InFamous Review: Light on Plot but Plenty of Action

If you own a PS3 and you’re still looking for something worth playing on your lovable console, it may just be time to settle.  InFamous is one of those games where you just don’t have the time to ask the bigger questions such as, “Is this better than the newest Xbox game,” since most of the time you’re too busy electrocuting the bejeezus out of NPC’s to care.

The plot is…you know what?  The plot is irrelevant.  Seriously, if you pick up InFamous hoping for a revolutionary plotline, just stop.  This is the video game version of a popcorn flick: A good summer release to waste time with on a hot afternoon.

You play Cole, someone who somehow acquires the ability to use electricity to do any number of things from shock enemies, slightly hover when jumping, resuscitate civilians, or just wreak havoc.  By now, you should already know if you’ve decided to play InFamous.  To clear things up, the gameplay is smooth and the graphics are acceptable without any major malfunctions, so there really isn’t anything more to dwell on.

Oh wait-

Infamous and Morality

Cole sometimes gets pretty big for his britches, like in this blantant religious allusion

Yes, you must choose to play as either a “good” guy or the most evil spit possible.  But naturally, in the end the complex morality choices leave you either as the goody-goody equivalent of Pikachu, or Hitler with a battery strapped to his mustache.  No new ground is broken in terms of decision making as really the only difference between playing the game as a good or evil gives some morality exclusive missions and variations in cutscenes.

Basically, a cheap way to get a second playthrough, but at 20 hours for a single playthrough, yeah, you’re getting your money’s worth, morality aside, (because given the moral choice, thrift is always the correct answer).

InFamous is a good rental title in regards to length and the coveted “fun factor,” but if you have the $60 to plop down on a PS3 exclusive while you wait for the Holy Grail, (the “Sony Grail”?), you could do much worse than InFamous.

In fact, it’s difficult to do much better.  Find Infamous here.