My copy of Infamous arrived today and seeing as I ignored any real footage or media coverage of the game I decided to scour the interwebs for certain reviews etc. Came accross the Edge one last and something just got at me, such harsh criticism without justifying itself...
- 'Infamous’ narrative repeatedly shoots wide of the mark' - errrr, does a game even need a 'good narrative' for it to be fun? GTA4 says hello, at the time of release websites praised it for it's 'portrayal of the Americain dream'...what, driving from point A to B occasionally killing people, niceish cutscenes followed by 'NICO LETS LOOK AT TEEEETEEEZZZZ'. Ign said it was the videogame equivalent of the Godfather...Jesus... and despite this almost EVERY PUBLICATION PRAISED IT FOR IT'S REALISTSIC STORY...
- 'Though individually overcome with a little suspension of disbelief, the amassed weight of the game’s mistakes has an atrophying power. It makes it hard to invest belief in Empire City beyond a toybox for you to upturn. It renders the already facile moral choices utterly meaningless'.
Give me an example of another game that does moral choices well, GTA4 had a fair few (remember early on where you could save some random dude and tell vlad you killed him, or kill him and carry on...It made fuck all difference considering you end up killing Vlad the very next mission regardless of choice'. Even in Bioshock your choices were spelt out clear (SAVE OR HARVEST) yet the press droooooled over it. Why turn the hate on with inFamous, when it does nothing different to these '10/10 games'?
3.
'At its best, Infamous is an amped-up Crackdown – a game about bounding across a cityscape, discharging your energies however you please' - I don't know how many of you have played crackdown (probably not many), but it was a truely awesome sandbox game. Whats wrong with improving on a design another game creates and ultimately making it more fun and slicker to play. Heck every FPS is just an amped up version of the previous big FPS (or COD4 these days)...
4.
'And such a stumble is perhaps the least of Infamous’ visual problems, which begin with the city itself. Being a ruinous sprawl of crumbling concrete, slums and derelict industry, it was always going to have to work hard for our affection, but it does itself few favours, opting for the most part for a bleak, ashen palette that renders everything flat and dull'...errrr one, a super bombs gone turning the city into an apocalyptic mess with people suffering and dying everywhere...bearing that in mind i'd say it nails the overall visuals (It's not gonna be Katamari Damacy or Flower is it?). Fallout 3's setting is a post nuked america, its visuals aren't exactly screming out at me with vivid pinks and reds, it's supposed to be grey, brown, black...a fucking nukes gone off....
5.
fellow courier Zeke is almost instantly annoying rather than a loveable sidekick, and intended romantic interest Trish is a Plasticine-faced harridan who gives you no reason to care for her. Sure, she blames you for the explosion that killed her sister, but the game gives neither Cole, nor the player, any opportunity to defend himself. We can fire electricity from our fingers – just why are we being nagged? Again, everyones entitled to their opinions but come on, I'd like the editors of Edge to come out and say they enjoyed a phonecall from Dwayne mid mission in GTA4, or even remember the names of Nico's various love interests and HOW MUCH THEY CARED FOR ALL OF THEM.
To me there's yet to be an endearing videogame character that I genuinely care about, God knows when there will be...
6. '
Despite the instant ability to fire lightning from his fingers, it takes a curiously long time for Cole to feel really super. Tasering enemies loses its thrill upon repetition' - Now I'm no literary genius, nor am I a videogame journalist...but...IT'S CALLED CHARACTER PROGRESSION, YOU GET BETTER POWERS AND MORE ADEPT AT USING THEM AS THE GAME GOES ON. Imagine playing Fallout 3 and being given all your powers and perks at the beggining just to feel 'badass', half the joy would be lost. Or even in any RPG... If in Final Fantasy XIII you can't cast Firaga/Ultima withing 10 minutes of playing, what, are Edge gonna criticise the game for that? A lowblow if there ever was one
At the end of the day everyones entitled to their opinion, and I do respect that of Edge (at the end they do say its worth playing the game... sorta) But it comes down to several things...should games be reviewed based on the sheer fun of playing it, and HAVING FUN...Or should we always review a game with a view that innovation is the key, If a game doesn't do something utterly groundbreaking of even if it stumbles along the way with its narrative/ colour palate.
Rant over (as you can probably see I'm not the biggest fan of GTA4).
Ah well, all I can say is that 2 hours into inFamous, I've had more fun than I did with the 30 hours I put into GTA4, more fun than playing COD4 single player, more fun than Killzone 2...
Nuff said. [Mittens]
