inFAMOUS 2

[Daft]

 

Can I get a "Fuck yeah!!"?!

 

Coming as a surprise to no one, Game Informer's July issue confirms the sequel to Sucker Punch's PlayStation 3 superhero hit inFamous, with a cover showing off a new look for series protagonist Cole MacGrath.

 

inFamous 2 is no real surprise. Soy registered Infamous2TheGame.com back in April, and voice actors were talking about auditioning for the sequel in October of last year.

 

What is a surprise is Cole MacGrath's new, more practical look. Gone is the black and yellow leather jacket of the first game, replaced with a sensible t-shirt and jeans ensemble that complements Cole's darker hair quite nicely.

 

Along with the new look comes new powers, a new city, and a new enemy worth of Cole's attentions.

 

Anything more than that will have to wait until the July issue of Game Informer hits store shelves, or E3 2010, which kicks off on June 15.

 

I'm getting an Uncharted vibe from Cole's new look. Also, the city reminds me a bit of New Orleans.

 

I hope they sort he pace of he game out. The first one started so slowly, and I was pretty bored, but by the end I loved it. Stopping to drain electricity every other second also got tiring.

[Ryan]

My E3 prediction bingo card is getting mighty thin..

[dwarf]

He looks.... Slightly less rubbish now.

It could end up good. If they start you with all the powers (of most of the decent one's, like flying and the floating bomb things) from the start, then it could. If they go for a Metroid take, where you have to regain powers, it might be shit.

 

Changes to the city - make it more focal, with details and differences so that it isn't just the same thing repeated. Make the side quests feel different by mixing the gameplay possibilities within the city more varied. Also, allow Cole to travel more at will, at pace, with more freedom. They almost got this right in the first game.

[Shorty]

So did most people like the first game? Because I put an hour or so into it and thought it was absolutely dire.

[dwarf]

You're right. It takes about 5 before you think it might be OK, but by that time you're almost on the last island and you've had to endure a lot of boring gameplay. The best parts are when you stand on the auto-regenerating electricity supply and you're pumping the 'mini-boss' things with all you have (lol).

[Daft]

Yeah, like dwarf said, it is an epic trek to get into. It's probably the game's biggest fault over the shitty characters but by the end, why they're more liberal with the electricity and just let lose on the amount of damage you can do it comes into its own.

 

An hour or two isn't enough to get into it but I don't blame you for not sticking with it. I pretty much stopped playing it two and only dipped into it before I started to like it. Took me about a month to complete, maybe more.

 

You know how Kessler had the ability to time travel, and Kessler is you.

 

Does anyone reckon time travel will come into this?

[dwarf]

Yeah, like dwarf said, it is an epic trek to get into. It's probably the game's biggest fault over the shitty characters but by the end, why they're more liberal with the electricity and just let lose on the amount of damage you can do it comes into its own.

 

An hour or two isn't enough to get into it but I don't blame you for not sticking with it. I pretty much stopped playing it two and only dipped into it before I started to like it. Took me about a month to complete, maybe more.

 

You know how Kessler had the ability to time travel, and Kessler is you.

 

Does anyone reckon time travel will come into this?

I actually didn't pay any attention to the story, it was so uninteresting and I completely turned off when at a late point they introduced the idea/meaning of the Ray Sphere (at least, I thought they did) which just screamed of bullshit.

 

As for time travel - possibly will feature, but I don't think it'll be something you control much (if at all). I'm not sure why they've redesigned Cole, is it a young version of him? This could be a prequel and a sequel, all in one.

 

I imagine Infamous 3 will feature a Cole that has transformed into a SuperMutant thing.

[tapedeck]

Still to complete the first one. Got to the second city and thought "oh dear, more of the same"...

 

The climbing was lovely though and it felt like a Stan Lee world come to life. I'd prefer Sucker Punch got a Marvel character and went from there.

[ipaul]

Yeah, like dwarf said, it is an epic trek to get into. It's probably the game's biggest fault over the shitty characters but by the end, why they're more liberal with the electricity and just let lose on the amount of damage you can do it comes into its own.

 

An hour or two isn't enough to get into it but I don't blame you for not sticking with it. I pretty much stopped playing it two and only dipped into it before I started to like it. Took me about a month to complete, maybe more.

