but for the most part I had completed Infamous: Second Son. I could go back and play it again making the other decisions but essentially for a single play though I didn't feel the length a 60$ game should be. There is some additional content like the paper trail DLC missions but I don't know if that is going to grab me the way I would have liked it to. You know what this game needs? An online mode. CTF or deathmatch with conduit abilities on a massive map? Sign me up.
Here's the deal: Infamous: Second Son is one damn good game. They have the sandbox formula pretty much down pat and if they keep creating content for this series than all the better. They teased some very cool ability ideas that I would have loved to see put into practice here, but as it stands right now, we get a very short but fulling experience. This somewhat feels like a game that was rushed out a bit to try to start moving Playstation 4 units and to that end it is succeeding. But you are really still paying 60 bucks for a 5-8 hour experience. A really good experience mind you, just a really short one too. If that price tag for that length is too hefty, I wouldn't blame you for holding off on this one.
I was somewhat curious if this game was going to follow along with the story line from the previous Infamous titles or not because it seemed like the story to the previous titles pretty much had a definitive ending, which is something you don't really see anymore these days. While it does find ways to link the stories together, Delsin's story really should be taken by its own merits since there is a significant portion of timeline between Cole's death and the events that start the Second Son story.
 |
| There is sort of a dystopian feel to the overall story and setting. It takes place farther in the future so it makes sense, but I don't know if I care for it. |
Infamous has always been a beacon of solidly built and fluid control in gaming, and for the most part I would say that remains consistent here. There are no wasted buttons for the most part, flying around town is easy, combat is fast and fun. Its pretty much everything that I would like in a sandbox title. If I had to nag on something, I would say that its climbing controls feel a bit more sticky this time around. Infamous 1 you could fly around and climb with relative ease, but you were occasionally only stopped by a chain link fence. Infamous 2 added the addition of the Ice Launch which would rocket you up the building making things even easier.
And to be fair Infamous: Second Son has something similar for rocketing up buildings depending on your powers, but if there are moments that require precision climbing or a ledge that might just be out of reach you will be falling to the old mash the jump standby to keep springing off the wall, and for whatever reason Delsin never seems to grab the section that I would like him to or I get caught in this loop of kicking off the same area of wall trying to get to the ledge I'm aiming for like 40 button presses. Its annoying, but not a common problem through game play to make it a jarring flaw.
 |
| Climbing is not as tight as before, but still fast and functional. |
The powers "bases" seem to be a bit more abstract this time around. Cole had the lighting which was a good base and fun to use, and the addition of fire and ice powers made sense in a logical standpoint. But Delsin didn't get something so cut and dry. After coming into contact with Hank, he absorbs the ability to manipulate smoke. Which is cool in concept, for example one of the fast ways to scale a building with smoke is to find a vent near the bottom and pass through that in smoke form, allowing you to rocket up the building a fire out the top like a cannon.
Although, with smoke a few liberties are taken as a good portion of his attacks could have easily been "fire" instead and had the same kinda effect. But since that was done with Nyx in Infamous 2 I suppose they didn't want to copy it straight off. There is a cool ability that nearly breaks the game in his smoke grenade. It does non-lethal damage but stuns that whole area for a few seconds. So instead of engaging a firefight you can smoke the area, charge in and then execute or subdue the enemies in a single pass. It may not get all of them but you can tear through the fodder with ease.
In addition to the smoke abilities, as you progress through the game you will also be able to harness the abilities of Neon and Video, which each have their own cool little tricks to it. A number of the main differences between them are more or less how you get around. Neon is weaker than smoke but it makes you move super fast and also functions as your snipe ability, and the grenade puts enemies in a stasis so you can pick your shot.
Video is more of a stealth options where you can leave an after image for the enemies to shoot at while you sneak behind them and pin them down with digital swords. They all have their varied strengths so you can opt to level them as you please if you put in the work to find the blast shards to level them all. There are melee attacks too with a chain, but they cease to be useful pretty much after the first few encounters. While they do enough to play differently, I felt some wider variance to the abilities might have been nice.
 |
| The neon effects in this game are really fucking cool. |
Like the previous Infamous titles, the story is also followed by a moral choice system. As you travel around the city, there are various little "to-do's" you can do to affect your alignment. You can fly around the city and stop drug deals from going down or released captured suspects for a moral boost, or you can just attack random street musicians or protesters descend into infamy.
But as you play through the game, there a handful of major story events where you have to make a moral decision, this will have a stronger affect on your alignment and it alters how the story conversations play out giving it either a more feel good or darker tone. Replaying the opening mission and then choosing different options showed me that the story can take two incredibly different vibes depending on how you chose, which is great because this means multiple play throughs.
