Ben-DutkaI know it doesn't come out until June 7 but it almost seems as if there isn't quite enough hype surrounding this sequel, which is almost guaranteed to be bad-ass from front to back.
The original inFamous remains one of my favorite games of the generation, and based on everything we've seen from Sucker Punch thus far, they're gonna blow us away. I mean, I don't care so much about that create-a-mission feature, but it's definitely a worthwhile addition, especially for those who love the likes of LittleBigPlanet and ModNation Racers . Provided the rest of the gameplay remains the same – but with the addition of all-new ice powers – and the developer simply enhances everything that was so addictive about the first game, we'll be set. In fact, if all goes well, does anyone doubt that inFamous 2 might be a legitimate contender for Game of the Year?
Perhaps it's the combination of a fast-paced superhero style and the open-ended GTA-like atmosphere, or maybe it's just because the pacing was just about right. Or maybe it was due to the variety of the missions and the great control that never seem to let us down. I'm sure it was a combination of factors and given the critical reception and loyal fans, one would think the hype level for the sequel would be a good deal higher. Sure, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is on everyone's lips (and rightfully so) but there's another PlayStation 3 exclusive that is bound to deliver on all fronts. Just don't make me sound silly, Sucker Punch.
You won't, of course…
Crom!
ummm, what? Maybe I am missing a reference or something, but I don't get it.
I'm just saying personally WKC2 and I2 will be my favorite games to play this year, at least they most likely will be.
Anyone wanna lend me their copy of infamous?
Sure! Come on over and pick it up anytime you're nearby Parkveien in Oslo.
Is it near america?
Norway? Yeah, it's only an ocean away. You're going to need a boat Panda.
big boat 😀
a boat? psshhh!
if you're a don then you gotta swim! grrr!
I would but, really you can't scrape together 30 bucks?
@World spent all my money on zelda games foy my gamecube and no job. Better start making a boat.
theres not much hype for it because its not being showed off much.
how many trailers have we had since announcement?
in fact, the create your own mission thing is the first thing we have heard about this game this year!
im glad its not getting much hype though, because every ps3 game gets hyped to kingdom come and ends up being a massive letdown.
this is not getting much, and hopefully will stay that way, so cant be a letdown.
i wished i lived where you did so i can see these ps3 exclusives get this massive hype your blabbering about. last i check, they still don't advertise nearly as much as some would like.
aaron,
It's all in his head. Now, granted, I'm not from Sydney, but unless I'm actively looking, I see an advertisement for a game once every three months, and that's overestimating it. The only place that I see ads for games is in, y'know, games stores and magazines.
Peace.
who said anything about advertising?
i was talking about previews, journalists hype games up to be the 2nd coming of christ, so its inevitable by the time they release they leave people deflated.
if you were promised 100M bucks for your Bday, then ended up only getting 100 you would be disappointed,no?
while on the subject of advertisement, how can you say you dont see any game commercials?
homefront has been on every single add break for the past week!
MVC3 had quite a few too.
if sony put in as much advertising as M$ did, there games would sell at least 4 times better!
Advertising a game on a lot of major viewing events is a one major way of building hype, something sony doesn't d enough of. Thats where i got it from.
Are journalist not suppose to get excited about new games? they do it for all systems, not just ps3. If they think it has the potential, they so say. If not, they also say so. If you fall for the 'hype' that builds up over a game you'll most likely bash even before it comes out because its what you do, thats your fault
The last ad that I saw for a game was Pokemon Black and White about two weeks ago, and before that… a Black Ops ad in November or December, I think. Granted, I don't watch a lot of TV, but I'd still expect to see something.
Peace.
you obviously dont watch channel 7 or any foxtell because homefronts been all over those!
inFamous 2 needs no extra hype in my book. It is one of the few games that I have pre-ordered for this year. The original was a masterpiece in my mind, yet it still had notable faults. I am confident that inFamous 2 will take the same jump in quality that Uncharted 2 made from its predecessor.
