Double Jump Gaming News

inFAMOUS Second Son

Article by: Kopen Luebke

Overview of Story

inFAMOUS Second Son is an open-world action adventure game released in 2014. The third game in the series, behind inFAMOUS 1 & 2, second son follows Delsin Rowe, a lowly graffiti artist, who gains powers and becomes a "Conduit". You must make decisions throughout the game which affect your "Karma". These choices will decide whether you are seen as a hero or villain by the city of Seattle. Delsin"s brother Reggie is stuck in between his brothers want to rid the city of the D.U.P., and his job as a police officer. The main villain of the game, Brooke Augustine, is the leader of the D.U.P. who wants to imprison all conduits (Or Bio-Terrorists as the D.U.P. call them).

Gameplay

The gameplay of inFAMOUS Second Son is definitely unique, as someone who has not played the first two entries in the series, this is a very different type of game. You use your different powers you obtain throughout the game to take on the D.U.P. and traverse the city. Each power has its pros and cons, encouraging the player to switch them on the fly as need be. Along with fighting the D.U.P. and generic gangs of bad guys, you also have various side quests to help regain parts of the city. These include finding and shooting down drones, finding media recordings, finding undercover agents, and spray painting graffiti throughout the city. The graffiti sections are one of my favorite parts of inFAMOUS SS. This game came out just over four months after the release of the Playstation 4, so inFAMOUS SS wanted to show off the new hardware and abilities of the motion controls in the DualShock 4 controller. You use the controller as a spray paint can, turning it sideways and shaking it before starting to paint, then using the motion control to move and paint various things. This helps break up the gameplay and the pictures you paint can be amusing and allow you to make a choice on what you paint, depending on whether you want to be a hero or villain.

The Karma System

The karma system in inFAMOUS SS is similar to the "Honor System" in the Read Dead Redemption games. Your actions in the game determine whether you are seen as a hero or a villain. Things that affect your karma level in the game include whether you go for stun or kill shots, healing or killing people on the street, and later in the game, you can help or disrupt activists or protestor groups, along with specific side missions to help one of these groups. You can also choose to imprison or get help from the other conduits you track down during the course of the game.

Gripes

The game is a little slow to start, as you are in a fairly drawn out tutorial section. You also are stuck with the first power (That being "smoke") for a while before getting your next one. This makes the first few hours of the game drag, as the smoke power has a slower "travel" ability to the other powers. Once the second power comes into your possession, the game really takes off and the increase in enemy difficulty is welcome. However the lack of a health bar bugged me during my playthrough. The way you tell your health in inFAMOUS SS is by your screen becoming gray and losing color and the music sharp.

Playtime and Price

The story of the game is a simple one if i'm being honest, with only about ten hours of gameplay with just story missions, the game is short. Even when going for the 100% completion, it only adds another twelve hours, only making about twenty two hours of gameplay. Given its smaller play time, inFAMOUS Second Son did have a smaller price tag to match, originally priced at $39.99 (Equivalent to $53.82 adjusted for inflation). It is now priced at $19.99 (As of writing this), but is included with Playstation Plus E.

Conclusion

With some game series, they recommend that you play the games in order to experience the games thoroughly, but as someone who has not played any other entry in the series, I had no problem picking this game up and jumping right in and enjoying it. I think the gameplay loop being broken up by minor side quests to clear out the different sectors of Seattle really works. Overall, I would totally recommend inFAMOUS Second Son to anyone looking for a short, interesting, and exciting, single player story game.

Final Score: 8.5/10