It’s time for 1001-Up.com to embrace the new wave of consoles with a review of the PS4 exclusive inFAMOUS Second Son. Is it truly a new experience for the new generation or same old, same old?
ROUND-UP:
REVIEW-UP:
Right, lets get it out of the way: inFAMOUS Second Son is gorgeous. It’s beautiful. It shows off what developers can do with PlayStation 4 hardware in the early days of the console. The particle effects are stunning, the motion-captured animation (especially the faces) is wonderful and Sucker Punch Production’s recreation of Seattle is an exercise in attention to detail. It runs smoothly too even with explosions, bad guys and destructible environments flying around.
That said, there are the very occasional moments of slow-down, most often when using one of the smart bomb attacks in a densely populated area. It might explain why a recent update to the game offers an option to lock the frame rate to thirty frames per second if that’s your thing. Even so, this title is utterly gorgeous and I’ve lost count of the number of times I just stopped and enjoyed the view.
Now that we’ve got the pretty out of the way, we can talk about the game proper. It’s set in the same world established by the first two inFAMOUS games on the PlayStation 3 where certain humans, called Conduits, have developed super powers. Whereas in the first two instalments you took control of Cole McGrath who very reluctantly accepted his powers, in this game you’re playing as Delsin Rowe who embraces them.
As a protagonist it works much better. Delsin’s sense of fun and enjoyment from his gifts translates into how you interact with the game. I feel I enjoyed this one much more than the others because with Cole it always felt like a grind, whereas Delsin’s attitude made me want to soar with him. It’s a good thing really as the plot becomes fairly formulaic after a strong start. I definitely enjoyed meeting other conduits along the way though, and their back stories were all unique and tied in to their individual power sets.
Delsin’s attitude made me want to soar with him.
What really saves the story are the performances of Troy Baker as Delsin and Travis Willingham as his brother Reggie. All motion-captured, all acted in a studio and it shows. There’s a real chemistry between the two and the characters move in a wonderfully life-like way. If this is the way big budget games are going to go then I’m all for it. It’s also finally nudged Baker ahead of Nolan North as my favourite voice actor.
The other sounds and music are great too. The various powers all sound distinct and there’s a clever way the noise travels from the television to the speaker in the controller when absorbing energy to fuel your powers. The music is very context specific, ramping up in a firefight and chilling out when exploring the city.
There’s a real chemistry between Delsin and Reggie.
Of course, the big question is how does it play? Well, the same as the previous games but with a few refinements. You still have an uncanny ability to parkour your way around the town and a variety of powers that can keep you airborne, melee or shoot from a distance. I won’t spoil things by giving details on the various abilities you pick up but each different base type is distinct. The problem is, that’s the main differentiator. Attacks are too similar and while there was undoubtedly a power set I preferred, there was very rarely a time when I wanted, or needed, to switch to defeat a certain enemy or problem.
Sucker Punch Production have learned from previous iterations too. Traversing the city is much quicker as your powers now allow you to scale buildings rapidly which was always a pain in the backside in earlier games. They’ve also scaled back their tendency to throw dozens of enemies at you at any one point. It’s all very well to give you super-powers but if you can’t move for bullets and explosions it ruins the fun; thankfully that’s not the case here. Enemy numbers are just right to give a challenge but still let you feel powerful.
No point in giving you super-powers if you can’t move for bullets and explosions.
Still no duck or cover button, mind you. The game screams out for one, just like Assassin’s Creed does. Immensely frustrating.
The bottom line though is that this game is fun. I had a blast playing through it and will continue to do so and explore the secrets Seattle has to offer. If you have a PS4 then I can do nothing but recommend it; not only does it show off what your new toy can do but you’ll enjoy it at the same time. Just don’t expect anything new or groundbreaking… aside from the pretty.
RATING-UP:
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