- Infamous: Second Son was reviewed via a retail copy of the game.
It’s the year 2016 and its seven years after the events of Infamous 2, (spoiler alert ahead) and following the self sacrifice of Cole MacGrath, the conduits had a glimmer of hope to live life with some degree of normality alongside us normal humans. But this is the human race we’re talking about here and something that is more powerful then we are, we can become a paranoid race living in fear of something that we cannot understand.
This unfortunately is the world we now live in following the events of Infamous 2, yes ok not everyone lives in fear of the powerful conduits and there are many that just wish we could all get along. But it’s those in high powered positions that make the immediate sudden impact, they have the power to rein true fear among the public, even poisoning their once open minds.
A power trip can be a dangerous state of mind for any mere human, especially one with hidden motives, double standards and one that posses great power not to dissimilar to the conduits that she aims to condemn and imprison. Meet Brooke Augustine, the leader of the DUP (The Department of Unified Protection), she is assigned to do whatever it takes to round up all the conduits (good and bad) and keep them away from society. This is the PR stunt that she and the DUP would want you to believe, but the truth is that she rounds up the conduits to conduct sinister and inhumane experiments upon them. But who can stop one so powerful as Augustine Brooke and what hope do the conduits have of normality?
Augustine is a powerful conduit herself, but yet seems to be exempt from the DUP law, why is this and what are her true intentions? This is something that our new, young, cocky and charismatic protagonist Delsin Rowe aims to find out as he heads to the city of Seattle, a city that is being governed by the DUP martial law. But how you go about uncovering the truth is down to you, which path of morality will you head down…good or bad?
There is no question that Infamous: Second Son is one of the best looking games on the new generation console, many even billing it as a “true next gen title” and it’s easy to see why it would carry such a tag. The city of Seattle is created with great attention to detail, this may seem like an odd thing to say, but I’ve never seen such good looking puddles in a game of recent times. I know, it sounds just as silly saying that out loud, as it does typing the words out.
For whatever reason, water effects have always been a detail that always gets me exited, as I believe that for an element so simple, it can also be one so beautifully detailed too. Seattle is a damp city (and that’s coming from someone that lives in England) and a city that is no stranger to rain. So to make this great city feel as believable as possible, this seemingly minor detail is actually one that is very important to Second Sons authenticity.
While I’m sure many developers would have done a great job in creating Infamous: Second Son, the developers at Sucker Punch Productions have had one major advantage when it came to creating this game and making the location as realistic and authentic as possible, and that advantage is that the developers are from Seattle themselves. So that factor alone not only provides the developers with first-hand experience as to what the city looks like, but it also provides them with even more pride to the attention to detail that you could not buy with any other set of developers. Seattle is their backyard, it’s their home and this passion & pride is as crystal clear the moment your fire up Second Son.
It’s not just the weather effects in Second Son that look the part though; it’s the living breathing city itself. The attention to detail that has gone into every small building, right on up to the pin point of the Seattle Space Needle, pedestrians going about their everyday lives and much more. While we are all still in the honeymoon period of the new gen and it’s easy to be impressed with many of the AAA titles released thus far, you can’t help but stop and stare mind mission or exploration to admire the view at hand within Second Son. The facial animation in this game is also of a high standard and even though Delsin has the tendency to pull faces that slightly irritate me, there’s no denying that the work gone into each and every one of the main characters is among the best facial animation work that I’ve seen lately from within the industry.
If I was to have one criticism in terms of Seconds Sons visuals, it would be the lack of Delsin’s reflection. With some many buildings in Seattle to climb, it does look a tad odd when scaling across a window to then not to see your reflection. The same applies to much of the surrounding water and puddles in the city. This might just be me being picky, while not apparent in all games, seeing your characters reflection was common in the last gen console. So I really did expect to see that implemented in Second Son, especially with a game that has such great attention to detail in almost every other aspect of the city.
It’s no secret that Infamous: Second Son features the most in demand voice actor in the videogame industry at this time, of course I am talking about Troy Baker and his performance as Delsin Rowe is nothing short of what you would expect from a man with his acting talents. Troy Baker has voiced some of the most popular and iconic characters in the past twelve months such as Joel from The Last of Us, Booker DeWitt from Bioshock Infinite and even The Joker from Batman: Arkham Origins. But yet he still manages to make his role as Delsin Rowe unique and it’s hard to believe that this is the same voice from the characters that I have just mentioned.
