(Disclaimer: I am only reviewing one small aspect of the game; if you want a proper review, this is not the review for you.)

BASIC EXAMPLE

You know why it’s fun to drive a car in GTA while following the rules of traffic? Players love to find enjoyable activities in games that the developers did not design for.

EXPERIENCE AS DEVELOPER

As a personal example, almost everyone who played and tested my game made it their mission to push all the barrels in the level into the ocean. This was not even intended by design, and players gained no benefit from it. For me as a developer, it was weird, funny, and very interesting to observe. Someone even suggested that I implement a grab function to make it easier to transport the barrels around the map. My response was, »No. If I were to implement such a feature, nobody would play with the barrels much anymore. The player would know it’s intended, and they wouldn’t perceive it as "breaking" the game.«

INFAMOUS: SECOND SON

Now you might be wondering what all of this has to do with Infamous Second Son. I noticed that I also have a unique way of playing this game that isn’t intended: when you defeat the D.U.P. facilities, they become abandoned, and their structures remain. However, I discovered that every single D.U.P. object does not respawn after being destroyed. So, I made it my mission to go back to already cleared areas and manually destroy every single one of those objects until the streets are completely cleaned out of military trash.

FINAL WORDS

Crazy, I know, but for me it’s a fun and calming way to engage with this game after having completed it.

Thank you for reading my review.🧡

Ricci

InFamous: Second Son started with a bang. It ended with a whimper.

Mine, when I realised it was over.

A great game, moving the dynamics of this franchise along quite nicely, the first half of Second Son was everything I'd been craving since completing Infamous 2 in one night. We had a witty, wiseass main character, an older brother just trying to do The Right Thing, and a diverse cast of supporting characters - an ex-junkie on a murder spree, an introverted gamer we can all relate to, and a convict trying to get home to his daughter. The mix was right, the gameplay was good.

And then it was finished.

It isn't a good sign when the credits roll and I'm left holding the controller like 'wut'. Either I played this game very quickly, or it was a lot shorter than 2. It's possible I just accidentally zipped through it without noticing. But whilst Eugene, Fetch and Reggie are characters, we saw Eugene twice and Fetch about three times. Reggie was the only one who got a good chunk of screen time - he became Delsin's Zeke. But the others, who I guess I mentally catagorized as the new Ko and Nix, didn't hold the same amount of authority as Infamous' previous secondary characters. There also seemed to be less missions, and it got repetitive very quickly.

The Good

Delsin Rowe. His child-like glee at discovering new powers was infectious, and his wanting to become a hero very appropriate for the character. He wore his heart on his sleeve, and his anger at Augustine during the final boss fight became my own . It broke my heart to see him at the end in the final scene, so grown up and mature, but wisened by grief. So far all Infamous games have left me with this (damn it Sucker Punch!).

The voice acting and motion capture were fantastic as always. The PS4 allowed for further improvements, obviously, and it was great. The amount of emotion that can be conveyed with a quirk of the mouth or drawing of the eyebrows... As Delsin seems to be a bit younger than Cole, his emotions were raw and easy to read. He was a big tough guy on the outside, but the love for his tribe, Betty and Reggie was just below the surface, and it didn't take much to bring it out. My favourite cutscenes were the beginning with Betty and the Akomish, and I honestly don't know how I'm going to be the bad guy and sacrifice them when I play the Bad Karma storyline!

The world-building, as usual. One of my favourite Infamous things are the funny shop names and billboards. I was highly amused by Cole McG's Electronics, and inPHOmous, a Vietnames restaurant in the Lantern District. Those and a billboard for Empire City! See the latest stage sensation! are the only ones I've found. More exploring required.

The different powers available. Smoke, Neon, Video and Conrete - how much more grunge could we get? I was honestly expecting paint to be one, due to Delsin's love of tagging everything. ('Can't you go five minutes without tagging something?' - Fetch). Smoke, as the primary power, remained my favourite throughout the game, but it was fun to flit between them and play with combos. Neon, unfortunately, was fairly useless but was eeevvverrywhere. Firing neon bursts at the enemy vehicles felt akin to swatting at a tree with a feather, Video wings were awesome and the sword bombs were fantastic. But it wasn't until Concrete that I felt like Smoke had a real contender for fave power. The raw power and strength of that element was just wicked, obviously meant for post-game play, and I loved charging through Seattle as a moving block of rubble, smashing down DUP barriers - free the people!

Spray painting. Yiss. All the yiss.

