INFAMOUS: SECOND SUN REVIEW

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PS4 exclusive.

Infamous: Second Son is an open-world action game published by Sony and developed by Sucker Punch Productions for the Playstation 4.

GAMEPLAY

No real day and night cycle, only rotated through missions.

Open world was a bit samey and boring. Side missions weren’t great, a lot of stuff seemed to be repeated or recycled through the game, such as the secret agents or karma things such as busting drug deals or attacking sign holding people. It just didn’t feel that alive with civilians doing pretty much nothing aside from getting injured and providing you with an opportunity to heal them, there were only cars for traffic and they couldn’t even hurt you – although there were some enemy helicopters and a few missions that had trucks. Any boats were immobile and you couldn’t even swim in the game.

The open world itself didn’t feel very alive either and almost seemed a bit check boxy, in the regard that it was all rather standard with enemy bases to capture and some parts like the spray painting felt a bit gimmicky, although some of the environments being destructible seemed cool.

No way to switch between the four different powers was an odd design choice, especially since the d-pad buttons were mostly unused (Down did something that seemed to be irrelevant). The game did do a good job of making you feel pretty cool at times though.

Bridge boss halfway through expected you to use your new neon power and the cutscene afterwards implies you did – even if you didn’t. This was rather disappointed, especially considering how the game seemingly goads you into not using it. There’s not even a trophy and for a game that talks about giving you impactful choices it seemed pretty weak.

STORY
Delsin and Reggie’s brotherly relationship was well written. Augustine was a good villain too. The actual story itself though wasn’t that brilliant and almost feels like it had some potential wasted – it also felt a little rushed at the end.

GRAPHICS
Good graphics, the final boss looked really good, the final couple of bosses (Eugene and Augustine were both pretty fun battles too)

SOUND


VALUE FOR MONEY


OVERALL
It is funny looking back at the Sly Cooper series and thinking that Assassin’s Creed possibly took some inspiration from it because Sucker Punch have gone full circle and taken inspiration from a lot of Ubisoft’s open world quirks. Second Son is a solid game but isn’t really anything too great. If you’re looking to expand your Playstation library, or aren’t burnt out by the Ubisoft open world formula it is probably worth a shot. However I don’t think you’d be missing out on too much if you passed this game up.