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Forums > Submission Feedback > tomchick's inFAMOUS 2 review

This thread is in response to a review for inFAMOUS 2 on the PlayStation 3. You are encouraged to view the review in a new window before reading this thread.

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Author: fleinn
Posted: June 14, 2011 (04:17 AM)
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lol? I agree the story-telling is much less interesting in I2 than I1 (even if it does try well to make the karmic choices a bit less black and white, and more dependent on situation. The Karma-moments are gone, though). And it has several serious problems with plot that goes nowhere for.. hours.. unless you pick up on the future karma-choice the scene is supposed to create tension for.

There are a lot of small weaknesses with the traversal system as well, even if the ice-launch, firebird strike and the improved thrusters, and so on just makes rushing around extremely fun - specially in flood-town, and later in the refinery.

..doesn't seem like you played those parts of the game, though :D I mean.. the entire game is about 1. Parkour, 2. Karma-choices. Both of which are different from I1, but.. you know.. still the only things the game is about. I.e, following a convoy down the train-tracks and then blasting it to bits with the increasingly one-hit, auto-guided area-effect powers..


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Author: zippdementia
Posted: June 14, 2011 (11:31 AM)
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I like that our reviews for this game are very different. so much more interesting than agreements!


Note to gamers: when someone shoots you in the face, they aren't "gay." They are "psychopathic."

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Author: Suskie
Posted: June 14, 2011 (05:18 PM)
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Karma choices were the one thing the first Infamous got completely wrong, and I'm hearing everywhere that the sequel handles them even more poorly. This is a shame. I still want to play Infamous 2 if it's anywhere near as good as the first one, but if there's a third one, I hope Sucker Punch sticks to their strengths and leaves this miserable (and completely unnecessary) moral choice crap out.


You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it.

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Author: zippdementia
Posted: June 15, 2011 (12:11 AM)
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I don't know that I've ever seen moral choice done well (except I enjoyed it in Heavy Rain, but then that was kind've the entire point of Heavy Rain) in a game (and we've recently discussed where adventure games don't fit in with the other "game" designations).

Actually, I just thought of Alpha Protocol. That game did some good things with morals.

The problem with trying to do moral choice is... well there's lots of problems. The biggest one for me though is that few people really seem to get morals right.

Morals are not about good vs. evil. This is a misnomer. Morals are about what you believe in and having those beliefs challenged by difficult situations.

Games that do morals tend to give options like "You hear a woman screaming for help in an alleyway. OMG she's being robbed! Do you:

a) Run to her rescue!

or

b) Help the robber steal her money!

if you're Bioware, you also add in

c) do nothing

In those kind of situations it's a choice between doing something extreme and doing something extreme. And the one extreme, being heroic, is something that most of us naturally lean towards. Most of us can sympathize with it. We can sympathize with the desire to help our fellow man (or woman) and to want to be helped if we need it. We can't, most of us, sympathize with hurting another human being. While that's not a problem when you're chucking grenades under the feet of NPCs in Grand Theft Auto or shooting down enemy soldiers in Call of Duty (when's the last time Call of Duty left you with post traumatic stress syndrome?), it is a problem when the decision is influencing the plot of a game. Big decisions like that, which will decide how the world of the game looks at us, are often ruined by black-and-white approximations of morals.

Here's a more interesting situation. This is lifted more or less from Alpha Protocol.

You have a mission to complete. Some maniac has taken over a historic building and is about to blow it to smithereens, which will cause a national panic and start a war. That same maniac has stolen your girlfriend and has her hostage outside of the building. You have time to rescue her or to disarm the bombs, not both. Which do you choose?

Now THAT'S a moral dilema! That situation is challenging your core beliefs: do you believe more in finishing the mission and saving the lives of thousands that you don't care about, or do you save the life of someone who loves you? That's the kind of situation you have to think about because it's not black-and-white. Either choice, I'm going to feel regret and satisfaction. Playing the game again, I will be eager to try out the other path.

It's not "do I help this woman across the street and send her on her way with a hearty handshake" or "do I drag her into a dark alley and rape her."


Note to gamers: when someone shoots you in the face, they aren't "gay." They are "psychopathic."

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Author: Suskie
Posted: June 15, 2011 (01:01 AM)
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See, the problem is that KOTOR is the game that made moral choices popular, and the Star Wars universe is one of the few where stark good-and-evil actually makes sense. I frankly like it more when a game drops the morality slider altogether and allows us to make choices in the moment, rather than having to commit to one direction or the other for the entirety of the game.

The other big challenge -- and this is one where Infamous also fails -- is in presenting choices that are all consistent with the main character's personality. I hate it when I'm forced to choose between being sickeningly sweet or ragingly evil when neither choices fit the character. This was another thing Alpha Protocol did extremely well.


You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it.

