Greatest Game Evar?

I’m no expert for video games but I know what I like. Every once in a while, you come across a game that tickles your fancy and won’t stop until your red in the face and gasping for air. It’s very possible, that InFamous for the PS3 is such a game.
I have only played it for an hour but it was a spell bound hour. It’s one of those games that, for me, the constellations of stars came into alignment and almost everything they did, so far, has been as close to perfection for a video game to achieve.
Bold words, no doubt.
I, am a huge fan of the story in a video game. I will admit, in recent years, I’ve turned the difficulty down to Easy on some games because…while their fighting systems are fun, I just know they are going to get repetitive. So I don’t care to die 23 times when fighting an end boss. I just want to get past him to see what’s next. I want the story more than I want the game-play.
After playing InFamous, even briefly, I let it roll around in my head to pick apart all the pieces and why it came together for me. Allow me to explain why the game play is so good, and then I can explain why the story is great.

First, the game seems to be taken some of what made Assassin’s Creed a good game. The free-form run everywhere. Assassin’s Creed was a good game, but not a great game. It did allow you to climb everything and that was great amounts of fun. I liked the combat system but it sounds like a lot of people who didn’t. The missions are repetitive and I completely ignored the flag acquiring missions (and thankfully, the game didn’t screw you for ignoring them). A.C. suffered because some of the required jumping was frustrating (not God of War frustrating but still). I died a couple of times from some really talk building falls. The missions are a little boring, because you did the same thing. Wandering around was neat but you had guards who couldn’t seem to recognize you yet Templars knew who you were the instant they saw you. Stealth seemed to amount to lowering your head and moving slower. You move at a brisk pace, especially later in the game, and the guards freak out on your ass. I guess people were allowed to ride horses but not very fast, back in the day. Again, it was a good game but not a great game. The best part being the ability to climb around the world.
InFamous does the same. And…well…better. Not much better, because not much needed to be improved. I was worried about the jumping controls but they are the most forgiving in a game and I’m thankful for that. If you miss your jump but are close, you’ll catch the object you were jumping on (rather than land on it). It’s very parkour in your running style which is almost getting overused but it’s still pretty fricken’ cool. But every once in a while you will miss your fall and plummet to the ground.
Which is pretty fricken’ awesome in InFamous. Why? Oh, I must have forgotten to mention it: InFamous (if you didn’t already know) is a superhero game. You are nigh-invulnerable (to falls at least, less so to bullets). And I don’t know about you, but when I fall a few stories, I really like the idea of cracking pavement under me. And InFamous does not fail to deliver. In fact, you can come down full of cracking lightning if you want. It’s pretty damn cool.
I wasn’t sold on the lightning powers at first. Who’s the most well known lightning guy out there? Electro. Who has the lamest costume next to the Riddler? That would be Electro again.
Regardless, the electricity powers are, without a doubt, a fantastic choice. I don’t even know where to start here.
First, they are flashy. And that’s just cool. Flashy when you use them (blasting lightning bolts out of your hands and shockwaving people with lightning). Flashy when you stand around, cracking with energy. And flashy when you move about the environment. I’d like to think that somebody walked into an office and issued the blanket statement: Electricity…everything…annnnd go! Because even while you’re walking through a puddle of water, electricity crackles through it. When you shoot something metal, like a car or a chain link fence, electricity lingers on it. It’s pretty sexy.
Second, this game has a good vs. evil mechanic (more on that later). The gangs have taken over so when you blast away at them you are actually tasering them into submission. There is a two fold mechanic that is happening. And it’s brilliant. First, you are incapacitating the bad guys, rather than outright murdering them. Second, if you happen to blast a bystander, you only stun them rather than accidentally kill them, which is great if you’re trying to play good. I mean, you’re not going to get a Christmas card from them but at least you can feel like a non-murderous hero. Now you get 5 XP based on taking the baddies down. But you can go and find their stunned into submission bodies and if you want to play evil, throw another jolt of power into them, which not only kills them but earns you 1 extra XP. I really like that they throw in that mechanic to allow the evil players to feel like they are being evil and yet have us good players feel like it’s not so implausible that we are blasting away and not killing the baddies.
My final love of the electricity powers is difficult to explain because it isn’t obvious. The electricity idea just ‘fits’. They make the game fit it and they fit into the game. I’ll try to explain. Without getting into the story too much (that’s for later), you have a huge chunk of a post-apocalyptic city that you can wander around in. Your character stores and controls, but does not generate, electricity. Now this is where I take my hat off to the game designers and give them the Chuck Norris thumbs up and nod. Because they balanced this perfectly.
