While at E3 I was able to sit down with a few European media in an invite only closed doors preview and enjoy a guided tour of InFamous from the developers at Sucker Punch Productions. They started off by describing their deep seated love for comic books, both as a medium and as an art style, this is something that they wanted to carry over into their first game since the Sly Raccoon series.
The intro to the game is in the style of a 2-D graphic novel, it tells you the story of the protagonist Dylan who is a survivor of a nuclear blast that tears apart Empire City. Dylan gains powers with the ability to control electricity as he recovers from his injuries and this is where you take charge of his actions. The game starts with Dylan standing on a train moving around Empire City, he straddles the moving train with legs bent, absorbing as much of the movement as possible to keep his balance. This is the first look at what is in store for you in this game.
Dylan is, or was, an urban explorer, the sort of person that would find an abandoned structure and then explore it find secret locations and hidden/blocked areas. This ability to climb comes into play with InFamous, at the start of the game he can climb exceptionally well for a typical able bodied human and can survive falls from great heights. The progression throughout the game will give him bigger and better powers in terms of attacking capacity. After a bit of prodding the developers also hinted at the fact that he would be able to increase his climbing/jumping abilities.
The city is scattered with environmental elements some of which are able to conduct electricity, handy. You can shoot lightning from your hand right from the start of the game and they did show a power that enables you to call down a lightening storm and then control it with the Six-Axis controller.
The protagonists journey to infamy is largely due to his super powers, they are not without limit though and Dylan will need to restore his electrical capacities from the cities power supply. During the preview a Boss battle was encountered against a low level super-powered boss that had the ability to zap from place to place very quickly and had a power called by the developers a Hell Spout. The encounter took place during a black out which meant that you would have to conserve energy as recharging is not an option.
Some part of Empire City will be locked and progressively unlocked throughout the game. Travel to a distant part of the city will be made at the start using the elevated train network and there is something in the works that has not yet been announced but if I were to hazard a guess it would involve his lightening abilities.
From what I saw there were two things that impressed me most about InFamous. First is the artistic style inspired by comic books and graphic novels, it lends itself to the creation of a Super Hero universe very well and it will make a lot of gamers and comic book fans feel at home straight away. The presentation is not only attractive due to its art style, but it is well polished and up to speed with the better games on current gen systems, for an open world setting it is the leader of the pack.
Next was the passion that the developers showed for the game they are creating, they love what they are making and they care about the end result, as a labour of love I expect some fantastic results. When asked about travelling from place to place the developers were clear that they wouldn’t put in a system that took away from the fun and action of the game.
The final thing is the attention to detail in the climbing animations and the way the world has been crafted to allow you to perform actions that you think you should be able to perform. On section saw Dylan climb up a window ledge on a building, but instead of using the typical two hand grip, at one point he hoisted his left leg up onto the ledge to give more leverage and a more secure hold.
At this point they are still keeping very hush hush on some of the details but I would expect that we will see a lot more information coming out at some point, I think multiplayer will feature in some way wether it be a co-op system or something deeper. If you liked Crackdown and Assassin’s Creed then I expect this should be right up your alley, I know it’s now on my must buy list.
