Sucker Punch Productions is aiming for a knockout blow with its sandbox superhero adventure. There are no capes or costumes – but there is an enticingly electric buzz around the game called inFamous...
Empire City is a wreck. An explosion of unknown origin has destroyed six city blocks, resulting in death and hysteria. With the police all but gone, the City is now lawless, with riots, sickness, poverty and criminal overlords ruling the roost. Quarantined from the mainland, Empire City is alone and bleeding.
Its only chance of survival is an everyday man named Cole, who has been blessed from the accident with the ability to shoot electricity from his hands, regenerate health and other powers...although this is the same man who has been blamed for the explosion after being found as its only survivor...
Cole justice
By having its protagonist in such a compromising position from the start, inFamous already offers something a little different from typical superhero videogames. Cole is thrown into an open sandbox world, which is becoming a more established gameplay element in the genre - the difference here is that unlike the traditional nature of Marvel or DC comic characters that typically grace our screens, Cole is more of a moral blank slate.
Which means true to the game's title, inFamous allows you to venture down your dark side while trying to investigate the cause of the explosion as well as why Cole was its sole survivor and given such powers. As you roam around the city, it teems with what Sucker Punch calls Crime Ecology: citizens will go about their business, interacting with each other in regular - or more violent - ways, which you can interrupt, bringing the game's karma system into play.
For example, during a mission an injured woman may need resuscitation by Cole's ability to use his electricity as a defiblirator. Do you ignore her or help? Your decision is tracked by the karma system, which helps shape the population's image of you as they remember your deeds, and subsequently aid, hinder or even fear Cole.
Ain't no love in the heart of the city
It's this expanded sense of a living, breathing world that makes up a large part of inFamous, giving you more than just a series of missions to progress the main storyline. "You have the open world Crime Ecology that you can exist in however you wish," explains Nate Fox, Game Director for Sucker Punch Productions. "Then there are the missions which have very definite beginnings, middles and ends, during which we have large scripted events that play out around you. And these are orchestrated so you feel like you're the star.
"It's kinda like a large stew, where every time you add something new to it, it tastes a little different. So you constantly keep seeing new interactions and that's great - we're going to keep adding to it so it's as wild and diverse as possible."
Your decisions to interact with the people of Empire City also have direct benefits, enhancing Cole's power growth depending on whether you're being heroic or not - which works nicely with the incentive of new powers gained as you progress through the game's plot.
Electric slide
Intriguingly, Cole's powers and Empire City are linked, adding an element of reality to the fantastical, given that Cole can only use the electricity that's around him rather than generate it himself. "We've put in a power grid for the city," says Fox. "Cole can actually drain the city of juice to give himself more ammunition for his heavier superpowers. Which is very useful because portions of the city are blacked out - and in those areas he can't get more energy off the grid and his health won't regenerate. He becomes mortal in those areas, as he feeds off the electrical systems in the city for his abilities."
Even at the early stages of the game, Cole isn't limited to electrocuting enemies to kill or incapacitate. He can also supercharge objects to make them explode, create electromagnetic shields and more. Fox is coy on the number of powers inFamous' lead will end up with, and assures fans there's lots to come. "We give you a constant stream of new superpowers so that you always have a cool new toy to play with," he says.
Cole can also use the environment through his skills as an urban explorer, increasing the dimensions you're given to roam. "It's an open world sandbox game, so you can go where you want, but you can also climb what you want," says Fox. "Here you essentially have a large three-dimensional sculpture that you can interact with however you choose." Fox demonstrates this by having Cole climb a telephone pole, which he then uses as cover as he fires jolts of electricity at foes below. "We wanted to take our climbing and use it tactically. This makes for a more improvisational style. We think it's a very organic thing that lends itself to open world gameplay."
The running man
Regardless of the direction you go with your wealth of abilities you'll naturally face off against a myriad of foes, both powered and unpowered, and that plays a large part of the story itself as well as the gameplay structure. "We're trying to make the most fun game possible, and that means having a lot of people with powers who can do strange things to fight," says Fox. "We have iconic villains who are big boss battle fights that you'll remember months after, because this is part of the genre."
So, what's it to be? Hero or antihero? Famous or infamous? Sucker Punch is letting you choose - and it's certainly going to be a memorable ride. "You'll experience what it's like to suddenly develop powers," says Fox. Who can pass up a chance like that?