So at the beginning of the game you shoot lightning bolts and perform a close in shockwave. But all your powers come from a battery inside you (not an actual battery but a number of points of power you possess). Now here’s the thing: I can see a LOT of games that would have said: well…we don’t want you shooting too much, so each shot you do will eat up the battery, that way the player will have to play smart. Instead they went with a: lightning is fucking cool so the amount of energy from your battery that a single electrical bolt is entirely negligible. Go ahead. Squeeze off a hundred or so without recharging. God bless them. Shockwave gives a significant dent to your battery, but you can still fire out probably 6 or so before drying out the internal battery.
So now we come to recharging your battery. The city, for the most part, still has power…thus you just have to walk up to a lamp post and drain the power from it. Easy. And solid gold. And it looks cool.
But wait, it actually gets better.
When I said, your powers fit and the game makes the powers fit. This is where it all comes together. I figure this one part stroke of genius and one part stroke of luck.
InFamous is a sandbox game. You can run around in the world and do kewl stuff. But in every game out there, there are areas which your character isn’t supposed to get into. You’re not supposed to because…well…because the level designers don’t want you to. It’s either where the big bad is or something they don’t want you to explore yet. Most often, this is done in a very heavy handed method: You can’t get in there. The classic locked door that cannot be picked, even if you’re playing a master thief. The force field. The wall of goons that, truly, you could probably beat if the game allowed you to. Whatever. Virtually all games that try to give you a sandbox also give you walls you can’t get past.
InFamous has the same walls…sorta. See, instead of saying, you can’t go in…the game has areas in town that have no functional power. Therefore…you could go in there…but eventually you would run out of juice…and then you would be shot…and then death would come. So instead, you have to do a mission to restore the power to that location, which in turn, allows the game designers to set up whatever hoops they would like for you to go through. But instead of feeling like the artificial/classic locked door, it feels natural. Of course my character wouldn’t go into that area…eventually I’d be helpless.
Let’s now chat about the good vs. evil. This is a mechanic that’s become quite prevalent in games. To me, I first took notice of it in the Star Wars games. Star Wars: Dark Forces was one of the first (that I recall) that gave you a path choice. Do good and you get the good guy ending. Do bad and you get the bad guy ending. Oh and you get good and bad powers as well. Now every Star Wars game does this so it’s become standard. InFamous works with it but does nothing to reinvent the good vs. evil paths. You get different powers if you go good or evil. Two thumbs up for that as it adds to the replayability.
However, the story benefits from the good vs. evil conflict greatly. And they do a great job with it. Better than Star Wars does.
See, in the Star Wars games, your good and evil actions are despite the game, not the cause of the game. You either act like a titanic dickwad to get the evil powers or act like a saint for the good powers. Some acts, which seem neutral, are classified as evil which didn’t seem entirely fair.
InFamous does it better because of it’s storyline.
So let’s touch upon that.
You’re a courier. You were taking a package in ‘the big city’. The package…exploded. While you were carrying it. Naturally, you survive while the city is nearly destroyed. (This actually makes sense because it wasn’t a ‘bomb’ that exploded).
The city is now a quarantine zone. Plague is running rampant. Gangs have taken over and are shooting people. A wall has been put up around the island city. It’s very inspired by the Escape from New York movie. And. You. Have. Superpowers.
Now here is why the good vs. evil works so well. The bystanders who are trying to live are being terrorised by the gangs. And with superpowers, why would you not want to help them. Thus the game gives you obvious justification of why you should turn good. But quickly into the game, the Voice of Survival (some survivalist nut with a TV) goes on to reveal that YOU are a terrorist and should be turned in. As Men In Black put it perfectly: A person is smart. People are stupid. Thus the bystanders quickly turn against you, believing you to be a terrorist. Oh and your girlfriend immediately leaves you (cuz her sister died in the explosion that you appear to have caused) and your best friend is…well…still your friend but a little afraid of you. Thus the game gives you obvious justification of why you should turn evil. Solid gold. The good and evil fit very well into the game and the game fits very well into good and evil. Two great tastes that go great together.
Shortly into the game you try to escape only to be caught. You are sent back into the city with a deal from a federal agent. She’s kinda a bitch but she’s doing her job, so again, you can feel like you’re being a hero working with the law or being a villain who is blackmailed into being her whipping boy. Your missions are given from her to try to find somebody who was at the heart of the package you were carrying. You are given multiple missions that you can explore as needed. But you can just as easily wander the city and look for neat things to do.
So now you have a sandbox game, with a character who has ample justification to be good or evil, with lightning superpowers, who can run every freakin’ where in the city and leap off buildings with reckless abandon and perform missions as needed (they are required to progress the game but you can do them at your leisure). Wow.
I have to say, if this game ends as well as it starts, this will easily be in my top five games of all time.
I’ll give the game designers of InFamous one more zooming focus shot of Chuck Norris giving the thumbs up and a nod. And a slow clap. Awesome game guys.