The Bad

Oi, I'm sorry. I just couldn't help but catalogue this as I played. The first half of the game is top notch - the cutscenes, storyline, setting, everything. This game was fast tracking towards a five star rating. I'm not sure when it started declining, but at point I just stood on top of a building and muttered to myself 'where's the rest of ya?' hence the title of this review. The game felt like it had been rushed across the halfway point. Again, this could be my skewed perspective because I played too fast, but neither of the previous Infamous games have made me feel like this before.

Some boss fights and chase scenes. Eugene's introductory fight went waaaay too long. I got bored hopping from pillar to pillar, waiting for the Smoke and Neon piles to respawn so that I could fire twice at him. I didn't struggle with the mechanics, but still found myself falling into lava and sighing as I struggled back up onto a platform. And when it was over, we saw the kid a grand total of three times. Fetch's chase scene - too long. The Paper Trail chase scene - too long. Hank's chase scene - too long.

Not being able to reclimb the Space Needle. Maybe I'm just an idiot and can't find the way up, but I wanted to climb and jump off. I love the lack of fall damage in this game! Please feel free to enlighten me if it's possible to do this.

The repetitive districts. They've never felt this tedious before. While I bounced around New Marais quite happily, it feels like a pain to go around Seattle doing the same three types of missions over and over again. I don't know how many civilians I killed in pursuit of the Secret Agent. Hidden cameras were a mild entertainment for about ten seconds. Tagging walls was my favourite, the different artworks were very well done. I'm yet to complete the Audio Files in all fairness, but there's not the same hilarity in finding them as there was in shooting down pigeons and hearing the 'flump' of them smacking into the concrete.

The lack of a home space. It was nice to have a small couch, TV and Zeke to return to in the last games. Delsin lacks that kind of home base and it makes everything feel a little floaty, a little temporary.

In Conclusion

I enjoy this game. It was nice to switch it on every night after work and hammer away at a few districts. But I got bored very quickly, and this is something hasn't happened with the last two. Sorry Delsin. You were awesome. I really hope you feature in the next game (which I will be preordering the second it comes out, because this franchise will always have a fan in me).

Having played the first two games in the Infamous series, I kept feeling like I was missing something as I played through Infamous: Second Son. To be more specific, having finished this story in less than ten hours, it felt more like a spinoff than the next installment in this series. But more importantly, everything within this game felt like I was good, and never great, a showcase of concepts that had promise, but never fully went as far as they should.

This is clear right off the bad, as we meet Delsin and his brother Reggie, whose reservation is attacked by a Conduit and his army. Centering a superhero game like this around two Native American characters is a fascinating idea that is ripe with opportunities to discuss culture and make larger points about how oppressors treated Native Americans. But beyond presenting Delsin and Reggie's hometown, this never comes up beyond that—not to mention that Delsin is voiced by the incredibly white voice actor, Troy Baker.

But even beyond that, Second Son offers plenty of promise without any follow-through. We're given more types of powers to choose from than the previous two games, but the powers are largely the same. We're also told that Delsin is collecting these powers for the ultimate fight at the end of the game, yet when we get there, we're introduced to an entirely new set of powers that, surprise surprise, are fairly identical to what we've already been using.

Probably my biggest gripe about Second Son is how the combat just feels too loose, like you're fighting against enemies, but there's no feedback? Even for a game that came out a decade ago, a series like the Arkham games had been around long enough to at least learn a lesson or two about how to fight large groups of enemies in an environment like this. I longed for some weight to the melee attacks, and I never felt like any of my attacks had any weight. And considering the lack of any health meter (until it's almost too late), it often just feels like you're blasting whatever power into enemies without any feedback. It's a game that highly relies on combat, but the combat isn't satisfying in any way.

While I admire a game that doesn't hold your hand, I also feel like it needs to tell you what to do a bit more than what Second Son is doing. The various items you're supposed to look for throughout the world, your upgrades, and your clothing options, are all basically left up to the player to find for themselves. It just sort of throws you into the world and makes you figure it all out. And with other Infamous games, they sort of built to more difficult enemies in the overworld, but I found these enemies to be almost far too difficult early on, to the point that it's hard to navigate this world without dying at the hands of some villain you never even knew what was there.

And let's talk about Delsin's ragtag group of other Conduits. We have one female character, who Delsin sleeps with, then we don't hear from her for a few more hours, making it seem as though that's all she was good for. There's also a computer nerd character who is equally disposed of soon after we've gotten all we need from him. They end up coming back in the end, thank god, and it seems like Sucker Punch was setting them up as a team in the next game, but it might've been better to see from their perspectives in this game instead? I mean, Delsin's story isn't exactly giving us a ton, to the point that we need to stick with him at all times?

