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Top ten stupid things about Infamous
Infamous is the latest open-world action game. This one is about a guy with electricity-themed superpowers in a city quarantined by the government after a mysterious explosion apparently triggered by Dr. Manhattan. I imagine this means the world comes together into some sort of long-lasting detente. Unfortunately, the game takes place entirely inside the exploded city, where the society has fallen into so much chaos that no matter what you do, you will never accumulate any wanted stars. However, as you play Infamous, you must choose to follow the path of good (i.e. you give beggars money) or the path of evil (i.e. you keep the +1 sword instead of delivering it like the blacksmith asked you).
Following are ten stupid things about Infamous. Some of them are trivial, and some of them are significant, but they're all stupid. And before you post your angry comments, keep in mind that tomorrow I'll be offering equal time to cool things about Infamous.
Read the ten stupid things about Infamous after the jump.
10) The title is supposed to be written like so: inFamous or even inFAMOUS.
9) You play Cole McGrath, who is neither a crime dog nor the owner of a crime dog.
8) Just when you think Infamous isn't going to pull any of Sony's mandatory Sixaxis shenanigans, you get your final power. Because it wouldn't be a PS3 game without a Sixaxis controller gimmick!
7) Lara Croft's pony tail was always pretty fascinating, but the floppy bike messenger bag slung over Cole McWrath's back is just stupid. Why is he wearing it the whole time? Now that he's a superhero, he's certainly not delivering documents any more. He doesn't have an inventory, so it's not like he needs it to carry ammo or healing potions. Is it there just to show off the dangling floppy bit technology used to render the reflective strips? I'd almost rather Sony sold ingame advertising on the back of Cull McGrath's jacket.
6) The following is an actual approximation of the way "karma" decisions are presented in Infamous, each accompanied by a short monologue delivered in grave and thoughtful tones: "Hmm, I've discovered a hungry puppy. It's whimpering pitifully and looking at me with its big puppy dog eyes. Do I kick it, which might turn the people of Empire City against me? Or do I pet it, which will ingratiate me to the citizenry but might make me look weak and girlish?"
Press the triangle button to pet the puppy.
5) Infamous is great about not letting you accidentally run off a ledge. Thanks for that, Sucker Punch! However, there is no easy way to go from standing on a ledge to dangling from it. Which wouldn't be a big deal if Infamous didn't constantly position collectibles in such a way that you have to jump off a ledge and then quickly turn around and grab it. This is worst when it's over water, which is instantly fatal to Coll.
4) Coal's powers unfold without any meaningful choice. He'll get a new power at exactly the scripted moment he's supposed to get it. So what are you supposed to do with your hard-earned xp? You get to buy incremental and mostly superficial upgrades. Do you boost your melee damage by 10% or your damage reduction by 10%? Do you improve your lightning bolt or your shock wave? Even the powers that supposedly distinguish good from evil are only marginally different. It's like a game of Jedi Knight in which your choice of Force powers is a red lightsaber or a green lightsaber.
3) The city is repetitive and mostly uninteresting, with only a couple of memorable landmarks that are memorable because the missions where you have to climb them are such a pain in the butt. After a whole game of letting you scale nearly any structure by spazzing out on the X button - there is little finesse in the way Koal climbs - you have to hunt and peck and aim your jumps and look for the grabbable bits. But at least the view from the top is - oh, that's it? A bunch of distant soupy silhouettes?
2) You know that terrible hackneyed moment in a comic book when the villain strings up the superhero's girlfriend on one side of town, and six doctors who might one day cure cancer on the other side of town? Then he sets a timer so that the superhero will only have time to save one of them? Then he spells out the moral dilemma in very careful terms so that even little kids reading the comic book will understand? You know how stupid those moments are? Well, Infamous doesn't.