What bugs me about it though is in the weeks up to the games release there were news rumblings on sites like Kotaku, Destructoid, or QJ saying that Sucker Punch Games "wanted you to really think about the decisions you made". Guess what, you failed. Each decisions that you make its literally sugar coated with GOOD and EVIL dressings. Aside from having bright blue and red text, the decisions are like "Turn yourself in" or "Sell out your tribe." Or when you are at points are about to get a new power, the options are "Redeem" or "Corrupt".
 |
| Along the way you will meet other conduits for abilities, and they play the main factors for the game's moral choice system. |
I love the concept of a moral choice system, but so far I don't think I have ever played a single game that has ever gotten the system actually right. There are two major problems for this is: One, you are rewarded for going all one direction or the other. If you make one good or bad decisions, you better be prepared to make all of them go that way because if you don't you are going to be stuck with middling abilities that are lack luster while all the real powerful gear or abilities are locked away because you tried to make your choices naturally. If someone chooses to play neutral why not just make their current abilities stronger, just having less of them?
Two, there is no fucking grey area with the decisions. Like I said a paragraph ago, there is no thought process required in making these decisions. For example, say in a game like this an elderly woman falls down in the street. The moral choices in a game like this would be something like "Stop all traffic and then help them up, carry them the hospital and cover the medical expenses and mow her lawn while she recovers" or "Strangle her brand new puppy to death in front of her while pissing in the face crying grandchild before walking away to back her car over her." Couldn't I just walk away? Why can't there be a middle ground, why is always the worst of two extremes? Or at the very least make the two options that you have viable but difficult for different reasons.
 |
| I guess you have to look like a smug mother fucker for a super move. Because when you hit the ground you ruin a lot of people's days. |
If you look at something like TellTale games The Walking Dead that is a game that at least gives you some difficult decisions to make that have some serious impacts on the game at large, and gives you varied degrees of middle ground in each case. It likes to put you in situations where you are basically fucked either way you pick so you have to deal with consequences regardless, and that never seems to be the case in moral choice games like these. Mass Effect has gotten close but again, its better to be all paragon or renegade than middle ground. Since we are getting to the point where games are taking up 50 gigs of space, I really want to see some serious thought coming in on future moral choices.
The game is visually stunning. I'm never one to throw a hissy fit when my game isn't constantly running at 60 frames a second, and the only time I every actually complain about it is when it gets as bad as Mugen Souls got. To the point where game play is so choppy it makes it almost unplayable. For the most part all of the animations and transitions are smooth, and the game never slows down. This is impressive with all the smoke and neon effects as you are constantly absorbing abilities and firing off beams and explosions.
When looking over the visualscape (which I think is a word I just made up), I did have concern that things were going to be dark and gritty since that appears to be the trend in games. There was also a concern that because the game was set in Seattle, I was afraid we'd get just a generic city setting and a constantly rainy atmosphere. To be fair, there is a fair amount of that, but when you are skimming the rooftops you will also be treated to beautiful sunsets, a glimmering coast line, and colorful neon lights around the city.
 |
| You can often find yourself just looking around at things. The game is stunning. |
But then he spoke in a very familiar voice, and I think its official: I'm totally gay for Troy Baker. This guy's voice is in everything. Kanji from Persona 4, Joel from The Last of Us, Vincent in Catherine, Booker in Bioshock Infinite, Male voice 1 in Saints Row, even in roles I didn't much care for him in (James in Silent Hill 2), Baker just continues to knock it out of the park in every role he portrays in every video game he is in, and Infamous: Second Son is no exception. Inside of two or three cutscenes I went from "Delsin is a douchebag punk" to "Delsin is the coolest guy ever". Yeah, perhaps that is biased journalism but I don't care. Troy can have the lead role in every video game for the rest of ever for all I care.
 |
| I think we are reaching a point where video game motion capture is becoming a legitimate form of acting. Like Onimusha before, characters are modeled after the actors portraying them. |
I suppose the biggest problem in this game, is the one that everyone has already bandied about. The game is short. REALLY short. Like can beat in a 24 hour span kinda short. I received the game later on a Tuesday and by Wednesday evening I was pretty much already done with the story. Sure there were a handful of additional missions and collectibles to do but for the most part I had completed Infamous: Second Son. I could go back and play it again making the other decisions but essentially for a single play though I didn't feel the length a 60$ game should be. There is some additional content like the paper trail DLC missions but I don't know if that is going to grab me the way I would have liked it to. You know what this game needs? An online mode. CTF or deathmatch with conduit abilities on a massive map? Sign me up.
Here's the deal: Infamous: Second Son is one damn good game. They have the sandbox formula pretty much down pat and if they keep creating content for this series than all the better. They teased some very cool ability ideas that I would have loved to see put into practice here, but as it stands right now, we get a very short but fulling experience. This somewhat feels like a game that was rushed out a bit to try to start moving Playstation 4 units and to that end it is succeeding. But you are really still paying 60 bucks for a 5-8 hour experience. A really good experience mind you, just a really short one too. If that price tag for that length is too hefty, I wouldn't blame you for holding off on this one.
I really need to find a better name for this blog.
I haven't raged at a game in fucking months.
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