All Your Base Are Belong To Us — The Kip Lange Homepage

The first inFamous dropped like a bomb on the Playstation 3 exclusive scene. It was probably the best exclusive Sony IP people had seen. I’m happy to report that, aside from a few minor grievances I have with the game, the sequel is very satisfying — provided you liked the original inFamous, because inFamous 2 is basically a clone of it.

Storywise, inFamous 2 occurs after the events of inFamous and the destruction of Empire City. Cole (you) and his buddy Zeke head down to a town down on the Gulf Coast named New Marais in search of “Blast Cores”, which will give Cole the extra powers he needs to defeat “The Beast”, a mysterious monster tearing a path of destruction down the whole Eastern Seaboard. If you missed the first inFamous, don’t worry, it’s pretty easy to figure things out. If you have played the first inFamous, and kept a save file, you’ll get a bonus — a chance to import some of your Karma and experience points from inFamous to inFamous 2.

It should be noted that while you are ostensibly in New Marais merely to acquire new powers, you start off with a lot of powers already. Which means the powers you are going to get are well beyond the powers that were in the first inFamous (though you’ll be regaining some of those, too — like my personal favorite, the “Precision” power, that slows time and allows you to zoom and target a very small area — perfect for headshots).

inFamous 2 continues using the Karma system implemented in the first inFamous. Bad actions lead you towards negative karma, good actions lead you toward positive karma. As you progress in your campaign, if you stick to evil or good (and not mix the two), you will end up unlocking new and awesome powers that vary based on whether you’re evil or good, and exactly how evil or good you are. These powers also require experience points to unlock, which you earn by finishing missions and performing side tasks such as healing wounded civilians or stopping muggings and such — if you want to play as the good guy, of course.

A unique twist to this, however, is achieved by adding two characters: Nix and Kuo. I won’t go into their backstories and spoil things for you, but you get Kuo at your side for major missions if you choose to be good, and you get Nix at your side for missions if you choose the path of evil. Each have a different array of powers, some of which can actually combine with your own powers for intriguing attacks and massive damage. For instance, Kuo can shoot a cloud of mist at an enemy, which, if shocked by Cole, will put surrounding enemies in blocks of ice they cannot escape from (in other words, for them, it’s “Game over, dude!”). Nix works similarly. However, they are not limited to just directly aiding you; the AI is good enough for them so that they’ll go out on their own and engage enemies.

Cole goes for a little "shock and awe" in inFamous 2 (click to enlarge)

Speaking of the AI, it’s not just good with Nix and Kuo; it seems that Sucker Punch has worked on improving enemy AI. They seek cover very well, they can attempt to flank you and perform more complex strategies than I recall from the first inFamous.

This installment of inFamous gives me one thing I felt was sorely lacking in the first inFamous — a much improved (or rather, *existent*) melee system that can be upgraded the same way as your powers are. inFamous 2 also removes some of the more boring and repetitive missions from the first inFamous — I would say that the quality of missions in inFamous 2 is much better, and the missions themselves are more varied in objectives.

inFamous 2 virtually demands a replay so you can go the opposite way, Karma-wise, than you did the first time around, so you can see what the powers are on the other side of the morality spectrum. There are also graphical changes in Cole’s appearance depending on which path you’re choosing to go down. On this first playthrough I’m going for positive Karma, so I have a Cole with a white shirt, a kind face, and who shoots glows blue (I believe taking the evil path gives you a red aura).

Sucker Punch has also added something very interesting — UGC, or “User-Generated Content”. In other words, missions created by players themselves. While I was playing, most of the UGC missions had been written by Sucker Punch themselves, but I began to see a few true user-generated missions cropping up. One was titled simply “Large Scale Shootout” and it delivered exactly what it promised (a large-scale shootout — *bonk*). This essentially makes the game “infinitely” playable, in a way.

My only complaint, so far, regarding inFamous 2, is that, unlike the first inFamous, I haven’t had a “Wow!” moment yet. You know, “Wow, holy s**t, am I actually doing this?” moments? Haven’t had any so far. But I’m still only about 2/3rds of the way through the game. Some people may find the graphics are not luscious enough for their tastes, but whatever Sucker Punch has taken away graphically, it has added to speeding up the engine so that you can engage in massive battles without the game hitching for even a second.

