Now this is a game I am looking forward to. The dev behind the excellent Sly Cooper series. Watched the GameSpot live demo during E3 and it looked fantastic gameplay wise, very open, very free.I may be slow to respond but I’m with you all the way on this one fast. Sucker Punch delivered big last gen and I’ll be on Infamous the day it lands.
Going by these pics the graphics look very very nice. The game looked to be running at a stable fps during the gamespot demo, impressive.
Sucker Punch has had six months to polish up inFAMOUS since we last saw it back in July of 2008. Despite looking forward to seeing the game in action at the time, my overall impressions with the title left me slightly disappointed, predominately after being informed that the story had been put on the back burner in order to focus on gameplay. As a fan of game narratives, I must admit that I found this development somewhat disheartening, and needless to say I wasn’t surprised when my initial impressions on the game was met with considerable backlash from our readers. Nonetheless, now that the team has had a decent amount of time to polish up the title and reveal it in its current state, it\'s time to update my impressions of what I initially felt about the game.
First up, color me impressed. Sucker Punch has truly outdone themselves in regards to the visual presentation of inFAMOUS. While I’m aware that a lot of people have already seen trailers of what was shown at CES 2009, believe me when I say that the game is a lot more stunning in person, on a larger screen than on your monitor. The detail to Cole\'s clothing and his unusual powers is more defined and intricately detailed up close. While his awkward running animation remains, everything else about him has been improved.
One of the hottest topics being discussed on the game in recent months is the ability to scale any building at any time. I had the chance to talk to the developers about this and they have assured me that absolutely every building within the city can be tamed. The transition from one stepping-stone to the next is seamlessly integrated in way that it displays an authentic representation of scaling the side of a mammoth structure. Sucker Punch\'s Brian Flemming acknowledged that the team had played and enjoyed games like Assassin\'s Creed, a factor which is strikingly evident when you clap eyes on what they’ve done here.
Delving deeper into the gameplay itself brings us to Cole\'s powers. While some may be blown away by his techniques, I felt very indifferent about it. Cole gives off a similar aura to the Apprentice from Star Wars The Force Unleashed, and, though this isn\'t necessarily a bad thing, I\'m hoping there’s more to his powers than meets the eye to separate him from the rest of the pack. The enemy powers are innovative and unique to each type of gang trying to take over the city, and in comparison, Cole definitely needs something that defines him as a protagonist.
In regards to the game’s storyline (which you’ll remember played a large part in my initial disappointment with the game last year), I stand corrected. Flemming notified me that previous comments suggesting that the story was to be put on the back burner were merely down to a poor choice of words. In fact, Flemming assured me that the design team molded the story around the gameplay itself, which came as an enormous relief to my ears.
All in all, my anticipation for this open-world extravaganza has returned in full force. While the game may have a hint of repetition similar to Grand Theft Auto IV or indeed any game of this nature, it’s a relatively minor setback compared to the sheer scale of what’s on offer. Personally, I’m just thrilled that Sucker Punch has taken the time to substantially polish up the overall product compared to last summer.
Infamous is f\'n awesome.
If you\'re just joining us, Infamous is the first PlayStation 3 outing from Sucker Punch, the guys behind the much-loved Sly Cooper games. In this title, you\'ll pick up the pieces of Cole\'s life in a nearly destroyed world. See, Cole was an ordinary messenger who saw Empire City collapse when a package he was delivering exploded in his hands and leveled a large section of town. When Cole came out of his coma, he found Empire City completely quarantined off from the rest of the world, riots in the street, mutated gangs in control, and his body infused with electrical super-powers. Now able to shoot electrical blasts from his hands, survive falls from the top of buildings, and knock cars into the air with telekinetic blasts, it\'s up to Cole to protect his friends and survive this brave new world.
[size=+1]Karma Moments in HD.[/size]
http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/800208/sucker-punch-project/videos/inamous_trl_karma_oments_032209.html
The interesting thing about all of this is the fact that Cole doesn\'t have to use his powers for the good of all mankind -- he can be as selfish as you want him to be. See, Infamous employs a seven-level Karma System that monitors your actions and lets you know how good or bad Cole is being. See, this will all be broken down in a little crescent-shaped meter next to your power level. If you\'re reviving pedestrians who have been hurt by your enemies (a quick defibrillator-like shock from your palms can fix just about everyone in this game), your meter fills in with a little blue. If you\'re just wailing on every person you see in the street before pinning them to the ground and sucking their life forces out of their faces, your meter is going to fill in red. From the middle/neutral spot, you can do good deeds and climb to Guardian, Champion, and Hero ranks, or you can fry passerbys and sink to Thug, Outlaw, and Infamous Ranks. Awesomely, this position on the good/bad scale is visually represented by Cole as well. When he\'s being a good boy, Cole\'s electricity attacks will be blue and his clothes will be pristine. When he takes a turn towards evil, Cole will crackle with red energy, lose the pigment in his skin, and get mud on his face and clothes. These visual cues get more and more severe as you move up the ladder of your chosen Karma path.
