inFAMOUS Impressions
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Games: So, I told myself I wasn't going to plunk the money down after playing the inFAMOUS demo on PSN, but I did. It's just that I've been playing so many RPGs lately that I was starting to burn out of gaming altogether, and I definitely needed something action-oriented to get the juices flowing again. I was weak, I admit it.
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Don't get me wrong, it's not that I thought the demo was terrible, it's just that I expect a great deal from Sly Cooper developer Sucker Punch, and the little bits I saw of their new electricity-themed open-worlder didn't quite click in all the places I thought it should. Still, I've often said that Sucker Punch has never made a bad game and I was definitely willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in this case.
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I wasn't able to put in as many hours tonight as I would have wanted to, but after about 2 1/2 in Empire City, I'm feeling as though my instincts from the demo were correct.
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I'm sure everybody and their brother is already hip to this, but the gist of inFAMOUS is that a bike messenger-type dude is caught in a weird explosion, and ends up with various types of electricity powers as the city itself starts a long, slow slide into hell.
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The game starts off well enough, but at this point I'm feeling like Sucker Punch could have really started the game off a little slower, specifically with respect to character development and story pacing. Things happen pretty quickly, and I'm not quite on board with everything that's going on. For example, in one fast-paced cutscene, a quick line or two details the romantic schism between the main character and his love interest, but it goes by so rapidly and with such little fanfare that I nearly missed it. Beyond that, the main character gets recruited by a government agency pretty much immediately, and from that point on it’s all about doing missions.
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I get that the developer wants to get the player into the game without a lot of downtime, but what I've gotten so far in terms of motivation and development has been pretty thin.
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As for the actual gameplay, I've done a few core missions and four or five side missions. So far it's about what I expected. Everywhere you go, there are a lot of goons that snipe at you from a distance (which is quite irritating) and the game has been emphasizing the main character’s parkour/urban exploration skillz by having him scale every surface like Spider-Man out of costume. No really exceptional missions so far, but then again, I'm just getting started. It's all been fairly combat-oriented, with the character’s electricity basically functioning like any other projectile weapon.
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More thoughts to come as I get further into it, but part of me is already wondering about the different directions that Prototype (the other open-world superhero-ish game coming next month) will take.
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I actually wonder why companies release demos these days - I don't think a single demo I have played in this generation has encouraged me to buy the game. It is more likely to discourage me. Obvious examples: Heavenly Sword, Resident Evil 5, The Darkness, Jericho, All Sports games, and yes Infamous... That must be over 10 Gb of wasted internet just on my PS3.
What has happened to the 16bit days when demos were actually good and encouraged purchase? I need go no further than the excellent Civilization demo, Xenon 2, Sensible Soccer: Oranges versus Lemons, Cadaver with its hours and hours of play time, and so on, and so on... Or am I just old and jaded and those old demos were as bad as they are nowadays?
That's a good question, and one I see pop up often.
IMO there have been a few demos which actually serve their purpose and get me jazzed (Red Faction: Guerrilla being the most recent one) but to be perfectly frank, I think it's more about games that have little to say or offer.
In such case, I'd much rather have a dev release a demo and show me up front where it stands than to be like the old days before easily-released demos and have a title hide behind a cloud of hype only to let me down after an unreturnable purchase.
It's been allegedly proven tha a demo reduces a game's chance of being sold at retail, but that's entirely on the game itself, not the fact that there's a demo.
I mean after all, if the game is GOOD the demo will sell it, eh? Just says to me there are entirely too many mediocre games. ; )
Forgot to add, gamers *expect* a demo these days as well...
I've been meaning to play inFAMOUS. It's sitting on my shelf, but right now I can't pull myself away from Bionic Commando.
Interesting you mention the Red Faction demo, as one of my major problems with that game is the constantly respawning enemies that surround and shoot you. I never felt overwhelmed or rushed in the infamous demo, while in red faction I couldn't just fool around destroying stuff because I was constantly under fire from respawning enemies.
Also, you've never played a crappy demo from a good game? I can easily recall playing good demos that turned out to be from games I didn't really enjoy all that much (Burnout Paradise, ).
Yeah, crappy demos from good games certainly happens.
The most recent one I can think of would be for Operation Darkness (360), where the demo completely blew, but I had a ton of fun with the full game.
Good demos for (perceived) good games happen, too... I clearly recall getting the demo for Panzer Dragoon and loving the hell out of it, and ditto for the full game.
I just started InFAMOUS after finishing Bionic Commando, and I have to say I see what you mean about the thin character motivation. I love the intro cinematic, but after that things start to happen for reasons that don't seem adequately explained. Like I had *no idea* what the hell was going on after that cinema where suddenly the T.V. says you are a terrorist. It only became clear about 5 missions later that Cole had delivered the package that caused the city to explode, yet it seems like something the game expects to be clear to the player almost immediately. That cinema did a horrible job of conveying that information, let alone explain how and why it affected his relationship with his girlfriend. Was she even there at the food drop? I had no idea.
Everyone I know loves inFAMOUS so much--and it's getting such great reviews--that I was expecting something less thin and repetitive. But so far I fail to see what the game does with the open-world super hero genre that Spider-Man 2 didn't do better. The big disappointment to me is that "acting like a super hero" aspect seems relegated entirely to the missions, while the moment-to-moment city simulation seems completely devoid of heroic things to do. If the Reavers are so bad, why do they only seem to attack you? There's all this talk about "crime" but I see no crime happening besides people trying to kill the one super hero in the city. In Spider-Man 2, for example, criminals would attack innocent people all the time on the street, so you constantly felt like a protector making moral decisions: do I help or not? In inFAMOUS, the only choice you are ever given that's not a scripted story decision is to defend yourself. What the hell's heroic about that?
For a "super hero simulation" I've seen a lot better. Sure, you can heal random people on the street but that's a far cry from the more complex criminal/victim behavior you have to respond to in Spider-Man 2. It's not that inFAMOUS is bad, but the way people are touting it as some kind of fantastic super hero game really has me scratching my head.