E3 2011 Hands-On: inFamous 2 - Preview
by Daniel Share-Strom , posted on 07 June 2011 / 3,157 Views
Ok, full disclosure time now: I never played the first inFamous. Yeah, yeah, I know it's available for free right now on the Playstation Network, but I haven't had time to download it since I've been slaving away playing video games for you fine people.
So when I checked out its sequel at Sony's party tonight, I didn't know what to expect. All I knew was that it was a PS3-exclusive superhero series--sort of Sony's answer to Crackdown on Xbox. From the few minutes I played, I think I may like inFamous 2 even better than that series.
As my demo started, I was in the middle of a square in the city of New Marias (modelled after New Orleans). Peaceful fountains poured water serenely, green grass stretched for several blocks, people walked calmly along the path, and a giant, acid-spitting rock monster tried to kill us all. You know, the usual stuff.
Shocking, isn't it?
Luckily, I just happened to be in control of the city's resident superhero, Cole 'Shoots-Lightning-From-His Hands' McGrath. Firing a few grenades into its open yap made short work of the golem, and I was free to wander the city and take a few side-missions. With very simple controls, I was able to use Cole's serious parkour skills to scale tall buildings in seconds. From there, it was little work to toss fools off buldings, courtesy of the simple combat controls. The Square button unleashes a series of basic blows, with Triangle for finishers. pressing L1 allows you to aim and fire lightning bolts and grenades. These few simple commands make for some devastating combos, and throwing these guys off rooftops feels very satisfying thanks to the detailed animations. After jumping off a building, you can actually glide your way down with a simple button press, expanding your options for parkour considerably.
The parkour is absolutely necessary, as well, because there is a very large city in this game, a huge draw distance, and everything you see can be climbed. Skyscrapers permeate the gorgeous environment, which boasts some of the most detail I've ever seen in an open-world game. I literally said 'WOW' to myself at least five times during my demo.
I took a side mission that had me running around the city collecting packages while a seemingly endless wave of enemies pursued me. Dodging rockets, causing lightning-splosions, and ducking out to heal by sucking power from electric items all combined to make an interesting, action-packed rhythm to the combat. No individual enemy was very difficult, but progressively more of them appeared as I picked up more packages, to the point where I was eventually taken down by a group of ten rocket-launchers and several more machine guns. I didn't feel bad, though, because I was totally exhilarated despite my death.
If you couldn't tell, I came away from my inFamous 2 demo extremely impressed. I can't wait to check out the final game, and keep watching gamrFeed for the latest on inFamous 2.
