Gaming: Infamous 2

05 July 2011 - 00:16 By Bruce Gorton
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The trouble with Infamous 2 is that it is a good game but it does not have the same brilliance as the original.

Game: Infamous 2

System: PlayStation 3

Rating: 16 and up

Price: R599

The Beast has struck early and Cole is not ready so, after a futile battle, you go off to New Marais, an in-game version of New Orleans. The Beast stands as a growing threat while you try to gain enough power to set off a super-weapon and kill it once and for all.

The Beast spends most of the game getting to New Marais. But once he arrives he does not leave much of an impression, to be honest, which means that story-wise, the heavy lifting is left to the one villain who was already there.

In the first Infamous, the major plot driving villains included a psychotic mind-controlling stalker, hobo Magneto and a time-travelling cranky old man who could do everything you could but better.

This time, we have an evil religious hypocrite called Bertrand. It's not that he is a bad villain, he is a very good villain whom you will really want to take down, but it takes a lot to top the prior instalment, which he doesn't.

Where you lose out on enemies you make up on allies - the high fire-powered Nix or the icy Kuo, one of these two will provide new powers as the plot progresses, but not both because they hate each other's guts.

Much as you get new powers to blast your enemies, you also get powers that make moving around the city easier. You start this game powerful, and if you played the first game in the series, your achievements are brought forward, giving the occasional reference to what you did before. It is a nice touch.

THE GOOD:

Simply moving around the city is fun and swooping in to save the day is satisfying. Having allies is also a refreshing change.

THE BAD:

The Beast's character is not developed well enough to class him as a major villain. Of the three factions only one really has a driving personality behind it, which makes the game feel smaller than the original.

SCORE: 7/10

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