Zero Punctuation: Infamous 2

[The_Echo]

The problem with moral choice systems is that if you want to do them right, it's going to take an incredible amount of writing. That's why they're usually split down the middle. That's two stories to write, as opposed to hundreds of different scenarios that can all connect to each other and be interchangeable and work together in a way that's coherent and consistent.

It's a lot of writing, a lot of coding, a lot of extra content in the game. In short, it's a lot of fucking work.

Personally, though, I don't have a problem with the moral choice system. (Though I was a little disappointed when the final choice was color-coded--it was a real tough one!) That said, between inFAMOUS and Sly, Sucker Punch is turning out to be my most favorite developer of all time.

Edit: About the Militia. Of course they're called the Militia. They are a militia. There aren't several different militias running around. It's just them. The people of New Marais would only call them the militia anyway--they're the only one! It's like the Corrupted. They have a name, sure. But the characters called the Corrupted "swamp monsters." Never once does a character say "We got reports of some Corrupted heading for Ascension Parish." They came from the swamp. They're monsters. Swamp monsters. The general public isn't inherently creative.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

Holy shit! he's right! I played through both good and evil of the game and I can say being evil (in this game) makes no F**king sense!

 

[Jaythulhu]

Is it just me, or did this video seem incredibly rushed? No witty one-liners, no gut-busting descriptive narratives, not even anything in particular to say about the game, the specific elements of the game (aside from a few blase generalities), not even a brainshock/mentalfart animated frame or two?

Sorry mate, but this whole video is a bit of a let down. I was just amping up for you to get stuck in to the flaws of the game when the video ended. Are you suffering from the bizarrely cold "winter" we're experiencing here in Queensland? All I can say in that regard is that it reminds me of the winters we used to have in the 80s and early 90s, before america and china fucked the planet with greenhouse gases.

 

[hailfire]

this is crazy! this is the first positive review I've seen him do since bioshock! this is truly a great day in history.

 

[Macgyvercas]

"Takes off the glasses and the frumpy sweater"?

But...but...I like girls with glasses!

OT: Very amusing review. I'll have to pick this up after my free copy of the first game is completed (thank you, Sony).

 

[Thamian]

Wow... That was different. The guy who said that they spent the whole thing waiting for the really brtual, shit-covered shoe to drop and, let's be honest, it never really did.

this is crazy! this is the first positive review I've seen him do since bioshock! this is truly a great day in history.

Erm... have you forgotten Portal 1? Or for that matter just whole of the Orange box review?

 

[mjc0961]

So this is a joke review right? Prototype didn't overshadow inFamous; inFamous overshadowed Prototype, and then when people finally got around to playing Prototype, they stupidly compared the game to inFamous even though there was nothing comparable about them aside from the whole "dude with super powers" thing. One is a really bland third person shooter that shouldn't exist when we have so many good third person shooters out there, and one is more of an action/fighting type thing.

Speaking of that, this is me reminding myself not to watch if a Prototype 2 review shows up, because I don't need another 5 minutes of comparing it to a completely different type of game. What's next, comparing Minecraft to Gran Turismo?

 

[brinvixen]

Infamous 2 is really gaming gold to me. I completely agree with Yahtzee about the supporting characters. I'm playing as Good Cole right now, and every time I picked a good option, I genuinely felt like I was betraying Nix (the bad female character) each time I did. I only dread betraying Kuo on my next play through. And Zeke really feels like a true friend, a "brother" as he likes to call me. Really, I don't think I've ever cared about supporting characters as I care about these guys. These guys are deep. And yeah, Cole isn't as deep in comparison, but playing as Cole, I feel for my companions.

The combat is solid as always. Getting around the city is easy. And I rather like that the city itself was based off of New Orleans, because the Manhattan-esque cities can get kind of dull after traversing them over and over (although, the fact that part of the town is covered in water, and I'm an electric man, does make it a little frustrating when I miss the travelling mark). But that is a small niggle. I truly have little to no complaints. In fact: no complaints. The game is great. Excellent even. If you have a PS3, you have to buy it. NOW.

EDIT: Afterthought, maybe the Evil Powers weren't so awesome, because in the first one, the Good Powers were not so awesome. In the first, it was Good Power Blast vs. Evil Arc Lightning. Arc Lightning for the win, obviously. So I guess in the second time around, Good Cole deserved something awesome. Maybe it's just for balance. Still, game rocks. Buy it.

 

[Sonicron]

Teeheehee. One of your better ones, to be sure.

Also, it's been a while since I've seen such a hilarious outro caption. "That's nothing, I can shoot electricity out of my carpet!" xD

 

[luclin92]

i really liked infamous 2 because it had a lot of stuff to do so you got easily distracted and it has one of my favorite scenes in a game one that actually made me enjoy it quite easily and i could relate to it in some way.

 

[AetherWolf]

Huh... I didn't know Brits pronounced "St. Bernard" that way.

Not to sound like an annoying hipster but I disliked Infamous 1, so unless Infamous 2 is several times better I doubt I'll get it until it costs $20 at the bottom of a bargain bin.

 

[Waffle_Man]

I think Yahtzee raised a point that really needs to be taken into consideration more often in game design. When a moral choice is about as important as character apparel, what's the point? Developers go on and on about how they want to make the player feel engaged and challenged. Sadly, however, people don't want to be challenged. I remember how the original Fallout gave players a real incentive to be a bit of a dick by threatening them with failure if they were nice to everyone. Unfortunately, not only did it end up being a tad bit too lenient, it was the most criticized part of the game because people didn't like the idea of a time limit. Come fallout 3 and we have the ability to undo murder with two bottles of water.