I'm very very hyped, and if/when I hear the news that it supports the Move I'll be very very very hyped.
In summary; No, I'm not underestimating I2, and yes, I have a poor vocabulary.
I might get this eventually, but I really have no interest as of right now. I'm not a big fan of the original at all — it's not the AAA production everyone around here keeps spouting it off to be — and the one trailer I dl'd and saw on the PSN didn't show me anything special.
Maybe when it drops to thirty bucks or less.
While it didn't have the production values of Uncharted 2, it's def. one of the more orginal and fun titles I've played this generation. Suckerpunch all but admitted that the first one they didn't quite know where they were going with the story and even the main character. But yet the controls were on point, the story kept you interested (although I wasn't a huge fan of the "cutscenes"), and the missions were varied enough to keep the player from getting bored.
inFamous 2 is the kind of sequel that you SHOULD be keeping on your radar, because as fun as the first one was, there was plenty room for improvement. For instance, they said that the "comicbook page" cutscenes from the first one are mostly gone and replaced with in-game cutscenes a la Uncharted. They completely revamped the melee system which was completely useless in the first game. And it appears that you start inFamous 2 with all your powers from the first game, thus eliminating those awful "sewer missions". Obviously some people will either LOVE or be indifferent to the "create-a-mission", and they have yet to announce how your decisions from the first game carry over to the sequel. THAT'S what I really want to know. And what if you have 2 saves for a good and bad Cole?
So long story short, while the first one didn't really have the "AAA production" you're talking about, it was a blast to play. And it seems that Suckerpunch is hellbent on making sure that inFamous 2 DOES that that production value, so I think it might end up appealing to you. If not maybe you don't really like the GTA-type/mission-based games?
I found the characters of inFamous to be weak, uninteresting cliches of the superhero subgenre. I found the plot to be little more than a love letter to Marvel Comics' continuity from 1962 and up, mixed with a little of DC Comics' No Man's Land from the Batman line a few years back. I found the gameplay to be frustrating and annoying, the visuals to be substandard compared to it's PS3 exclusive brethren, and the only thing I found interesting about the game at all was the ridiculous gas prices.
There was nothing in the first inFamous that kept me remotely interested. Everything was derivative, contrived; and not in the GTA/Kill Bill sort of way, either. If you're going to do an original superhero piece, regardless of the medium it's being presented in, it would help tremendously if you didn't tread on ground that has already been mashed into mud. inFamous doesn't do that.
i absolutely agree. the 1st game was ok, but nothing spectacular like some make it out to be. the production values were very weak, and the waves of generic enemies didn't help. there was some fun to be had, but it was not an elite title. no where near the quality, and polish of uncharted.
the 2nd game does look a lot better, though. the sixth axis had a hands on session with it, and came away very impressed. they too thought the 1st game was just ok, but said infamous 2 looks way better, and the combat is much improved. so i'm not going to underestimate the 2nd title.
I agree with both your guys' points about weak characters and lack of production value in the first game. I too grew tired of same enemy after same enemy in a nearly abandoned city. However most did find the game enjoyable based off of the gameplay and just how much fun it was to float around the city. The point of this article is to speculate on the sequel and how it'll be much improved. Based off of previews and hands on impressions it looks like Sucker Punch listened to alot of the criticisms of the first game.
You are absolutely right about the story and the characters, but let's be honest: Most stories in games makes even the worst Hollywood action movie look like an Oscar winner.
And inFamous did not look that good either, I'll give you that too. I usually just dare not say that around here, since a platform exclusive is supposed to be better than multiplats, period.
However, inFamous was FUN! Good old fashioned fun. I had a grin on my face most of the time, it's a game that's not pretending to be anything more than that but did deliver bucketloads of good old arcade action fun.
And that's what made it one of the most fun titles I've played so far, in that genre.