While I am a big fan of Nolan North’s work, it’s just about impossible to distinguish the difference between Desmond Miles of Assassins Creed, Nathan Drake of Uncharted, Salem from Army of Two and more. To be fair to Nolan North, there are plenty of roles in which he offers a different tone such as Penguin from the Arkham games. But my point is that in his key roles as a lead character, he pretty much sounds the same in almost every game that he stars in. So much so that he sportingly takes the mickey out of himself in Saints Row IV, by starring as ‘himself’ when selecting a voice for your created character. This just makes me appreciate Troy Bakers work all that little more, especially as Delsin Rowe.
The two main supporting characters also play a pivotal role in Second Sons story. Travis Willingham does a superb job voicing Delsin’s law abiding, by the book brother Reggie, who just wants to do what’s right, even if it makes him a little more unpopular and Christine Dunford does a great job in voicing the bitch that we love to hate as Brooke Augustine.
Being a fan of a well supported soundtrack, the music gave me great listening pleasure in Second Son. The soundtrack supports the story paramount and is full of drama, suspense and attitude, almost everything that Infamous: Second Son wants to represent and portray. It’s a varied soundtrack, offering a variety of emotions and this is key to its three talented composers; Brain, Marc Canham and Nathan Johnson.
With all the PS4 jazz and as pretty as Second Son looks, I was actually quite surprised to how similar in essence the gameplay is to the previous Infamous games. I wasn’t expecting a complete rehash as there’s an old saying that goes “If it isn’t broke, then don’t fix it”, but I still expected Sucker Punch to take a little more risk with its gameplay, by offering something new, rather than playing it safe. What I mean by it being very similar is the way Delsin runs, climbs and shoots from the palm of his hands; it’s very, very Cole MacGrath like.
Even more similar is the random civilians that you find wounded on the streets, giving you the option to revitalise them by pressing the Triangle button and earning some good karma in the process. It almost feels like it’s been taken directly from the previous games. Many of the missions soon begin to feel very repetitive, which I’ll get on to a little later.
Behind its glossy exterior I expected not to experience so much Déjà Vu. While the controls did feel a little sensitive at times (which you can alter in the options), when scaling buildings and aiming for well timed precise jumps, at times it does feel like at times that Delsin is jumping into an invisible wall, as you frantically press the X button to scale a building, he sometimes does very odd floaty movement. As with the two previous Infamous games, aside from the open world sandboxes that you have to play around in, its biggest gimmick is arguably the morality system.
Without giving to much away, early on in the game Delsin is faced with a challenging predicament, does how make the ‘good’ choice and risk harm to himself and in the process limit any potential damage to others around him or does he make the selfish ‘bad’ choice by putting no risk on himself, but certainly on those around him? It’s this choice in particular that sets the tone for your campaign and while you can change your persona during various moments of your playthrough, it is this early defining moment in the game that may decide the path that you may take….do you become the goodwill Jedi Knight or do you choose the path of the Dark Side?
It’s all well and good having a morality system in a game, but often does it have any real repercussions, this is where Second Son really stands out. Depending on the choices that you make, not only will it alter certain moments in your campaign, but the civilians of Seattle will also react to you’re differently depending on how you portray yourself to them. Whether they see you as the second coming or the spawn of Satan, is really all down to you and once you’ve finished the campaign for the first time, you can play it again by choosing the other path.
Aside from the main campaign missions, there are plenty of other quests and objectives to keep you busy. These side objectives could include uncovering valuable data that reveals the dark truth of the DUP, by discovering secrets via an unknown ally or if you picked up one of the special editions, you can partake in the Coles Legacy missions or even root out conduit agents working for the evil DUP and much more.
Then you have some mischievous missions like spraying graffiti throughout certain locations of Seattle. Now Sucker Punch could have chosen a very generic way of using the analogue stick to aim the aerosol can. Instead these fun little side missions will have you hold the DualShock 4 in a vertical position and by using PS4 camera, it will utilise the motion controls while you hold and move the control pad like an aerosol can, pressing R2 to then spray the paint.
