While my story analysis on inFamous was rather harsh and unhappy, I did enjoy the game. I wanted to keep that separate from my full review, however, so here’s a summary for those that don’t care or don’t want to read all that.

inFamous has some interesting potential, telling the story of an average and slightly self-absorbed fellow named Cole that has been manipulated to deliver an explosive device that kills thousands in Not-New-York-City and yet gives him electrical super powers. Given this power, he can now use it to take advantage of others and be king of all he sees, or he can use it to serve the people and learn some valuable lessons in responsibility. All the while, his friends and cohorts are acting more out of their own self-interests, and it does nothing more than screw his day up even worse.

The problem is the presentation of this story. It is delivered in animated still-images followed by a narration from Cole that simply summarizes every detail. You don’t actually see how these events play out, you’re just told a quick version from the protagonist. It’s like these details weren’t as important as the gameplay, so they skipped right over them to get you to the “important bits”. As such, it becomes hard to care about the events in the game, even though you want to care. You want to acknowledge that these big plot twists are actually surprising and even emotional, but you can’t because the game basically glosses over it so you can get back to climbing buildings and shocking bad guys.

Good thing those things are fun! Otherwise the game would get awfully boring really quick.

If you’re going to make a game that gets rather repetitive, then the best thing to do is to have a story worth following. One of the reasons I never finished Viking: Battle for Asgard was because I didn’t feel like repeating the same basic tasks from one island to the next, just harder and with more enemies. It was a really fun game, and I kind of regret not beating it, but without an interesting story I didn’t feel like I was missing much.

So when I first started playing inFamous I was a bit skeptical that I’d be able to stick with it. There were three islands you had to progress through, and I was pretty certain they’d all follow a similar pattern. Well, I was half right.

The story missions are only repetitive when it comes to restoring power to each island, and by the third and final island you only need to do it once. The game doesn’t overstay its welcome in that regard. By time you’d be sick of the repetition, the game pretty much just funnels you towards the end. All the big twists occur, shit starts hitting fans and the final conflict can be seen coming. Granted a bit faster than anticipated, but it’s not like Halo 2. You don’t just beat a regular mission and then…oh, credits. You complete a major objective and then face the final boss.

In other words, the game is pretty good at rising action. The severity of the situation slowly increases, and while there’s a bit of a calm between the second and third islands, it doesn’t take long for things to ramp back up and reach their conclusion.

As stated, though, the story itself is a little bit tough to care about. Normally with this sort of game the story missions are what keep me going, but here they carried pretty much the same value as the side missions. Normally in such games it is the side missions that gradually bore me, and finally I’m drawn back to the story.

inFamous is a nice little diversion from this sort of common trend. See, the side missions not only manage to be fun and varied, but they also provide a sense of progress and substantial rewards. See, each of the three islands is covered by rival gang members that own the entire territory of that island. As you complete the side missions, those territories are “taken back” and cleared of all foes. Those areas are safe to travel without fear of random enemies spawning (typically). This is in addition to the experience you gain to increase your combat abilities.

The side missions don’t take very long, either. Ten minutes maximum on average. I know we live in a time where players are demanding longer games, but I’d rather my time be well spent. An hour in Oblivion yields few rewards or results. inFamous may not provide as much play time, but an hour feels productive. I can complete three or four side missions and even a story mission and call it a night. I can see my progress on the map, in the moving plot line and in any upgraded powers. For anyone with a full-time job or busy class schedule, this sort of feeback and reward system is valuable and encourages further play more easily than exploring the rest of that cave that looks suspiciously like the one I explored all of last week.

Many of the side missions you’ll only repeat once per island, so even if there’s one you hate (those damn photographer quests!) you won’t have to worry about doing too many of them. The only real problem is after performing a specific story quest, you might find several of these side missions suddenly appearing across the map. So if you didn’t like it when the story required you to smash up three of those trucks spilling toxin everywhere, then brace yourself for three or four side missions demanding you do it again.

As stated, though, it’s not like these missions take very long, and you’ll probably have a lot of fun climbing and gliding between buildings in order to reach those locations. Like Assassin’s Creed, part of the fun of inFamous is the urban exploration. The basic climbing mechanics aren’t as polished or thorough as Assassin’s Creed, but as time progresses you’ll gain new abilities that makes it easier and, sometimes, much more entertaining. Being able to glide across power lines or the train rails suddenly makes travel faster and opens up an all new way of planning a travel route. Going from one side of an island to the next becomes even faster, and the player is capable of accomplishing even more in less time. By the end of the game you feel like a genuine vigilante super hero, streaking across the sky looking to hunt down thugs and criminals.

Or perhaps a villain, looking to take down a few cops. It all varies on which side you choose, and your powers will vary in tandem. Good powers are based largely on restoring energy to perform more powerful attacks while evil powers are more focused on dealing greater damage. Depending on your play style, it may be more effective to do as much damage as quickly as possible and get out, but a lot of the good powers are great for handling enemies from a distance or taking foes on one at a time.

Either way, there is no such thing as a useless power in inFamous. Each ability and each upgrade has a use, especially towards the end.

In fact, replaying the game may prove difficult due to how drastically more powerful you are by the end. After traversing the maps to collect power shards and boosting your power reserves, as well as upgrading your abilities to as close to maximum as possible, you’re not the same character that began the game. It’s like starting a new game of Metroid, where you’re used to having the Varia suit, grapple beam, super missiles and power bombs. Now you’re limited to just the morph ball and maybe the charge shot. inFamous has that same effect, especially now that the few powers you still have are far weaker than when you finished.

While it makes replaying the game harder, it certainly gives a satisfying sense of progression. Which I guess is why I found this game so enjoyable to play. My progress was easy to track and I was able to make a lot of it in a short amount of time. I could boost my powers, obtain island territories and move the plot forward in a single hour of play time, and the next night the side missions I play could be completely different than those the day before.

It’s a basic study of game design. Give the player things to do, make sure they don’t get boring, keep activities varied, and provide them constant reward. Despite getting into a basic flow each island, where you restored power to one section, gained a new ability, and continued on, none of the experience actually feels repetitive. Not like the complaints against the first Assassin’s Creed.

In that regard, inFamous is a huge success. I can easily recommend it to anyone that wants an open world game with solid mechanics, a lot to do and some awesome abilities to terrorize (or save) the world with.