Infamous: Second Son was shown during the first PS4 reveal event back in February of 2013. Many people were astounded by the console’s leap of visuals and Infamous: Second Son was arguably the best looking of the bunch. Sucker Punch hit it big with the first two Infamous games on the PS3 and they were popular and critically acclaimed too. Infamous: Second Son is the studio’s first game on the PS4, and it’s looking like it could be the PS4’s best exclusive so far.
The preview build I played did not want to show too much of the game’s story. From what I can tell, the main character named Delsin is annoyed by society as he feels like an outcast with the powers he has. He also has to deal with his angry brother Reggie who happens to be a police officer. The two sides get in a slight argument when they collide with a girl named “Fetch” who also has powers similar to that of Delsin. Reggie thinks Fetch is a menace, but Delsin believes he can train her plus he also wants to befriend her too. The game gets interesting because you have a choice to do either a “good” or “bad” mission similar to the second game.
On my first playthrough of the preview, I opted to do the “good” mission where Delsin and Fetch decide to destroy drug dealers and their hideouts. This was my first taste of the game’s combat, and it thankfully plays very similarly to the other Infamous games I’ve played. Delsin has electric-type powers that allow him to shoot charges at enemies plus he can dash and glide in the air was well. He’s also efficient at combat as he can easily dispose of enemies from close range using a variety of melee attacks. Another great technique he has is using his electric powers to form some type of grenade. I’m sure he’ll have more powers in the full game, but the preview only displayed a small taste for what’s to come.
The “good” mission was set in the docks and the drug dealers had a lot of guns. The one annoying thing I thought about this part of the game was that you had to kill off every drug dealer shooting at you. I don’t know how many there were, but there was a lot. It took me 20 minutes to complete this part in total and killing all of the bad guys got a little bit repetitive at the end. It could be that I was still getting to grips with the game’s controls and mechanics, but this mission as a whole was not all that fun to play I would say.
The “bad” mission was a bit more fun because you had to take out activists that wanted to get rid of “Fetch”. The activists had picket signs and protested that “mutants” like Fetch shouldn’t be allowed to live in Seattle. Several of the activists were protesting throughout the entire city and it was quite devilishly amusing putting an end to their parade so to speak. When you beat up the activists, a lot of the meaty security comes out to get you and Fetch. The security guys are much tougher to beat, but they weren’t so annoying to take out as the drug dealers in my opinion.
These were the only two missions I was able to play. Gameplay wise, Infamous: Second Son stays true to the original games. However, the graphics are the best and biggest change that most people will notice. If you thought the environments and character models looked great in Killzone: Shadow Fall and Knack, Infamous: Second Son arguably looks better than those two games. I would say it’s the best looking PS4 I have seen up to this point.
Overall, I look forward to what the full game has in store. I expect the story to be engaging and that Delsin will have lots more powers too. I also like that you have “good” and “bad” missions to play because you can choose to be either a hero or a villain. Infamous: Second Son releases next month exclusively on the PS4.
