Infamous (by Sucker Punch) PS3

[Critical Kills]

Damn this game looks like a blast of a sandbox game. Like GTA with super powers to play with!

[Flawless]

inFamous Date, Demo, and Art revealed

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We know many of you have been wondering when urban hero Cole McGrath and his electrifying arsenal of superpowers is coming to a town near you. Well, we want to share with you today that inFamous will be launching worldwide this June, and here’s a first look at the front-of-box for the title: Another question many of you have been asking is: will there be a demo? And, the answer is yes. We’ll have more details on when and how the demo will be available shortly. Stay tuned for a new trailer next week as well of loads of other inFamous goodies from the Sucker Punch crew this month…

[Flawless]

‘Infamous’ PS3 - I Have A Good Feeling About This One

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Getting less hype has been the next one coming: “Infamous.” The game is an open-world dark super-hero game. We’ve covered it here before, and you can read about it in many places. But it seems to have flown under the radar a little.

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I played a slice of the game a couple of weeks ago and have been wanting to share some impressions. These may be vague or seem scatter-shot, but such are the impressions of open-world games. You only really know an open-world game is good once you have it for yourself and can see if quality fills its scope. Here is some of what I saw that I liked that doesn’t come through in screenshots and trailers: -A good line: In the opening cut-scene, the hero’s voice-over includes the question: “Have you ever been called a terrorist?” I haven’t, but I find that line sharply encapsulates a role that seems interesting to play. An explosion in Cole’s city has left much of it lacking electricity or any rule of law. Cole is blamed by some and on the run. It’s a good set-up. -Defibrillator Powers: I knew Cole could shot electricity from his hands to charge things and fry enemies. I didn’t realize he could hogtie enemies with bands of electricity, serve as a human defibrillator for wounded people and leech energy to the point of killing others. All these actions affect the hero’s moral alignment. -“This is a yes you can game”: That’s what the game’s director, Nathan Fox, told me while showing me so many of the acrobatic climbing moves Cole can commit, the bosses he can fight, the choices for characters with which he can interact, and so on. He said the game is doling out a new power to the player every hour of play time. Given everything that the “Sly Cooper” games allowed players to do — and given how many activities games like “Grand Theft Auto IV” compel players of open-world games to want to do — the Obama-style “yes you can” design philosophy seems like a very good thing. -A dash of “Crackdown”: While most of what I was shown in “Infamous” were main missions, I wanted to know about the side stuff. The peripheral missions and general life of the open-world are what make or break games in this genre. I learned from Fox that, not only are there going to be many side missions, but that there will be a “Crackdown“-style dynamism to this game. “Crackdown” was a well-received open-world super-cop game for the Xbox 360. The city of “Crackdown” was unusually organic for a game of its type. The player was charged with hunting the leaders of enemy gangs. One member of the gang might be a weapons dealer, another a vehicle supplier. Attacking the weapons guy and defeating him would cause all of the gang members of his gang to have inferior guns. Locking up the vehicles guy would have a regional affect on enemy vehicle quality. There were several dynamics like this, all of which were affected by the order with which the player decided to attack the leaders of the gang. What “Infamous” has that is like this is a system of civic morality that changes the rhythms of muncipal life. Helping civilians in one area might bring some safety and economic prosperity back to a part of the city. Assisting cops might improve police patrols and think the ranks of local gangs. Actions of a more nefarious bent are supposed to have grimier implications. This type of dynamism that allows player-chosen actions to begin to re-color the world — not seen in even the ambitious “GTA IV” — could greatly enrich the “Infamous” world. Those are a few of the things that stood out to me, the kind of things you can’t deduce form a screenshot or trailer. I’m pleased with the graphics, the controls, the combat and action I experienced. But those are the relatively easy things to get right. They are common successes. It is the uncommon qualities that “Infamous” has the possibility to get right that excites me.

[Flawless]

inFamous to feature original soundtrack by Amon Tobin, Jim Dooley, Mel Wesson, and Martin Tilman

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Popular underground electronic musician Amon Tobin (Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory) and world-renowned composers Jim Dooley (Pushing Daisies), Mel Wesson (Batman Begins, Pirates of the Caribbean) and electric cellist Martin Tilman (Black Hawk Down, Ali) have come together to create the imaginative score heard in one of this year’s biggest games launching on the PLAYSTATION 3, inFAMOUS. Sony’s music manager Jonathan Mayer (God of War 2, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune) has led the group creatively and technically. Throwing out all conventional standards of traditional music production, the team instead turned to real-life objects and materials found in urban environments to develop an innovative score that is equal parts Stomp™ and experimental sampling. In order to play into the gritty and disjointed nature of InFAMOUS’ environment the score was created from the innate sounds that one might find in a dilapidated city. A mix of traditional percussion and non-percussion instruments and objects were utilized, often played or ‘prepared’ in nontraditional ways - bungie cords were stretched across a concert bass drum and strummed, wire brushes were beat on a suspended tuba, shakers were constructed of broken glass, etc. Collaborating and sharing with all artists intensively, these sounds were recorded and produced by Sony’s internal music team to create the intense, combat oriented music for the game as well as the ambient musical effect of the city's anguish. A massive explosion rips through six square blocks of Empire City, leveling everything and everyone in its path. At the center of the blast crater a lone man has survived the event and has been changed forever. From the creators of the award-winning Sly Cooper series, Sucker Punch brings you inFAMOUS, the first open-world action-adventure title exclusively for the PLAYSTATION 3. Players will experience what happens when a real person suddenly starts developing super powers. Will they exact revenge, protect the innocent or do little of both? These are the situations gamers will face when immersed inside a richly interactive and organic living city. A place where actions create broader reactions in the citizens and landscape around them. inFamous lets players unravel an evolving mystery, experience fame and/or infamy and battle powerful, iconic villains…all the while feeling what it is like to become a modern day superhero.