I give inFamous 2 a solid 9.25 out of 10.

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I promised a New Vegas review, and dammit, I’ll deliver one.

If Dave Bowman had piloted his craft into a giant copy of New Vegas instead of a floating monolith, his final words would not have been, “Oh my God, it’s full of stars.”

It would have been, “Oh my God, it’s full of bugs.”

Check out any message board about New Vegas on any of the gaming sites and the following words jump out at you — glitch, freeze, bug, crash, and “argh”.

New Vegas is actually a very entertaining game to play, though. For those of you who played Fallout 3, I really don’t have much to tell you — the game is basically Fallout 3: 2 — We Kinda Screwed Up.

You take the role of a Courier for the Mojave Express who is shot in the head and left for dead by a mysterious little cabal. The main quest involves figuring out why you were treated this way. It’s not quite as engrossing as Fallout 3‘s “Project Purity” storyline, but it works pretty well.

The engine is the same. The graphics are the same. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before. For those unfamiliar with the Fallout series, the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic future, which was preceded by a sort of “alternate timeline” where society basically never emerged from the 1950s.

V.A.T.S. (Vault-Assisted Targeting System) returns, which makes the game play a bit more like the RPG it’s supposed to be than a plain shooter. It’s definitely more RPG than Borderlands is. Still, there’s a lot of fun action to be had.

For those of you hoping this game would take place amid the glistening glory of the Vegas Strip, I have bad news — you don’t even get to New Vegas without a good 20 hours or so of gameplay in the Mojave Wasteland surrounding it. And it’s not easy getting in, once you get there — I’m trying to keep this spoiler-free, however.

Fallout has often been described as “Oblivion with guns”, referring to Bethesda’s other epic RPG. It’s a bit more than that, it really is. It’s a whole different universe, carefully crafted, carefully maintained.

New things in New Vegas include: A more complex Karma system, standings with different “Factions” within the Wasteland, and here’s the big one — “Hardcore” mode.

Hardcore mode is not a level above hard. You can play the game on “easy” hardcore mode, or “hard” hardcore mode, whatever floats your boat. And you can play the game without hardcore mode altogether (which is what I opted to do). For serious Fallout fans, Hardcore mode is a lot of fun. It adds new meters to your character and basically turns you into a Sim of sorts — you have to get enough sleep, you have to get enough water, Stimpacks heal over time and not instantly…and so on. The game takes ample space to warn you before you choose to go out in Hardcore mode or not.

Other essential Fallout standards remain the same. Excellent voice acting. Some fun Easter Eggs, if you choose the “Wild Wasteland” trait (I said “trait”, not “perk”). The level cap has been set to 30, but you only get “perks” (carefully scripted enhancements to your character, RPG-style) every two levels, as opposed to every level.

As I said, it’s a fun game. Here’s what’s not so fun about it: Despite a patch out for the console systems, and two patches out for the PC already, the game is, as mentioned earlier, coded like a hunk of dung. What they seem to have done is overloaded the engine with simply too much stuff. For instance, one of the new things in New Vegas is the ability to take a companion with you. Unfortunately, a lot of the time these companions fall through the map, disappear, or otherwise get glitched. Quests are often glitched. When moving through the vast map, there is a lot of stuttering and occasionally a 2-3 second freeze, and, a little rarer, a complete and total freeze that will force you to reboot your system completely.

A solid RPG marred by glitches and bugs galore...

So here’s my advice: if you like Fallout games, get New Vegas, get the patch (or patches), and save every other frickin’ minute. Save all the time. Make sure you have multiple save files backing you up. Cuz this game will crash on you, mark my words, no matter what platform you’re playing it on.

I’m giving Fallout: New Vegas a 7.5/10. If future patches clear up more bugs, consider it an 8. If there were no glitches at all, I might even hazard to give it a 9/10. But this is a fundamentally flawed game and, unfortunately, you end up feeling a lot like Obsidian’s beta tester.

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