Gaming Review: Infamous Second Son

Players take on the role of new protagonist Delsin Rowe, a cocky native American kid part of the Akomish tribe who after getting into trouble with his cop brother time and time again, investigates a crash of a military vehicle transporting “Bio-terrorists” or “Conduits” to a special prison constructed by the D.U.P. whose aim is to capture them all. Delsin soon finds himself protecting his brother from one of the escaped Conduits and touches him which then sees Delsin turn into a conduit himself. After harnessing and controlling his powers, he soon has a run in with head of the D.U.P. Brooke Augustine who hurts Delsins tribe with her concrete abilities, Delsin with his new powers vows to stop Augustine and save his tribe. The narrative is fantastic in Second Son although it was over quickly. Cutscenes are the best I’ve ever seen in a video game with motion capture on every muscle of the actors faces. This injects emotion and feeling into the game, you can see the passion in Delsins face as he vows to take down the D.U.P. and you can see the frustration in Delsins brother, Reggies face as he tries to prevent Delsins from carrying out his vow.

Infamous: Second Son plays identically to the previous games which is good and bad, good because the combat is tight and exciting and unleashing hell using Delsins powers is a joy to behold but bad because the clingy climbing still exists unchanged. Different from the cliché powers of fire, ice and electricity, Second Son has given Delsin powers of smoke, neon and video. All of which have their own characteristics, for example, smoke has a short dash ability for getting around, it allows Delsin to use vents to scale buildings quickly and allows Delsin to fire smoke pellets from his hands whereas neon allows Delsin to fire neon light which gives the player a visual choice on how to dispatch enemies and Delsin can move at light speed. It’s these differences that gives Infamous variety and certainly keeps things interesting and you don’t have to wait long before gaining new abilities. Previous Infamous games had one issue that I never came to terms with and I’m hurt to say the issue still remains, the climbing. Cole had a tendency to home in on ledges and players could only jump from ledge to ledge, Delsin climbs the same way which often annoyed me as he clinged onto things I didn’t want him too, thankfully though, upgrading Delsins neon speed run will eliminate ever needing to climb and gone is the chore of collecting hundreds of blast shards to upgrade abilities, now only a few are required which are simple to collect which kept Second Son going at a perfect pace. The combat is fantastic; enemies are tough and relentless and require good use of Delsins abilities to overcome them. The biggest striking point of Second Son is how Sucker Punch has took full advantage of the PlayStation 4’s graphical capabilities. From the superbly motion captured cutscenes to every little detail crammed into the beautiful city of Seattle, it’s all eye candy that never seems to tone down. Even Delsins abilities look fantastic with the huge array of particle effects and executing the Orbital Drop is jaw dropping. Most impressive was the non-existent slow down even when things got hectic on screen, the PS4 handled it all magnificently.

Summary

Sucker Punch has once again created a monster with Infamous: Second Son. Brilliant gameplay, jaw dropping, mouth-watering visuals and a perfect pace make Delsin Rowe’s adventure a superb one. The motion capture is a beauty to behold which made me desperate to see the next cutscene, it was that good.

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• Infamous: Second Son

• Developer: Sucker Punch

• Publisher: sony

• Playstation 4

• Genre: Action

• Release Date: 21st March 2014

• Story – 5/5

• Graphics – 5/5

• Gameplay – 5/5

• Overall – 5/5