inFamous: Second Son is a game I have a bit of history with. I wanted to play the first two games in the inFamous series as a stupid dumb kid, but I had an Xbox 360, not a PS3, so that wasn't an option until very recently for me. One day, however, Sony gave Second Son as a Playstation Plus game, and my brother got it. I hopped onto Second Son then, when I was in around 5th grade or so, and while I enjoyed myself and even 100%ed both the good and evil save files, even then I still just wanted to play the first two games. Now I'm doing a marathon of the series, and I came back to the game for the first time in about 6 years. It was certainly interesting.
The game takes place 7 years after inFamous 2 and stars Delson Rowe as the protagonist, a delinquent that's part of the "Okomish" Native American tribe. One day, a bus crashes holding a bunch of prisoner conduits, (a plot point that doesn't make sense if you've played 2 and is not well explained) and Delson finds out he's a conduit who can absorb the powers of others. However, as conduits are banned from existing, the big evil Augustine catches them. The tribe hides the fact Delson's a conduit, she rewards them with concrete stuck in them, and Delson and his brother go on a fun journey to Seattle (this time just being Seattle, no "Empire City" or "New Marais" crap) to beat up Augustine and steal her powers.
The plot does not develop much at all. Yeah, Delson meets other conduits and gets their powers, but they barely contribute much to his overall goal other than making him more powerful. The game ends pretty much exactly how you think it will from the first hour, not much in the way of twists aside from super obvious ones. A lot of people dislike Delson, as he's a hipster prick, but I honestly think he's a good character. The game sets him up minute one as a flawed protagonist, and no matter which side you pick he goes through some okay character development. His brother Reggie also has a well-written arc where he learns to overcome his prejudice of conduits. Everyone else, though? Fetch learns murder is bad (or good), and Eugine learns being a gamer is a fate worse than death. Augustine gets next to no development until right before her final boss. The game's also much shorter than 1 and 2, and this works to its detriment, as I'll explain later. People also give the game flack for making up a Native American tribe instead of using an already existing one, but considering the protagonist of the game is a member of the tribe who commits vandalism and can be a psychopath if you want him to, I think that was for the best to avoid them feeling like they were misrepresented.
But we're being too negative here. This released within 6 months of the PS4, so they wanted to flex how their new system was way better than the PS3, and it shows. It's kinda cool how the series went from looking pretty bad with inFamous 1, to looking pretty good with inFamous 2, to pretty damn great with Second Son. It's a lot more colorful than the first two games, and the models look pretty par for the course today, and quite impressive when you consider it released in early 2014. My one biggest problem is that they try dynamic lighting, and it's not a good attempt. When you see something particularly bright on the screen, everything around it gets way darker, and it's pretty annoying when one of your powers is pretty much just "bright colors." Apparently this problem is even worse with HDR enabled but my TV's only Standard Dynamic Range. Framerate's also a lot more consistent than 2 and especially 1, but even if you still think it's too shaky, they have thankfully added a 30 fps cap if you so desire to turn it on. The music fits, but I feel it wasn't as good as 2's soundtrack, and still not something I'd listen to outside the game.
Gameplay is still similar to the first two games, but it feels a bit different. Firstly, they changed the controls with no option to switch to something that's more reminiscent of the other games. That's kinda lame. At the end of the day, though, it's still at its heart a third person shooter where instead of guns you use powers, and this game has more than one power. The first two games used electricity, an awesome power that led to many creative mission designs. However, Second Son has 3 powers that are less inherently cool. Smoke allows you to go through some fences and has moderate damage, speed, and range. Neon allows you to snipe enemies and go super fast (all the while making you feel like you're going blind due to the aforementioned dynamic lighting), and Video allows you to embrace your true gamer andcall people the N-word slice people with slow melee combat as well as rapid-fire projectiles. None of these powers are as fleshed out as Electricity from the first two games, but I don't have a problem with this system. Each power feels unique and they're all upgradable. They all have their uses, (though I didn't like Video much) but I still think they could have dedicated the entire game to, say, smoke, and I probably would have preferred a full moveset and level design based off of that.
Speaking of level design, the game shoots itself in the foot with that. inFamous 1 had missions designed around electricity in which you put your powers to good use. Defusing bombs, using yourself as a fuse, hopping into water to kill everyone around you, powering trains to get you from point A to point B, it was great. 2 had less of this, but still used Cole's powers in unique ways, like powering a bridge so much the mechanism can explode and kill everyone nearby. However, due to the multiple powers, they couldn't do this. Instead of designing unique missions that can take advantage of all of them they designed missions that... well, they didn't design missions they didn't need to. The game's way shorter because of this. inFamous 1 and 2 had 40 missions, while Second Son only has 10 or so. I can appreciate them not padding the game out with repetitive story missions, but they didn't make the story missions they already had unique either, so there aren't any cool gimmicks in the story missions or the nonexistent filler missions.