It’s such a simple way to make good use of the PS4’s motion controls, but it makes a big difference when adding to Second Sons immersiveness as a whole. There are also plenty more side missions available to you, which I will keep to myself so that you can discover them on your own. But one more that I will mention involves prank phone calling the DUP, which can be very satisfying indeed.
As you progress through the game, Delsin will become more powerful. Depending on whether you gather good or bad karma, will ultimately depend on the kind of powers you unlock by representing which respected level that you are. The higher your level/ranking, the better powers that will be available to you. The vast majority of powers will unlock naturally via your progression and the powers that you do unlock will be indicated on the skill tree system.
During the early stages of the game Delsin inherits the smoke powers, which allows him to travel through air vents, mesh like fences and unleash devastating balls of smoke and rockets to dispense of the enemy, but it’s a little later in the game when it really begins to pick up. The smoke powers were a blast (almost quite literally), but without giving to much away when Delsin inherits the neon powers, it not only looks beautiful, it’s also a lot more fun. Delsin can seemingly move almost as fast as a speeding bullet, sprint up walls like Spider-man, and shoot neon rays almost reminiscent of X-Men’s Cyclops. Also where as Delsin had to drain smoke to regenerate his smoke powers, with the neon powers, Delsin must drain the many neon lights that you will find throughout Seattle. Your powers can drain pretty quickly, especially during the heat of the battle, so you must keep a keen eye on your power gauge in order to regroup, recharge and kick some neon charged ass.
Regardless of the powers, not all its benefits will be available from the offset. Some powers will be unlocked via story progression, via finding shards or bringing down the DUP command centres. The DUP centres are often heavily guarded and depending on the location and stage in the campaign, they will also often vary in difficulty. By taking down the command centres, it will not only often play a huge role in Delsin becoming more powerful, but they are also one step closer to bringing down the DUP and giving the city of Seattle back to the people.
When you take down a mobile command centre, the DUP will lose control of that cities region and not only will it grant you access to more missions, it will make the city a little safer for fellow conduits and the civilians alike. Just also make sure you clear out of the side-quests to make sure you take complete control of each region. As an added bonus once the mobile command centres have been torn down, you will also be gifted to some glowing shards (which fans of the original games will be familiar with) and many of those side-quest locations will be revealed on your map.
Once you collect a certain number of shards, you can then spend them on upgrading your abilities, in essence they are effectively Second Sons XP system. There will also be various shards to discover throughout Seattle and they will appear on the map, once you have destroyed the necessary mobile command centre.
As pretty and amazing a game can look prior to its release, until you actually play the game first hand, you can never really tell if the game plays as good as it looks. I know there will be plenty out there that disagree with what I am about to say and I can almost hear the fan mob sharpening up those pitch folks, as much as I like Second Son, it has still left me feeling a little underwhelmed. But that could very well be down to the high expectations that this game had set, because it really is a fun game. It’s just perhaps fallen victim to its own hype.
Infamous: Second Son ticks almost every box that it needs to and for me it was a slow starter and I’m glad that I stuck with it, especially when I gained the neon powers. But for me it’s the gameplay that ultimately is going to bring me back for more. The way it feels and handles, it’s just a little too familiar to the previous games and does not have enough variety to really keep me interested for long spells. It’s the kind of game that I don’t seem to lose many hours to in one sitting; it’s more a case of 1-2 hour short burst at a time.
It took me a little longer than expected to warm to Delsin and the story to Second Son is really well told and acted out. Run around, scale some buildings (in Delsin’s floaty kind of way), shoot some bad guys and blow stuff up. On paper that sounds great, but after a few hours in it began to feel a little repetitive and if anything. In my humble opinion, while Second Son looks and sounds every bit a new gen game, I was really hoping that the gameplay would offer something truly revolutionary, something to sink my teeth into and give me that ‘WOW’ factor.
Unless I’m in that frame of mind, I don’t have that major urge to pick up and play Second Son as much as I’d like, in comparison to other games that I own. If I was scoring this game on visuals and sound alone, it would be seriously close to a flat out 10, but for the lack of variety in its gameplay, it wouldn’t offer such high acclaim. Don’t get me wrong, Infamous: Second Son is a real fun game, but for me it falls short of greatness and I’m sure there are plenty that may shoot me down for sharing a different opinion, it’s just for me at least, I may be waiting a little longer than expected for that almighty console exclusive title.