1) For a historical accounting of how long it takes the social order to fall apart, we need look no father than the 1987 documentary Escape from New York. When Manhattan was closed off into a maximum security prison after the crime rate had risen 400%, it took years for the social order to break down and rebuild itself under the aegis of a themed gang led by Isaac Hayes. However, Infamous is on an accelerated timeline. After a cataclysmic event, society falls apart and rebuilds around themed gangs within a few days. A massive junk skyscraper is erected almost instantaneously, which just goes to show how much you can get done without unions. Various supervillains with fiendish plots spring up within a week. Plagues and mind control toxins and government conspiracies and sidekick betrayals and sidekick redemptions all happen in the first fortnight. And the whole thing is wrapped up in three weeks. New Orleans should be so lucky.
1a) With perhaps three exceptions, the missions are on par with what you'd expect in a throwaway GTA clone with a Spider-Man or Hulk license. The same is true with how you interact with and affect the city, which is peppered with meaningless side missions that do little more than satisfy completionists while leaving the rest of us unimpressed. Sometimes Coll uses his electric power to literally herd shuffling compliant bad guys from point A to point B. These sheepdog missions are the silliest thing you'll do in Infamous, short of sitting through the comic book cut scenes.
1b) Part of the appeal of an open-world game is navigating the world, but there should be shortcuts for long distances. Infamous doesn't do a good job of providing this, which isn't a big deal. For short distances, you can grind elevated rails or power lines. But then the last third of the game comes along and you've got to traipse back and forth across the city. Oh, and in case you're wondering why Cull can't ride in cars, there's a bit of throwaway exposition about this early on; if he sits in a car, it explodes.
1c) It's a shame a game with this much potential has such an insultingly bad story. The guys at Sucker Punch have left behind the kiddie vibe of their excellent Sly Cooper games, but they haven't left behind the cartoon superficiality. The plot of Infamous makes zero sense, even after the laughably bad resolution. There isn't a single likable character here. The villains just seem to appear from time to time. Sometimes you fight them in a bad boss battle. Sometimes the game seems to simply forget about them.. And the dialogue is uniformly horrible, from the growling hero to the funny [sic] sidekick to the conflicted romantic interest to the villain who suddenly appears at some point as if the game almost forgot it needed a villain. In fact, one character whose significance isn't clear unless you bother digging up B-side audio recordings scattered around the city is randomly blown up at the end of the game. Infamous may very well be one of the worst written big-budget games since Too Human.
So there you go. I seem to have gone over my allotment of ten stupid things. Sorry about that. However, before you cancel your pre-order, be sure to check out tomorrow's list of top ten (give or take) cool things about Infamous.
By madkevin at 12:11 PM ON 05/20/09
Escape From New York was from 1981.
By madkevin at 12:16 PM ON 05/20/09
... unless you meant that the events of Escape started in 1987, which I just now realized you probably did, which makes me kinda stupid. So, yeah.
By thedude at 12:21 PM ON 05/20/09
gg kevin. gg
By Balasarius at 12:28 PM ON 05/20/09
Is this a PS3 exclusive?
By NotSoAverageJoe at 12:38 PM ON 05/20/09
I knew from the start that inFamous would be trash.
By NotSoAverageJoe at 12:41 PM ON 05/20/09
"Is this a PS3 exclusive?"
Yes it is.
By learnedhand at 12:49 PM ON 05/20/09
I encourage everyone to read the many glowing reviews by those without such an obvious ax to grind. You will be better served.
By imagine neogafz at 12:55 PM ON 05/20/09
fuck off click you cry baby fantard
By DomCorleone at 12:56 PM ON 05/20/09
I dont think you should be putting spoilers about the game, its unfair to those who want to play it. I am referring to the 6 doctors thing. and yes, I have played and beat the game so I know what Im talking about.
By Neuromancer at 1:02 PM ON 05/20/09
Oh boy. Can't wait for the throngs of rabid PS3 fanboys to discover this.
By learnedhand at 1:07 PM ON 05/20/09
imagine neogafz,
ha, yes.... good luck with that.
Surprised it took 6 minutes for such a "response".
