inFAMOUS: Second Son Standard Edition (PlayStation 4)

If you've played either of the first two Infamous games that came out for the PS3, then you are already familiar with the basic foundation for this game: you can play as a heroic super-hero figure, looking out for the average citizen in the city the game takes place in, or you can act with mostly your own interested in mind and reek havoc on the nearby population in the process. With either choice comes similar but subtly different powers and slight variations on missions, especially the side missions. While being on the PS4 provides a much sharper image, and especially when implementing the "karmic chain special attacks", an enhanced graphical engine with plenty of stuff going on, the biggest chance in the series is that the character can absorb powers from other Conduit characters in the game. While you start off with a "smoke" power, allowing you to travel along pathways only smoke can reach, you will eventually gain "neon", allowing you to run as a blur of light, "video", where you can become invisible and soar through the air on the wings of an angel, and finally "concrete", where you can become a ball of stone and simply roll over opponents. Each of the powers has a few similar components: a hover ability, a close range melee attack ("light sabers" with the neon!), and a distance attack (small chunks of concrete, etc.). Where the game shines however, is that each of the powers offers a slightly different way to play the game, and, with it being relatively easy to change between the powers that you have gained, you can approach most of your missions using whatever power suits you. You'll probably find, as I did, that your playing style changes as you use each power: running all over the place and sniper targeting of weak points is my favorite tactic in "neon"; jumping into an out of invisibility and avoiding direct confrontation is the way to go with "video" and dashing into and out of melee works for "smoke". For those who like to earn trophies, the Infamous series has most trophies easily obtainable through the normal course of play, but you have to play completely through as both good and evil with one of the two (evil tends to be easiest as you don't have to worry about collateral damage) on Expert mode. The trickier trophies are difficult enough to be challenging, but not so bad that you would give up completely. Overall, this is an excellent game that is just plain fun to play and, if you are an action gamer, picking up this game is a no-brainer.

It's good to know that there are game developers out there like Sucker Punch that put a lot of effort and detail into a game. inFAMOUS: Second Son is one of those games that has incredible gameplay and a very interesting storyline. I have been an avid PC gamer and I recently picked up a PS4 because of the hype. This was the first game I played on it and I can honestly say this game makes me look forward to more games that come out for the PS4. I have never played any other inFAMOUS games, but I was comfortable with this one because its is unrelated to the other ones in every way. New powers, new characters, and most importantly, a new storyline. Delsin Rowe, the game's juvenile delinquent protagonist, is pretty stereotypical and flat. I'm guessing the Sucker Punch went with the idea that you create Delsin's personality as you go along the campaign making good or evil choices. This is not a bad thing and it works with the story very well. Although most of the characters are pretty stereotypical, the one character that stood out to me is the game's villain, Augustine. She is so incredibly unique and I hope that there a DLC to come out that shows more of the backstory of her. Another thing that brought the game to life was the fact that I did not run into a single glitch once. Some may complain that this game uses too much of the DualShock 4 touchpad abilities, but I felt it was not a problem at all. Of all things, it brought me into the world and made it feel like a real place. The only complaint that I have about the game is the size of the open world map. Yes, it looks beautiful in all it's high-detaled glory, but I could get to on end of the city on foot in about 10 minutes. All in all, if you have a PS4 and are looking for a game to buy, I highly recommend you pick this one up.

Our 13 year old grandson is all into this game. And has concerned it. But still goes back and plays it