 

You know how Kessler had the ability to time travel, and Kessler is you.

 

Does anyone reckon time travel will come into this?

 

What really? I completed it in a few days and I'm normally terribly slow at completing games these days - GTA IV took four months. I then completed it as Evil cole in another week on hard. I must have been playing more than I thought o_O

[LegoMan1031]

Never did get round to playing the first.

 

Alot of my friends thought it was a bit wank but i dont think they put a lot of time into it.

 

I just never have had the urge enough to actually buy it and play!

[dwarf]

What really? I completed it in a few days and I'm normally terribly slow at completing games these days - GTA IV took four months. I then completed it as Evil cole in another week on hard. I must have been playing more than I thought o_O

I think the tedium got to him a bit with the game, as it did with me, so big breaks were needed.

 

Get rid of the Karma system too Suckerpunch. Just give us an option at the start asking if we want to tear shit up or be hero, instead of giving us a primitive choice at each turn, because you know what path you're going to take before they tell you.

 

Or you could make the system work by not limiting the powers you have if you're perfectly neutral. Abolish the upgrade menu, just allow Cole to automatically become slightly more badass at whatever karma. Usually I like abilities to upgrade but in this it was pretty poor, because you knew by the end you'd virtually have them all. Plus, if you're playing as good Cole you don't want overly powerful megaton ground pound for obvious reasons.

 

And finally, give the final boss a SuperSoaker so that we don't have to experience a third entry. That would be lame. Wrap it up.

[Aimless]

This is pretty specific, but I'd like to see a power that acted like a reverse railgun, i.e. you you could use vertical/angled pipes to fire Cole high into the air and between buildings.

 

In general I'd like a greater focus on melee combat, partly because it got rather tiring being shot at all the time in the first game. More variety is a given request for pretty much all open-world games. As dwarf mentions, the morality system needs a complete rethink; they can't really remove it.

 

The first inFamous isn't going to be remembered as a classic, but it is a great basis for a sequel. It's a lot like Assassin's Creed in that sense, so I'm pretty hopeful about where Sucker Punch will take things.

[Daft]

What really? I completed it in a few days and I'm normally terribly slow at completing games these days - GTA IV took four months. I then completed it as Evil cole in another week on hard. I must have been playing more than I thought o_O

 

Yeah, like dwarf said, I was bored by a lot of it to start with.

 

As for GTAIV, I only got about 2/3 through that because I got really bored.

 

This is pretty specific, but I'd like to see a power that acted like a reverse railgun, i.e. you you could use vertical/angled pipes to fire Cole high into the air and between buildings.

 

In general I'd like a greater focus on melee combat, partly because it got rather tiring being shot at all the time in the first game. More variety is a given request for pretty much all open-world games. As dwarf mentions, the morality system needs a complete rethink; they can't really remove it.

 

The first inFamous isn't going to be remembered as a classic, but it is a great basis for a sequel. It's a lot like Assassin's Creed in that sense, so I'm pretty hopeful about where Sucker Punch will take things.

 

Totally with you on everything there.

[Emasher]

I'd like to see them isolate the karma system from the powers, and give you choices that aren't blatantly obvious as to what's good an evil (Like some of the ones in Fallout 3). The Karma system could define what the powers look like, but it shouldn't define how powerful they are. I probably enjoyed the game more than some, as it was my first PS3 game, and not having played Assassin's Creed until after I finished inFamous, the parkour was something I hadn't experienced in a game before. However, when I tried to play the game a second time latter on, it got so boring I just had to stop after the first island. The Missions all being very similar really didn't help things, so now that they've got the engine and everything working, It would be great if they spent more time adding variety.

 

While I don't want to start with a completely un-upgraded protagonist this time around, I wouldn't mind the game giving you a few more powers as you progress through it. I'd also like to acquire them more naturally. It wasn't just the new powers that felt really forced in the first game though, most of the missions were as well, so, just a more natural flow in general maybe.

[Aimless]

In before Dante: scans.

 

Funnily enough it looks like they have introduced my reverse-railgun request, calling it the Induction Launch; right hand side of the fourth page down. In fact it sounds like they're addressing everything I mentioned.

