Joystiq E3 eyes-on: inFamous

An explosion obliterates a six-block area of your city, killing everyone but you in the blast. During the following weeks and months, society breaks down. People take to the streets, comitting crimes and cultural suicide. The city is quarantined and abandoned. You wake up from a coma, the sole survivor of the original blast, with the power to control electricity at your finger tips. In the power vacuum of the city, you are able to make a difference, but will you be a benevolent savior or a malevolent power titan? This is the question you're asked when you load up inFamous.

Sucker Punch delivered a behind closed doors gamplay demonstration of the game this year at E3, demonstrating the direction they're going in with the title. Gameplay during the presentation consisted of exploring a small part of the city, which felt very similar to Assassin's Creed. Cole is an urban explorer, a hobby he had since before the blast, so he has ability to climb around the city at ease. How convenient.

Cole's more supernatural abilities are all related to electricity. Those demonstrated consisted of a thunderbolt zapping power and telekenesis (manipulation of electro-magnetic fields, apparently -- that's electricity related, right?) In order to remain powered up, you must continue to syphon energy from the city, drawing it out from electricity pylons and other sources. Sometimes the city will suffer from a blackout, leaving you without any way to refuel should you come across any particularly brutal enemies. Don't think that Cole's abilites make him overpowered, though. While picking off Reapers by throwing lightning bolts or cars at them might not be a challenge, there are others in the city who have developed some powers of their own. We were shown an enemy who was super speedy and could send shockwaves towards Cole, tearing up the pavement. Sucker Punch was careful to emphasise that a hero is more than just his powers -- weaknesses are equally as, if not more, important.

"How would being an electric superhero affect your life?" It wasn't specifically stated, but the implication seems to be that water is most probably not your friend. As powerful as Cole might be, he's probably a little bit stinky. These powers will grow over time, though the exact method of progression, as well as its link to your moral choices throughout the game, is still mostly under wraps.


The game's moral choices, which make up a large component of inFamous, will affect the powers that you develop in a "what color is your lightsaber" sort of way. These choices won't be black or white, fork in the road moments, but will involve the game tracking how you perform certain tasks. The characters in the world will respond differently to you, depending on how you play. Details were few, but when asked whether your superpowered peers would also react to this, Sucker Punch refused to reply, stating that we'd "found the line" they weren't allowed to cross. Hopefully the morality system is as deep and game-changing as this suggests.

What we saw of the game was impressive. Graphically the game looks great, considering the game is just under a year from release. The story, now that we know the basics, seems intriguing enough to keep us interested and the style of the cutscene that we saw fits in perfectly with the game's comic book connections. The gameplay demonstration was a little short, though, giving only a brief glimpse of inFamous. We're definitely looking forward to seeing more and getting some hands on time with the title.