Basement Couch

Tips for Living in the Big City: Riding the side of the train instead of inside it makes it easier to throw bombs made of pure electrical energy.

This is the Grand Theft Auto I always wanted to play. Ease of movement across the city, evil cult enemies instead of policemen, the ability to be the good guy… This game did everything to the GTA formula I wanted done to it.

Unfortunately, many of my complaints with the GTA series also exist with this game. Innocent people love to jump in front of your character, Cole, all willy-nilly during battles. I like to play these games as a good guy, so it breaks the illusion if I keep accidentally shooting pedestrians in the head while trying to save their butts.

The illusion is further broken by inFamous’s karma system. Karma in video games are a well known joke. The idea that somehow, how mean or nice you are will effect what color of lightning you can shoot, is pretty nonsensical. Nonsensical for people who can shooting lightning at least. Plus, since you can only get the strongest good/bad powers by making strictly good/bad decisions, the actual moral dilemma a player might be able to milk from these scenarios is bulldozed over by the quest for stronger abilities.

Tips for living in the Big City: Avoid the bridge's rush hour traffic by destroying it with your horrible ungodly powers and grinding across the power lines instead.

Since I played this game as a good guy, whenever Cole was faced with a decision between the right choice and the ridiculously evil choice, it felt wrong that my good guy character would even consider the evil choice. “Let’s see… I can help this guy, ooor… shoot him and rob his corpse.” My dude’s been doing nothing but charity work for the past ten hours! Why does he still consider murder and grave robbing an option!? An option every time!? These problems kill the narrative a little bit for me. Which is a shame, because the game’s plot is pretty decent.

The game’s story, even with the good and bad choices, remains pretty linear (further invalidating the need for the karma system). There are some pretty good twists, characters have different agendas and pull Cole in multiple directions, and it manages to complete its story while setting up it’s sequel in a big way. Other action games could learn something from this.

Since this is an open world game, glitches are too be expected. One time I arrived at a boss fight, but the boss decided not to show up. It was rude of him! He invited me there and everything! I had to restart the mission to get the booger to show up. Glitches like this and the Cole’s sometimes wonky climbing controls keep this game from being perfect.

But for the open world, super hero action game it is… it’s pretty dang close to perfect.

The electrical powers are great. Most of them work as replacements for “gun” and “hand grenade” but you eventually get to create an unstoppable rolling wall of lightning falling upon your enemies. That really doesn’t have a weapon allegory. Maybe “chainsaw”? Nah, doesn’t work.

You continue to gain new abilities throughout the game, but you’re most likely going to stick to using the first couple you learn (“gun” and “grenade” for example). Moving across the city gets super fun once your character gains the electrical grinding and hover abilities. Thankfully this is pretty early in the game. These powers are a welcome substitute for the vehicles of other open world games. Why would you want to steal a car and drive on overcrowded roads when you can just hop up a building and grind across the city’s power lines instead? Trick question, you wouldn’t!

Not to mention other blogs I write on Basement Couch, but daaang this game feels a lot like the Vertigo comic series DMZ. The city’s unrest and isolation during continuing disasters works as a unique backdrop to Cole’s own journey. Live action TV broadcasts you come across through the game add to the flavor of the game. These quick bursts of cable network news and pirated TV broadcasts make this feel like a fully realized world.

I probably spent more time than I should have collecting all the bonus items strew across the city, but Cole’s radar made the blue and gray icons impossible for me to ignore.

Tips for living in the Big City: Nothing to do on a Saturday? Make your own fun by climbing up the ruins of a local skyscraper.

The city itself is beautifully rendered. Sure, the NPC’s walking the street will collapse from illness, moan then get back up and walk away like any good glitchy open world game, but dang if I didn’t give myself honest-to-gosh butterflies jumping off some high buildings.

There are a lot of open world games these days, and they all feel like a GTA game deconstructed and rebuilt around a new theme. InFamous feels different. It feels like a GTA game was taken to the next level. It feels like GTA+. If the idea of GTA with super powers and zero need to buy ammo for you gums appeals to you, check out inFamous.