Network now...MAGAZINE
Review: Infamous
By Edge Staff
June 5, 2009
See also:
Related Articles:
BAD MEANING GOOD
Throughout Infamous you’re asked whether you’ll use your powers for good or evil – a question that never threatens to become interesting, mostly because the decisions given to you reduce morality to a form of red-or-blue dress-up. Only once does a choice toy with your incentives, and not with any subtlety. Largely they fall along the lines of: heal the wounded man and be rewarded or kill him and steal what he has to give – every time freezing the action to tell you that you just did a Good thing, and that doing Good actions makes you more Good. Is that how it works? Tell us again, please. The results of such choices are fairly superficial, too: changing the flavour of a few cutscenes in a story you can’t care about isn’t much incentive, and the additional powers unlocked by extreme evil aren’t dramatically different from those of extreme benevolence.
Format: PS3
Release: Out now
Publisher: SCE
Developer: Sucker Punch Productions
Crackdown was about audacious, skyscraper-clearing leaps; Assassin’s Creed opted for nimble parkour, its protagonist dancing across rafters, swinging between jutting flagpoles. In both cases, scaling a city in any manner you chose made the game. With freerunning superman Cole, Infamous falls somewhere between Altaïr’s procedural elegance and the Agent’s unsubtle, ground-pounding zeal. The player can scamper up anything with a handhold, mastering nearly any structure in the sprawling acreage of Empire City, before plummeting back to street level without so much as a sprained ankle.
Cole has more tricks up his sleeve than Crackdown’s resilient hulk – the mysterious explosion that left Empire City a smouldering ruin has bestowed him with the ability to control electricity. And it’s not just him: gangs of costumed freaks now rule the streets with similarly fantastical powers. The three islands of Empire City are helpless to resist, cordoned off from mainland America due to an outbreak of plague; only Cole stands a chance of taking on the gangs.
When his full repertoire is unlocked, Cole is in every sense a dynamo – summoning lightning blasts to fry enemies, shrugging away their bullets with a shimmering shield of energy, and even soaring between rooftops on a wave of static. Cole grinds power cables like a turbo-powered Tony Hawk, scorching down telegraph wires before swooping off into the air and down on to others. The shattered ’burbs of Empire City are a cobweb of wires, favouring chains of frenetic, electric movement.
But such enthusiastic description is true only of the endgame. Despite the instant ability to fire lightning from his fingers, it takes a curiously long time for Cole to feel really super. Tasering enemies loses its thrill upon repetition (often a matter of insistently rattling R1 until everyone has fallen down) and the drip-feed of further powers is a little miserly, giving early access to the less inspiring examples, and hungrily draining power. Thankfully, Cole can recharge himself by drawing from nearby electrical sources – streetlamps, car batteries and even people. Staying charged up is trickier in the areas of the city suffering blackout, and Cole’s sojourns into these districts to restore power leave him vulnerable, changing the pace of play and – annoyingly – blurring his vision.
Such trips are a central part of Infamous’ structure – the game is divided into days, during which Cole turns the lights back on in different parts of Empire City, fighting off gangs all the while. Main story missions are meaty, well-checkpointed affairs, the highlights of the game demanding novel use of Cole’s powers and rewarding them with spectacle: scaling the junk tower built by a telekinetic vagrant offers a rare, beautiful vista of Empire City – a place which is usually covered in a dreary, grey clag; another plonks Cole in front of a besieged prison, feeds him a limitless supply of current, and throws everything it can against him. Boss battles inspire awe with colossally powerful, and sometimes simply colossal, opponents. And they aren’t without ingenuity either – a neat twist on the QTE sees the player direct Cole’s hand towards a grapple hold on his opponent, while hammering X.
Sidequests are an appealing enough mix, too, and not altogether formulaic: race across rooftops, locate hidden packages, scour buildings for surveillance equipment, pose for photographs, covertly pursue gang members, assault and defend. According to the triumphal pop-up blurbs, successful completion frees areas of the city from enemy control, but this is often contradicted by the continued presence of men who are quite clearly trying to kill you. It’s not the only time mission information is contradictory or incomplete – a pedantic niggle, perhaps, but one that is representative of the game’s many rough edges. Enemies brazenly spawn in front of you. Sidequests occasionally blink in and out of existence on the map. Narrative dressing is applied with clumsy artifice – a group of prisoners are said to be unarmed, for example, but no one thought to change the character models to reflect this.
