PS3 Fanboy eyes-on: inFamous

by Jem Alexander { Jul 21st 2008 at 10:30AM }

An explosion obliterates a six-block area of your city, killing everyone but you in the blast. During the following weeks and months, society breaks down. People take to the streets, comitting crimes and cultural suicide. The city is quarantined and abandoned. You wake up from a coma, the sole survivor of the original blast, with the power to control electricity at your finger tips. In the power vacuum of the city, you are able to make a difference, but will you be a benevolent savior or a malevolent power titan? This is the question you're asked when you load up inFamous.

Sucker Punch delivered a behind closed doors gamplay demonstration of the game this year at E3, demonstrating the direction they're going in with the title. Gameplay during the presentation consisted of exploring a small part of the city, which felt very similar to Assassin's Creed. Cole is an urban explorer, a hobby he had since before the blast, so he has ability to climb around the city at ease. How convenient.

Cole's more supernatural abilities are all related to electricity. Those demonstrated consisted of a thunderbolt zapping power and telekenesis (manipulation of electro-magnetic fields, apparently -- that's electricity related, right?) In order to remain powered up, you must continue to syphon energy from the city, drawing it out from electricity pylons and other sources. Sometimes the city will suffer from a blackout, leaving you without any way to refuel should you come across any particularly brutal enemies.

Gallery: inFAMOUS

Don't think that Cole's abilites make him overpowered, though. While picking off Reapers by throwing lightning bolts or cars at them might not be a challenge, there are others in the city who have developed some powers of their own. We were shown an enemy who was super speedy and could send shockwaves towards Cole, tearing up the pavement. Sucker Punch was careful to emphasise that a hero is more than just his powers -- weaknesses are equally as, if not more, important.

"How would being an electric superhero affect your life?" It wasn't specifically stated, but the implication seems to be that water is most probably not your friend. As powerful as Cole might be, he's probably a little bit stinky. These powers will grow over time, though the exact method of progression, as well as its link to your moral choices throughout the game, is still mostly under wraps.

The game's moral choices, which make up a large component of inFamous, will affect the powers that you develop in a "what color is your lightsaber" sort of way. These choices won't be black or white, fork in the road moments, but will involve the game tracking how you perform certain tasks. The characters in the world will respond differently to you, depending on how you play. Details were few, but when asked whether your superpowered peers would also react to this, Sucker Punch refused to reply, stating that we'd "found the line" they weren't allowed to cross. Hopefully the morality system is as deep and game-changing as this suggests.

What we saw of the game was impressive. Graphically the game looks great, considering the game is just under a year from release. The story, now that we know the basics, seems intriguing enough to keep us interested and the style of the cutscene that we saw fits in perfectly with the game's comic book connections. The gameplay demonstration was a little short, though, giving only a brief glimpse of inFamous. We're definitely looking forward to seeing more and getting some hands on time with the title.

Tags: e308, infamous, joystiqfeatures, sucker-punch

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

kiros @ Jul 21st 2008 10:41AM

Superhero games are the next WWII games. They'll rock for a few years, then people will hate them.
I really hope SP can pull this one off. They are great devs, and I need a good game for rainy days.

Mad-elph @ Jul 21st 2008 10:41AM

As soon as I saw this game, I knew where they were going with it even without any info. Now that you've sat down and laid it out for us I am pleased that I could identify it beforehand. This leads me to believe that we have a great game coming, because it'll be a balance of SWTFU and Way of the Samurai which I know will work out well. The graphics are pretty, but could be better so lets hope for the improvement that Resistance got for the next inFamous after they sell bucket loads of this title.

Now if only we could have more with I Am Alive.... which looks to be one of the next best games period.

andrew @ Jul 21st 2008 11:05AM

I'm really trying to get into this game but the whole superpowers being just electricity just doesn't seem too impressive to me. Seems like it would get really old really fast.

alienclays @ Jul 21st 2008 1:39PM

not if they get creative with it. understand that control of electricity and the electromagnetic spectrum is more than just lighting bolts from your fingertips, understand that visible light, radio, microwaves, gamma waves, etc are all different frequences of the same type of energy. imagine being able to cook your foe from the inside with microwaves, emmit blinding light to escape or distract, or manifest self made night vision by reforming/ phase shifting invisible light to visible spectrums.

Reymo @ Jul 21st 2008 11:35AM

Awesome game in the making. This is going to make 09 a very good year for me. Also it is tiring to see alot of people crying about only having one power. I think i saw points in the gameplay of the lighting taking different forms instead of just a simple zap animation every time.

Ill worry about more important things than "Iz onlyz haz oNez powerz!". Ill worry about how good the story is executed, the controls being tight and how well the graphics will be laid out for us gamers.

frankym @ Jul 21st 2008 11:47AM

I was a bit apprehensive at first with this game. However, after this hands on, along with G4's PS3 E3 game of the show award, I am getting psyched. Graphics need to be polished up though.

Dwag @ Jul 21st 2008 12:23PM

All that matters is that its a PS3 exclusive with great graphics but generic gameplay.

e.Missark @ Jul 21st 2008 12:46PM

It's a sandbox game where your character has superpowers. What's not to love?

Sucker Punch has more than enough time to sort out the kinks.
To make it successful, I suggest SP focus on creating an amazing story and on a fluid complex and multi-layered gameplay.