[dwarf]

When I said more freedom and speed in movement - hopefully this provides it. Being able to leap high into the air, then hover (and what I hope for) boost whilst hovering to speed forwards to a new building, as you land perhaps have a massive skid forward and the friction heat created kills enemies. Would be win.

 

And yeah, the constant machine gunning got really annoying. Give enemies bludgeoning equipment and hammers.

[Daft]

Wow. Okay, I actually cannot contain my excitement after reading that. Sounds like they've really looked to sort out the issues with the first game. Awesome news that you don't lose all your powers at the beginning - I hate it when crap like that happens.

 

Interesting that they're thinking about using the first game's save.

[Aimless]

Interesting that they're thinking about using the first game's save.

Annoyingly I don't have mine any more, having lost it when my 60GB machine passed on. I'd prefer it if it could look at your Trophies instead; there's one for finishing the game as each alignment, and I'm not sure what other info it would need to pull from. The sequel should also give me credit for finding every bloody shard.

 

I prefer Cole's new look, personally, even if he essentially is Chris Evans; not that one. That's the movie casting sorted, at least.

[dwarf]

I deleted my save, so a trophy-based system would be better.

 

Which brings me nicely onto my next point. Don't bother with shards for fook sake. Seriously, stuff like that, feathers, video tapes in Godfather etc are all pointless. At least make them fun to collect by making them rare, put them in obscure locations or give a serious benefit from finding them. The treasures in Uncharted were almost there - they were all individually different and were quite fun to find (unless you went for the trophy first time). Like the secrets in Tomb Raider really.

 

New sandbox item hunts just got it all wrong.

[Daft]

They should just make them easier to notice like the orbs in Crackdown. You could hear when you were near them which was ace and part of their appeal because you'd be on your way somewhere and then pick up on the faint orb noise - t'was fun.

 

Annoyingly I don't have mine any more, having lost it when my 60GB machine passed on. I'd prefer it if it could look at your Trophies instead; there's one for finishing the game as each alignment, and I'm not sure what other info it would need to pull from. The sequel should also give me credit for finding every bloody shard.

 

I prefer Cole's new look, personally, even if he essentially is Chris Evans; not that one. That's the movie casting sorted, at least.

 

Tbh, I doubt a transfer save would actually do much. It never really does.

 

Yeah, definitely prefer Cole's new look although Old Cole did suit Empire City. I wonder what the new voice actor sounds like.

 

 

...anyone for Nolan North?

[dwarf]

Half of me wants to kill Nolan North.

[Aimless]

They should just make them easier to notice like the orbs in Crackdown. You could hear when you were near them which was ace and part of their appeal because you'd be on your way somewhere and then pick up on the faint orb noise - t'was fun.

inFamous' great addition in this respect was the ability to click in one of the sticks and ping the environment for shards, showing nearby ones on your minimap; incidentally a feature Crackdown 2 has sensibly nabbed. Not that it was all that helpful in helping me locate the final shard I needed as its area of effect wasn't very large.

 

In any case it's an area that needs improvement, either by implementation or incentivisation.

Edited June 7, 2010 by Aimless

[Emasher]

I still never found one of the shards.

 

I agree with the idea that stuff like that should offer a significant reward for finding them, as well as be more rare. The best implementations of this system I think have been the Heart Pieces in nearly every Zelda game, as well as the Bobble heads in Fallout 3.

[Daft]

inFamous' great addition in this respect was the ability to click in one of the sticks and ping the environment for shards, showing nearby ones on your minimap; incidentally a feature Crackdown 2 has sensibly nabbed. Not that it was all that helpful in helping me locate the final shard I needed as its area of effect wasn't very large.

 

In any case it's an area that needs improvement, either by implementation or incentivisation.

 

I thought the R3 thing was just to find where you could get electricity from. Totally missed that.

 

I doubt shards will be back in the form they were because there's (probably) no massive explosion at the beginning.

[dwarf]

I still never found one of the shards.

 

I agree with the idea that stuff like that should offer a significant reward for finding them, as well as be more rare. The best implementations of this system I think have been the Heart Pieces in nearly every Zelda game, as well as the Bobble heads in Fallout 3.

Mutual wisdom and agreement victory.