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Author: fleinn
Posted: June 15, 2011 (07:38 AM)
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..the thing is that the choices you make in inFamous are supposed to test you towards the cartoon superhero role Kessler (the antagonist) is shaping for you. So you're not really asked to make morally grey choices. What you're asked to do is ultimately to make a choice between sacrificing yourself, or being egotistical. The two endings in I2 play perfectly into that.

For example, the best moment in I1 is when Kessler has hung six doctors up on one building, and your girlfriend on the other. And he's telling you that you only have time to save one or the other. Obviously Kessler has plans for you and your family already. But what he's asking you to do is choose between your impulse to save those you care about, or do something for the greater good of the city.

Like I talked about in my review, it's pretty abstract at that point, though. But most of the choices in the game go to that same thing - do I sacrifice random people I don't care about, or do I sacrifice myself because I have powers..

I2 plays directly into that. And you have much more difficulty saying no to Nix - the entire "do no harm" thing doesn't take you very far in New Marais.. "Don't you wanna see them burn, honey?". I mean, in I2 I ended up picking Nix and crashed down to a permanent guardian rank. Didn't feel bad about it either. But I did change my mind about the super-hero altruism at some point. Which.. surprisingly played into the ending really well. Have a lot of side-quests too that demonstrate conduits getting mad with power, or that illustrate what sort of force the conduits really is, etc.

Point is that inFamous doesn't have complex moral choices, but it tests you towards that final (super-hero) choice you're going to have to make. And if you go with your impulses, odds are the wheel is going to turn around, basically. :D


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Author: Lewis
Posted: June 15, 2011 (07:56 AM)
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Actually, I'd say the first Dragon Age handled moral choices extremely well. Think about all the stuff in Orzammar. Nothing was clear-cut there.


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Author: tharjack
Posted: June 15, 2011 (10:12 AM)
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everyone one is entitled to there opinion of course but it seems to me that 5 for Infamous 2 and L.A. Noire is quite harsh, i think its possible your missing something here such as the nuance and beauty of both games, your certainty in the minority on those scores.


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Author: JoeTheDestroyer (Mod)
Posted: June 15, 2011 (10:49 AM)
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There's nothing wrong with being in the minority on a score. It doesn't mean he's missing something--it just means it didn't work for him.


The only thing my milkshake brings to the yard is a subpoena.

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Author: zippdementia
Posted: June 15, 2011 (01:52 PM)
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And actually LA Noire, while talked up by the popular press, has been getting more lukewarm reviews from actual gamers.


Note to gamers: when someone shoots you in the face, they aren't "gay." They are "psychopathic."

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Author: fleinn
Posted: June 16, 2011 (08:15 AM)
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..if anyone cares, I don't really disagree with the score either. It's just that the only redeeming feature in the game is the overarching plot setup and the parkour (which really isn't as fun as in the first game until you get through the story-line, open up the other areas, and get some neat powers). Besides that the fights have their moments, with the limited destruction and physics, and so on. On the other hand they're not as hands on as in the first game - it seems more floaty. Imo, the entire departure from the cartoon moments in I1 is.. a sad story, that happens to Sony sequels all round.. Better graphics, but less fluid animation, etc.

The worst thing is that I don't actually think they reduced the animation complexity in the game at all. They just changed the control-layout so it should be more on/off. I.e., you can grind wires with a seriously complex set of animations -- but the splines play back and forth, and they end up at one of two states. Same with the running. Jog - Run. The angled steps and so on is still there, though. They even have slow walk-animations - it's just limited to when you walk on objects in speed, etc, instead of being included in the animation you have when starting a run.

On top of that the camera locks on a level plane, rather than follow your trajectory (like in I1). And together with the way you lock on to footholds on the same level, it seems they want you to avoid going high and low on objects -- just so you should run less three-dimensionally..

I've no idea why they would do such a thing, when they've obviously spent a lot of time improving all the rough edges and small edge-detection problems from I1..


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This message was deleted at the request of realgamer17, the person who originally posted it.

This message was administratively deleted because it did not adhere to site guidelines, or because a user other than realgamer17 requested its removal.

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Author: fleinn
Posted: June 23, 2011 (02:34 PM)
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"Of course if you like to be a nit picking critical douche when it comes to PS3 exclusives then sure you can find faults with this game(*cough*like the reviewer*cough*)"

lol.. I can find faults with I2 as well, and I'm the ps3 fanboy around here. But yeah, being critical on one hand, and looking for faults to criticise the game for are two different things.

But I think that it's important to remember that every one of us have our own perspective on things, though. Like you do, and hopefully everyone else.

And on this site we tend to, at least, to think of a review as successful if it explains why and how the reviewer came to their point of view. Whether you agree or disagree with the conclusion or the grade isn't important.

So criticising the review could be things such as mentioning how it could be missing a perspective that should be thought of as important in the context of the review as it was written, maybe? Is it consistent, and does it gloss over parts of the game to be so? Those are things you don't want to do, and I'm sure every critic will be thankful if mistakes like that are pointed out (even if we will deny it forever).

