As the Playstation 5 is approaching, I have been going back to play some of the great Playstation Studios’ games and clearing out some of the backlog. This past week, I decided to go back and play inFamous: Second Son by Sucker Punch. I think of the reasons I never played it up until this point was that inFamous 1 & 2 never resonated with me. I tried them, but never got too far in them. It took 6 years of the PS4’s life cycle for me to play a game that was released during the PS4’s initial launch window. When developing the game, not only did Sucker Punch provide some feedback on what they would like to see in the PS4, but they also looked at the player trophies to decide on which path to take with the story.
The Story
The story of inFamous: Second Son takes place 7 years after the events of inFamous 2. To decide not the story arc, Sucker Punch looked which trophy was achieved more often. More players sacrificed Cole MacGrath to save humanity. We find the world a different place, one in which the US government has created the D.U.P. (Department of Unified Protection) which is tasked which hunting down Conduits and imprisoning them. The game opens in Salmon Bay, WA, home to our protagonist, Delsim Rowe (voiced by Troy Baker). Delsim has a run in with another conduit named Hank Daughtry who has the power of spoke. Delsim had no idea he himself was a conduit until he touches Hank and not only gains his power, but also gains inside to what got Hank to this point. It is right after this interaction that we meet the games antagonist, Brook Augestine who has the power of concrete. She uses it to attack Delsim and Akomish reservation. This attack is the catalyst for Delsim’s to go to Seattle in an effort to gain Augestine’s concrete power to save his people. Over the course of the game, Delsim will come across other conduits: Abigail “Fetch” Walker (voiced by Laura Bailey) who the power of neon, and Eugene Sims who has the power of video. It takes all three powers, as well as a team up in order for Delsim to reach his goal of facing down Augustine.
Gameplay Mechanics
inFamous: Second Son uses morality system that is based on good and bad karma. Your actions when interacting with the other conduits, the civilians, and the D.U.P. drive this. In a complex battle, I found part of this system to be counterproductive as sometimes the enemies will surrender and you will have the option to melee(bad karma) or subdue(good karma). Without realizing it, you can hit a surrender enemy and accidentally kill them which grants Delsim bad karma. Also, the downside to this system is that some of the trophies for the game are tied directly to getting bad karma.
The map is broken out into several smaller sections that have multiple items to complete including trackeing drones, (which give you shards), spray paint tagging, DPU command centers, prisoner cages, secret agents, surveillance cameras, and conduit identification machines. Most areas only take 1-2 hours to clear out completely.
Gaining add on abilities requires the use of shards. There are enough shards in the game to fully level up all good or all bad abilities. Each ability requires Delsim to be at certain levels of good or bad karma in order to upgrade them. If you have shard lefts by the time you get to the final battle, you will be able to use the shards when you gain your final ability.
Overall
The game plays like a beginning of the generation game. It still looks very very good, but the mechanics are dated in a lot of ways. Overall the game is about a 15-20 hour game if you complete all side quests along with the main quests. Photo mode is really nice, but not quite as good as photo modes that have come to games in the last couple of years. The title is now part of the Playstation Hits lineup and runs about $20. For someone that is new to Playstation 4, I would recommend picking it up and giving it a play through. It was definitely enjoyable, and the story made me really question my morality at the end of the game based on the progression of the story. I would give the game an 8 out 10.
