I finished it! I had a great time, and I’d recommend it to anyone that asked. Easy! In fact, I’d put InFamous Second Son towards the top-end of recommended and suggest it was “highly recommended” (I really need to sort out my ranking system!).
Second Son isn’t without flaws, as I’ve already mentioned in the previous posts, the boss fights don’t really work for me, and when you have no abilities, Delsin doesn’t handle particularly gracefully.
However, that aside, you’re left with a really good looking game, with creative new abilities and ways to battle/traverse across the city. You have a half-decent story with some very good voice acting and motion capture.
A good, strong villain, a strong hero and cast of allies. It’s been a joy for the most part.
It doesn’t set itself above anything else out there, although, I imagine that’s more about me playing it 4 years after it was released and comparing it to what’s come since.
Sounds good….
One element that I neglected to mention previously was the stellar audio work. Between the audio cues letting you know how low your health is, to the soundtrack, with the really nice guitar riffs and that harder “rock” aesthetic, it really worked with Delsin as the protagonist.
Honestly, I found myself just sat listening to the music, or getting myself into a situation on purpose, just to trigger a certain piece. Very cool.
Everything seemed to be really well balanced. Whereas before I mentioned that I never really heard the civilians, I found that with the headset on, all minor issues disappeared. Everything was there, and felt like it was positioned in the perfect place.
Excellent work indeed.
In the end
I went with “good” all the way through the campaign, making the “right” choices, and guiding my new friends in the right direction, too. That lead to some specific abilities being unlocked, which was cool, but I don’t feel like I need to go back and trying doing it all differently. The choices were a little blunt and black and white, but I like that there were times to make decisions and choose specific outcomes.
Delsin got the “stone” powers he so badly wanted, which are pretty cool. The whole floating ability is a nice touch and made traversing that little bit easier. Added armour abilities, and a super-heavy melee attack made it great fun to play with, but I didn’t really have much to do.
After finishing the story, I cleared out some more DUP areas, and had some fun with the new powers, but didn’t feel like I needed to tie-up any loose ends or anything. So I gave it a couple more hours and that was that.
Special mention
With a game that looks this good, and the abilites you have, screenshots are a total “must”. Thankfully, InFamous Second Son has an excellent “photo mode” built-in, whereby you can stop the game at any given point, and use the tools to change camera angle, add filters, depth of field etc, and snap away. It’s quick and easy to use, and you can get some great shots!
I’d go back to this game just to take more screenshots to be honest. I easily spent an hour getting some final shots before deciding I’m finished with the game.
All done
So, yeah. Great game, highly recommended, but not something that I’d deem as essential or exceptional. It’s a lot of fun, there are a lot worse ways to spend you gaming time, and if someone asked me about it, I’d definitely do what I could to encourage them playing it.
Now, I’d like to see if I can get around to playing the other InFamous games, and see how they feel in comparison.
Great work Sucker Punch, I can’t wait to see what you’ve got up your sleeves next!