Last edited by Beamboom on 3/19/2011 12:06:24 PM
@jimmyhandsome:
They didn't say they're getting rid of the comic book cutscenes, they said they're improving the in-game cutscenes by making them CGI (last time they used the in-game models, and they were mechanically animated and not that good tbh). They're keeping the comic book cutscenes for major moments in the story; if they didn't do that, they'd take away a major part of the style of the game.
@beanboom and everyone else who think the game lacked a good story:
I don't know if you're playing the same game as me, but the game I played was far better than most any superhero movie or comic out there nowadays. It was emotional and had good characters that weren't cliche.
Sure, the game was very focused on fun, but they had quite a major emphasis on the story too. Its kind of funny you don't think they focused on the story either, because not only did they establish an entire superhero universe through which they could make multiple stories, but they also made an incredible twist at the end, which most media things (movies, games, and books) don't include unless they actually care about the story.
Its also kind of funny how you say this game doesn't have as good of a story as many comic books do, even though comic books nowadays really suck story-wise. Just my two cents on all of this. 🙂
It's a great game and a top quality production that accomplished things never before done. If you don't like it then well that's a personal thing, but it doesn't detract from the inherent quality of the game.
The melee system was not useless. I found plenty use for it. And the Comic cutscenes aren't going anywhere. One of their best promotional trailers for inFamous 2 is done with nothing but the comic cutscenes.
Also, I'm not sure what "criticisms" you're referring too. From what I gather the first game caught everyone but you guys by surprise. A majority found nothing wrong with the game outside a few minor bugs. The story is well told, the graphics are great for an open world game, the characters have depth, the missions are rewarding and it's the most fun I have had with a game this generation. Never has a game this gen been so addicting. I played some of it today and for it being Suckerpunche's first PS3 game, it's extremely impressive and its loads better than a lot of the multiplat garbage like Prototype that is out there.
C'mon Beamboom, be honest. When you found out it was a PS3 exclusive you suddenly found yourself liking the game less. Didn't you? 😉
Last edited by Jawknee on 3/19/2011 3:20:31 PM
Hehe, not in this case Jawk 😉 But I am surprised that this game was so high rated amongst you all. I'd never guess so.
Your comparison with Prototype is interesting (I've got both). On the outside the concepts look very similar. However the games are *totally* different when played. Completely! Prototype has this aggressive, unfriendly, almost hate'ish atmosphere while inFamous is, well, the complete opposite. Prototype makes you feel like a loser when dying. inFamous on the other hand, say "c'mon lad get back up, this time you'll make it".
And that makes a helluvalotta difference to an mediocre player like me. 🙂
Last edited by Beamboom on 3/19/2011 3:43:52 PM
… And it's great to hear the comic cutscenes are not gone, cause that only added to the uniqueness of inFamous imo!
"I don't know if you're playing the same game as me, but the game I played was far better than most any superhero movie or comic out there nowadays. It was emotional and had good characters that weren't cliche."
We obviously didn't. I just stopped reading comics on a monthly basis last year, and if I remember correctly, there were about thirty or forty titles that I were reading that were better than what inFamous delivered. Books like Savage Dragon, Invincible, X-Force, Dark Wolverine, Dark Avengers, Dark X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Powers, Kabuki, etc., all of which fall into the superhero sub-genre. I found the game trite, full of superhero cliches (most of which sourced from Marvel Comics), completely lacking in any emotional grounding, so on and so forth.
"Sure, the game was very focused on fun, but they had quite a major emphasis on the story too. Its kind of funny you don't think they focused on the story either, because not only did they establish an entire superhero universe through which they could make multiple stories, but they also made an incredible twist at the end, which most media things (movies, games, and books) don't include unless they actually care about the story."
Uh, I dunno about all that. All of Marvel's big events over the past few years have twisted and turned and revealed endings that were pretty shocking. The Green Goblin running SHIELD? Cap being shot? Those are pretty big twists. The ending of this game is all stuff I've seen before *in comics*. Days of Future Past being a big one. The characters of Cable and Bishop from the X-Men, Bishop even more so with the more recent plots revolving around Hope. Invincible has dealt with this to a certain extent (and it was much better than what was produced here in this game).
