Post by MugiwaraBlair on Mar 25, 2014 22:21:19 GMT
First game up :
Developer : Sucker Punch
Release Date : March 21st 2014
Platform : PlayStation 4
Cast : Troy Baker, Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey, Alexander Walsh, Christine Dunford
Synopsis: 7 years after the Hero Ending of InFamous 2, the public has become afraid of conduits because of The Beast's wake of destruction. The RFI left some portion of them alive however and the government created the Department of Unified Protection, or D.U.P. to hunt down and capture them. Delsin Rowe, the main character is a native american of the fictional Akomish Tribe, living is a small village near Seattle. He gains Smoke powers while helping someone out of the wreckage of a crashed military transport vehicule. Immediately after, Brooke Augustine, leader of the D.U.P. interrogates him about the man he got powers from and regardless of the ensuing Karma Choice she proceeds to torture the entire tribe for information with her conduit power. Waking up one week later, his brother Reggie informs him that the tribe is slowly dying and could only be cured by using Augustine's power, so Delsin decides to go to Seattle to get her power and save them.
Gameplay: The game is a lot of fun, none of the missions are frustrating, the side-stuff is all pretty fun too, except the Paper Trail DLC missions which are a bit tricky because you have to upload things to special sites and use a browser to get further hints but since it's really just bonus bits of D.U.P. backstory you don't lose much by foregoing it anyway. The different power sets are pretty cool and varied enough, one is more focused on precision, another on AoE/spread damage, another on hard hits and another on misdirection. The only gripes I have is that the misdirection and hard hitting ones don't have much in the way of non-lethal takedowns since they don't have attacks that set up enemies to be subdued, though the MD one at least has stealth abilities that you can use for that since sneaking up on enemies allows you to subdue them. My other gripe is that the hard hitting power set lacks an ultimate attack. Another potential gripe would be that it's arguably much easier to "charge up" the ultimate meter as a Hero than when you're Infamous, though that may depend on your play style. Also the boss battles are cool and fun
Story: Big improvement compared to the first 2 games, the characters are all pretty likeable or likeable enough, except Augustine who's a total bitch but she's the villain so it's ok. There's plenty of really good moments of all kinds, funny, sad, touching, awesome, even creepy/dark. I also like that either Karma path isn't extreme or black&white so Delsin's character arc is believable either way.
Graphics: It's one of the prettiest games I've seen, in fact it's the best looking one I have. Characters' skin has faults and all, movement, facial expressions and even idle actions look amazingly organic. The lighting engine is awesome, lights from car, neon signs and the sun reflect off water or things that got wet from the rain, it can even reflect off a reflective surface and then onto water. The draw distance is virtually unlimited, get on a high point on one end of the city and you can see the other end as clearly as you would in reality. Particle effects for the powers are very good also. Physics are more subtle but what is seen is also pretty great, for exemple shooting down a surveillance drone will make it tumble while falling and bounce off things it hits, flipping at different angles depending on how it hits, etc. All is 1080p and it doesn't lag one bit
Production Quality: Very high, it's near perfect. The only things I encountered was some minor clipping maybe 2 or 3 times throughout 2 entire 100% completion playthroughs and once a mission objective didn't register so I had to revert to a checkpoint to finish it. Otherwise my experience was top notch
Soundtrack: The sound effects are all great and realistic, even unexpected details like the chain around Delsin's wrist making noise when you move and things like wooden docks, metal railings and glass roofs making appropriate noises when you land on them. The music is also pretty good, especially the game's apparent theme song, "Heart Shaped Box" by Nirvana
Replayability: The main story is a little bit on the short side compared to previous games in the series, even though it's much better and more fun. Completely clearing the city, whether you do it during or after your story playthrough adds a few hours and of course replaying the game taking the alternate karmic path effectively doubles the play time. And even after that there's still D.U.P. "raids" on conquered districts so you have mooks to beat up, or slaughter
Hero Vs Infamous: Surprisingly, I preferred my Hero playthrough overall. Some of the Infamous choices I prefer, some I prefer the hero choice, others I like both for different reasons. Being a Hero makes the fighting easier too since 1) Good karma gives you access to abilities that are very good at subduing enemies and taking them down non-lethally is faster than killing them since you have to deplete their health, and 2) charging the ultimate meter is much easier as a Hero, especially later on since you just have to do non-lethal takedowns (and you also charge it by healing civilians) while as Infamous!Delsin you have to chain kills within a time limit, which is harder as the game progresses because the mooks are slowly replaced by tougher elite mooks. It's still perfectly doable, it's just not as easy
Final Judgement: It has some negligible faults but is otherwise Pretty Freaking Awesome (wink), if you have a PS4 you gotta get this game, hell if you have the munnies it's a good enough reason to buy a PS4 all on it's own
Developer : Sucker Punch
Release Date : March 21st 2014
Platform : PlayStation 4
Cast : Troy Baker, Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey, Alexander Walsh, Christine Dunford
Synopsis: 7 years after the Hero Ending of InFamous 2, the public has become afraid of conduits because of The Beast's wake of destruction. The RFI left some portion of them alive however and the government created the Department of Unified Protection, or D.U.P. to hunt down and capture them. Delsin Rowe, the main character is a native american of the fictional Akomish Tribe, living is a small village near Seattle. He gains Smoke powers while helping someone out of the wreckage of a crashed military transport vehicule. Immediately after, Brooke Augustine, leader of the D.U.P. interrogates him about the man he got powers from and regardless of the ensuing Karma Choice she proceeds to torture the entire tribe for information with her conduit power. Waking up one week later, his brother Reggie informs him that the tribe is slowly dying and could only be cured by using Augustine's power, so Delsin decides to go to Seattle to get her power and save them.
