Sony

Existentialism shows the cracks and flaws of human nature. Two of the biggest we see is through the non-stop conflict of fate and how we perceive it. This bears the question of freedom, and whether our own choices are our volition, or something/someone keeping us on this path or a mere book in a literary library of stories.  Video games kind of show this simulation by giving us choices. However, no matter what there is still a predetermined path we must go down to finish the game. The unfortunate part about this is, that stories don’t get into the ontology of these choices but only get into the consequences of them. How can we as players connect to the character, when the only thing we get out of them, is the effect, not the causation? However, a game that does this very well, while rewarding the player for these choices (on both sides) is InFamous. So we must opt, whether this resolution has a truly effective way of delivering these themes via gameplay, art style, and graphical fidelity.

The gameplay is based on third-person shooter-based combat, which served as a very well-made take on the older hack-and-slash genre, due to its level of difficulty and pacing. Each area serves as new enemies, at the start, those enemies are more difficult, as if the game adapts to you progressing through that district. Also, the inclusion of lightning-based combat serves as easy stun locks and precise hitboxes. One of the biggest mechanics of the game is its Karma system, which allows you to make decisions that are morally right or wrong. Depending on the choices, you will unlock two different skill trees and two shades of lighting: blue (good), and red (bad).

There are only two minor problems I have with this system, first is the fact that you can’t switch back and forth, which I get because they want players to do more playthroughs. The other is because there is no explanation for the shade of red lighting. You see, the only way to get a red shade of lightning is with excess charges being released into the ionosphere (the highest layer in the atmosphere). This leads me to believe that the bad karma powers are canonically powerful in comparison to the good karma, and somehow Cole (the main character) is a walking ionosphere or has an aura of an ionosphere, but I digress. But to even see the combat, the visuals must be comprehensible. Reddit User Kick Chaos believes the game has some of the best customization.

“I gotta be the contrarian and say inFamous 1. The big thing I would say inFamous 1 has over its sequel is the upgrades are stacked,” Chaos said.

The visuals themselves lack somewhat, due to it being a Playstation exclusive. So even with a 1280×720 resolution, you will be working at a pretty crisp 30-40 frames per second, however, there were multiple times that it tanked to 15-25 frames per second. The models are very rough-looking, however, I’m not sure if that is an art style choice or poor rendering. PS3 user Mr.Teddy believes that the game endures through the chaos.

“The game has a lot going on at once in the environment and is nicely detailed for an open-world PS3 game, featuring nice dynamic lighting,” Mr. Teddy said.

Speaking of art styles,  the swaps between the three main art styles. For human or regular-looking characters, they use cartoon caricatures with uses of browns and greys. The enemies are more cartoon-like, with a lower resolution take on the cell-shaded art style. Finally, the cutscenes are based on a comic book panel scenery. These were hand-drawn by Doug Mahnke, who worked on the Green Lantern series, which fortifies my point of it being more of a DC-based art style. The colors remain in a grey or brown platelet, with the panels being in blue.

Overall, I loved this game, and it’s cool seeing the DNA of Ghost of Tsushima and other Sucker Punch-based projects. I’ve always thought it unique that studios like Naughty Dog and other studios that were originally 3D platformers switch to a more mature feeling direction. But I am super excited to see the evolution of this series and the maturity of Sucker Punch studios, leading up to Ghost.