In any event, those who might be interested should check out virtually every review besides this one. I'd hate to miss out on a good time because I'm emotionally invested in a game console.
By j d at 1:21 PM ON 05/20/09
This game sounds awful and I'm party to no particular console. I'll play whatever sounds good, but it sounds like all the things that SHOULD be good suck. The story for open-ended games like this is vitally important. The seeming lack of diversity in character upgrade puts me off as well. Comic book cutscenes? Ugh. And the thing about the puppy? Ridiculous! Who thinks that? First off, not even the biggest of jerks go around looking for puppies to kick. It's not believable. I like my villains to make sense as well.
Did anyone else notice that Mr. Chick, the reviewer, seemed intent on misspelling Cole's name?
By obonicus at 1:26 PM ON 05/20/09
Tom Chick's opinions are generally well-written and backed up by solid arguments.
But before anyone freaks out, please look back to his top ten games and see if you generally agree with his opinion. This is the guy who thinks Far Cry 2 was the best game last year, that Midnight Club is a better game than Burnout Paradise. His reviews are among the top in the business, you just have to overlook the fact that he originally hails from one of the moons of Jupiter.
By Marmoset at 1:27 PM ON 05/20/09
Learnedhand: Read the second paragraph. Also this isn't really a review and all of those things seem stupid to me.
By DomCorleone at 1:29 PM ON 05/20/09
LOL. j d, the puppy thing is not real, it never happens in the game i think the reviewer is simply making a point that some of the choices are binary in the game which is true. Having played and beat the game myself, I can say that i enjoyed the game and I thought the storyline was very good. I loved the cutscenes, if you liked Max Payne's cutscenes then you will like these. Read other reviews and try the demo before you take one as gospel. But to be fair the review had some valid points. Especially with the cities landmarks.
By Chijts at 1:32 PM ON 05/20/09
"before you post your angry comments, keep in mind that tomorrow I'll be offering equal time to cool things about Infamous."
"However, before you cancel your pre-order, be sure to check out tomorrow's list of top ten (give or take) cool things about Infamous."
Also, is this even a review?
By MSUSteve at 1:57 PM ON 05/20/09
Damn comedians.
By GAF'er at 1:59 PM ON 05/20/09
"5) Infamous is great about not letting you accidentally run off a ledge. Thanks for that, Sucker Punch! However, there is no easy way to go from standing on a ledge to dangling from it. Which wouldn't be a big deal if Infamous didn't constantly position collectibles in such a way that you have to jump off a ledge and then quickly turn around and grab it. This is worst when it's over water, which is instantly fatal to Coll."
It's called a circle button, perhaps you should spend more than 5 minutes on the game and actually learn something about it before you commit to making yourself look like an idiot.
By ptbaish@gmail.com at 2:13 PM ON 05/20/09
Obonicus said, "This is the guy who thinks Far Cry 2 was the best game last year.."
I actually have to agree with him on this one, if it wasn't it was damn close.
By Sylver at 2:16 PM ON 05/20/09
But at least it works unlike Fallout 3 Expansion packs. When Scifiwire isn't going all Trek nerd it seems to post meaningless anti PS3 articles. I guess when a network is completely free the Bill Gates lovers have to whinge about something...
By obonicus at 2:33 PM ON 05/20/09
@ptbaish@gmail.com
Well, okay. He said that L4D isn't the top zombie game. That must mean something for you folk who play zombie games, right?
By obonicus at 2:35 PM ON 05/20/09
More seriously, on point #6:
Can't we just use Kieron Gillen's Bioshock defense here? 'Oh, it's not that the choices are shallow, it's that there's only one real choice you terrible excuse for a human being.'
By dumb at 4:54 PM ON 05/20/09
dumb nigger
By lol at 5:06 PM ON 05/20/09
Did you even play the game? Hanging off a ledge ledge...you know there's this thing called the circle button.
