The single greatest exclusive (yes, even more than The Last of Us and Uncharted) in the history of the PS3. I'm not kidding when I say this game blew my freakin' 5th grader mind when it released and to this day, this is still one of the greatest games I've ever played and one of the greatest series ever.

First off, if you haven't played the first one (I didn't when I first played this) then you definitely SHOULD because it really explains a lot of what's happening in this one, although it is still enjoyable without knowing the full story. It's always fun to go back and look at the way a game is made, what creative decisions are made and how it becomes what it is, especially because for this game and its predecessor, the Behind-The-Scenes provide some super interesting info. For example, the fact that the original game's evil ending was supposed to be canon! Yeah, because they never planned for a sequel and even if they did, the evil ending left way more space to do a sequel. But after seeing just how many players chose the good ending (which like, duh), they decided to do a sequel that followed that. And I'm oh so glad.

Here's the rundown. You're Cole MacGrath, a nobody who became a hero after receiving powers from a mysterious package you were supposed to be delivering. You saved Empire City from its impending doom but, as it turns out, you couldn't stop the plague that had been killing its inhabitants nor The Beast, the big bad of this game, who appeared and destroyed the city nonetheless. In fact, the first mission of this game is sort of a recap of the first game and an explanation of why Cole and his best friend, Zeke, are fleeing the city. So now, you're running away from The Beast and hoping to have just enough time to be strong enough to kill it and find a way to cure everyone of the plague.

The plot itself is incredibly cool and unique, I can't legitimately think of a story similar to this, perhaps Prototype's but they're wildly different except for a few bullet points. So I think that prompt alone is enough to capture everyone's attention. Or at least, it captured mine!

The game takes place in an open world fictional city called New Marais. It's not terribly big or varied, but it's a good map nonetheless. I never found it boring or annoying to go through, especially because the traversal system is such a step-up from the previous game. The way you traverse through the city is based on an amazing mashup of parkour, power usage and concrete jungle. You can glide, something you couldn't do in the previous game and which adds an almost essential move to go through the world at quick pace, you can jump, you can climb, you can use electric-based platforms to speed all of these moves up and it all leads to a nearly perfect arsenal of free-running that is based on your own style and preferences. It is so fun to just go through New Marais and look badass while doing it.

The combat is revamped as well and you have the addition of this huge fucking bat that you can swing and do awesome moves and finishers with. I used melee mostly simply because of how cool and realistic it looked, but there's much more to it. The game is, at its core, a TPS which means you have a weapon. In this case, the weapon is YOU. There's light shots, heavy shots, grenade-like shots, one-shot-kill shots, neutralizing shots, precision shots and a few more that I won't get into too much cause otherwise I'd waste half of my time doing it. Your hands are your source of power and they're your weapon, you shoot lightning and absorb it from nearby electrical sources (exactly how the first game was, too) and it such a good spin on the boring, usual TPS genre of games that we've come to know and somewhat love/accept. I was never bored, there are so many good situations and scenarios that put your brains to good use just as much as your brawns and you have to use your abilities correctly. Also, the skill tree is HUGE.

Speaking of which, the skill tree is one of the reasons why this game is incredibly replayable. You have two sides to the abilities: The good ones and the bad ones, only half of them being achievable once per playthrough. It's all based on KARMA, which is probably the best part of all the inFamous games. You have a Karma meter, which goes from Hero to Infamous, that is based on your actions and how the public views Cole. Throughout the game, you're faced with choices that will legitimately make you question your own morality and, even if I dislike the fact that they're painted as "good" and "bad" (because most of them are legitimately debatable and you would be excused for choosing the evil ones), they will send you down the path that eventually decides what Cole's fate will be. You can have him be the savior of New Marais and in turn the world, or its destroyer. It is incredibly interesting and adds a ton of replayability, especially because different choices lead to different side missions, different main missions, different clothes and different parts of the open world. It is all so organic with the story that it's kinda insane for its time.

