inFAMOUS Second Son [PS4]

What did people like about Cole? I'm trying to think about characters even less interesting than him and the only characters I can come up with are the Killzone 2 protagonists. Heck, at least I could get passionate enough about Rico to hate him. Cole is just kinda there.

I like the new guy. His shit eating grin right before he smashed himself into the ground at the end of the trailer pretty much sold me on his personality. No Christian Bale voice is also a major plus.

 

Graphics look nice. World looks big and detailed. Powers look cool. Seems like a winner at launch.

 

One of the top 3 best looking games of the show in my opinion.

 

I like Cole, hes like having Jason Statem in a game.

 

As much as this character just feels too forcedly cool, "dude with 'tude" kind of thing, it fits like a glove for the kind of game they are trying to make. An anarchist young man has everything they need, he likes chaos and adventure, he is naturally expected to be all athletic and parkoury, he is a great antagonist to a Big Brotherish government and all, and the dude can end up being funy after all. At least he doesn't have the me too and out of place tough guy scrungy voice of cole.
The game does have a lot of overlap with watchdogs though, (a game that does have the touch guy scrungy voice by the way, and it is me tooey and out of place in there too) but both games premisses are prety obvious for game material anyways, so it was something to be expected. And that is something that baffles me. Original games find one or two things they can do differently, just to then fill in all other gaps with what everyone else is doing. And the "original" stuff they are doing is rarely that creative or different to begin with. Most times its a small spin on a known mechanic or theme, when not just a rebirth of some old game concept that had fallen out of fashion for some years. I feel like studios settle too easily on half-original ideas, when they could go farther and make something trully different from anything else. But not to risk betting on the wrong horse, they end up betting on the same horse as everybody else. It's hard to tell what aproach reaks better returns.
I mean, Infamous had tons of overlap with Prototype (which now saints row 4 is mimicking) now it has whith watch dogs, which in turns has overlaps with ubi's own assassin's creed, and some concepts borrowed from the cancelled version of their splintercell convivtion. All those have themes very similar to those of deus ex, and remember me, and mirror's edge, and the list goes on... Most game writers and designers must either be very close minded people or very frustraded ones.

 

It's called fashion. But at least Infamous has light and dark versions, and this is not a bad place to start a character from, plenty of room for development from there.

 

here's a little broken sample of a video Gamersyde tried to upload but it failed. They asked Sony to send them a high quality video. But they only succeed on uploading 200 MB out of 3 GB. It's only 2 minutes but worth it, althouh there is no sound. And Blim blim said it was 'nt worth making a news about it so he just put the link for people who wanted to check it out.
http://www.gamersyde.com/leech_30290_1_en.html
probably the best quality footage out there...shame the video is broken.

 

One of the more impressive next gen titles shown so far IMO.

 

Only thing I didn't like in gameplay videos were the reflections in puddles. Lack of real-time reflections of most objects to be precise. Everything else looks very good.

 

Now THATS what I call next gen.
If only the animations were just as good

 

That was my biggest concern with InF 1 and 2, so yeah it was disappointing to see SS doesn't quite fix it.

 

All this talk about unlikable characters.

We know so little about the characters, sure it's enough to base a first impression on. But I think that like like Infamous 2's Cole, they will grow on us regardless of what they think of them in that first impression.

Games have the unique situation where we can spend 10 hours with a character, instead of 1.5 or 2.

In Infamous games, we also partially determine who they end up being, since we know the morality system is back in some way.

 

I think the new character looks much better than Cole.

A little bummed that he's as "bald" as Cole nextgen.
Is this because of open world ?

 

I didn't minde Cole, but I'm definitely liking this new character so far. One of the better in a while, if you ask me (Naughty Dog games stand out though).

As for the animations, they're quite good, and the platforming quality of Infamous should come before all else, definitely.

 

They amimations are just ok. They do their job. They arent different from the PS3 games. They dont have the right feel and flow. They needed to be reworked to fit the visual quality of the game.

 

Personally I think the game looks good (gameplay, visuals). The destruction + super power gameplay looks like a lot of fun. Hopefully there is a lot to destroy, a lot of cool short cuts like going through the drain pipe, and very open world with some skill based (timed? sequenced? coded ala Heavenly Sword?) gameplay.

 

I think the game looks great but it doesn't have that OMG there' no way you can do this on current gen feel like the City sprawl scene in Killzone SF. I wanna see the return of giant creatures, boss fights, they should look rather stunning in this new engine.

 

I guess that's the real test though. They've shown some basic stuff regarding some of his powers, but until they off more of the traversal and power-set he has, then we might get a real without-a-doubt wow moment.

Of course they'll drag and spread out some of that footage for upcoming gaming events. Guess we'll have to wait for Gamescom and Comic-Con to see anything new.