But if we don't have consequences, what is the point? While binary, equal-but-opposite choices may seem sound, but it really just ends up causing people to only take the evil option if they're doing it for shits and giggles. Most of the games that I can think of that have consequences are all way too lenient. Stalker lets you give up health packs to save random people, but you get so many that it doesn't really matter. Bioshock asks you to give up a resource, but when all is said and done, you get just about as much anyway.

Until we start having real consequences in games, ones that can't simply be brushed off or undone, moral choices are no different from a part of an RPG character creator that just happens to be locked to the player until they cross an arbitrary threshold in a game. They're hats, nothing more.

 

[Thunderhorse31]

I'm surprised that people aren't correcting Yahtzee for assuming that evil and good I2 endings were roughly the same, when they are DRASTICALLY different.

Other than that I see his points, for the most part.

But see:

<spoiler=Both Infamous 2 endings herein>Both "choices" have you make relatively rational decisions about how to save as many people as possible.

Good- Kill all conduits, hopefully wiping out the plague and the Beast, and trying to save as many people as you can.

Bad- Help John activate conduits, not sure that the RFI will actually work/cure the plague, and thus trying to save as many people as you can.

The choice isn't so much good vs. evil, holiness vs. dickishness, etc., it's altruism vs. pragmatism, both of which have their own rationale.

Yeah, the ULTIMATE ending for both is ridiculously different (die or become the Beast? Seriously?), but the logical/rationale employed by both choices isn't very different at all.

That's kinda why I didn't care for the story in this game - the choices made by my character and the story that unfolded as a result didn't feel organic, since Cole was written to be such a neutral figure. They really should ask you up front what side you want to play - since the final "choice" isn't really much of a choice at all.

 

[A1]

Okay Yahtzee. It seems that you've got a bit of a dilemma here. You're always saying that the best games are the ones in which story and gameplay go hand in hand. But here we have a case in which the story goes hand in hand with, among other things, the f@#%ing around part of the gameplay. And now you're saying that this is NOT a good thing (despite of course the game as a whole being good)? It looks like you've got some soul searching to do. Or at the very least some explaining to do.

 

[The Hungry Samurai]

I'm surprised that people aren't correcting Yahtzee for assuming that evil and good I2 endings were roughly the same, when they are DRASTICALLY different.

Other than that I see his points, for the most part.

But see:

<spoiler=Both Infamous 2 endings herein>Both "choices" have you make relatively rational decisions about how to save as many people as possible.

Good- Kill all conduits, hopefully wiping out the plague and the Beast, and trying to save as many people as you can.

Bad- Help join activate conduits, not sure that the RFI will actually work/cure the plague, and thus trying to save as many people as you can.

The choice isn't so much good vs. evil, holiness vs. dickishness, etc., it's altruism vs. pragmatism, both of which have their own rationale.

Yeah, the ULTIMATE ending for both is ridiculously different (die or become the Beast? Seriously?), but the logical/rationale employed by both choices isn't very different at all.

That's kinda why I didn't care for the story in this game - the choices made by my character and the story that unfolded as a result didn't feel organic, since Cole was written to be such a neutral figure. They really should ask you up front what side you want to play - since the final "choice" isn't really much of a choice at all.

That's still a big difference compared to the 1st infamous and it's same ending with different VoiceOver endings. Yahtzee's review seemed to assume more of that. Though I agree that the choice is silly since a person can play it evil right to the end and still go for the good ending with a single button press.

Still didn't stop me from playing both games till I earned 100% of everything.

 

[putowtin]

Lionhead thought they'd got moral choices right with Fable 3.... how wrong they were!

But OT I love infamous 2, and I enjoyed both the good karma play through and the evil one but I won't play it again as evil cause

Spoiler

they made me kill Zeke! bastards

 

[Xenominim]

Same conclusion I had after playing the game, it's quite fun but the moral choices are pointless. Either let Cole be an all out superhero or a villain, don't half ass it. The story doesn't even change until the very last mission and no matter what you're still a SORT of good guy even when playing evil as it forces you to save people several times, set up clinics, and stuff like that. And if you are a villain, none of those side characters never bother to mention how you literally suck the life out of people. Oh sure the 'good' side character Kuo gets really mad if you choose to take the evil woman's powers, but murdering dozens of innocent civilians? Doesn't phase her one bit.

 

[jmarquiso]

Wow, that has to be the most favorable review I've seen Yahtzee do.

Except the one for Portal. But yeah I was quite surprised he actually liked it.

He loved Infamous 1.

 

[jmarquiso]

Lionhead thought they'd got moral choices right with Fable 3.... how wrong they were!

While I didn't play it, I was quite impressed with what they attempted - that is balancing promises with factions and setting aggressive foreign policy. What was more "evil" - bending over backwards to people please or doing what's best, despite looking bad? There seemed to be a real dillema, though.

Of course they apparently ruined it by making Real Estate the all-saving grace or something.

 

[superdelux]

Wow, he liked it... I liked the first Infamous (at least in the sense that it was quite a bit more interesting than Prototype), but never thought the sequel could be something. Might just have to check it out.

Play it it's an awesome, well-written, electro-fire-ice extravaganza.