The story. Oh, the story. I'll be honest, I don't think the story is translated flawlessly into gameplay, but it ties into it nicely. The story is your classic tale of the hero struggling between his dark side and doing what's right, even if you might end up hurting yourself and the ones you love in the process. Would you give your friend's life for the better of mankind? Kill the few to save the many? Save the world, even if it costs you your life? These are the many questions that the game puts on the player and they are all executed to perfection. You're put in these moral choices that make you wonder if perhaps, being evil is needed. Perhaps, sometimes, you have to do a little bad to do some good. Or maybe you're just a sociopath who enjoys being evil and murdering everything that moves. The story, and especially the ending, have great twists and such interesting takes on the "rejected anti-hero" trope that is not that common but not that original either. There's a plot-twist towards the ending that will leave you pretty shocked and almost annoyed at how good it was setup through the game. And the endings, man... The evil one is probably the roughest ending in gaming history. Its emotional toll on you will probably make you regret being a bad guy the whole game. But even so, the ending is not a "bad ending". It's still an ending that fits and that isn't just cartoonishly evil. It's right, from a certain standpoint. But of course I'm a basic bitch so I had to go with the good ending. And it's amazing. Emotional, fun and overall a great sendoff to the franchise. I love inFamous: Second Son, and I wish there would be more inFamous games, but this game ends perfectly and it deserves to stay that way.

The soundtrack is great, not much to say about it. It's not some masterpiece, but the game theme and "Half as long, twice as bright" are the best pieces of music in the game and they're just amazing. The graphics are good, even for the time they were pretty average so I don't have too much to say about it.

Overall, inFamous is a perfect representation of what a great game made by people with passion and with a vision looks like. I love it so much and I get choked up when I see the endings. This is the best game on the PS3 and I hope to GOD that we'll eventually receive a remaster/remake or, god forbid, a PC PORT. I love inFamous, and you may too.

Honestly liked this one a lot better than the first one. Conflict felt a lot more straightforward, and they significantly cut down on the more blatant karmic choices. I kind of wish they didn't paint these choices red/blue to let you know which was which, but the choices actually felt meaningful this time around (as in, they send you to completely different missions). The game also doesn't allow you to pull a 180 right at the very end of the game, which is nice for continuity's sake.

In retrospect, I realize that I kinda didn't care about the characters in Infamous 1, and with how much they reworked them in Infamous 2, I'm inclined to believe the writers had a similar train of thought. Cole McGrath went from being a generic gruff guy to being an immature young adult with a sense of responsibility. Zeke feels a bit more happy-go-lucky and supportive of Cole, which is not exactly the vibe I got from him previously. Kessler and John are the only real standout characters retained from Infamous 1's plot (and the former is only mentioned in passing/audio logs). In general, Infamous 1 feels tryhard about being serious and edgy, whereas Infamous 2 brings in some much-needed levity.

Our locale is New Marais, down in the Louisiana bayou. It's a much more vibrant and varied locale. There's the aformentioned swamp, a pleasure district (literally called "Smut Triangle"), an abandoned train yard, and more. It feels more fun to platform around, partly due to new features like generator poles that will rocket boost Cole past most of the climb, and the fact that Cole is much less clingy when climbing. He'll actually drop when I want him to, and doesn't magnetize to every little foothold when ascending. Cole's powers are much more versatile in general, for both platforming and combat. You can pick up and throw objects, and your basic bolts and grenades get quite a few upgrades that you can actively swap between at any time. Some upgrades are better against certain enemies, so I appreciate the options. You also get a melee weapon with fancy finishers, a far cry from Cole's wimpy punches in the previous game.

Speaking of the enemies, our main antagonist group in this game is "The Militia"! They're definitely nowhere nearly as cool as any enemies from Infamous 1, but they make up for it with an actual oppressive presence. They're lead by Joseph Bertrand III, a political figure who grandstands and preaches to the people, convincing them that he knows what's best for them, and that they'll keep "deviant freaks" out of their town. The man's weaponizing xenophobia, though his primary target is wiping out conduits like Cole. Like any good (bad) politician, he's also got plenty of skeletons in his closet, but I'll leave some surprises for anyone who wants to play the game themselves.

There's one more thing I wanna touch upon, and that's the User-Generated Content, or the "UGC". It's this inclusion that I find both endearing and confusing. Essentially, it's a toolkit that lets you make your own side missions using similar tools that the devs used. You can do a lot of cool things, and it gives you a theoretically infinite amount of InFamous content. What I don't really like about the UGC is that it kinda feels like it's compensating for the lack of content in the map with a "you make it" style of solution.

