Published: Monday, 22nd June, 2009 10:00am

Infamous

by Steff Parry

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Playstation 3

An explosion leaves Empire City in ruins. The Government seals the perimeter off and vicious gangs now rule the streets. The blast gifts you with fantastic abilities. You alone could save the city but remember, 'being a hero is optional'.

Infamous impresses instantly. The comic book art style sets the scene, before the player is visually and aurally assaulted by the opening section as you dodge collapsing buildings and leap across chasms. The 3rd person perspective and well rendered surroundings give a real sense of the scale of destruction. The DTS soundtrack is excellent, with bullets whistling past you and explosions shaking your sub woofer. The sense of immersion is impressive.

The game itself has an 'open world' design. Apart from the main story (which centres around unravelling the mystery behind the bomb), there are plenty of side missions to tackle, or these can be ignored entirely in favour of exploring the city. The sense of freedom is well realised.

As for abilities, Cole has lightening powers that can be upgraded by spending experience points (gained by completing missions or pulling off special stunts), as well as Parkour style climbing and balancing skills. It is exhilarating when you effortlessly string several moves together to cover great distances or take down multiple enemies.

What sets infamous apart from other sandbox titles is that you are presented with moral choices to make. Your decisions at these moments will help define your character, as the player decides whether to be a hero or the Infamous villain.

There are some snags to this much freedom though. The frame rate suffers when there is a lot going on and sometimes the character 'sticks' to a nearby surface, meaning you can't always pull off moves as you'd intended. Other control problems arise too, movement whilst aiming is limited and the cover system doesn't work as reliably as other titles. This isn't helped by enemies who are able to hit you with extreme accuracy, from incredible distances. Often you'll receive damage only to see that your assailant is two rooftops away! More disappointingly, multiplayer is completely absent.

Despite this, there is real longevity to the game, as once you've finished it, you'll want to play it again, making the opposite moral choices.

Some minor gripes aside, Infamous is an excellent title that looks, sounds and feels good. Although I anticipate that Prototype will take this a step further, Infamous appears to be a genuine progression for the genre.

4 Stars.