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[NathanielEdwards]

Hmm, the first video made me want to play it and the second one made me want to go to sleep, interesting. I don't see what is wrong with the animation though....

Well, the first one was an official trailer, and the second one was just a pure gameplay video, so that probably makes sense.

[Don Andy]

I like the game. It's a bit of a mixture between Assassin's Creed (fluid parcour-esque interaction with environment), Crackdown (super-powered city-romping) and Force Unleashed (FREAKING LIGHTNING MAN).

The majority of gameplay so far (I'm still in the first part of the city) is fulfilling story missions, furthering your progress in the city and doing side-missions, which free the city-parts the side mission was in of enemies. Thrown into the fray are your occasional evil and good side-mission, which nudge you towards evil or good respectively, but otherwise fulfill the same city-freeing role (so yes, regardless of being evil or good, you free the city in both cases).

I can't really comment on the story, because the majority of it simply hasn't been revealed yet.

Fighting is pretty uncomplicated, but I do feel that the enemies' guns are a tad overpowered. When you are just strolling through a city, and suddenly two enemies are shooting from the roofs, you better find cover somewhere or they are going to kill you. Otherwise though you just electricity blast the shit out of them, or go melee which will do quick work of most, too (provided they don't shoot you to death before).

Traveling can be a bit boring at times, since scaling buildings does take its time (I guess it's a tad TOO realistic there) and you can't really do anything but running and grind (later on) on rails and lines. Driving cars is impossible, because (according to the story) you'd cause it to explode while sitting in it. Same reason why you can't carry guns, since the discharge sets the gunpowder on fire and causes the gun to explode in your hand. You can still hitch a ride on a car's roof though.

The acrobatics work really well and fluid here but sometimes the "magnetic" nature of climbable objects gets a bit in the way. As the character automatically grabs onto things he can grab on when jumping, I sometimes got stuck on things I didn't want to when following people or things like that. It's definitely not like Hulk or Spiderman though, where you can just climb buildings any way you like, but most buildings provide enough "elements" to somehow reach the roof, similar to Assassin's Creed.

To recharge your health and energy you have to leech electricity from nearby objects, such as cars, lamp-posts or generators. You just stand next to them, and keep the button pressed till its empty. Alternatively you can also throw down enemies (and civilians) and drain them of their Bio-Energy or something, which does fully recharge you but nudges you towards bad karma.

The whole karma system itself is really pretty black and white and it does spell everything out to you. Each time you stand before a "major" karmic decision the protagonist has a monologue deciding between two options ("I could tell this guy that his wife is dead and hope he opens the door or I could just shoot him and open the door that way" or "If I turn this valve again I'll get more of this poisonous sludge in my face or I could get this guy to turn it for me") but all in all the whole Karma system is really obviously just there to direct the story (and your powers) in one of two ways.

But all in all, I like the game. It's one of the best free-roaming super-hero (or super-powered guy) games I've played in a while. Although I do think Prototype will be all kinds of better and I'm really looking forward to that too.

I'd say if you have a PS3 and are aching for some good games for it, then Infamous is the way to go, but it's definitely not a game to get a PS3 over.

[Knightmare]

I'd say if you have a PS3 and are aching for some good games for it, then Infamous is the way to go, but it's definitely not a game to get a PS3 over.

So you think  its worth it then?  I've wanted to get it but after reading this thread I wasn't so sure if it was really worth it.  Guess I'll have to play the demo to really figure it out.

[superflat]

Is this as bland as Uncharted?  Fucking hell, I tried to play that game the other day, and ended up wanting to gnaw my own leg off.  

I'm a PS3 'fanboy' or rather, a 360-hater, so I do want the platform to do well with its high-profile exclusives...  But so far the only good one's been MGSIV for me (LBP was a bit floaty, Siren was incredible but far from high profile, as was Valkyria Chronicle.)  I really wish they hadn't licensed FFXIII to MGS, or at least had done it at a later date.  Ah well, still have Trico I suppose.

[Knightmare]

Is this as bland as Uncharted?  Fucking hell, I tried to play that game the other day, and ended up wanting to gnaw my own leg off.  

Fuck, I never played that either but I heard it was good.  Is it bad as well?   

[Corpus]

I dunno, it looks like it might be a fun diversion kinda game.

I did notice the animation, though. I didn't see the Sly Cooper similarity, never having played it, but a short, second-long clip of his movement in one of the inFamous trailers was enough to make me think, "Huh, I haven't seen animation like that for nearly 10 years."

[salade]

I too haven't noticed the sly cooper similarity till it was mentioned here. Doesn't really bug me that much.

If you are disappointed in this game you should just wait for Prototype.

[NathanielEdwards]

Is this as bland as Uncharted?  Fucking hell, I tried to play that game the other day, and ended up wanting to gnaw my own leg off.  

Fuck, I never played that either but I heard it was good.  Is it bad as well?   

See, I don't mind Uncharted so much, but this is certainly blander, if you mean atmosphere-wise. If you mean in gameplay, InFAMOUS is at least open world, at least as much as Sly 3 was, so you may like the gameplay here better.