I like Infamous 2 a lot. It feels like Sucker Punch hit a stride with this one. They smoothed out basically everything I found lacking/bad about InFamous 1, and I can confidently say that it's one of the few open-world games that I like as a result. That hero ending also got me pretty hard, not gonna lie.

My fondness for inFamous hasn't waned over the years, as terrible as this game looks visually. inFamous' core gameplay loop is really, really strong. The amount of neat things this game does with lightning & electricity keeps the experience fresh - you got your standard bolts and shockwaves, but you also got lightning grenades, polarity shields, thunderstorms, these Gigawatt-Blade things that all but guarantee a one-hit kill on mooks, badass rail-grinding, and these cool moment-to-moment electrokinesis abilities that let you either heal, restrain, or bio-leech the life out of civvies and downed enemies. Cole's moveset is - pardon the pun - shockingly varied and diverse, an eclectic platter of tools at your disposal that keeps the gameplay moving and evolving at all times. inFamous isn't just a game that makes you feel like a superhero, it's a game that makes you feel like you're undergoing a superhero's journey of getting stronger, refining and mastering your powers to the point where you're raining thunderstorms down upon a square block of people.

inFamous' horizontal progression is fantastic, and the fact that it has some flashy combat setpieces and solid traversal / mobility options coupled with a solid story and a distinctive, fun cast of characters...

...narrowly makes this a 3.5/5 instead of a shaky 3. inFamous has started to show its age in more ways than one. Admittedly, a lot of inFamous' issues center around performance and presentation. The stylized comic-book cutscenes are timelessly cool and imbue the setting with a pulpy gravitas, but the actual in-game graphics are embarrassingly lame even for the late 2000's, stale and lifeless and dull-looking with gaudy animation cycles, puppet-like mouth movements, janky pop-in problems, and a horrific performance rate (seriously, it's easy to forget that this game was supposed to be 60FPS, because it barely ever manages to hit even 20 or 30). inFamous is just too demanding for the PS3, and this is a problem that defines the game from Minute One and never lets up.

But even outside of the graphics, inFamous plays like a less-effective and sloppier version of inFamous 2. Difficulty balancing is a problem with inFamous 1. Initially, I like that the game starts out with some surprisingly tough goons and mooks - it feels like generic enemies actually stand a chance against you to start. The problem is that the mooks actually never stop being a more prominent threat than anything else in the game. Bosses are piss-easy and bigger enemies can easily be taken down with Cole's AOE powers, but the generic Reapers / Dust Men / First Sons are fucking menacing with their impeccable lock-on and their insidiously smart AI (they will duck behind cover if you aim at them, something that is very cool and also very frustrating). A group of these guys is far scarier than any golems or other Conduits that get sent your way, which creates a power-balance issue that permeates its way throughout inFamous. You may get stronger, but the basic enemies never stop feeling kind of unfair.

I also think that the game's binary moral choice system actually restricts gameplay in a lot of ways. Due to how morality works as a mechanic in this game - certain powers and upgrades to those powers are locked behind karmic rank - you are actually never encouraged to 'make choices' at your own pace and agency.

To illustrate what I mean, there's a Good and Evil version of almost every major power in the game, and there's tiered upgrades you can get on both sides of the spectrum (think something like 'Good 1, Good 2, Good 3'). So here's the thing. If you want to play as a Good-Guy powerhouse, then why would you ever want to make Bad Choices? And vice versa if you're a supervillain?

inFamous is not a game about making choices. It's a game about making one big choice at the very start of the game: do I wanna be good, or do I wanna be bad? And unfortunately, due to the game's own upgrade-tree system and a lack of neutral karma, this is a binary-morality problem that will define the rest of the franchise.

inFamous can also get pretty repetitive at times, and your traversal options feel a little slow and clunky compared to inFamous 2 (especially with a move like the Thrusters, which give you comparatively-terrible verticality and forward movement). Even so, I think inFamous is a really good game under the crusty surface. The core is a really solid one, and it's carried by a strong story, strong cast of characters, and a strong sense of evolution & momentum that makes the terrible presentation / performance and the occasional flimsy or tedious design choice easier to swallow.