inFAMOUS

Year: 2009
Developer: Sucker Punch Productions
Publisher: SCE
Console Played: Playstation 3


Upon playing Infamous on release, I found that the positive critical reviews had lead me down a wrong path. The game is a perfect example of something being less than the sum of its parts. Infamous stood out to me as a pastiche of popular games I had already been playing. or those popular in recent times. Instead of being pulled into the eclectic gameplay and storyline of this game, instead I played a little game of count the rip offs. From memory I came up with: The sandbox city of Grand Theft Auto, the force powers of Force Unleashed, the Good/Evil path system of Fallout 3, and the acrobatics of Assassin's Creed, to name the obvious ones. Wrap it all up with an undeveloped lead character that I didn't care about, a predictable and generic plot, and dull, brown and grey visuals that make up a city that lacks in character. Infamous was more memorable for just "borrowing" a bunch of other ideas that worked in other hit games and never trying to say anything for itself or break new ground. None of these stolen elements work any better than the games they were lifted from, so I couldn't see the point of bothering to finish this game, and swiftly gave up on it after a few days play. Fusing lots of different types of gameplay into one game does not equal originality. To try and outdo the glorious sandbox environment and smooth gameplay of GTAIV almost a year after it's release was perhaps brave, but mostly foolish. Infamous was just a failed mish mash of a game to me that really wasn't as fun or lasting as its diverse gameplay must have fooled critics into believing. I saw right through it from day one.