3/5 ★ – FoofDeckman's review of inFAMOUS 2.

I don’t have a ton to say about this game so I’ll keep it brief. I was told Infamous 2 was the best of the Infamous series and man am I disappointed. Maybe it’s due to the poor quality of PlayStation’s streaming service that I used to play this on, of which included frequent frame rate drops, input delay and a multitude of other elements that hindered my experience. Or it could be in part to the mediocre writing, washed out visuals and really repetitive mission structure. This game released in a time frame where the dark and gritty aesthetic of the early to late 2000s was kind of dying off. For some reason every studio thought taking colors out of video games and adding tough guy dialogue automatically made their games cooler. This is a game where you have cool lightning powers and fight other people with unique color coded powers, but all of it looks completely washed out. I know this is an older game, but I hate how flat this game looks. There’s some moments where this game’s texture work is pretty great, especially when it comes to its environmental design and building this world, I just wish there was more distinction or something that makes it more visually appealing. The level design feels really dated, even by 2011 standards. I just played through the Sly Cooper games (also made by Sucker Punch) and its crazy how similarly they’re structured, the main difference being the missions themselves. A lot of the missions in Infamous are just to go to a place and kill some guys. Sometimes they’ll add some new enemies but usually you do some task while fighting off enemies. The game desperately tries to make it more interesting by throwing new abilities and weapons into your arsenal, but none of it ever felt game changing to any substantial degree. This is one of those games that feels almost too ambitious for it’s time, as I’d imagine the ps3’s limited hardware is the more likely reason for it looking this way. If this game was remade for current hardware I’m sure it look gorgeous and would also actually run properly, but since Sony hates their consumer base I guess most of the games from this era will never see the light of day! Thanks PlayStation!