Infamous Second Son Review

Be Your Own Superman

Let me start off by saying I beat Second Son twice this weekend. My first play through I went down the "Good" Karma path. It's hard for me to play as an evil character, but after playing as a hero, I immediately restarted and set down the path of becoming "Infamous." Second Son is a quick campaign, probably about 10 hours or less, depending on how much time you spend roaming around Seattle. And Seattle is beautifully realized. The developers at Sucker Punch really nailed down the city. And climbing to the top of the Seattle Space Needle was a pretty cool experience, especially when I used my orbital drop smoke power to dispatch the enemies and knock off the D.U.P. scaffolding that was on it. 

Going down

The game is really as long as you want it to be. Since I have beaten it twice, both times on the hardest difficulty, I am on my way to getting all the trophies so I can get the Platinum trophy. You can probably spend about twenty hours on a single play through if you complete all the side missions and completely wipe out the D.U.P.

In terms of the actual storyline, you play as Delsin Rowe, a twenty-something year old Native American man. Delsin is a bit of a rebel as his favorite past time is going around and "tagging", or spray-painting, billboards with his big brother's face on them. His brother Reggie is the local Salmon Bay sheriff. Salmon Bay is where you start for the first forty-five minutes of the game and thats where Delsin first gets his smoke powers. A lot has changed since the events of inFamous 2 unfolded. I don't want to necessarily spoil the ending of that game, but you should play it if you haven't. inFamous 2 left the world in a fragile state. Those with powers have been labeled as "Bio-Terrorists" and the D.U.P., Department of Unified Protection, has been tasked with searching for them and rounding them up. Those who sympathize with the Bio-Terrorists' cause call them Conduits. And all Conduits that are captured by the D.U.P. are taken to Curden Cay, a prison just for Conduits. Delsin has to go to Seattle to set something right that happens early in the story and that is where the real fun begins. Overall, the story is good. It isn't the best but its enough. You still feel invested in what is going on. I wish that Delsin had more to do with the other Conduits other than meeting them and then doing a quick side mission, but oh well. I will say that the Good vs. Evil karma system is somewhat outdated. And having played both sides of the story I can safely say that although you make different choices throughout the game, nothing is really different until the end sequence. Choosing to save or kill this or that person doesn't impact anything other than the people in town will hate you or love you. I only wish it was all a bit more complex. The storyline hits some slow points at times but it quickly ramps up, especially whenever Delsin encounters new Conduits that he can leech new powers off of. I had a blast running around Seattle at super speed with my new neon powers. And the graphics really show off the neon.

At the top of the tallest building in the game

Which brings me to my next point. Graphics. I touched on it earlier but Second Son is beautiful. Second Son uses the full power of the PS4 and it turns out great. Hook your PS4 up to a 65" HDTV and you'll never leave the couch...trust me. All of the powers look and feel really great and they run very smoothly. The only time I ever felt a hiccup in the frame rate was when I used my neon Area of Effect power, probably because there is just so much happening on screen. But other than that, everything ran smoothly in the graphical area.

Gameplay is easily the most important factor in this game and the ones that came before it. By the end of the game you'll have up to four different powers and abilities that go with them. Smoke is what you start out with and eventually you get neon. I won't spoil the other two as they are surprises, but don't worry you're in good hands. You're never short of a power source in the game, there is always a neon sign you can drain or a smokestack you can get to in order to refill your power meter. And transferring between powers in the heat of battle can be extremely advantageous. I recommend playing the game on Expert mode, as playing on normal is just too easy. On Normal you can dominate enemies using one power the whole time, which if you're trying to blow through the game then by all means do so. But Expert is just more fun. It isn't too hard and I died more so out of my self-confidence rather than an enemy who got the upper hand.  And in Expert mode you should prepare yourself to be switching powers a lot. As you level up and gain more blast shards to increase your powers, you start working your way through the power trees that Sucker Punch provides for you. These are easy to navigate and once you're about 3/4 of the way through the game you will probably have reached whichever level 5 Karma path you chose to go down. The controls are simple enough, push a button to use this ability, hit the touch pad to drain a power, etc. Bottom line: inFamous Second Son runs smoothly and the gameplay is addictingly fun.

The gem of this game is really the voice acting. Troy Baker, the star of video game voice acting, is Delsin Rowe. Literally he is Delsin. Sucker Punch used some motion capture on the faces of Troy and their other actors so Troy and Delsin very much resemble each other. Troy Baker does a great job bringing Delsin to life and providing the sarcastic jokester personality that makes Delsin who he is. The other voice actors are good too. Particularly Christine Dunford who provides the voice of Brooke Augustine, the game's antagonist.

Thanks Troy

I haven't written a review since my first one, BioShock Infinite, last April. I know I'm lazy. But after beating Second Son twice this past weekend I felt so compelled to write this and tell everyone around me that they had to play the game. If you don't have a PS4, then this is your excuse to get one. Second Son is the most fun I have had playing a game since Borderlands 2. The storyline is good, not amazing. The graphics look just fantastic on the PS4. And the gameplay and controls are smooth and easy to figure out. Hope you enjoyed the review, please comment and tell me about your Second Son experiences in Seattle.

If you want to see some gameplay, just click on this link: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=830854433597952&l=431279556556184423

9/10

+Amazing graphics

+Fun addicting gameplay

+Smooth controls

+Cool storyline...

-...but kinda minor in the grand scheme of things