The game WASN'T fun for me. I see a lot of people throwing around opinions as though they were universal fact. Nothing is universal, really. The game wasn't fun, wasn't addictive, it was okay for the most part, but not very much more than that TO ME.
"Its also kind of funny how you say this game doesn't have as good of a story as many comic books do, even though comic books nowadays really suck story-wise. Just my two cents on all of this. :)"
Your opinion, not universal fact. I still read comics in trade paperback and graphic novel form, and I've been reading comics for almost three decades now. I could easily ramble off 100 books from past and present that are better than this game.
"The game WASN'T fun for me. I see a lot of people throwing around opinions as though they were universal fact. Nothing is universal, really. The game wasn't fun, wasn't addictive, it was okay for the most part, but not very much more than that TO ME."
Of course they are our opinions but the consensus among the majority of gamers is that it's a much better game than you would have people believe.
And there are such things as Universal truths. Maybe this isn't one of those cases but not everything in this world is subjective. It's just silly and immature to insist otherwise.
Last edited by Jawknee on 3/19/2011 4:32:21 PM
"It's a great game and a top quality production that accomplished things never before done. If you don't like it then well that's a personal thing, but it doesn't detract from the inherent quality of the game."
No it wasn't and no it didn't. Everything about inFamous is derived from things that came before it. It was a mish mash of formulas that didn't meld together all that well; and it most certainly didn't cover any sort of new ground that hadn't been done in video games before. The open city came from GTA and the like, the parkour came from Assassin's Creed (and neither are perfect executions of that sort of gameplay), putting a superhero element into an open world was done in several Spider-Man games, a Superman game, both of which suffered from trite graphical presentations such as palette swapping the same vehicle over and over, just as inFamous did. The morality play and choices have been done before in games like Mass Effect; the psuedo RPG elements can be dated back to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, maybe even further. And the plot… Uncanny X-Men's Days of Future Past, Batman's No Man's Land, every origin story from Marvel Comics in the early 1960s (Spider-Man, Hulk – with Hulk being the most obvious – the Fantastic Four, etc., etc.).
The game was OKAY. It wasn't a great production, it wasn't a triple A production, it isn't a high quality product at all. It's a mediocre superhero story, set in a mediocre open world sandbox, with mediocre gameplay elements. I found nothing amazingly fun or addictive in this game.
@MadPowerBomber: I don't think it's fair to do a direct comparison between inFamous and the storyline of a real comic. It's two different medias, and being a collector of Marvel books myself I have read my share of comics over the years (although I started collecting them only a few years ago). And to say the Marvel events are epic is a major understatement, in my opinion you can't tell tales like that through a game, they are simply too grand. It's not the right media for it.
But I'm really curious: What do *you* think is a good game, story wise? Are there any games that you think can stand a direct comparison with the stories we talk about here?
"Of course they are our opinions but the consensus among the majority of gamers is that it's a much better game than you would have people believe."
It's a good thing that opinions, the development of them, and the sharing of them aren't morphed around the concept of the "majority" rules.
'Cause, y'know, the majority also thinks that folks like Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, Fall Out Boy, so on and so forth, produce good music and Avatar was one of the greatest movies ever made.
"And there are such things as Universal truths. Maybe this isn't one of those cases but not everything in this world is subjective. It's just silly and immature to insist otherwise."
Let me rephrase so that I don't come off as silly and immature as that may have seemed: in terms of quality as presented by any entertainment medium, there are no universal truths. Opinion, experience, education, and a lot of other varying factors go into play when someone views a movie, reads a book, listens to an album, or plays a video game.
MadPower, NOW who's peddling their opinion as if it was fact?
Don't be such a hypocrite.
And still no, while there is more room for opinion in art and entertainment mediums there are still universal truths. I could wrap a turd in tinfoil and hang it from a hanger and call it art. Its still a piece of crap.
