inFamous

inFamous

Sly Racoon is a cartoon thief whose adventures for PlayStation pay homage to the more serious exploits of Solid Snake in Konami’s Metal Gear series. Having cut its teeth on Sly, his creators Sucker Punch Productions are introducing a very different hero and world to PlayStation 3 from 29 May: bicycle messenger Cole MacGrath and the futuristic Empire City. Think "Dark Angel" meets "Crackdown".

As Cole, you’ll learn to harness the powers of electricity that have entered his body in the wake of a cataclysmic explosion. Empire City is a – wait for it – ‘post-apocalyptic wasteland’ ravaged by murderers and rapists. You’ll be able to identify the former by their murderous intent, manifest in gangs of thugs gunning down innocent looters from armoured trucks. The latter are just assumed for the sake of a moody narrative.

As with any great superhero scenario Cole isn’t the only guy affected by the blast, and most of his enemies seem to have been mutated by their powers. Many of them go by the nickname of Dust Men, which obviously doesn’t have the same meaning in the US as it has in the UK. Cole MacGrath versus the Dust Men it is then.

There are three central features of inFamous, the first being that Cole can learn to use his powers for ‘good’ or ‘evil’ to become a Hero or Infamous. Secondly you have the ability to manipulate objects within the world using realistic physics – launching cars into foes and so on. Lastly, Empire City is a vast open world akin to the one featured in Grand Theft Auto IV or Crackdown but on a smaller scale.

Cole’s electrifying powers allow him to cast tendrils of hurt from his fingertips, or transform this elemental power into explosives or shockwaves. He’s impossibly agile and can scale the city’s tallest buildings without breaking a sweat. He can leap down to street level from dizzying heights without injury. Cole can’t, however, enter any body of water as we discovered to our moderate dismay. Electricity you see.

The climbing experience isn’t anywhere near as fascinating as in Assassin’s Creed, which really gave you a sense of the architecture. However that was about all that Assassin’s Creed gave you, apart from a ride on a horse. Cole MacGrath adheres to telegraph poles, fast-moving vehicles, and anything remotely climbable and this makes route-finding rather easy in the four scenarios we’ve encountered so far. It is exhilarating however, and combines with his superpowers such as the Thunder Drop that causes a mini earthquake wherever he lands or a cool electro-glide.

Replay value should be high as your decisions influence the development of Cole’s powers. Our experience of Cole’s destructive energies didn’t seem radically different – it’s what you do with them that matters most. Lightning tendrils are shaded blue or red representing good or bad tendencies. After frying a Dust Man (!) to within an inch of his life, however, you’ll have the choice to leech his life or tether him to the ground for law enforcement to deal with (we presume). Another saintly act is letting the city’s scumbags have a fair share of a food drop into the slums. You have the option to bag this all for yourself too, making you a bad man. This is basically how the good / evil system works and the balance is depicted in a blue / red gauge on the display. Perhaps a more extreme example of nastiness is the electro grenade, whereas something more saintly would be the ability to heal a companion.

Although inFamous takes itself seriously in the violence stakes, and with macabre plot twists to leave you feeling unsettled, the Graphic Novel style brings it closer to X-Men than the likes of BioShock in terms of menacing but Marvel Comics-influenced super villains and their minions. The Dust Men (ho-ho) are humanoid foes dressed in cloaks and carry guns. However more extreme enemies resemble luminescent spiders or huge hulking gargoyles all aglow that only need to nip at Cole’s heels or clobber him from above to make everything fade to black.

Although not yet sold on Cole MacGrath as a hero, or entirely blown away by his haphazard mission presented to us thus far, we are hungry for the full inFamous experience that’s coming exclusively to PS3. Read all about it on or before 29 May here on Yahoo! UK Games.