By kel25 at 5:59 PM ON 05/20/09
Sheesh, he really has a hard time spelling Cole's name. It seems like he spells it a different way every single time he wrote the name. That alone makes this article look like it was writen by a child.
By ruCRAZY at 6:44 PM ON 05/20/09
Tom's reviews are good because game company reviews are ment to sell the product so even the bad reviews are generally still good reviews... I like Tom because he gives it to me straight... Yes his top 10 was different than mine but top 10 for him was his opinion based on what he likes in a game
By garsh at 6:47 PM ON 05/20/09
Wow, the guy at Game Crazy really did try to get me to reserve this yesterday when I picked up Bionic Commando. I refused, but now I'm not sure there's any reason I should even be interested in this game.
By fidgitsucks at 6:53 PM ON 05/20/09
piss poor review, from a piss poor website
By Ethylene Oxide at 7:01 PM ON 05/20/09
Hehe, the PS3 fanboys are pretty mad about this review. Tom should just badmouth all PS3 games from now on just to make their heads explode. The idiot a couple of posts above me is so livid that he didn't even realize that Tom was making fun of the main character by intentionally misspelling the name. Ahhh free entertainment.
By Mike at 7:05 PM ON 05/20/09
Tom you forgot the /Sarcasm fanboys will not understand anything you say unless you methodically point out things like that to them.
By MattG at 7:17 PM ON 05/20/09
"I loved the cutscenes, if you liked Max Payne's cutscenes then you will like these."
To be fair: if you liked Max Payne's cutscenes, then you will like ANYTHING.
By Tom Chick at 7:17 PM ON 05/20/09
Again, just a quick reminder that this is in no way a final verdict in inFamoUs, which I mostly like, as I'll demonstrate tomorrow. If you're looking for a combat sandbox, this isn't a bad one. Neither is it a great one.
Also, for those of you reminding me about the circle button to dangle from ledges, I look forward to you fumbling around trying to use it for Co'al to get the many blast shards positioned just below the ledges, rails, walls, and overhangs where the circle button does absolutely bupkis. Ah, good times.
By obonicus at 7:33 PM ON 05/20/09
And another quick reminder that Tom's final verdict on Infamous is, in no way, legally binding, except, maybe, in the Negative Zone (never been there myself).
By Brad Grenz at 10:01 PM ON 05/20/09
Hey Tom,
Maybe if you led off with your positive impressions of the game you wouldn't get so much grief.
By Aeon221 at 10:14 PM ON 05/20/09
Tom Chick doesn't care about electrical people.
By Tahiri at 10:58 PM ON 05/20/09
This is the worst list ever. How does the capitalization of the title, the characters name, or the backpack he wears make it any less fun of a game? Any fantroll would have to be retarded to think this proves the game sucks
By Felipe 058 at 12:51 AM ON 05/21/09
I have to agree with obonicus at 2:35 PM:
****
More seriously, on point #6:
Can't we just use Kieron Gillen's Bioshock defense here? 'Oh, it's not that the choices are shallow, it's that there's only one real choice you terrible excuse for a human being.'
****
You ALWAYS pet the puppy. ALWAYS.
By phuzz at 3:49 AM ON 05/21/09
That puppy looks dangerous, SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT NOW!
By Hunty at 4:18 AM ON 05/21/09
Tom could lead in with the positive stuff, but then we wouldn't get all the amazing comments and reading incomprehension to laugh at.
Plus don't forget his FUDGING ANTI-PS3 AGENDA RAAAAARGH
By salwon at 8:08 AM ON 05/21/09
Is this even out yet, or is this another case of arguing over a game no one but reviewers has played?
Also, it needs to be reiterated:
"before you post your angry comments, keep in mind that tomorrow I'll be offering equal time to cool things about Infamous."
Because I'm sure everyone posting angry comments took lots of time to read the article.
By Steve at 10:17 AM ON 05/21/09
Someone bought Bionic Commando?
