Infamous 2: First Impressions

In my tradition of playing games about a million years after they come out, I’ve finally got around to playing Infamous 2. I did rather enjoy Infamous, although I think a lot of that was due to the fact that it was a free download after the PSN hacking extravaganza. With that in mind, is the sequel living up to the predecessor?

Story

Carrying straight on from the ending of the last game, the legendary Beast rocks up to Empire City, takes a kicking from Cole McGrath, then gets so offended he blows the entire city up in retaliation. Cole, best mate Zeke and new girl Kuo run away on a boat and end up in New Marais (which is NOT New Orleans), where The Militia are making life difficult for everyone.

It’s all ok, but it does a bit like a retread of the last game. Here are the evil dudes, blow them up, here are some bigger dudes, blow them up too, now go electrify some stuff. Agent Kuo does feel a bit like she’s been inserted purely because they were lacking a female character. Maybe she’ll come into her own later, but... we’ll see.

Missions

Again, this is kind of same old, same old. You still have your story missions, then your ‘good’ or ‘evil’ side quests. The missions are even reminiscent of the last game’s ones. Take some photos. Break up gangs of Militia. Collect medical supplies. Yeah yeah yeah, whatever.

In fairness, there is the option to play user created missions, but seeing as PSN is being mardy and not accepting my password to log in (EVEN THOUGH IT IS THE RIGHT PASSWORD AND I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL HULK SMASH EVERYTHING) I haven’t been able to play them. Once I get it fixed I’ll report back.

Exploration

This is what Infamous 2 does well. This time around you can still climb up any building you fancy, flying around on your electric hand jetpack thing or grinding along powerlines as you please. Plus, they’ve included some cool buildings for you to scale, including a whacking great cathedral.

Also, there are mini missions dotted around as you explore the city. Depending on your bias (good or evil), you can stop muggings, defuse bombs, attack police and break up protests against you. They show up on your HUD randomly and it does feel organic, as if you’re stumbling across the events. I like it.

Combat

Still the same, but it’s still good. Cole can shoot electricity from his hands, throw bombs, push enemies back with a shockwave, and now he can summon up ‘ionic storms’ that create tornadoes that sweep up everything in their path. All these attacks still rely on his personal supply of electricity, which can be replenished by draining any nearby electrical object. I’ve always liked that, though, because you’re never far from a streetlamp or something, meaning the flow is rarely interrupted.

The enemies require you to think tactically. Storming in guns blazing rarely goes down well. Instead, it’s better to hang from the rooftops, picking enemies off one by one till there’s a small manageable group for you to go in and attack face to face. Then there are the odd kamikaze enemies, who explode on contact to take you out with them. Trying to take them on from ground level is suicidal.

I AM enjoying it, despite how these first impressions sound; it’s just all a bit samey. I’ve only heard good things about the ending though, so maybe it’ll get better. Let’s hope so, anyway...