Life’s full of big choices: good or bad, spend or save, regular or extra crispy? In PS3’s Infamous, you can make all these decisions while fighting the baddies, healing pedestrians or grinding on electrical wires performing stunts. Whatever you decide, Infamous will take you to an open world of fun and excitement which may be destined for a game of the year nomination.

Cole is another guy with a crappy job running around Empire City delivering packages while his best friend, Zeke, who resembles an Elvis impersonator, is constantly hatching get rich quick schemes. Trish, Cole’s girlfriend, is the only stable figure in his life until the big day when one of his packages explodes, killing tens of thousands of innocent people.

To make things worse a plague sets in and people start dropping like flies. The government sets up a citywide quarantine with a lot of heavy caliber machine guns ready to mow down anyone trying to escape.

Street gangs take over the city’s three islands and steal the little food dropped by the Government is mostly canned prunes. (Obviously another FEMA operation.)Starving people are everywhere rooting through garbage cans and dumpsters for something tastier, like a fermenting anchovy pizza.

Everyone in Empire City blames Cole for their anguish. They call him a terrorist, a freak and throw stones and cans at him every chance they get.

Sucks to be him right?

The only break for Cole is his new talent to control electricity and now you can choose redemption through heroism or rule the city with a lightning fist. Do good deeds and your powers glow a nice friendly blue. Be a tyrant and you’ll turn a menacing red. People will run away screaming or girls will come over and hit on you.

Whatever path you decide you’ll have a long and generous story arc to play through with some very flexible powers. Having lightning bolts shoot out of your fingertips isn’t exactly original but the polished effects and ease of use make them look and feel very comfortable without having to memorize different combos. The controller button layout is ergonomic and lets you go for hours with few finger cramps.

The story takes you on a journey to recover the device which gave you these funky powers called a Ray Sphere. The FBI wants it, terrorists want it and they’ll get it any way they can. Moya, the rather bitchy federal agent offers you a deal: do what she says and Cole and Zeke get out of the city.

The missions nicely pit your powers against the Reaper, Dustmen and First Sons gangs but none of them are pushovers so expect to die a few times. The combat system is well balanced if you do kick the bucket you’ll wake up at a clinic you helped to liberate from the gangland trash. Speaking of trash, you’ll go up against some of the nastiest scrap metal monsters you’ve ever seen. You’ll duke it out with everything from creepy little garbage scorpions to hulking golems who wing explosive junk balls at you. Getting to the missions is easy by sliding on wires, jumping across buildings, hitching a ride on the train or using your powers to ride the rails.

You have to live with the consequences of your actions so if you do a good side mission an evil one will be locked out and vice versa. Some are good, bad or morally neutral.

As you progress the enemies get tougher and can wipe you out if you don’t upgrade your powers. There’s lots of xp to be earned by doing the side missions but you can pick up extra points by healing or killing sick pedestrians on the fly. Most powers are easily upgraded but some are restricted to fulfilling a side mission quota. New abilities are discovered by restoring power to a section of the city. This means throwing yourself on an underground transformer. At Moya’s request of course!

Healing and replenishing your powers couldn’t be easier! Electricity is everywhere and all you need to do is slurp drain it from the source, but don’t be too greedy since you can only get so much juice from squeezing a traffic light. In a tight spot car batteries are a quick hors d’oeuvres which can stave off death for a moment or two. Thankfully Cole can duck into cover and shoot from safety. Upgrading your power capacity involves exploring the map and gathering shards of radioactive material. Find enough and you create a new battery core.

The graphics are nicely polished and gives the city that disaster area feeling. Cole’s movements are smooth and clean with one exception: jumping is rather magnetic and if you try to land with any degree of precision it will take a few attempts.

I can’t find anything else wrong with this game. It’s destined for greatness and has a life all it’s own. Mix Grand Theft Auto with a Superman comic and you get Infamous. It’s worth every penny of its price tag.

http://www.infamousthegame.com/