Last edited by Jawknee on 3/19/2011 5:02:25 PM
"@MadPowerBomber: I don't think it's fair to do a direct comparison between inFamous and the storyline of a real comic. It's two different medias, and being a collector of Marvel books myself I have read my share of comics over the years (although I started collecting them only a few years ago). And to say the Marvel events are epic is a major understatement, in my opinion you can't tell tales like that through a game, they are simply too grand. It's not the right media for it."
I know other people think it's unfair, and I've actually had this conversation with Worlds once before involving Heavy Rain, but it's how my brain works. I relate information back to previous experiences with fiction across all realms. While it might not be fair to compare the game to those other mediums, I don't think it's really fair for game devs to *borrow* plot elements from those same mediums and try to pass it off as original material without creatively masking it so it doesn't appear to be borrowed.
As for the Marvel tales, I disagree! And this is pure fanboy talking right now, but I think you could do a Civil War, Secret Wars, Secret Invasion based video game and have it be just as epic as the games that are known to be games first (a Mass Effect, or God of War; those are good places to look). The problem lies with Marvel mostly licensing the games out to developers that focus primarily on licensed games. Most of Marvel's games suffer from this, and I think they need to follow suit with Warner Bros., and start bringing some studios in-house and start working more closely with those studios to get the games made. One of the biggest factors that got me to even try Batman: Arkham Asylum (aside from it being Batman and all) was that Paul Dini (known comic book writer as well as the writer and executive producer of nearly everything Warner has done animation wise with the DC Characters) wrote the story and Carlos D'Anda (a favorite illustrator of mine) worked on the game. D'Anda actually did most of the initial character design sketches that can be viewed in the character bio-profiles. But that was a tangent. Ha.
"But I'm really curious: What do *you* think is a good game, story wise? Are there any games that you think can stand a direct comparison with the stories we talk about here?"
Oy. Good games story wise: Assassin's Creed II, Arkham Asylum, Dead Space 1&2, God of War trilogy, Mass Effect 2, Metal Gear (across the board, I love me some Metal Gear), Resistance 1 & 2, and both Uncharted games.
I think ACII is the only one I would compare inFamous to directly in the event of being fair, because of the similarity in gameplay mechanics.
"MadPower, NOW who's peddling their opinion as if it was fact?
Don't be such a hypocrite."
And the name calling continues. Ha. For the sake of being proper and whatnot, I'll re-re-elaborate. It is in my personal experience that people's Opinion, experience, education, and a lot of other varying factors go into play when someone views a movie, reads a book, listens to an album, or plays a video game. Is that better?
"And still no, while there is more room for opinion in art and entertainment mediums there are still universal truths. I could wrap a turd in tinfoil and hang it from a hanger and call it art. Its still a piece of crap."
And yet there would be someone out there in the world that could argue against the supposed universal truth and find art in a turd wrapped in tin-foil. They could argue, perhaps, that it was a meaningful representation of how Hollywood packages their trite and ships it off to an audience that they don't think knows any better. All the shiny, CGI polished turds that they deliver to us month in and month out finely tooled into one shiny tin-foiled wrapped log. Which, by all means, would render said universal truth about art moot. Universal truths are inarguable.
It's still a turd no matter who are argues otherwise.
Yes the Marvel games are a sad chapter so far, however I did enjoy the first Ultimate Alliance (UA2 was a catastrophy) and X-men Origins 2, as a matter of fact they represent two of my absolute highlights on the psp. Also, Shattered Dimensions had "something" in it that made me dare hope that things are starting to shape up in the Marvel games department.
But back to the subject of Marvel tales: While your examples are fair enough (I've not played the gow titles, I can tell they are not my kinda games) I think the main challenge is that a game require action of some sort. In the tales however, action is only short sequences (and the least interesting sequences too, imo) of the complete story. And *that's* where the problem kicks in when creating a game: The player has to do something! He can't just sit there, trying to be a smartass or pose while delivering one-liners (even though they tried so in Heavy Rain – and deserve every cred for *trying*).