And such a stumble is perhaps the least of Infamous’ visual problems, which begin with the city itself. Being a ruinous sprawl of crumbling concrete, slums and derelict industry, it was always going to have to work hard for our affection, but it does itself few favours, opting for the most part for a bleak, ashen palette that renders everything flat and dull. Outside of Cole’s clambering, Infamous is home to some truly wonky animation, all jerky arm gestures and Punch-and-Judy lip-synching. The walk cycles alone have a good long trek before they even see the Uncanny Valley, and the moribund acting and flatlining script do nothing to jolt life back into Empire City’s spasming mannequins.
Though individually overcome with a little suspension of disbelief, the amassed weight of the game’s mistakes has an atrophying power. It makes it hard to invest belief in Empire City beyond a toybox for you to upturn. It renders the already facile moral choices utterly meaningless, and the already humdrum plot a hokey annoyance. It may aspire to comic-book styling, but that shouldn’t give Infamous’ pedestrian schlock a free pass: the genre’s intellectual spectrum encompasses both Thundercats and Watchmen, after all. Infamous’ narrative repeatedly shoots wide of the mark: fellow courier Zeke is almost instantly annoying rather than a loveable sidekick, and intended romantic interest Trish is a Plasticine-faced harridan who gives you no reason to care for her. Sure, she blames you for the explosion that killed her sister, but the game gives neither Cole, nor the player, any opportunity to defend himself. We can fire electricity from our fingers – just why are we being nagged?
But for all Infamous’ clumsiness of implementation and misjudged storytelling it remains a playground for Cole’s tremendous abilities, full of diversions that aren’t easily dismissed as busywork. When Cole gains a new devastating power and mutters, “Oh hell yeah,” it’s a rare moment when the script dovetails with your own thoughts. The game follows up with the opportunity to use the power at its most awesome; the heavens open, the world explodes in flame and you can’t help but emit a deep pantomime guffaw. At its best, Infamous is an amped-up Crackdown – a game about bounding across a cityscape, discharging your energies however you please. Even if ropey execution impedes its appeal, Infamous still has this essential spark. [7]
This article originally appeared in E203.
Like what you’ve read? Buy your copy of Edge now for £4.50 and get it delivered to your door (UK and Europe only).
www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/gamesradarshop
Contact Us / About Us / Advertise With Us / BeltwayBlips / TechBlips / MassiveBlips / GamerBlips / FAQ
Subscribe To Edge Magazine / Corrections / Terms & Conditions / Privacy Policy
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
Subscribe To Edge Magazine / Corrections / Terms & Conditions / Privacy Policy
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
It looks like Edge need to have a separate rating just for the Ps3 fanboys! Every game reviewed for the console gets 10!!! while the rest of us can accept a rating given by a professional games journalist. We don't have to agree, just read, acknowledge and accept that its one person's opinion...Plus the Xbox had games like this years ago, YOINK!
I'm on my second play through of the Infamous at the moment, I've been a goody two shoes now I'm killing everything to get that coveted "Infamous" status. I have thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I have found it very frustrating and felt at time that I was just trying to get through it.. But I think that was because I was desperate to know was going to happen to the characters.
The highlight for me was the art direction I loved the comic book look and feel, My favourite part was fighting Kessler on the bridge for the first time. All the way through the action was fast paced forcing you to think quickly about the best tactics, direction and altitude to attack you enemies from. I lost count of how many times I saw Cole die. The AI of your enemy was very good, I like the way they wouldn't let you get to close, making melee attack trickier. And also as you attacked what seemed like a lone enemy would soon turn into an Epic battle, which would erupt out of nowhere as you transitted across the map.
However, It was still over a little quickly for my liking, however the city is worthy of exploring and the mechanics of the game will surely keep my coming back into my third and four play through on the harder levels, which it medium should be anything to go by that's going to keep me busy for a little while yet.It was incredibly easy to complete side missions, I also found them quite repetitive and finding all dead drop and blast shards was completed 100% in the first play through.