While your moment to moment actions play into which way your meter\'s going to go, the bigger influence are Karma Moments. These are 15 to 18 pivotal points in the story where you need to make a choice and then deal with whatever the consequences are. During my time in Bellevue, I got to play several of these, and the easiest to drop you into -- well, the easiest to drop people who have been reading a lot about this game -- is right after the food drop mission I described in my last preview. Remember, the government had just dropped in a bunch of rations, Cole and his friend Zeke headed over there, the Reapers popped up, and Cole smacked the gang down. With the bad guys out of the way, the bystanders rush the food, and the screen goes slo-mo and golden with a little justice scale in the bottom corner while Cole begins a debate in his head. He can let the people -- who are obviously starving -- grab what they need from the bounty or he can zap a few of them to scare everyone off and leave the booty for him and his friends.
Now, I\'m a Superman fan, I try to pick up random trash when I see it on the street, and I try to hold doors for people but this was my chance to be bad. I had Cole take aim (L1), fire off an electrical blast (R1), and watch as the panicked peeps fled the scene. Since I got my first taste of this game, I\'ve been talking about how fleshed out the characters seem, and this Karma part only reinforced that feeling. As the people fled, Cole\'s girlfriend ran up to the hero and demanded to know why he blasted the innocents. "I did it for us," Cole told her. "To make sure we\'re taken care of." It might seem like a little drop in, but you\'d be surprised how many games give you a good/bad choice where the evil option has no justification. In Infamous, it looks like the golden moment before you have to act will provide Cole\'s motivations so you understand why he\'s thinking about being an ass.
The controls work extremely well and aiming is crisp and responsive. Climbing buildings is easy and works a lot like Assassin\'s Creed, but it is much quicker. Cole will automatically grab onto anything that is scalable. Platforming is a breeze as Cole will "snap to" ledges and wires. Oh, and the best part of the game for me, so far, is sliding across a wire or train track propelled by electricity. It is a very enjoyable way to move from rooftop to rooftop across wires or traverse great distances above the streets on the suspended train tracks.
Combat is fast-paced and the game throws a lot of enemies at you. It is very impressive how many enemies and allies can share the screen at the same time. There are slight framerate drops in the most intense battles, but it does not even come close to breaking the game. The standard enemy that I fought used guns and were rather deadly. Thankfully, Cole is deadlier. This is key in a game like inFAMOUS. You feel incredibly powerful and badass.
We noticed that you\'re not forced to follow the mission in a linear path. You can branch off and do whatever you want.
Yeah, no, it\'s open. It is, at some level, and it will be for you guys to decide if we\'re successful, but it\'s this weird hybrid of kind of weird story and mission-based game that\'s more linear like Sly and an open environment game where you have these little miniature missions, which largely are what we would have called the "walk in a dot". Which is "Go over here and throw a rock through a window" and then you go on this long walk and you go over there, and that\'s the walk. And "mission complete!"
That\'s not what this game is. You\'ve played the Food Drop, but if you played the Prison or whatever, you know, it\'s a big set-up and a very custom piece of geometry all fused into this open environment game. So it\'s kind of this weird hybrid.
Did you guys use any games for inspiration? When we were playing this we were reminded of things from Crackdown.
Yeah, Crackdown, we were already in development when Crackdown was introduced. We were certainly aware of them but they don\'t predate our work on this project. We saw them, then I think the next one that came out we\'d already made a big commitment to climbing. Now our climbing system sucked at the time, but we knew we were going to do this fully open , fully explorable universe and Assassin\'s Creed was announced.
And you know we have a very different approach than them, and I think if you play this that this accomplishes a lot of similar things. In that you can climb many many places. I think it feels really different. It feels really different than Crackdown and so it\'s kind of interesting that you know when you think if I want to kinda climb all over a city there are now three really distinct takes on that. With Crackdown and Creed and us. And they all have their strengths and weaknesses. And you know we run our own path though.
...[size=+1]in fact, the guys up at Sucker Punch have been working so hard that the game will be releasing in the U.S. on May 26![/size]
How did inFamous start out, did you always intend to make a super hero game?
