Evan Mckay
inFAMOUS: Second Son is apparently the third in a franchise of modern classics that I have sadly never heard of. This game however is truly a next-gen experience! I have never been constantly surprised like this in a game in a long time. The first act is pretty much what I thought it was going to be. You get a power and it's a little sandbox where you wage a one-and-a-half man war on Seattle during a state of martial law. Pretty fun, but it started to feel a little laborious after 3-5 hours. Then, you meet another conduit, and shit gets real!
Conduits are who the game, and entire series is based on. Conduits are humans with special elemental-like powers, or at least they have a gene that can be activated that lets them use special powers. Like the "X" gene of Marvel's X-men, except the gene does not automatically express itself at puberty; it needs to be activated by an outside force. I watched a little summary of the previous games and I think one way to activate it in them was to kill a large number of non-conduits. In this game, conversely, the protagonist just needs to touch a conduit to get his powers. SO...when you meet the second conduit of the game it really is what pushes this game to a "Next-Gen" experience.
Unstoppable! Until the next awning....
It truly is trans-formative. Imagine if in Assassin's Creed if after you left the first city, you were playing a different character. It's as if you're playing all the Assassin's Creed games combined. First you are smoke based; you can drain smoke to shoot smoke missiles and trans-substantiate into smoke to dash through fences and into vents to shoot up to the tops of buildings. That is pretty neat and would make a mediocre 20 hour game. This game says "do a barrel roll", and gives you a crazy-ass neon power after that. I was mesmerized watching this. You can continually neon dash leaving a streak of neon and after images, up and over buildings! The only enemy that can really stand in your way are awnings.
Just chillin on the hood of this taxi, getting ready to blast off.
Which takes me to a part of this game that has maintained all the way through, the difficulty. Right around 3-5 hours, I was slaughtering everything. The game was starting to feel laborious. Then after I got those neon powers and before I could switch I had to learn a whole new combat style, and the challenge did not relent either. I was very surprised that this game did not fall into that sandbox slump of infantile difficulty after you get the thing and learn the trick. Skyrim did it. After 90 hours of Skyrim, either you one-shot everything or it one-shot you. This game has none of that biz. It's pretty challenging, even after your power is max upgraded.
Graffiti stops add flavor to the main character and break up the game play.
I am not even going to get into the supremely cool "Paper trail" side mission that had me using my phone and computer and Playstation 4 at the same time. All in all this game is great! It is a prime example the tip of the iceberg for "Next-Gen" games. My Playstation 4 purchase is finally almost justified! GET THIS GAME! IT RULES!!!!