Overall, this game is wack. It isn't bad, but it's not as good as the previous games. The story is shorter and has flatter characters, the powers are cool enough but none are fleshed out enough, and the game ends quickly and without many unique ideas. I don't regret playing this a third (and soon fourth) time, but I just wish it was a bit better.
5.5/10
Yikes, this was long. I didn't want to shorten any of my thoughts in here, so tell me if I should continue to ramble for 8 years.
The game takes place 7 years after inFamous 2 and stars Delson Rowe as the protagonist, a delinquent that's part of the "Okomish" Native American tribe. One day, a bus crashes holding a bunch of prisoner conduits, (a plot point that doesn't make sense if you've played 2 and is not well explained) and Delson finds out he's a conduit who can absorb the powers of others. However, as conduits are banned from existing, the big evil Augustine catches them. The tribe hides the fact Delson's a conduit, she rewards them with concrete stuck in them, and Delson and his brother go on a fun journey to Seattle (this time just being Seattle, no "Empire City" or "New Marais" crap) to beat up Augustine and steal her powers.
The plot does not develop much at all. Yeah, Delson meets other conduits and gets their powers, but they barely contribute much to his overall goal other than making him more powerful. The game ends pretty much exactly how you think it will from the first hour, not much in the way of twists aside from super obvious ones. A lot of people dislike Delson, as he's a hipster prick, but I honestly think he's a good character. The game sets him up minute one as a flawed protagonist, and no matter which side you pick he goes through some okay character development. His brother Reggie also has a well-written arc where he learns to overcome his prejudice of conduits. Everyone else, though? Fetch learns murder is bad (or good), and Eugine learns being a gamer is a fate worse than death. Augustine gets next to no development until right before her final boss. The game's also much shorter than 1 and 2, and this works to its detriment, as I'll explain later. People also give the game flack for making up a Native American tribe instead of using an already existing one, but considering the protagonist of the game is a member of the tribe who commits vandalism and can be a psychopath if you want him to, I think that was for the best to avoid them feeling like they were misrepresented.
But we're being too negative here. This released within 6 months of the PS4, so they wanted to flex how their new system was way better than the PS3, and it shows. It's kinda cool how the series went from looking pretty bad with inFamous 1, to looking pretty good with inFamous 2, to pretty damn great with Second Son. It's a lot more colorful than the first two games, and the models look pretty par for the course today, and quite impressive when you consider it released in early 2014. My one biggest problem is that they try dynamic lighting, and it's not a good attempt. When you see something particularly bright on the screen, everything around it gets way darker, and it's pretty annoying when one of your powers is pretty much just "bright colors." Apparently this problem is even worse with HDR enabled but my TV's only Standard Dynamic Range. Framerate's also a lot more consistent than 2 and especially 1, but even if you still think it's too shaky, they have thankfully added a 30 fps cap if you so desire to turn it on. The music fits, but I feel it wasn't as good as 2's soundtrack, and still not something I'd listen to outside the game.
Gameplay is still similar to the first two games, but it feels a bit different. Firstly, they changed the controls with no option to switch to something that's more reminiscent of the other games. That's kinda lame. At the end of the day, though, it's still at its heart a third person shooter where instead of guns you use powers, and this game has more than one power. The first two games used electricity, an awesome power that led to many creative mission designs. However, Second Son has 3 powers that are less inherently cool. Smoke allows you to go through some fences and has moderate damage, speed, and range. Neon allows you to snipe enemies and go super fast (all the while making you feel like you're going blind due to the aforementioned dynamic lighting), and Video allows you to embrace your true gamer and
Speaking of level design, the game shoots itself in the foot with that. inFamous 1 had missions designed around electricity in which you put your powers to good use. Defusing bombs, using yourself as a fuse, hopping into water to kill everyone around you, powering trains to get you from point A to point B, it was great. 2 had less of this, but still used Cole's powers in unique ways, like powering a bridge so much the mechanism can explode and kill everyone nearby. However, due to the multiple powers, they couldn't do this. Instead of designing unique missions that can take advantage of all of them they designed missions that... well, they didn't design missions they didn't need to. The game's way shorter because of this. inFamous 1 and 2 had 40 missions, while Second Son only has 10 or so. I can appreciate them not padding the game out with repetitive story missions, but they didn't make the story missions they already had unique either, so there aren't any cool gimmicks in the story missions or the nonexistent filler missions.
Overall, this game is wack. It isn't bad, but it's not as good as the previous games. The story is shorter and has flatter characters, the powers are cool enough but none are fleshed out enough, and the game ends quickly and without many unique ideas. I don't regret playing this a third (and soon fourth) time, but I just wish it was a bit better.
5.5/10
Yikes, this was long. I didn't want to shorten any of my thoughts in here, so tell me if I should continue to ramble for 8 years.