Cole did feel like a bit of a one tricky pony, once you'd explored all his moves, which were varied but not massively so. It did feel as though sometimes you were just button bashing to get to the top of building similarly in combat. I also found the Coles magnetism a little annoying being sucked toward objects just because they were there, not because you want to land on them.
I also manage to complete about 70% of the game having forgot to power up. I hadn't noticed the EXP. points I had accumulated. Don't know how I managed to do that, they're right there in the Pause menu on reflection, maybe I should have paid more attention to tutorials or read the manual.
I don't know what score I would have given this had I been reviewing it.. but it would have certainly ranked high, even with the niggly issues that I've come across. It is a thoroughly enjoyable experience!
I'm making this comment having just completed Killzone2. The game is fantastic in single player with gorgeous visuals and great level design albeit with a threadbare story. The multiplayer is addictive and actually the only FPS besides CSS that I have ever gotten into. Upon reading the orignal Edge review og Killzone2 I sort of felt it was a little overly critical and the writing of it was partucularly jarring to me.
I've been patient. I waited. I played the game in single player and multi player and have a good basis now to call BS on the review. Over the years I have bought more than 50 issues of Edge though none since the Killzone2 review and now I wont be buying another, ever.
I don't know if Infamous is a 7/10 game but I don't trust the review.
Edge have tainted all there years of excellent journalism bringing developers thoughts and ambitions to the public. Edge do excellent retrospectives and have one of the most gorgeously designed magazines out there of any genre. Recently though I have felt that they have been all too critical of everything Sony, which wouldn't bother me if their critisicms matched my own feeling broadly.
Like it or lump it Edge have quite clearly demonstrated a lack of interest in the PS3 and PSP despite a raft of quality games and an unprecedented investment in Next Gen (this gen) from Sony these last 3 years.
The 7/10 for Infamous is in my opinion a lowish score but in years past I may have trusted Edges opinion and picked up a copy to read why the game deserves a less than expected score. I just don't care to be honest as it's what I expected from Edge no what the quality of the game upon release.
None of this would matter had I not held the magzine in such a high regard to start with and maybe it doesn't matter to you that you'll be losing my £4 month but I find it quite sad that one of my guilty pleasures has sort of lost its appeal.
Dudes, there are a total of two posts on this article suggesting that edge may be biased. There are lots of posts with various reasons why people believe this deserves more than a 7, whether it be implications that edge reviews in general are a bit pretentious, or favourable comparisons to other games with higher scores. This isn't fanboyism, it's just quite a lot of people in disagreement with the author. Of course most of us have played crackdown and bioshock before, and yes, they're very good. But this is very good too, and many of us think it's good enough to warrent a mark above 7.
Hell, I was trying to make a serious point about the relevance of reviews when patches are so common nowadays. When people disagree with the author, it's not ALWAYS a case of fanboyism (unless you're on gamespot).
Ha, yeah, Gamespot is pretty shocking. I understand that some people (like yourself) genuinely believe that InFamous deserves a better score, but really, don't you think that the majority of what is said in this review is true. So, maybe you think they're being a little harsh with a 7....but what would you give it? An 8? It's not as if EDGE have given this game a bad score. We all know their scoring system - 5 is average (as it should be) so a score of 7 suggests a game well worth your time - which InFamous is. At the end of the day, what you think InFamous deserves is comepletely dependent upon how willing you are to overlook the niggling issues that the game as.
As for patches, well, I think that's a mute point. Games have to be marked based upon what it is you receive in the shop. At the end of the day, games should be released in a finished state, and while I'm all for improving games based upon player feedback, delivering clearly unfinished games just to meet a deadline is pretty shocking and something that (sadly) the ability to patch games is making an ever more common occurance.
P.S. I'm sorry if you thought my post was attacking your comment based upon 'fanboyism', but you have to admit, there is a lot of that crap going around - ALOT!!
I can't believe the fan boys are at it again. The strange thing is, a lot of their posts are surprisingly well written, suggesting that they are often written by people old enough to know better. EDGE isn't 360 biased, it just gives its honest oppinion on each game it reviews. If you don't agree with that opinion - really, who cares!? There are plenty of other reviews to look at if you don't like this one. Personally, I really like the game and although I agree with the majority of what is said in the review, I would happily score it an 8 - but honestly, what's 1 mark between friends aye? I don't know about anyone else, but a lot of these posts honestly make me a little depressed to be a gamer.