I'll say again that I wouldn't be so hard on InFAMOUS if it didn't get such good reviews. It's getting great reviews from mainstream sites, perhaps just because it's an exclusive, and Sony is pimping the hell out of it.

[Don Andy]

So you think  its worth it then?  I've wanted to get it but after reading this thread I wasn't so sure if it was really worth it.  Guess I'll have to play the demo to really figure it out.

I'd say yes, but if it has a demo, definitely play that one first. In the end it always runs down to personal preference. Just because I say it's worth it doesn't mean it is for you.

[Craig Stern]

The sidekick's running animation really does suck. I didn't notice anything wrong with the hero's, though.

Way worse than either: the sidekick's voice acting. Hoo boy.

[Super Joe]

unchaerted is a really good ame

[Shade Jackrabbit]

I hate to break it to you but "good" is a range of 6-7.9 in my mind. "Great" would be morel like the score that IGN gave it (9.2).

Thought I would just point that out because the thread's title and main thesis seems a bit polar.

[NathanielEdwards]

You're criticizing the title of my thread? Okay, sure, I guess "great" would be better...

[Shade Jackrabbit]

Well... I mean the title implies that InFAMOUS is not a good game, that it is a terrible game. Yet you also say: "All of this wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for the reviews." Which confuses me, because you seem to be saying "yeah, it's a passable/alright/okay/[what I might call good] game" except for the fact that it got reviews calling it great, which instantly drop it from "good" or "not so bad" to "terrible", missing out on "meh" completely.

It just confused me, and I still don't get what makes it so terrible. I mean, Max Payne has all the flaws you seem to be pointing out with the story in InFAMOUS and yet I still wouldn't call it a terrible game. A passable one I would call it but certainly not terrible. Even crappy good-vs-evil choices don't make a bad game, after all you could be forced into taking only one path. Even the animation looked sorta comic-y and even if it doesn't totally fit there's nothing to drive this game all the way to "terrible", a region populated by 1's and 2.4's.

...sorry, I find it hard to wrap my head around polarizing arguments, sometimes. This probably came out pretty muddled.

[NathanielEdwards]

Well sure, it's not terrible. It's probably even "good" by your standards. It may have been a better thread for me to do nothing but point out that Sucker Punch re-used their animations, because that was the funniest bit for me. But, then I would have missed out on the point about the reviews, which made me mad at the time, so I wrote a likely overly critical post. We need reviewers to stop complimenting half-assedness when it comes to narratives in games, or maybe no one will ever care, and mainstream games will never, ever have good stories (let alone artistic ones). But, you're right, I was too harsh on the game while trying to get across two points:

1. Ha, they used the raccoon and hippo animations on real people.
2. Major video game reviewers are stupid.

[Shade Jackrabbit]

1. Ha, they used the raccoon and hippo animations on real people.
2. Major video game reviewers are stupid.

I whole-heartedly agree.

On the matter of number 2, I think Yahtzee's review style is the best. No numbers, no scores, just some guy's opinion. Although, that being said, I don't mind scoring when it comes from genre-oriented sites, as they're likely to have the same bias you would if you're a fan of a genre. (For example, when it comes to adventure games I look to Adventure Gamers or JustAdventure first, and hold their opinions highest, simply because of genre orientation.) Obviously Gamespot is action-oriented, but they never outright SAY IT, which then makes it unfair for them to give some sort of "final word" about how good a game is when it's not even targetted at them.¹

I mean I know Yahtzee is really harsh on games, but I actually take his reviews seriously because he points out a lot of bullshit that so many people are just okay with, and tries to sort of tear apart the current reviewing establishment.² And he never seems to be afraid to speak his mind, even if it makes him the most unpopular guy on the internet.<sup>3

1</sup> I mean, IGN gave Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars - Director's Cut, a 7.5 because the gameplay was "Solid point-and-click gameplay that is engaging but doesn't bring anything new to the genre." They also gave it bullshit like 7.5 on graphics simply because "Smooth animation and hand-drawn artwork that feels like playing a cartoon." ...HELLOOO!!!!! *hits screen* Again, THAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT. If it pulls it off perfectly and helps the game then that's a 10/10 not a 7.5!
² See his review of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. All the issues he has with it are basically what prevent me from buying it, even though I think it's an alright game.
³ See his mailbag showdown.

[AMAZON]

I actually hated his brawl review, not because I thought it was a flawless game, but because he seemed to be just warmongering. He was just making up flaws in order to tick people off and actually didn't point out some of the more prominent and significant flaws.

[Shade Jackrabbit]

Well, he wasn't just "making up flaws". I actually had noticed those when I played it. Out of curiosity, Tuna, which of the flaws are you referring to?

[Super Joe]

that guy has no friends + owns a fedora irl so who gives a fuck what he thinks

[Corpus]

he's exactly like this guy I know who spends all his time reading facts on the internet and playing games about space ships flying at each other in a threatening way for literally 18 hours. he constantly has a smug look on his face and has the same smarmy "I think I'm being really clever right now" voice whenever he speaks.

nobody likes him.

also, he's usually wrong.