Superpower sporting superheroes seems to have taken over popular culture of late, with a flurry of movies such as the Green Lantern and Captain America: The First Avenger hitting the silver screen and the Heroes series on TV. Like these movies, as well as the first game, inFAMOUS 2 poses a simple question to you. What would you do with superhuman powers: Would you save the world or destroy it?

Storyline

This rather philosophical question takes on a menacing and all too real form when a seemingly undefeatable enemy, simply known as The Beast, makes its appearance. This being of pure power sets out on a path of destruction, annihilating much of the US’ East Coast in the process. In order to put an end to its reign of tyranny, our protagonist Cole goes to New Marais, where the secret to amping up his power lies.

The story is presented to you in a mix of traditional animated movies, as well as animated comic-book styled scenes which looks great and helps move events in the game along at pace. Overall, the visuals of inFAMOUS 2 have been updated and feels a lot more polished and refined than the first game.  

It’s not only The Beast that Cole has to deal with though, as the maniacal dictator Joseph Bertrand II, who makes Muammar Gaddafi look like Tinky Winky, rules the city with an iron fist thanks to the assistance of his brutal New Marais Militia. Mutated creatures have also risen from the swamps of New Marais, posing a great threat to the city’s inhabitants. Luckily Cole doesn’t go at it alone, being joined by NSA agent Kuo and his former bff Zeke Dunbar, who is attempting to regain Cole’s trust after trying to steal his powers in the past.

New melee weapons and powers

Besides the assistance of your two amigos you are going to need some serious supernatural firepower to take on the game’s various assortment of baddies. inFAMOUS 2 delivers the goods in this regard, with a new weapon called the Amp, which Zeke designs for Cole. It enables him to channel his electric energy through this new melee weapon, shocking opponents while he bashes them into submission.

What’s a superhero without some great powers though? Besides the normal batch of powers from the first game, such as Zeus-like electric bolts and exploding electric grenades, Cole can also utilise his shockingly cool new electric abilities, including our personal favourite, the Ionic Vortex. The latter is basically a tornado that is made up of pure electricity, wreaking havoc on the unfortunate souls you choose to unleash it upon. Also joining the growing  list of powers is the Kinetic Pulse, allowing you to emulate the telekinetic feats of Jean Grey of the X-men. You’ll be able to harness electromagnetic energy to hurl trucks at foes in an ill-fated and explosive game of catch.

A whole world to discover

As in the previous installment Cole can freely move around the city. He can jump from skyscrapers without fear of falling to his death, climb over or on top of almost any nearby structures and slide across power cables. Developers Sucker Punch has also retained the automated grappling system of the first inFAMOUS game, which sees Cole automatically gripping onto the nearest available surface whilst jumping.

This is a blessing in that it makes the controls a lot more simple and allows you to easily get from one place to another. But it can also be a curse at certain times, particularly obvious in sections where you have to employ split second timing to jump from one object or platform to the next. Cole sometimes grabs onto the nearest, but wrong, object, causing you to fall into water which kills you almost instantly. This can be quite frustrating especially if it leads to you having to start that section again from the beginning.

Choosing your path

It's not only the physical path in the world of New Marais that you can follow, but also a “spiritual” one. You can be either good or bad, choosing to become a guardian to the citizenry or regard them as expendables in the greater scheme of things. The game includes various side missions that enable you to make this choice, for instance offering you a choice between two missions, one helping criminals to pull off a job, the other helping cops stop criminals from murdering innocent civilians.

You can also up your reputation with the citizens by using your powers to revive them when they are injured, and stopping the militia’s goons from robbing people. These side missions also gives you experience points that you can use to buy upgraded powers such as a more powerful lightning bolt.

Final word

inFAMOUS 2, like its predecessor, is incredibly entertaining, but now with better graphics and more powers. It doesn’t really bring anything new to the genre, but for a recommended retail price of R599 you’ll be too busy performing some train surfing sans the disastrous outcome and flinging cars around like they were toys, to care.

Pro: Graphics and presentation are excellent as is the enormous fun factor.

Con: Cole’s suicidal tendencies in some of the jumping sections. Nothing really new.