Or it could be a different perspective you have, where you see the experience from a completely different angle. For example, lately a lot of people have started to talk warmly about Moonstone again. This is a technically horrible game, actually, and it isn't easy to play. And once you figure it out, you could suddenly start to have a too easy time with the fights, etc. And if you explain how the game goes from a to b, it's incredibly difficult to explain it as a good game.

But a lot of people, and me too, still think it is one of the best games ever made - and that it still is a good game now that graphics and so on are better - because of the unique way it makes your imagination fly off, and in the way it engages you and makes you think.

So you might say, well your review wasn't exactly completely self-explanatory either, and that's the problem, right? Maybe the way I grew up on Tolkien, Beowulf, Old Norse sagas and faery tales has something to do with how easily I slip into something like this. Maybe it's not as complicated as that - that it's something.. er.. distinctly "continental" about the wizards, stonehenge, and the knights - that makes me relate to the setting in that game very easily. You could say the same for Demon's Souls, for example.

But I'm having a very hard time saying that this is a game you should like because you think Dragons are awesome, or something like that. It becomes extremely difficult to end up there.

In the same way, maybe there are things about other games that I can't relate to at all that fascinates others.

So in the end, like everyone else, I'm just trying to explain my perspective. Not trying to tell everyone else what to think.. I think. And then perhaps spark someone's interest if they relate to those thoughts. I mean, we're not IGN either.

There is something to say about how reviewing tends to become irrelevant, once it completely becomes only opinion, though. In the sense that when you read the review, you know that the review is pretty much positive or negative depending on the reviewer's mood, instead of how the game actually plays..

Then we're in trouble.


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Author: realgamer17
Posted: June 23, 2011 (02:36 PM)
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Infamous 2 def has much smoother animations then the firstborn one.

Infamous 2 does have good animations but yeah its not anything jaw dropping or ground breaking/industry leading like Uncharted


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Author: honestgamer
Posted: June 23, 2011 (02:38 PM)
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I'm deleting your post because you were unable to offer your dissent without calling the review's author names. That's not likely to give your thoughts much credibility anywhere on the Internet, especially here. As for your suggestion that the site was started by a bunch of Microsoft fanboys, it made me chuckle. I started the site before Xbox was even around and out of the current batch of consoles, the Xbox 360 is the one that has done the least to interest me. I don't have Tom Chick review games for the site because I suspect him of being an Xbox loyalist or anything like that. I have him write reviews because he's a great writer and a long-time gamer who a lot of readers rightly trust to provide quality opinions on the latest games. Thanks for your feedback. If you leave any in the future, I hope it's not too much to ask that you be respectful.


"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world2

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Author: Suskie
Posted: June 23, 2011 (02:42 PM)
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I love it when people come to this site specifically to flame and pick funny usernames. He's a real gamer, you see! UNLIKE THE GUY WHO WROTE THIS REVIEW! HEY NOW!


You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it.

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Author: overdrive (Mod)
Posted: June 24, 2011 (12:29 PM)
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He's a real gamer, you see! UNLIKE THE GUY WHO WROTE THIS REVIEW!

We all love it when "real gamers" tell us just how wrong our thought process is. After all, if it's a new game and there are commercials on TV for it, it obviously is either a 9 or 10. And if you say it's a 9, you better have a damn good reason for why it's not a 10.


I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle

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Author: WhisperingMadness
Posted: June 24, 2011 (02:20 PM)
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We all love it when "real gamers" tell us just how wrong our thought process is. After all, if it's a new game and there are commercials on TV for it, it obviously is either a 9 or 10. And if you say it's a 9, you better have a damn good reason for why it's not a 10.

It's a complicated system, really. If they have or are linked to advertising revenue on the site or in the magazine the game automatically earns an 8. It gets another .5 if they provide a promotional copy with the understanding it's not technically free and at any time if they feel your score didn't warrant what the game truly is or what they would like it to be perceived as they can refuse you copies of future titles. .5 is also given if they quote the review directly in their commercials. The remaining 1 is determined by mechanics, graphics, game play, fun factor etc. You know, the unimportant stuff no "Real Gamers" care about.


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Author: fleinn
Posted: June 25, 2011 (06:49 AM)
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:D possible explanations for grades on PCGamerUK after the apocralypse, for example:
5. Derek Smart made this game.
6-8.8. May or may not be an incredibly good game, with unique game-mechanics and writing that engages the player in the world. Or it could be a really bad game with a beautiful cutscene the hardcore fans loved for the nostalgia. No telling which is which, since that would set people up for having wandering standards later.
8.9-9.5. Editor's pick. This is a polished, but ultimately completely and utterly boring game.
9.6-10. This is a game by a well-known studio with hundreds and millions of buyers - who also have PR and marketing people who deliver fantastic promo-material, talk in engaging voices about "visual science" and the "deceptively deep immersion of just a single button-press". (note: these grades are never given).


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