WOW...the fanboys won't stop crying over this one. It's Killzone 2 all over again. I think a lot of Sony fanboys are upset here because they're experiencing a game for the first time that reviewers experiences about 2 years ago with Crackdown. Of course a Sony fanboy never played Crackdown. Another reason NOT to be a fanboy...you coulda been having this much fun a LONG time ago. Edge is just calling it as they see it.
I played inFamous and it's definitely a good game, but it's certainly not revolutionary in any way. 7 is a fair score, it's not a BAD score. Anyone who actually took the time to play Crackdown (including Sucker Punch) will tell you this game was heavily influenced by that title...even down to the lone towering building where you can climb and see awesome vistas of the city. Crackdown and inFamous are both great games, one just came out years ahead of the other. So please stop crying...it's your own fault for being a fanboy and missing some amazing gameplay.
One of these days the fanboy will not descend upon a review and we will have an interesting discussion.
Is it just me, or is it the generic middle-eastern guy last prominately seen in GTAIV has been going around lately? Not only was he in that game, but he's also in the new Red Faction game as the hero and now this one?
That character must be getting big royalties.
Bloody hell, should have known what to expect for a PS3 exclusive scoring less than a 9 in Edge. Here come all the tweenie Sony fanboys again.
Good game and a 7 is a fair score. It's certainly not revolutionary and like Red Faction it gets very repetitive if you spend too long in one playing session. It tries to do a Crackdown but is missing the fantastic characterisation & humour of the street gangs in that game.. oh and it's missing guns, firing electricity is just nowhere near as much fun as firing BIG GUNS!!
I'm really enjoying this game. I think 7 is a bit stingey, but that probably reflects it being a PS3 game reviewed in edge. I reckon it's an 8.5-9. I wonder about how reviews work nowadays, with most consoles being online and ripe for patching. I mean, one might imagine that sucker punch could patch the little glitches in this game within a few months. Seeing as that's one of edge's major gripes with it, would the score then be retroactively changed?
Another example is KZ2. Lots of reviewers complained about the controls, which have recently been patched to offer an optional setup very similar to COD4. The problem is that people who read reviews saying the controls were dodge probably didn't buy the game, and will never find out that it's now more control-friendly.
Anyway, that was quite an epic tangent. Very fun game.
Exactly the same game on another platform,(read XBox360) and Edge would give it a 8 or 9.
Ho Edge, why are you so biased?
The low review score is because EDGE likes to be a little bit, dare I say, pretentious? Or however that damn word is spelt...
Review score should be based on how readers+consumers will feel about it after playing it through as far as they want to go. A ten being given to a game that is so good it even be entertaining to gamers who don't usually go in for that genre and is as revolutionary and brilliant as you could ever ask for, eight being if it's great and top level for it's market, six meaning probably a waste of money if your budget for games is less than £20 a month... Etc. With the wordy words explaining the game a bit so you can tell what score you'd give it yourself (if you've always wanted that mix of PES and dinosaurs, the words will let you know, for example).
If that's not the sort of technique their aiming for with reviews, so that it's audience will agree, then it's pretty disgusting... Less technical comparisons to competing games, more entertainment comparisons. This game has bloody good replay value and longevity, and has great animation where it counts. Some of us don't mind if it's a little "playground"ey.
I think he was just annoyed because it didn't go all "realistic" and immersive like GTA4.
That's not the only way a game can be good you know
I'm loving this game. It's a really fun offering and feels fresh. Sure there might be some small issues with it but overall I'm really impressed with this game. Its got that have another go vibe that I got from playing Drake's Fortune, which is a huge compliment really. I'm not really in far enough to give a score out of 10, but so far 7 seems a little low.. but then I don't really care about review scores per ce. I'm having great fun, so what difference does it make if it scores a 7 or a 10? Anyway, off to go and play some more
When in doubt give it a 7..... Classic EDGE!
"Despite the instant ability to fire lightning from his fingers, it takes a curiously long time for Cole to feel really super."
Right, I'd love to see whoever reviewed this game be able to jump off a building and land without a scratch, or be able to scale anything he wishes -- which he was able to do since the beginning the game. In Grand Theft Auto, you'd be fucking dead trying to pull those stunts. Cole's powers develop gradually, instead of him being given everything the way Superman was.
