What makes a great game truly great? Is it the story? The graphics? The gameplay? Or is it the fact that when a company makes a game the right way, the combination of these three produces something that is all-together new and interesting?
Let me start off by saying that inFAMOUS has made it to my top ten games list – a list that is filled with such classics as Ocarina of Time, Super Metroid, and Bioshock. It may not have scratched the top 5 (as those are in a league all their own), but this game does something tremendous; for the first time in a while, I’ve actually had fun doing a game’s side quests and have put off the main quest because of that.
So, let’s get down to it – what makes inFAMOUS so special?
Gameplay
You can tell when a game is lovingly crafted because its mechanics work so overwhelmingly well. In inFAMOUS, I never once had to think about how to move my hands to achieve a button combination to take down an enemy – my hands might as well have been Cole McGrath’s (the protagonist) own hands.
The electrical powers all feel unique and useful in their own way. Even though I’ve heard from friends who’ve played the game as evil that I’m not getting even a tenth of their power, the game was challenging in the way that Bionic Commando SHOULD’VE been. Rather than be a frustrating controller-throw-fest, I was always ready to get back up and try again when I died. One mission in particular took me 10 tries, but the abundance of ways to complete an objective make it so that the game is never frustrating, only a thrill to discover what the best way to dispatch enemies is.
Throw into the electrical powers a mix of melee and close-range grapples, and you’ve got a combat system that feels like a third-person shooter without ever needing you to pick up a gun. The most thrilling times in the game are those where you channel electricity from an unlimited nearby source (like the railways) and dispatch enemies without worrying about your power running out.
Jumping across the city also needs to be mentioned in this section. Never once did I have to go toe-to-toe with the controller to get me up a building (nor down it, unlike the Kotaku reviewer who seemed to have some issues). The parkour moves felt spot-on, something that both Mirror’s Edge and Assassin’s Creed failed to achieve in this sort of style.