Gameplay: The game is a lot of fun, none of the missions are frustrating, the side-stuff is all pretty fun too, except the Paper Trail DLC missions which are a bit tricky because you have to upload things to special sites and use a browser to get further hints but since it's really just bonus bits of D.U.P. backstory you don't lose much by foregoing it anyway. The different power sets are pretty cool and varied enough, one is more focused on precision, another on AoE/spread damage, another on hard hits and another on misdirection. The only gripes I have is that the misdirection and hard hitting ones don't have much in the way of non-lethal takedowns since they don't have attacks that set up enemies to be subdued, though the MD one at least has stealth abilities that you can use for that since sneaking up on enemies allows you to subdue them. My other gripe is that the hard hitting power set lacks an ultimate attack. Another potential gripe would be that it's arguably much easier to "charge up" the ultimate meter as a Hero than when you're Infamous, though that may depend on your play style. Also the boss battles are cool and fun
Story: Big improvement compared to the first 2 games, the characters are all pretty likeable or likeable enough, except Augustine who's a total bitch but she's the villain so it's ok. There's plenty of really good moments of all kinds, funny, sad, touching, awesome, even creepy/dark. I also like that either Karma path isn't extreme or black&white so Delsin's character arc is believable either way.
Graphics: It's one of the prettiest games I've seen, in fact it's the best looking one I have. Characters' skin has faults and all, movement, facial expressions and even idle actions look amazingly organic. The lighting engine is awesome, lights from car, neon signs and the sun reflect off water or things that got wet from the rain, it can even reflect off a reflective surface and then onto water. The draw distance is virtually unlimited, get on a high point on one end of the city and you can see the other end as clearly as you would in reality. Particle effects for the powers are very good also. Physics are more subtle but what is seen is also pretty great, for exemple shooting down a surveillance drone will make it tumble while falling and bounce off things it hits, flipping at different angles depending on how it hits, etc. All is 1080p and it doesn't lag one bit
Production Quality: Very high, it's near perfect. The only things I encountered was some minor clipping maybe 2 or 3 times throughout 2 entire 100% completion playthroughs and once a mission objective didn't register so I had to revert to a checkpoint to finish it. Otherwise my experience was top notch
Soundtrack: The sound effects are all great and realistic, even unexpected details like the chain around Delsin's wrist making noise when you move and things like wooden docks, metal railings and glass roofs making appropriate noises when you land on them. The music is also pretty good, especially the game's apparent theme song, "Heart Shaped Box" by Nirvana
Replayability: The main story is a little bit on the short side compared to previous games in the series, even though it's much better and more fun. Completely clearing the city, whether you do it during or after your story playthrough adds a few hours and of course replaying the game taking the alternate karmic path effectively doubles the play time. And even after that there's still D.U.P. "raids" on conquered districts so you have mooks to beat up, or slaughter
Hero Vs Infamous: Surprisingly, I preferred my Hero playthrough overall. Some of the Infamous choices I prefer, some I prefer the hero choice, others I like both for different reasons. Being a Hero makes the fighting easier too since 1) Good karma gives you access to abilities that are very good at subduing enemies and taking them down non-lethally is faster than killing them since you have to deplete their health, and 2) charging the ultimate meter is much easier as a Hero, especially later on since you just have to do non-lethal takedowns (and you also charge it by healing civilians) while as Infamous!Delsin you have to chain kills within a time limit, which is harder as the game progresses because the mooks are slowly replaced by tougher elite mooks. It's still perfectly doable, it's just not as easy
Final Judgement: It has some negligible faults but is otherwise Pretty Freaking Awesome (wink), if you have a PS4 you gotta get this game, hell if you have the munnies it's a good enough reason to buy a PS4 all on it's own