The whole point of Cole's character is that he slowly transforms over the course of the game. How boring would it be if you had all of his powers off the bat? The more options you have, the more bored you get. It's a fact. There are times when less is more, so there's no point in making him "super" immediately. After all, he started out as an ordinary guy, and as the days go by his powers develop and the decisions you make actually influence the powers he can use. It's nowhere near as simple as "red lightning or blue lightning." There are moves you can use only if you're Guardian, moves you can use only if you're Champion, and moves you can use only if you're Hero. Same goes for the Thug, Outlaw, and of course, Infamous ranks if you go "bad". Cole's powers develop alongside his character, thus affecting the people around you and how they react to you.
And generic looking? What, because he's bald? Now you're just splitting hairs. First, news flash: Cole is a generic guy! What did you want to play as, some prettyboy blondie who's been on the cover of Maxim eight consecutive times? Or maybe Tetsuya Nomura should've designed a character with long, spiky hair going in five different directions at once. What the fuck would that add to the game, the character, or to the story for that matter? Cole was an absolute nobody who only becomes a somebody only after the events in the game. He's not even trying to be a hero or a villain once he gets his powers, he's trying to live his life in a city that just got raped by the Ray Sphere. It isn't until after news broke out that his package was what contained it that he becomes a somebody, and the direction of his growth is up to you. If you keep going back and forth between good and bad decisions, you're not going to get anywhere. Better off going straight into one path in one game, and going straight into the other for your second game. You'll be shocked when you see the results (especially the endings).
Its not that I'm experiencing it the first time, its the fact that there are things in this game that make it amazing. Like for example the fact that the AI is relentless on medium difficulty makes me wonder what the AI would be like on hard. As well as very few games have the effect of (as I stated earlier) making me want to play again.
@Nickgamertag-dude get a PS3 immediately dunno if your wife likes games...let her play LBP shed be playing that game all day and night with you.
I've stated before Ive got all 3 each are great. At this point in time I've completely figured it to be totally absurd to limit myself and my gaming opportunities because of "fanboyism".
The problem with EDGE reviews in my eyes isn't the stingyness its more of the reasoning. This world literally reacts to the way you perform.
As in my first play through I played pure Good Guy and by the end of the game what was once and apocalyptic setting became a city vibrant and full of life to where they called on you for help, took your pictures where ever you went.Not to mention praised you. Now as I'm evil I'm getting pelted with rocks and bottles people run as if I'm the Son of Sam. The platforming was great, abilities were fantastic.
There's more but it just seems EDGE might be buying into the game's previous iterations for reliance on the future iterations of the franchise.
Like the top post is "the protagonist couldn't be more generic looking" has this person seen a comic other than X-Men or Alien oriented Superheros, IE Batman, Spiderman, Daredevil, Punisher, Hulk. All these heroes listed before having a suit on or transforming look generic, why isn't that a complaint to Marvel or DC Comics? Superheroes don't need to look like Dr.Manhattan or Martian Manhunter or Captain Mar-Vell to get the job done or to be able to relate to people. The characters around Cole are done realistically because one of mankinds flaws that's always been shown and used in comics is the fickle nature of humanity. That's many people can relate to one or more heroes without neccessarily having to go through each event the heroe or heroine did.
My girlfriend and 12 year old daughter played LBP for an hour or two and got bored, just like i did. After the cute factor died they lost all interest in what is essentially a very simple & dull platform game albeit with fantastic graphics.
Oh look you can make new levels and dress the cute little things in MGS skins and then we can collect all the balloons/bubbles again - Wow that's just so amazing zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
We'll stick with Mario Kart, Mario Party, Pikmin etc for our family fun.
The protagonist couldn't be more generic looking
ok, maybe he needs a goatee.
This is probably one of those games that's tough to review. According to my save file, I'm 38% done and I'm having a complete blast with the game but it does have some pretty obvious flaws. As a reviewer, do you base your score on how much fun your having or do you dissect the game for technical issues and some minor game design flaws?