Absolutely. This was pitched and developed from the first day as a modern-day super hero title.
“Cole is a pure video game super hero”
You\'ve said you\'re big comic book fans, so what are your favourite comics and which ones have exerted the most influence over inFamous?
I think you’d get 10 different answers if you asked 10 different people at the studio. My personal favorite from the last year is Mark Millar’s Kick Ass. Though that came recently enough that it didn’t really influence inFamous. We really liked what Brian Wood did with DMZ, in particular the way the city felt. But most of all we really wanted inFamous to feel like it existed in the universe of comic books and modern-day super hero stories. The story, the setting, the situations, and the graphic cutscenes all draw from the expanse of super-hero fiction.
Can you talk about the inspirations behind the character design of Cole? He has a very \'everyman\' sort of look, was this intentional?
Without question it was a goal. We wanted him to be just distinct enough that he’s clearly recognizable, without wearing a bright red costume with a blue cape. His jacket and bag are bike messenger inspired, of course. His facial structure is somewhere between a leading man and a sports figure.
How difficult is it to create a new super hero from scratch? Given how many iconic heroes we already have in popular culture, how do you do something new?
I guess it depends on your point of view – I mean we just got to spend three years making something original, from the ground up. That’s a pretty great assignment. Sure it’s constrained, but we really felt like the problem had never been approached well from a pure video game standpoint. Virtually all super hero video games originated in some form of linear media, but not inFamous. Cole is a pure video game super hero. His powers, the story, his friends and relationships, and even the city itself were designed to be great to play as a game. I think that’s a huge advantage for us and certainly gives us a fresh perspective.
Sandbox games are nothing new, and some may say Rockstar has a monopoly on them in terms of quality, so what is inFamous going to do to stand out amongst the crowd?
We’ve believed from the beginning that viewing a city as a jungle gym, rather than a maze, was a real opportunity, and I think we’ve made something distinct and unique. Second, I think our background with the Sly series – platform games with lots of ‘setups’ – means that inFamous will have some sequences that feel pretty different from typical sandbox missions. We didn’t set-out to compete with Rockstar or their games, or anyone in particular – we set out to make the best super hero game that’s ever been made. It’s been an amazing project, and hopefully some players out there think we’ve succeeded!
Has it been difficult to shift from doing platform/stealth gameplay to sandbox? Is it a more enjoyable development process? More frustrating perhaps?
Without question inFamous is the most ambitious project we’ve ever undertaken. The shift in gameplay mechanics is just one of the many challenges that inFamous presented to us. Fortunately for everyone, our relationship with Sony is incredible and they understood when we asked for the time it would take to get inFamous right -- and the result is a game we’re incredibly proud of.
The comparison is intended as a compliment. Crackdown\'s blend of Grand Theft Auto-style city sandbox gameplay and superpowers was an addictive combination. What\'s more fun than simply driving through a teeming metropolis? Leaping and climbing through it. Scrabbling to the top of skyscrapers, then jumping from building to building. Forget jacking cars — how about throwing them around like Frisbees?
InFamous, scheduled for release next month on PlayStation 3, has the potential to be much more than just a tide-me-over title for gamers waiting for the inevitable Crackdown 2. It could surpass the competition and be the best game yet in the superhero open-world genre. (Especially since there aren\'t very many of them that aren\'t crappy, movie-licensed games.)
I played four missions from inFamous, and had a great time. Having only seen these tiny slivers of gameplay, it\'s impossible to determine how the game flows. But packed into those small bits of the game were sneak peeks at some of inFamous\' most intriguing features.
You play Cole MacGrath, who has electricity running through his veins. Literally. After a freak accident in a world gone mad, the next thing you know you can throw lightning bolts at will. The situation provides a convenient excuse for why Cole can\'t hold a gun (it would explode), drive a car (it would explode) or swim (he would be immediately fried to death).
So poor Cole has to content himself with controlling forces of nature. Oh, and for some reason he can leap off buildings without suffering so much as a scratch and climb up the side of any structure that has sufficient footholds. Apparently he can also fly a little bit if he needs to, and did I mention he can grind down power lines as if they were skateboard ramps?
In a mission called "Food Drop," the friendly local government had dropped food into the city, which had plunged into anarchy. Cole is the only one who can climb up a building in the town square and bring the vittles back down for everyone. Once you do, you\'re faced with one of the game\'s first moral choices: Do you shoot the townspeople and take the food for yourself or let them have the supplies?