Video Game Review: inFAMOUS 2

"Familiar and a bit bumpy, otherwise an improvement form the original"

   InFAMOUS was a surprise to everyone, why? Because superhero games are normally fair games at best, but when InFAMOUS came out, things started to change, nobody expected anything from Infamous, but it took everyone by surprise and it was actually an impressive game, after that Batman: Arkham Asylum came out and it was another impressive game, and now, InFAMOUS 2 is out, so let’s see if it can continue that streak, or if it can be as good or even be better than the original InFAMOUS game.

     InFAMOUS 2 concentrated around the first game’s protagonist, Cole McGrath, who was going to a New Orleans based City called “New Marais”, so he can collect new powers to face the Beast, who was actually prophesied to attack during the first inFAMOUS game, but when Cole arrives to New Marais he finds out about a ruthless leader named Joseph Bartand III who leads a group called the Melisha who are based on destroying Conduits (people with powers). So Cole is caught on trying to stop Joseph Bartand and collecting his new powers before the Beast gets to New Marais to find him, thus putting Cole on a sharp, high-pressured race against time.

    InFAMOUS 2 continued with the comic book styled presentation that the first game had and did so well, and because of that the story was actually presented in a very attractive way and keeps the player digging for more. The main characters are back and they were better than ever, and the new characters where pretty good too, however, inFAMOUS 2’s story did have one issue though, the type of story that inFAMOUS 2 had felt a bit cliché and overplayed in my opinion, but thank god for it’s great presentation that actually made a somewhat poorly written story executed in an excellent way.

     InFAMOUS 2 was a bit of a disappointment yet an excellent game on the gameplay side. The game had a major improvement on exploration through, the city of New Marais was much better than Empire City and it was much funner to explore. New Marias had that New Orleans type of look and feeling, so it was very interesting and a lot of fun to just explore through the city and look around the swamps.

   The combat was too much of the same. All the player really does most of the time is repeatedly hit the enemy with electric shocks most of the time because it’s a danger to go close to the enemy, but thank god for new powers and a weapon called the Amp, the gave inFAMOUS 2 some great moments and a ton of fun, but most of the time those differences where barely noticeable, yet, while the combat system was a bit disappointing, it was still a lot of fun.

     The missions in inFAMOUS 2 didn’t do so well in my opinion. While they were fun, they all had the exact same formula as in the missions in the first inFAMOUS, and the problem with that was that the missions felt repetitive, and personally, I prefer not to do stuff that are repetitive.

    The player’s Karma was exactly the same as the Karma in the first InFAMOUS game, while it did have an effect on the story, the ending and each Karma whether it’s good or bad can give you knew powers, it’s always the same choices for the player: to kill or not to kill? Don’t get me wrong, I still liked the Karma aspect of the gameplay gameplay, but I just think it was a bit misplayed.

    The new additions did, in a way a way make things feel more original, but I can’t help but to think about how similar is to the gameplay here is to the gameplay in the first InFAMOUS. It was still really fun and enjoyable, and that’s what matters most, but I’m just saying, with a two year gap there should have given the sequel more additions and more flexible gameplay than the original.

     InFAMOUS 2 had a big step up when it came to graphics. Thanks to much less dimmed lighting, New Marais looked and felt more beautiful and more exportable, characters looked a lot better and more realistic, a lot of the lip movements where much better than the lip movements in many other games. However, there were some problems, there were many popups, civilians had weird faces, and some of the characters had something about their look that didn’t make them feel right, but none the less, inFAMOUS 2 was really a down right great looking game.

     InFAMOUS 2 needed great sounds for it to work out right, and how did it result? Well, once again it was a step up from the first inFAMOUS. While Cole’s new voice actor still did sound gravely, he still did sound a lot better and a lot less gravelly than Cole’s voice actor in the first game, the other characters sounded right and realistic, the city sounded alive and very reactive to the player’s actions, the sound effects where pretty good  and on Q, and the music was great for the moods and scenes in the game, there were still some issues such as missed sound effects or Cole’s gravelly voice, but they can mostly still be easy to ignore though when comparing to the upside of the sound on this game.

    As a whole, InFAMOUS 2 was simply an awesome game. It had its major and minor flaws, but the game’s positives more than made up for most of them. InFAMOUS 2 proved to be a great sequel, an improvement from the original, and a continuation to the streak of great superhero games, InFAMOUS 2 won’t be a classic or a legendary game, but it will for sure be remembered as one hell of a game comparing to many of the other games out on its genre.

Gameplay: 8.5/10
-Fun, but familiar gameplay, however the weapons where better and exploration was funner-

Story: 7.5/10

-Not a great story, but a fitting story for a superhero game-


Presentation: 8.5/10

-Better characters and a more innovative game, still kept the acclaimed comicbook sequences but still, the game was filled with emotionless relations between characters-


Appeal: 8.5/10

-The game will last a while, with creating missions and a lot to do after the game, the game will be hard to let go of-


Graphics: 9/10

-InFAMOUS 2 looks great, it was less gloomy then the original but the game still lacked detail-


Sound: 8.5/10

-Cole's voice was too gravely and some sound effects where misplaced, otherwise a great sounding game-

Average Rating: 8.4/10

Overall Rating: 8.5/10