You mention Mass Effect, and that was a *huge* accomplishment on the story-telling challenge. Way, waaaay better than for example the straight jacket they call Uncharted. Just make it one continous cutscene and call it a movie, damnit.
But still, the mentioned games (who all has a good story for a game) still has nowhere near the level of layers, details, emotions that you find in the Marvel tales, or generally speaking, a good book.
But here's the twist: I don't even know if I *want* the games to become like the Marvel tales, or a good book! We got Marvel, we got movies, books, we got all that. I want games to find it's own identity. And there is one thing that is unique for games, that none of the other can offer: Freedom of choice. And that's why I so categorically thumb down any game that do not use that huge advantage.
inFamous has that. Plus it's fun. Therefore, a Good Game in my book.
Last edited by Beamboom on 3/19/2011 6:02:24 PM
It's funny, you're right I'm not ridiculously hyped, but I played the original and this is certainly a d1p.
i must agree with blank line about sony and advertising. kz3 is a triple a exclusive, and it has sold about 279,000 copies in feb. somehow it manages to sell just about as many copies as kz2 when there are a lot more ps3's out there now than when kz2 released.
we know about the quality of a lot of ps3 exclusives, but i'm not sure the average joe does.
it drives me nuts sometimes when i mention a ps3 exclusive,and hear "what's that? never heard of it." i know that everybody doesn't spend their time surfing gaming sites, and that gaming magazines tend to not mention the competition, but it can get a little discouraging at times. more, and better advertising could help that situation.
You can't really expect people who don't have a ps3 to know that much about ps3 games, can you? I mean, I hardly knew a single ps3 title, or xbox title for that matter, before I got a ps3 myself. It's just completely uninteresting when youre a PC player yourself.
Now, how many ps3 owners do not know about Killzone? That's *not* many!
Most people who plays games don't really know what's out there. Before I started taking gaming serious, I didn't even know what an exclusive was…I just played whatever was infromt of me. In my PS2 days all I played as MGS, NFS, Midnight Club, NBA 2k? and GTA. I randomly bought a PS3 because I wanted to play MGS4 (as well a GTAIV), but I thought it was on Xbox 360 as well. I only bought a PS3 because I owned both previous systems, so PS3 was the natural choice. Ironically, I found out sometime later that it was a PS3 exclusive and was happy with my purchase, but I was also upset because Project Gotham was a 360 exclusive. Didn't know that because I played it at a friends house before I got my PS3.
Exclusivity is something either true gamers or nerds know about and it isn't something that should persuade you to buy a game either. Even though PS3 exclusives beat most games out in the quality and graphic department, alot of multiplats have won me over based on preference rather than PS3 exclusives. KZ3 is probably not on alot of people radars or people will pick it up eventually…who knows? Black Ops is very popular, why by KZ3 if Black Ops is your mainstay. That why I think KZ3 isn't really selling like crazy. If anything, Blacks Ops is selling the same amount as KZ3.
Point is, you shouldn't get mad because someone's gaming knowledge isn't similiar to yours. Some people don't take it that serious and they buy what they believe satisfies their preference. KZ isn't a popular franchise among regular folk so why give it a chance when they "believe" something else is better.
Ben, you don't want a whole crapload of hype surrounding this game, because then everyone will get disappointed if it doesn't live up to that. Especially the 360-biased media, who will surely rip it to pieces if it is lacking in even one area of the hype.
Of course, I fully expect SP to deliver an incredible, quality-filled production that will be an experience to remember, but I think its best if they just make a couple KB commercials for it and call it a day. Let the game do the talking, I say. Otherwise you end up like Crytek.
Good point Lair, let us not forget what happened to GT5.
Well GT5 did have faults which most critics accurately pointed out, but they also forget to praise it for what it did well and that led to scores the really didn't reflect the games strongs points. Rather they focused on the negative…how bout they do this w/ the next CoD if it's anything like Black Ops…lol Infamous 2 should deliver!
Pre-ordered my copy a few months back. Can't wait to play it!