And yeah, this is a lot of negatives for what I'd say is the worst game in this series, but I also did have some fun with it. For example, I love short games, open-world games that are condensed enough to not be overwhelming, and games that give you a lot of weird shit to hunt for (and tell you where to find these things on the map!). As a smaller open-world game with plenty of things to hunt for, Infamous: Second Son is enjoyable. As the third game in this franchise I really enjoyed, it's a fairly major disappointment.

Not much payoff for this one. Jarring series of quick-edit cutscenes in the final hours showcasing your moral decisions don't create an organic feeling story - character decisions do not feel at all believable, and the tension is broken constantly.

While Delsin's abilities are kind of fun when you're fighting a group of earlier mobs, the enemies continue to be so obnoxious that encounters are more about "how quickly can I get out of this situation" than they are about "what's the right set of powers to fight this type of enemy." No level of upgrade resolves this issue - literally, the upgrades are all based on how much energy and ammo you can store and how mobile your character is, and the only stat and power increases aren't unlocked until after you beat the game.

The open world collecting was decent at first but it was definitely a chore by the end - especially because they don't mix up the objectives at all, and there's at best only minor and entirely unnecessary mechanical payoffs for doing them.

This game has some cool ideas but fails to use them meaningfully- you don't even get to switch powers during the final sequence of the game, even though that's the core idea.

I received this game free for PS+, and it was played on Normal Difficulty from beginning to end, on the "good" path. If you like open world action games with lots of movement and projectiles, have at. There are much better options out there at this point, though.

Game Summary

After being scolded by your Sheriff brother, a transport vehicle of bio-terrorists (also known as conduits, people capable of channeling different mediums as a power) crashes and they escape! After making contact you gain the power of one of these bio-terrorists. Government vehicles show up and the cold hard bitch in charge attacks your entire town with her own concrete powers after she believes you won't give up the information she wants. Now you must go to Seattle to confront her, gain her powers, and use them to heal the people of your town she's attacked!

Review Portion

If you think of your average Ubisoft style open world game with superpowers instead of traditional weapons, you've got the vibe of what this game is. That being said it's shorter with more clear cut objective, which I appreciate.

The combat and powers are satisfying, but as you gain more there's not much motivation to use the new ones outside of necessary traversal mechanics. They're much more visually varied than physically.

Mostly standard open world objectives like tracking down cameras to destroy or defeating all enemies in an area, but there is at least one that's more creative. One activity gives you a headshot of an undercover agent which you must find and take down before they spot you and escape. The activities also give you a better sense of actually liberating the city as citizens thank you and cheer you an as you run through the city.

The story is solid, if a little heavy handed with the "maybe not all conduits are terrible monsters who should be locked away" side of things. Especially your brother who has seen firsthand what the government agency is willing to do to innocent people, but is still hesitant to believe that conduits might be capable of good. The other conduits you meet and acquire powers from are interesting and likable which is a nice plus. I thought they'd just be earned through boss fights. Unfortunately one of the most interesting story elements was a website tie in mission about a former friend of the main antagonist, but with the site shut down the mission is nothing but following them through the city. None of the story really remains outside of on wikis.

The final boss fight really brought down my overall experience. After a game full of constantly moving combat, ducking in and out of the fray, in and out of cover, the final boss fight is a simple battle of attrition. Just keep firing at the boss while they attack you in a small room.

Summary

If you want to play with some fun powers in an open world game that's beatable in a reasonable amount of time, (I did 100% in about 20-25 hours) this will absolutely hit the spot.

Personal Score : 9/10

"Objective" Score : 8/10

inFamous: Second Son is definitely a must play title in the PS4. Great story, impressive gameplay, and various other side missions from its open world environment. However, the game was too quick to beat!

The casual/side mission fight encounters aren't that hard; the boss fights are relatively hard but despite its difficulty, you could easily adapt to the fighting pattern of the AI so there was really no big challenge. As the credits rolled down after the last boss fight, all I could say was "That was it?" Good thing I decided to clear all side-quests first before I progressed with the main one. If I had played this purely following the main-story, I could've finished earlier. Also, it's a bummer that you get to have the most amazing power in the game when you've already beaten the game. What's the point of having that power now, huh.

Well anyway, despite its imperfections on the game length, I still recommend you to play this game. This game is worth the time and money (pretty cheap for a PS4 exclusive), so overall it's still a pretty great game so don't miss this. I do hope they add depth to its story line for the next installment of the inFAMOUS series.