Infamous - On this day

The year 2009 gave us superhero games like Batman: Arkham Asylum or X-Men: Origins - Wolverine. But while the protagonists of these games were on the side of justice by default, the same year several heroic-themed games appeared in which we could choose whether the main characters would be righteous or antiheroes. The mechanics of balancing between good and evil, which until then was tied to RPG titles such as Mass Effect or Overlord, switched to action adventures, and we got very similar games in a month - multiplatform Prototype and PlayStation 3 exclusive Infamous.

Infamous was the first serious game of the Sucker Punch Productions development team, which had previously done games from the platformer series Sly Cooper. He put us in the role of Cole McGrath, a man who is accused at the beginning of the game of carrying out a terrorist attack by activating an explosion in a metropolis called Empire City. Cole initiated this tragic event unconsciously but eventually extracted from it the supernatural power of absorbing and projecting electricity.

During Cole’s search for the truth about who set him up and why players were able to choose whether Cole would use his electrical abilities for good or bad purposes. There were 17 current powers available, primarily for attacking opponents and defense, but there were also some that were used to move around the environment. Electricity had to be charged through springs, and one of those springs was other characters. Charging electricity through them gave the player bad karma while helping civilians brought good karma. 

Some segments of the game were different depending on what karma the player had. The appearance of the main character changed, some missions had different solutions for their tasks, and it depended on the inclination to the side of good or evil whether Cole would have assistants or not. Ultimately, each side brought special power. The powers that came with good karma were more precise, and those on the side of bad karma were more powerful.

What was not left to choose is the way it moves around the environment. Cole couldn't use any vehicles, so he ground on the power cords instead. It was possible to "ride" on the railway tracks, and it is interesting how this option was added a month before the game came out at the suggestion of one person who tested the game.

Infamous picked up very good ratings after its release and was named one of the best exclusives of the PlayStation 3 console. In total, more than two million copies of the game were sold, although the number of players who played it ended up being significantly higher. Namely, Sony gave this game to all PS3 console owners in 2011 as an excuse for problems with PSN.

The same year was followed by a sequel, Infamous 2, which was equally well received. Those games remained exclusive to the PlayStation 3 platform, while the series continued to live on the PlayStation 4 with Infamous: Second Son and the expansion of Last Light. The series is currently on hiatus after the Sucker Punch development team moved to a new franchise - Ghost of Tsushima.