Infamous: Second Son was the first true AAA title for the PS4. To be honest, I didn't expect to get as hooked on it as I did. That's because I tried the original Infamous on the PS3, and got only about midway before I gave up on the game as being too long and too repetitive. Furthermore, I also had Shadows of Mordor sitting right in front of me, which was a much better reviewed game. Well, I think what made the difference is that Second Son is a pretty gorgeous game. Whereas Shadows of Mordor started you in the shadows, Second Son started you at dawn, during the golden hour. The entire game tries hard to put you in gorgeous environments, either during sunrise, sunset, or at night. While I lived in Seattle for almost a year, I'd rarely seen it in good lighting because of the constant clouds and drizzle. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the game was written as an extended advertisement for the Seattle tourism bureau. The other reason is that Shadows of Mordor is multi-platform, while Second Son is written by one of Sony's in house developers. Without needing to port to other platforms, the team gets to optimize the heck out of the game, and it shows. Other than the startup loading screen, the rest of the game has zero loading time, with no hiccups whatsoever and a very fast frame rate. The game felt very tight. Unfortunately, that's not true of the the Vita remote play experience. I tried that a few times and it just didn't work. The game revolves around Delsin Rowe, who discovers that he has powers. A government agency tries to capture him but members of his tribe try to protect him and fall prey to Augstine, the leader of the agency, who also has powers. Delsin, with his brother, heads of to Seattle to try to capture her powers so as to relieve the members of his tribe who helped him. The least likable part of the story is Delsin Rowe, who's quite a punk. Even when playing him as a good guy, he never seems to want to live up to the hero he would be, with his brother frequently trying to restrain him. Nevertheless, the powers he gains are a lot of fun: smoke, neon, video, and finally concrete. Sucker Punch (the developer) did a good job giving each set of powers distinctive feel in play while sharing similar controls so that you don't get too overwhelmed each time. Each set of powers has a distinct skill tree, so you can upgrade and customize Delsin. The game doesn't completely balance all powers: neon is the most fun to play, so the game forces you to upgrade video and smoke by making them required as the only skills necessary for certain critical missions. Fortunately, Sucker Punch also made upgrading Delsin by collecting power-shards fairly enjoyable, so I didn't even notice I was grinding the game until near the end, when I was collecting shards so I could upgrade the last power, concrete the minute I picked it up. Collectibles are usually a pain in game, but this is one of the rare cases where the game's made them not objectionable. There's relatively little variance in the side missions, but there's enough different types that I didn't feel like it was very monotonous. I didn't like the secret agent missions, so I just didn't bother doing them, while some of the other missions were locked out because I decided to play as a good character instead of an evil one. As a near-launch title, Second Son made full use of the new controller. You use every button, and the touch pad as well. The touch pad felt somewhat gimmicky, but I got used to it. In any case, I had a lot of fun playing the game, and it definitely looks and feels miles beyond the original Infamous game. If you have a PS4, I'd recommend picking it up.

inFAMOUS: Second Son is a very enjoyable game. This is my first inFAMOUS title and it has made me interested in the previous 2 titles (I used to think they looked dumb, partly due to fanboyism and partly because the gameplay videos I saw didn't look fun to me (I guess looks can be deceiving, because this game has great gameplay)). My favorite part about the game; however, is the minimal amount of cutscenes. Compared with Max Payne 3 and GTA 5, inFAMOUS is virtually free of cutscenes. If there is dialog happening at non crucial story moments, you retain control of the character. This does wonders for immersion. The world that the game immerses you in is slightly generic in theme, but visually stunning in every aspect. The sounds are great and the DualShock 4's built in speaker is implemented well. When Delsin's phone rings the audio comes from the controller. A few times, I thought that I was actually getting a call and reached for my phone. The controls are nice as well. The use of the touchpad to interact with objects in the game world is a bit awkward at first, but it grew on me as the dungeon isn't attatched to a button with another purpose (like attack, as in older games (Spider-Man 3 for example)) and soon became natural feeling. I recommend playing on the highest difficulty level. The increased difficulty creates a sort of beck and forth cast and mouse aspect that I find very appealing. You cause as much damage as you can before your health or power meters get low, use the movement aspect of whichever power you have (3 fairly unique options) too escape and regen, the go in for another round. Playing in this style, the game is only moderately difficult and I feel it would be Much too easy on a lower difficulty level. The story is interesting and gives you Good vs Evil choices at key story moments that will have me replaying the game to what the current choices change. One thing that I dint like Abbott the Karma system in the game if that it is Very black and white. There is no middle ground and I feel binded to the side I started out on (Good). The abilities that you get are also limited by what your Karma level is--which makes sense in some ways. As far as singleplayer gameplay for your buck goes, this is the best game I've played since GTA 4, and as a result I strongly recommend it to someone looking for a game that will provide a large amount of gameplay while waiting for the PS4's library of non-indie titles to expand.