It's a blatant clone of Crackdown (which is turning out to be one of those surprisingly influential titles) but captures that "I'll just do one more side-mission and stop" (and then you don't) vibe that's so hard to capture.
when the dlc comes out I think I am going rent a ps3 and rent this game, Maybe with cabbin trip.
I don't want sony to get a dine from so i'm renting both a ps3 and a game console
Well, they'll get more than a dime from the console and game that the rental place bought in order to supply you with a rental.
Ucht....... 7 is a great score if you understand the Edge scoring system. 7 represents a must have game!!!!
That's the problem with scores.
Honestly I've got a serious question there seems to be a major problem with this site. Why is that the last 2 major Sony titles that Sony was pushing as must haves are 7's when clearly majority of anyone who has played them loves them.
Let's compare inFamous to the other 2 open world sandbox games of this gen Assassins Creed and GTA IV. AC was a great game but still had lots wrong with it. The fighting system was nothing but parry, slash...parry dodge slash. Yet it got 9's across the board. Now for GTA IV this site itself to my knowledge gave it at least 8 I think more a 9 from my recollection. Yet what did GTA IV do that was so revolutionary and seperated it from the past GTA's? NOTHING, ZIP, ZILCH, NOTHING. No wait a second there was a difference...Mission 1) Run to point A shoot and kill the target. Mission 2) Drive to point A get out of the car shoot and kill the targets. IN BETTER GRAPHICS. Wow that makes the game a 9 or even a 10 most peoples books.
As for inFAMOUS I honestly never have played a game where I'm a person given and allowed to use powers as I choose. There is no sandbox game where the world reacts to the main character the way inFAMOUS does. I personally don't think the reviewer completed all the missions or even the game to question why Zeke acts the way he did and why Trish acts the way she did. NEWSFLASH...Reviewer the Sucker Punch crew drew heavily from comics and don't know if you know this its happened in comics virtually the same way. Its kinda like life stuff happens whichever way its supposed whether it makes sense or not. Stuff Happens for no reason at all.
This game is not a 10, its a 9 at best but no lower than an 8.
No game will ever have someone put it in finish it one way and play a second time just to finish it completely different from the first time around.
I guess you never played Crackdown or BioShock? Both had you "upgrade" your powers according to your preference. There are plenty of sandbox games which react to your main character - and some significantly more than inFamous does.
I'm glad you're experiencing these things for the first time and enjoying it so much (as am I), but just because this experience is new and refreshing for you doesn't mean it is for others who have played plenty of games that have done the same thing already. That lowers one's perception of the title a bit (ie the score) because you're enjoying good execution, rather than innovation. For all the things inFamous does spectacularly, innovation is certainly not one of them.
inFAMOUS is definitely not a perfect game, but I agree with MrCarlito here. It's still a solid 9, in my book. I can't say anything about the choices you make and how much they impact the story because I've only played through the game as a pure hero. I've yet to play it as a villain, but if the game is more or less exactly the same I will be pretty pissed. I doubt it, though, because a lot of the trophies I unlocked were "Good ____" instead of "Evil ____." And besides, everything about the game is just awesome. The only flaws I can even think about can easily be fixed by patches (i.e. framerate issues, glitches, etc.).
Still, to give a game like Grand Theft Auto IV a higher rating despite the fact that its improvements over its seven-year-older predecessor were minuscule at best is absurd.
Despite these flaws, I had more fun playing the demo of this game than I ever had with GTA4.
Thta would probably be down to the fact that they are two totally different gameplay experiences.
One a living breathing world drenched in atmosphere and the other a bland lonely sandbox full of simple AI routines that you never feel any connection to.
"It renders the already facile moral choices utterly meaningless, and the already humdrum plot a hokey annoyance."
I think a main reason I never read reviews is because everyone tries to use some type of cryptic, metaphoric, flashy sentence by ushering in their latest findings in the English dictionary. It is as if the writers use it to show just how good they can write when all I care about is the game. I never take anything away that tells me specific things about the game because I find myself digging through archaic words that completely take me out of the review.
Even with some stiff animations I find inFamous to be loads of fun. Advancement of story and missions have an impact to the user becoming much more powerful so that they can destroy or save Empire City. Depending on the users choice they will surely want to play through again to get a different experience and different take on the story and world. This is the first time I have ever completed a game and immediately started over to play it differently. This is the first sandbox game I have ever had any interest in completing. I loved Crackdown but nothing tied me to the story to make me complete my main missions. For that inFamous moves to the top of my list of must have/glad to have games.