[Flawless]

Get hyped!

Must see new trailer:

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The FX and details on the powers are a continued source of work and polish, and if you look closely at the piece, you’ll see Cole deployed his Polarity Wall shield, something we’ve not shown before… Yet another power for his arsenal!

[Flawless]

inFamous Showcased in Game Informer and on IGN

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Hey All, Thanks for all the great feedback on the trailer. We’ve got some more exclusive new info on inFamous headed your way. Pick up the latest issue of Game Informer, available on newsstands this week, for an extensive hands-on look into the first 6 missions of the game. Then on Friday afternoon, check-out IGN’s first detailed reveal of the in-game karma system. We’ve got a lot of exciting new info coming for inFamous in the weeks ahead, so please stay tuned.

[JohnnytheSkin]

I'm very intrigued about this one. I loved the Sly Cooper series and if the gameplay mechanics work as well as advertised, this one should be great!

[Flawless]

This game just keeps sounding more and more awesome.


Infamous: Karma System Hands-on

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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 deliberator-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.

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I have more Karma Moments to tell you about, but this seems like as good a place as any to get to the bigger picture -- i.e. why the hell you care about being called a Hero or Infamous. Super-powers are -- duh -- a huge part of Infamous. As you're taking out gang members, beating side missions, and advancing through the game, you're earning experience points. These points (and descriptions of why you're getting said points) pop up underneath your HUD to reward you for everything from non-lethal takedowns to amazing move combinations to 2-in-1 blows. You take these points into a power manager from the pause screen and are then able to purchase upgrades for your 16 ability categories. Now, some of these upgrades are only available when you're at or past a certain level of good or bad guyness. You know Cole's ability to throw grenades comprised of electricity? When you first get going -- whether you're good or bad -- these will function as standard explosives, but when you're a Hero and buy the final upgrade, your bombs will give off a huge blast and automatically restrain any wounded enemies in the area. When you're Infamous and buy the final upgrade, your grenade will shatter into smaller grenadelets that will ricochet and roll all over the place for a ginormous explosion that annihilates everything in the vicinity. Whereas Cole's Shockwave usually just knocks people back, upgrading it for good increases the range and force of the move whereas evil upgrades fry people in midair and instantly blow up cars in the Shockwave's path. Not every upgrade is linked to how you're playing -- reducing the damage you take is universal -- but the super-powers definitely are, and that's going to add an interesting dynamic to the gameplay. See, if you fall in love with that Evil, third-tier Shockwave, you're going to have to keep playing evil to have access to that move. If you suddenly have a change of heart and start making the selfless decisions, your Karma pendulum is going to start moving back toward good and you're going to lose access to your wicked abilities. Of course, if you change your mind and move back to being evil, you won't need to re-buy anything, but it's a decision you'll have to make. From my gameplay experience, being evil and staying evil is going to be easier than being good and staying good. See, I replayed that prison level from New York Comic-Con -- the Dustmen are assaulting a prison that acts as the final police holdout for this section of town -- but this time I was totally evil. With Cole's feet planted on some electrified chain link, I had an infinite supply of ammo, so I just started hurling level-three grenade after level-three grenade. Gigantic explosions rocked the prison yard as the foes poured through a hole in the compound's protective wall, and enemies screamed in pain as they were shot into the air and zapped. The thing is that this attack wasn't very precise. For every enemy I was blasting to kingdom come, I was also hurting a number of the police I was there to help. Now, being evil, this sloppy superheroing only helped keep me on the less than favorable side of the world, but when you replay this section as a good guy, you're going to have to be more precise in your attacks. Spider-Man and Superman don't kill an innocent just to stop a madman, and if you want Cole to be the savior of Empire City, you can't either. How Empire City views Cole is a big component of the Karma System. If you play as a just Cole, the city will be cleaner, shops will begin to reopen, and people will cheer you on the street. If you go the all-about-me route, the city will become a darker place, the public will hurl stones at you when they spot you, and desperation will seem to be around every corner. You're literally giving the city a reason to believe or robbing it of its hope -- a choice that was reflected in a random Karma moment. Whether you're being good or bad, you're going to be battling the Reapers, Dustmen, and other thugs roaming the city. This means that at least a few people are going to like you. While heading to another mission, a guy stopped Cole and thanked him for what he was doing. To show his gratitude, he was going to begin plastering the city with posters of Cole so that everyone knew someone powerful was watching. The artist presented Cole with two posters to choose from -- one was a blue and white inspirational number that showed Cole staring towards the sky while people cheered below, and the other was a red and black scare-fest that depicted half of Cole's face as a skull. It was up to me to pick which one was scattered all over the place -- I had to pick if I wanted people to look to me as a hero or as an outlaw.

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So, yeah, Infamous continues to knock my socks off. Right now, the game is complete in terms of missions and such, but the team is focusing on polishing everything over and over so that the experience is all that it can be. The crowds looked to move more realistically this time around, there are quotes about the dichotomy of good and evil from folks such as Einstein and Lincoln that serve as load screens between deaths, I was impressed that the AI had so many things to do when wandering the streets (folks were sprawled out on the sidewalk reaching up for help, hunkered down next to newspaper boxes, etc.), and climbing buildings and making precise jumps as Cole is still a breeze. If the rest of the game is as engaging and fun as the handful of hours I have now put into this title, Infamous will be a must buy for superhero fans around the world.

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