It's Blockbuster, InFamous Pre-Release Preview

For those that pre-ordered the game, a demo of the forthcoming InFamous has landed via pre-order bonus courtesy the Playstation Network. Opening with a catastrophe being retold by InFamous lead, Cole McGrath, it is recited that the game's fictional US city, Empire City, is now an isolated anarchic state overrun by gangs with police either dead or too afraid to protect citizens.

Empire City, cited as a biological threat by the government, has been shut off at all entrance points as a new plague runs rampant among the populous, with an equal onslaught of rape, riots, and theft filling in any other cranny of hope. In Cole's words, it's "civilization committing suicide."

While the premise is bleak, it's when Cole mentions what happened to him during the initial catastrophe that sets up what makes for an amazingly fun glimpse at InFamous. Due to the events that brought Empire City to the depths of disarray, Cole now harbours electric powers, as-in lightning shooting from his palms and coming down like a thunder storm from the heights of the metropolis. Cole has affectively become a super hero, or as InFamous allows, a super villain.

Taking up control of Cole, the demo's gameplay outset is a mission in which innocent people of the Neon District are being held hostage by the ruling Reaper gang inside a completely barricaded train. It'll move, but as Cole you'll have to take care of the Reapers first.

At first the controls don't necessarily 'click', but InFamous quickly proves it's not an ordinary action game. Where-in a plethora of super-power based games tend to focus on a spectrum of elemental powers, like fire and ice, ImFamous surpasses them by really fleshing out the single element of electricity. Mix with that the mechanics the environmental acrobatics of Uncharted-and-Mirror's-Edge-on-crack meets Grand Theft Auto, and InFamous again and again inspires devilish grins of un-guilty joy.

Likely the first power players toy with is what controls exactly as if it were the pistol from Uncharted, Cole's standard Lightning Bolt, complete with reticle and quick successive firing. Whether or not 'arsenal' is the right word, other heat that Cole is packing is Shock Grenades, use your imagination (and yes it is that awesome); Shockwaves, sort of like a force push from Star Wars; Thunder Drop, which epitomizes the phrase 'raining down terror from above'; and Lightning Storm, which inspires memories of Pikachu's lightning from Super Smash Bros.

The depth of gameplay really impresses when mixed with the deep abilities at hand. Cole is basically a never-tiring electro super monkey. Where Uncharted and Mirror's Edge impressed with their respective acrobatic versatility, InFamous presents those two game's key features as a refined and intuitive element of its gameplay. Don't worry about playing balancing acts on every high wire you cross or lamp post you land on, InFamous takes care of that while players can concentrate on fight-tactics to effectively take down enemies while still incorporating acrobatics into any moment of the gameplay.

The demo features four missions of varying difficulty. The first focusing on saving the hostage filled train by powering it to a safe station, the second preserving a city water tower, the third protecting an air-delivery of medical supplies, and the finale destroying an enemy truck. As a sandbox game these can be played out of order, and as Cole teeters on the moral fence that is how to use his super powers, players are shown both the good side of Cole's powers, and the dark. Enemies are also smart and challenging, as they too have powers of their own.

All stacked together, good graphics, great attention to detail, story and quality super-power-infused game play, InFamous' demo makes for a believable experience. Yet it is not free of pit falls. When playing my third run through the demo Cole did get blown through a wall in an alleyway and fall underneath the world, in other words an environmental glitch. While on the medical mission and knocking off baddies from my roof top vantage point, I was again and again repositioned to the ground below as four-second-long in-game cutscenes pumped the next wave of baddies for Cole to defend against, yet I was free to climb right back up to the roof immediately after the cut. The in-game cutscenes are also surprisely poorly animated, which is odd considering everything else in the game is very well animated. Of all the buildings and obstacles Cole can climb as well, not being able to climb a chain-link fence simply makes no sense.

There is so much more to InFamous worth mentioning, but in light of our forth-coming review, and reader attention span, InFamous' demo proves the game is worth pre-ordering. The demo has few flaws, amazingly fun gameplay, and feels worth delaying whatever plans you may have on its staggered release date to devote to some zap-happy fun times. Look for our final judgement in our Gaming Union review of InFamous.