I just finished inFamous 2, and if like me, you enjoyed the first one, there's a lot to like in its sequel.
The plot is a continuation of the first game. Remember that "Beast" that was prophesied at the end of the first game? Well, he decides to show up at the beginning of this game, and although Cole McGrath puts up a good fight, he is beaten down worse than the Broncos in Super Bowl 24, loses all his really good powers, and runs away to New Marias, a place in Lousiana that is not supposed to be New Orleans, but really is not in the same way that Metropolis isn't NYC and Gotham isn't Chicago. Cole must collect a bunch of magic electrical things that will power a small ball that allegedly is able to kill the beast.
There's not too much to say about the gameplay. It's very similar to inFamous 1, although now you have some "partners" in the form of 2 other conduits, one fire based and one ice based. You also get to share some powers with them, but I never found a need to use them as opposed to my regular lightening powers. Speaking of characters, they are much more defined and dimensional this time around. Even Cole's fat friend Zeke from the first game (who, given the crap he pulled in the first game, should be lucky that he is still alive) has a well realized and even believable arc. The graphics are improved over the original, but only in the sense that the world is more colorful than the original of Empire City. It's also cool that you can import your save from the previous game and you get a bonus depending on what karma level you had when you beat the first game.
That said, the game is not all sugar and spice. Like the first game, it takes WAAAYYY too long for Cole to recover his health when has has taken a lot of damage, which is NOT helped by the fact that the screen goes black and white, making it harder for you to identify things. For a comparison, think of how long it takes to recover in a typical CoD game, and add about 50% of that time on top of that. Also, the difficulty is a little shaky, especially near the end. I played as a good guy, and even without buying all the powers or finding all the blast shards (although I had found about 80% of them) I beat the end boss on my first try quite easily. On the other hand, I watched the final battle of the bad guy path, and it appears that that final battle is dramatically harder, leading to a rather uneven experience. As far as the whole "moral choice" aspect that the game forces us through, like many games it feels very token and badly executed. There's NO gray area in your choices, with choices coming down to basically, "Do you free the imprisoned people or rape them in front of their children?" Right after I beat the game as Famous, I started up an inFamous series and lasted about 20 minutes before I just stopped and mailed the game back. Maybe it was because I didn't like being chided by my support characters for my actions after what I went through with them in the previous run through, but being a d*ck did NOT feel nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be. And of course, in order to get all the best weapons, you need to be either a complete saint or a complete ass****, so you HAVE to pick the appropriate karma based answer throughout the game.
Overall though, these complaints are small ticks in what is overall a very satisfying and enjoyable game. To me, it still doesn't dethrone Prototype as my favorite anti-hero open world game, but it still is fun to play and definitely worth checking out if you enjoyed the first game. Best of all, unlike most games (sadly) nowadays, this one has a satisfying and definite ending to the story regardless of which karma path you take. Overall I give it a B+.
I'll probably have a Catherine review next. Meanwhile I'm waiting on the new Deus Ex game to finally ship to me, but will probably have the God of War Origins and Ico/Shadow of the Colossus remakes ship out first. Oh yeah, and the OTHER GoW game..
