inFAMOUS 2

O segundo capítulo da franquia é praticamente uma repetição do primeiro com gameplay e apresentação geral um pouco melhores e uma história mais cativante, ainda que mal escrita e sem sentido.

Todos os principais problemas do jogo de 2009 se repetem aqui: pouca criatividade na construção do universo; desenvolvimento raso dos personagens; trama cheia de furos e saídas fáceis; um mundo aberto vazio; atividades secundárias tediosas e redundantes, etc.

Felizmente, o núcleo do gameplay é tão divertido que sustenta toda a experiência. Ainda que falte algum polimento para a movimentação, o combate em especial é muito bem executado e dá opções para o jogador se expressar por meio dos vários poderes do Cole. Em geral, é tão satisfatório quanto o primeiro jogo.

I remember when Infamous 2 first came out people said it wasn't as good as the first game and it got slightly worse reviews, just look at Metacritic, Infamous has 2 points higher. To be honest, Infamous 2 is a more polished and slightly upgraded Infamous. The controls and powers are very similar and almost the same, you have the lightning abilities, the rail grinding, the same good and bad karma system. You play in a New Orleans based city and basically fight to save the World. The main improvement is the story, where the story of the first game was complete trash, this game actually has a somewhat decent story, and you actually have decisions that matter and give you 2 different endings. Granted the ending you get comes down to a single choice you make at the end of the game and its kind of silly. Basically the two main women you side with in this game have a fight and the woman who was good the entire game becomes evil while the woman who was evil becomes good and its kind of stupid. Also Zeke in this is actually really helpful and somehow way less annoying than the first game and he actually gets a pretty sad death scene in one of the endings. I mean the game is still a tad generic, the enemies in this are better than the ones in the first game but still fell like generic aliens, the game missions play similar to the first where you just fight random waves of enemies and things like fort defense. There is a decent amount of side content but it does get a little tedious and adds practically nothing to the main game. I mean essentially this game is Infamous 1.5 since it doesn't really add enough, but the fact that it plays smoother and has better enemy design and a better story/characters does give this a slight edge over the first game, but I still don't think this game is too great either and does suffer from a good amount of flaws.

Infamous 2 did almost everything right. It built upon what was established by its predecessor, and introduced cool new fire/ice powers.
The main idea of the Infamous series is that you've got superpowers and have to decide whether you're going be a heroic asshole or just an asshole. Fine, whatever.

SPOILERS AHEAD BY THE WAY

The plot of this game is that a "beast" is rampaging across the US, and you've got to stop it somehow. You figure out why it exists at the end of the game.

In the game's world, there are two types of people: Those who can get superpowers and those who can't. Not all who can get them have them yet. If the cans are exposed to a certain type of energy, their powers are activated. If the cannots are exposed to this same energy, they die.
There is also a horrible virus/disease/whatever going around that will kill everyone, but people with superpowers are immune.
The beast's goal is to save humanity from this disease by activating all the people with superpowers at once, which would kill all the people who cannot get superpowers (but they'd die from the disease anyway).
The heroes come up with a way to kill the beast and MAYBE POSSIBLY cure the disease. They are not 100% sure if it will cure the disease, but it will definitely kill the beast. There is, of course, a catch. If this is done, all the people with superpowers will die.

MORAL
AMBIGUITY

Except, no. The game clearly labels these choices as "evil" and "good" respectively. Rather than allow the player to decide what is the "right" thing to do, they tell you. As if this weren't bad enough, they LOCK YOU OUT OF THE CHOICE FOR THE "ALIGNMENT" YOU ARE NOT.
For example, I played through the entire game as a "good" character. However, I think I'd rather go with the choice that guarantees that some people survive, rather than, you know, potentially wiping out humanity completely. I can't do this unless I grind for HOURS to get my alignment down to neutral. BUT HO HO HO your superpowers are tied to your alignment! If I were to do this, I'd have no superpowers and wouldn't be able to beat the game anyway unless I continued to grind until I had maxed out my evil points!

To make matters worse, the developers are complete hypocrites.
In the game, there are two female companions. One is presented as "good" and one as "evil" throughout the entire game. They comment on your moral choices and whatever else.
Here's the fun part:
The "good" girl decides that this is the only way anyone is guaranteed to live (like I did!) and endorses the "evil" path for entirely selfless reasons.
The "evil" girl decides that she wants to fucking kill the beast, not giving a fuck if she dies and endorses the "good" path for entirely selfish reasons.

So, my female companions can choose the choice corresponding to the morality they have NOT been the entire game.
Hell, the "good" girl arrived at the same exact conclusion I did!
Why in the FUCK can't I follow the person who has agreed with me the entire game? Why can an NPC do exactly what I wanted to do, but I fucking can't?

If you are going to base your game around morality, then offer a completely grey moral choice, you can't tell me what I want to do is the "evil" thing and not let me do it because I'm a "good" person.
Fuck you.