Being a Hero is optional

So it was birthday last month and of course I got the expected gift vouchers so despite being quite poor at the time I treated myself to a new game. This game was inFamous for the PS3 released May of last year (seems weird to call 2009 last year). So with the brilliant Uncharted 2 released later in 2009 as well the excellent Little Big Planet the year before, was this another one of the PS3 must haves?

Well the main draw for the game is summed up with the terrible back of box quote "being a hero is optional". Fair enough if that were actually true but for something that's supposed to be a main draw, the little Karma choices you face have little effect on the overall story and besides a few different words in the cutscenes and different colour electricity you'll hardly notice the difference between being inFamous or being a Hero. As for the earlier mentioned cutscenes I have a problem with them as well, whilst you could say they're stylistic in their comic book style I don't think it goes with well with the rest of the game and the narration of what is happening makes it hard to get in to the story. It wasn't until my secopnd playthrough that I realised what was going on. The story however does have an interesting conclusion which while unusual and confusing isn't too bad for an ending.

The game itself is set in a (sort of) post apocolyptic city shut off from the rest of the world which on the whole works pretty well with the TV hijacker attempting to advise citizens on how to survive, the bogus new stories attempting to make the government look good when they're not doing much to help and the rubble that over time cleans up as you deal with the threat of the local gangs.

So what about the gameplay itself? Well it's similar to many of the free roaming superhero games (the Spiderman 2 movie game last gen springs to mind) as you scale building and use your powers to traverse the map. Combat wise you have a basic melee system as well an increasing number of electrical powers which combined can lead to see neat combos and a fun sense of being powerful.

Difficulty wise that makes it sound like quite the push over but it's not without it's challenges, there will be a few moments when you may find yourself screaming with anger and frustration but any decent gamer should be able to see the finish. Will you want to see the finish? Most probably as it offers a good varied amount of missions and only the power giving sewer sections and a selection of the side missions may feel old.

So down to the important question, is it worth your money? Well story wise it certainly tries to be movie like, it didn't work for me but it is scripted fairly well, you beleive in the characters, it's sort of like a good actor starring in something with Hugh Grant. The game is still very fun to play and while it's not up to the standards of Uncharted it's still an exclusive worth having or at least renting to see the game through.