That sentence is a gem, and describes a lot of the oversimplistic good/bad mechanics that pass for 'moral choices' in games; it's writing like that coupled with the opinions that keep me reading Edge. And it's not pretentious or using showy words for the sake of it, it's a great and pithy way of summing up the reviewer's ideas of the game's failings.
Also, I find it best not to back up an opinion by suggesting that accurately chosen words are a bad thing, you know? Well chosen words are kind of the whole point of writing. For example, you say you never read reviews and yet clearly you do otherwise you wouldn't be (a) irritated at this one, and (b) quoting from it. You certainly seem to have understood the content enough to disagree with it, so what's the problem? Or would we really rather they all read like Dan Brown. 'In the new game a big good man kills some bad men but sometimes he can be bad too...'
For the record, though, I had pretty much decided not to play this game, but your comment has made me think it's worth a second glance, so. Sorry to have a go, but there are so many people that have a go at Edge's style, but I think quality writing should be appreciated, not just dismissed for using a varied vocabulary.
Well said. I appreciate the writing as well.
I also think Edge reviews are more "future proof" than other sites. They often seem to get past the hype and focus on the game itself.
Thanks for the response. First to clarify, I have no issues with Edge's review of the game and not complaining about the review. It just struck a cord with me on reviews from various establishments where words are strung together for the showing off. It reminded me of an old co-worker who would send out reports to the organization and he would purposely find some old snappy word that hasn't been used in ages, or actively look up alternative words to use so that his report could be read as...intelligent.
I shouldn't have stated "I never read reviews" rather I should have stated "I rarely read reviews". Although I understood the content, I didn't really have a problem with it. It just struck a bad memory and reminded me of other reviews I have read on various games at many other sites. I shouldn't have complained about my nitpick here though.
Just to restate, I have no issues with the review.
Darn exclusives...I'm happy with my 360 but I can't help but be a bit bummed when certain games that come out that are intriguing to me and I can't play them.
I enjoyed crackdown a lot, collecting the orbs, getting stronger, and leveling up my character was loads of fun but the story (if you can even call it that) was a joke. I'm hoping Prototype can give me my open-world fix.
I have no problem with EDGE's reviews but being on this site for about a year or so has showed me that EDGE is just more stingy with their reviews. You could probably add 1 number to each of EDGE's reviews and that's probably what the industry average would be.
dude just rent a ps3 console and rent the game. You don't have to buy a ps3.
Rent a console? I haven't done that since the PS2 days (bofore I bought one). I didn't know you could even rent them anymore. One day I may own a PS3, but I don't think I'll rent one. I'd have to REALLY want to play the game and I don't think any one game on the PS3 so far has my attention like that.
oh you can even buy the ps3 used too as well at gamestop,the game too. :)
And imagine if you rented one and liked it better than your xbox?! That would be a dark day for you wouldn't it! Haha.
Ha ha very funny. Maybe I'll rent a 200-300 dollar PC while I'm at it.
Don't rent it, buy it and put those smelly old consoles in a corner to cry!
...
Or maybe not. Of course, you DO get tons of good shooters on PC. Have you played Team Fortress 2 on the 360? Do yourself a favor and play it on the PC, where there's unlockable weapons, the Soldier and Demoman are balanced, the Pyro is balanced (If a bit too easy), Medics are far more played, and there's several more gamemodes, including Payload, Double Payload (Only one level so far, though), and Arena (Otherwise known as "one-life-wonder"), where you have 6 on 6 matches.
Infamous is fun, but it DOES have some pretty big flaws. A few months of delaying it would have honestly been for the best to fix some of the problems with the visual models for people, and maybe add some real color to the game.
I have played TF2 on my 360, but got destroyed every time I tried to play it, and that was before the update so it was kinda buggy at times. If I had the time and the money I'd have all 3 (360, PS3, and PC) but I don't. Thanks for the info anyway!
Eh? Well, it's a different game, so I can understand. I personally get destroyed all the time at Halo 3 when I try to play it; that's why teams appeal to me so much in that game.
Sorry if I sound overbearing, I'm a bit tired due to Finals.