Also: Man, you really ARE making me second guess my preorder... The graphics seem to get worse in every trailer, the main character is painfully uninteresting to look at, and the reviews are getting worse (down to a mid-8 on MetaCritic). I may give this a pass afterall... It's not like I NEED another Spider-Man/Hulk/Superman game starring a boring looking nobody.
By obonicus at 12:45 PM ON 05/21/09
Dear Steve,
If you're seriously going 'down to a mid-85 on metacritic? no buy!' then you're an idiot.
Love and kisses,
Obonicus
By Harr at 1:28 PM ON 05/21/09
I wish I was paid to troll.
By gtcarro at 4:46 AM ON 05/22/09
Tom Chick = RETARDED
By mistershag at 11:17 AM ON 05/22/09
wow people if you dont like the site dont read the reviews and remember its just his opinion... i think he did a fine job on this review though and the reason i go here is fidgit feels unbiased. other reviewers seem to have the same thing to say about games as though they were all reading from the same script.
By Anonymous at 6:44 PM ON 05/22/09
the bag dangling on his back is to carry the blast shards
By Moeez at 12:21 AM ON 05/24/09
Huh, I thought Too Human had a great story and was not predictable and had great character build-up and development? The only annoying part of the writing was the marines chatter if they were on a mission with you.
By Pocoyo at 9:18 AM ON 05/26/09
Attention seeking at best. Piss off sony and get a top headline.
I would never have visited this site if you hadnt done it.
An to be fair the article was shite even as an xbox owner I cant see the point it this.
but hey the point was you wanted more mits and you got them.
By NEOGAF at 2:15 PM ON 05/26/09
TOM CHICK U CUNT.
BACK OFF XBOT
By dave at 6:58 PM ON 05/26/09
You know what's *really* dumb? Not supporting 1080i.
By joey2joey at 12:18 AM ON 05/29/09
People are taking this review way too seriously. I like the plot line, it's a lot better then most video game plot lines.
By KeysE2S at 12:56 PM ON 05/29/09
By Variable Gear at 5:39 AM ON 06/01/09
Maybe I'm just daft, but what's up with the variety of ways "Cole" is spelled in this piece?
Also, video game stories are garbage and should never be called "good."
By KeysE2S at 12:51 PM ON 06/01/09
Also from Tycho Brahe:
"We had another comic about Infamous, one I liked, but Gabriel gunned it down. When I spoke on the game earlier, I specifically left out any mention of the writing so that I could devote an entire post cataloging every deformity of its tainted carapace. The urge to do this is draining away, though, even as I construct the introductory paragraph. Let's just get it over with.
It's so bad that they must have meant it to be bad, but it isn't so bad that it reverses polarity and becomes sublime. That's a fairly complex trick to pull off, and when you don't manage it, you end up with something like Infamous: not a celebration of the comic book form, but a stern indictment of it. The alignment scenarios they cook up here - the ones Gamespot calls "Powerful moral choices" - are the most contrived parodies of ethics to be found this side of some silent movie mustache twirler, villainously astride the tracks, bound virgin in tow. Under optimal circumstances, I should not "LOL" when presented with a game's penultimate decision - but really, they give you no choice."
By JihadJoe at 4:04 AM ON 06/17/09
I own a PS3 and inFAMOUS, and I do agree with some of the points made in this "review".
Superficial things like a cliche story and repetitive side missions don't hinder the game's objective of being fun. Very much fun, I might add.
By Ceci at 8:08 AM ON 06/19/09
I've got this game and the resolution is horrible!! The game demands an antialiasing so badly!! Oh and it seems the savegame is dumb because everytime I want to play it from where I stopped there he is on the top of that building and the last mission reseted.
By Groucho at 4:12 AM ON 06/25/09
The reviewer always has hold of the wrong horror. -- Flannery O’Connor
By Surge at 6:37 PM ON 08/01/09
Mr. Chick needs a nap.
By Anonymous at 5:53 PM ON 09/01/09
infamous is awesome
Anonymous:
infamous is awesome...More »