Infamous on the PlayStation 3 was perhaps one of the most defining games of the generation for me. Recently I pulled out the ol’ PS3 to relive some of the nostalgia and the first game on my list was Sucker Punch’s 2009 Infamouns.

Leading up to the release I recall being so excited to play such a large open world game. I played the demo at least half a dozen times. Having incredibly fond memories of the game it was quite an experience to go back and re-live it all again. Looking at the save data on my PS3, my first play through was of course 2009 when it released. Playing the game twice through at the time. The next time was in 2014 where I only made it past the tutorial levels before losing interest.

The game is still great fun to play, and moving around the city zapping baddies never gets old. But some aspects have become very much dated. Movement can often feel clunky and frustrating when you repeatedly grab the wrong ledge or dance around wires and train tracks trying to jump off at the right point. Facial animations are almost non-existent making characters emotions feel stunted. Its not that they are bad, or ruin the immersion, just basic. Most dialog is given during gameplay where character faces are away from the camera but what you do see is very rudimentary especially when comparing to games released later in the generation (Games like God of War 3 and Last of Us really set the bar high).

The visuals at the time were great and I feel it has aged reasonably well. The game features the occasional comic book style cutscene which look great! They really help define the game style and I wish there was more of them. The art style works well presenting a desecrated city on the brink of collapse. Although it does suffer from the classic grey/brown/washed out colours featured in many games of the time and would have been great to see more colours especially as the city is liberated one side quest at a time. A more comic book/cel-shaded inspired art style would have been interesting to see. Performance can hitch quite often when lots of enemies/effects are on screen or when traversing quickly through the city. And pop in can on occasion be aggressive but in motion its passable. For the most part Infamous is one of those games that would mostly benefit from a simple HD remaster. Resolution bump, pushed out view distance and 60 fps would make the game shine.

Gameplay wise, the enemies found in Infamous are mostly what you would expect from a action game. You have the basic grunts with guns which is what you spend most of the game zapping, rocket launcher grunts just to annoy you, Conduits which act as special enemies with each faction having their own unique one, and boss’s/mini boss’s which are usually found as part of quests. Mission variety is decent. Quests can involve one or more tasks including the usual like killing enemies in an area, escort missions and defending a point. Most of the main quests introduce unique situations to mix things up. However the most annoying side quest is clearing a building of surveillance devices. This type of mission really brings out the issues with the climbing system. An NPC tells you to clear a building of flashing “surveillance devices”. What this really involves is fighting the controls for which ledge Cole should grab as the game spawns enemies around the building to shoot at you all why you need to get within a small distance from these flashing devices and press Triangle to destroy them. Its just not particularly fun. The gameplay works best when you can move between buildings, rails and wires while throwing volleys of lightning at baddies. Not smashing X until you finally grab a ledge.

Character/story wise its not winning any awards. Without spoilers there was maybe 3 big plot twists which I think I was more wow’d back in the day but knowing what they were now, you notice they are telegraphed throughout the game quite well so less of a shock reveal. Cole does a serviceable job of playing the hero (or Villain) although can feel a bit flat with the voice acting. At least his not as annoying as Delsin from Infamous Second Son. Zeke, the less-then-trusty sidekick, is annoying, but I guess thats what they were trying to go for with his design. And Trish (Cole’s love interest) is pretty boring, and Sucker Punch didn’t do a great job in building interest in their relation ship. The character relation ships are probably the biggest let down in the game. They feel disjointed and don’t wrap up well by the end.

Update: I wrote most of this post before finishing the final few levels. Once getting the Lightning Storm ability (which is bad-ass) the game likes to throw missions at you that contain waves of enemies and near infinite energy letting you go nuts with your abilities. This is great to feel the power growth but oh boy does it hurt the frame rate. I rushed the last few missions to finish the game and I felt Zeke’s character arch left a lot to be desired. The final battle was ok but did boil down to holding shield up until Kessler pauses then spamming the Megawatt Hammer. Final note, the ending credits are awesome. Silent Melody by Working for a Nuclear Free City was a great choice for the credits, leaving me with a good feeling finishing Infamous once again.