I really don't understand the rave reviews this game has gotten. Is it merely for being a launch title? Having the inFamous label? Its graphics? The previous inFamous games were superb and I think there was a good reason inFamouns is in tiny letters and Second Son overtakes the label. As though they felt bad even calling it inFamous. I think this was supposed to appeal to dudebros who just bought a PS4 and only play "certain types" of games. For the well rounded gamer, this is poison. I went in with high hopes and was constantly insulted... as a person. I don't like to be around characters like Delsin in real life, why would I want to play one in a game? If you couldn't guess, my main complaint about this game would be the characters. They aren't likable at all, none of them. Your main character Delsin is kind of an angry arrogant teenager in a 25 year old's body who thinks he's Banksy and tries his hardest to be cool but he's just a douche. He's whiny, sad, lonely, abrasive, self absorbed, and incredibly sexist. The writing of his script shows they not only don't care about this character but whoever wrote him must think this giant sack of dung is the coolest person in the world. He forces his brother to constantly go against his own principles and do wrong by questioning his manliness and his devotion to family. The female protagonist is super cliche and basically her only focus is blaming her drug problems on pushers and killing them off. She's petty, small minded, easy, and I guess embodies a drug addict but still not a character I want in this game. I kept playing, even with how much I hated all the characters. The worst part is everyone is calling you on your phone all the time to complain at you and you just get whiny at them and the ringtone is just horribly annoying. The city design is terrible. Everything looks the same, there's no compass direction on the map indicator, the layout making getting around over complicated, the "fast travel" stations only work when you go to one so they're halfway useless, and the change of day doesn't change the city. I kept playing even though the game was clunky. The city was just a low point and it made me miss the amazing open world designs in pretty much every other game like this. There are still bugs after patching. Some of the missions don't trigger so you have to restart them several times. Sometimes double the enemies spawn. Randomly guys will be much more active about shooting you so sometimes it's super easy and other times you get shot to death in a couple seconds. There is a glitch where spray painting makes people stop shooting you as well. So when did I stop playing? How about the tedious and terribly designed boss battles and fighting system. How about the niche overuse of new PS4 control methods? That's what usually hurts a game. When you just can't enjoy playing it after you remove everything else. The melee is basic and the most powerful but it's so badly done. Shooting powers give almost no damage and headshots take ridiculous accuracy, which your character doesn't have. You can take 20 shots and easily miss a guy you have your reticle right on. Your character goes down fast so you have to hit, shoot, hide, wait, hit, hide, shoot, hide, and repeat that for the entire game. You don't ever feel powerful. Worst of all your super ability takes about 15 seconds to watch and isn't skipable. It keeps me from even wanting to use it. There's also the quirky things they tried to do but just became obnoxious. The touchpad is used for several things and it just seems stupid like Sony demanded they use it. The spray painting is just pathetic and the mechanics for that are clunky as well. The sound coming out of the controller becomes annoying. The phone ringing, absorbing things, just any loud high pitched annoying sound they could throw through that thing at way too high of a volume, they did. So why would you like or play this game? I don't know, maybe you're capable of overlooking all of the terrible qualities on your wasted money. The story is not even redeemable, it's a rip-off of X-Men. If you look at the competent well done reviews by the more reputable people around gaming, you find mixed or negative feelings toward this game. It's just bad and I only enjoyed the first 20 minutes, until you start getting powers and become a needy child wanting more and more. Because all you care about is more powers so you can be cool and tough. This is a launch title, nothing more. It was an attempt to go "look what I can do" and then be flashy. Nothing real is gained by going good or bad or replaying it either way. The game is basically the same. It looks great, plays awful, had no individual thought. It's the worst game I've played in 2014. It's an attempt to be X-Men, not inFamous. Bad story, gameplay, mechanics, design, and characters make it one of the all time worst games I've played. I just hope they remaster the first two inFamous games for PS4 so I can forget this one ever happened.

Infamous: Second Son is an exceptional open-world action-adventure game that showcases the true potential of the PlayStation 4. From its captivating storyline to its stunning graphics, the game has left me thoroughly impressed and thoroughly entertained. The protagonist, Delsin Rowe, possesses incredible superhuman abilities, which players can wield and upgrade throughout the game. The gameplay mechanics are seamless, making it a joy to traverse the vast and beautifully rendered open-world environment of Seattle. The moral choices presented in the game have a significant impact on the storyline and character development, adding a layer of depth and replayability to the game. This feature provides a sense of agency and allows players to tailor the story to their preferred playstyle. The attention to detail in Infamous: Second Son is commendable. The game's particle effects, character animations, and dynamic weather systems contribute to an immersive and visually stunning experience.

Seeing trailers, this game looked quite interesting, so I bought and finished the campaign and here are my impressions. *************************************************************Pros************************************************************* -Gameplay: This is the best part of the game. Going around the gorgeous version of Seattle, defeating enemies and bosses while enjoying the story with different powers... quite enjoyable experience. -Powers: Highly unique powers. Very creative of developers. Really enjoyed the laser and video. -Campaign/Story: Simple story but is driven by good motives. Encourages the player to finish the story. -Voice Acting/comedy: Main character's brother is the best. Made me laugh so much during one of the missions. The voice acting for other characters is well done as well. -Graphics/visuals: Extremely gorgeous visuals. Powers look very nice well designed alternative Seattle. -Side missions/Spray paint: Much better side missions than previous games. Spray paint missions are quite unique and well done. -Bosses: Again very nicely done. Boss fights are truly enjoyable. I really liked the last boss fight. *************************************************************Cons************************************************************* -Enemy powers/late unlocks: While there are few different types of enemies, I wish they had enemies with different powers. One of the main powers is unlocked pretty late in the game. *************************************************************Conclusion************************************************************* All and all the game was quite enjoyable. I hope they create a sequel with better connection to the original infamous game.