Infamous 2 - Review

Infamous 2 is the sequel to the 2009 PlayStation exclusive hit Infamous, which was given away for free to PlayStation network users last spring.  Free is a relative term, as it cost all of us our personal data because Sony was hacked, but in any case, we got a few pretty good games out of it.  Infamous 2 is now free to PlayStation Plus members, and has found a resurgence in popularity.

As a side note, if you have not yet taken the leap that is the PlayStation Plus, I highly recommend that you do.  The "Instant Game Collection" that Sony is offering is by and far one of the best deals available in gaming, and I feel foolish for not having jumped onto the bandwagon sooner.

Infamous 2 starts shortly after the end of the first game, in which the main villain has warned Cole that a enormous threat is approaching and he must get himself ready to face it.  Well, the threat arrives, and is called "The Beast" - a fifty foot tall being of fire and energy.  You spar with him shortly before being forced to flee the city to find a way to stop him.

It's a fun way to start off the game

From here, the game introduces to a new city, New Marais, a New Orleans type town post Katrina.  Sections of the town are swampland, sections are flooded, and the town is under control by the Militia, a group of gun toting maniacs who are trying to round up and imprison anybody they think might have super powers. 

The enemies you encounter don't ever feel as dangerous as the ones from the original game.  Battling conduits with machine guns was always riskier than normal guys with machine guns, or the two other factions that eventually show up.  They add some variety, but it's pretty much the same enemies you fought from the previous faction with a new ability and different weak point.  It's bad enough that you can pretty well predict when you're about to run into the newest baddie.

Gameplay was praised by several publications, but I just don't see it.  I'm not a huge fan of sandbox style games, and both Infamous and Infamous 2 were good enough to hold my attention through both, but there's nothing revolutionary about the game over it's older brother.  You still travel by electric line and rail, you still shoot lightning bolts and throw grenades, and you're still combing the city looking for pieces of blast core to draw power from.  There's a few new abilities, and melee combat was implemented, but it's just too little for the praise that it got. 

Melee combat isn't even very good, by the midpoint of the game you'll be opting for range

The story is passable, but is devoid of much in the way of good and evil choices as in the first.  The Karma missions are always selected by choice, and there's few moments where you have to make a decision then and there about how to proceed.  There's some major gaps that you're forced to fill in the details on your own, and the good ending was a little disappointing.  I would like to mention that there was an excellent scene between Cole and Zeke near the end of the game that really showed their friendship with only something like 5 words of spoken dialog.  The game would have been better served with more scenes like this.

Infamous 2 does a good job at making you feel like a pretty average guy with some extra powers that's trying to change the city, for better or worse.  There's not many similar games, especially without an IP like Spider Man or Batman to back them up with, so it must be incredibly hard to put out something like this.  If you have the PlayStation Plus membership where you can get this for free, you have absolutely no excuse to not try it out.  Otherwise when Sucker Punch comes out with Infamous 3, we might get something truly magical.  The elements are there, they're just not all coming together to form a five star game yet. 

What I've Been Playing - 7/22- 7/28

Playstaion 3 - Finished Infamous 2 on the good ending, have no intention on going back to try out the evil ending.  Instead I've been playing Warhammer 40k Space Marine, which is ok for a mindless 3rd person romp. 

PC - Occasionally dropping into Dead Space still, and getting in at least a dungeon a night in Dungeon Fighter Online.

Mobile - It was a family reunion weekend on the wife's side, so I got to spend a lot of time in Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013.  Very enjoyable game, and I really appreciate having so many cards that unlock (40 per deck to date) to really customize the decks the way that I want to play them.

Table Top - Nothing new this week, but I've been preparing for the Gencon 2012 updates which should be starting later this week.  We have a LOT to talk about this year with Kickstarter's popularity exploding, and Wil Wheaton's Table Top bringing in new gamers, it's going to be a busy one.

What's Wrong in Gaming - Not Supporting Your FLGS

Back in 2009 Wizards released Duels of the Planeswalkers on the Xbox 360, grabbing the attention of my entire play group and re-sparking our interest in Magic: The Gathering.  We've been table top players of the game since.  We first started with playing casually, and just throwing together the best decks we could with what we could while being short on land because we just didn't have any.

After we were a little better versed in what was going on, we went out looking for a place to buy packs and play.  Through the Wizards site I found a small coin shop that was about 10 minutes from my house.  One Saturday afternoon my wife and I went to check it out and stepped into a store no bigger than my kitchen.  Behind the counter was an older lady, who greeted us and asked how she could help us.  The rest was history, I introduced my group to the shop, whom we lovingly referred to as "The Coin Shop". 

The Coin Shop was extremely good to us.  We would pay $7 for a tournament entry fee and get a free pack for playing.  There was constantly free snacks and drinks provided by the store to their players, even going as far as having pizza at big events. The owners provided deep discounts to their regulars, and was a source for much of our product over the three years we played there.

I used the past tense of play for a reason.  As of next week, The Coin Shop will no longer be running events.

There's a few different reasons for this, but it boils down to The Coin Shop not making any money off its players.  In fact, it was losing money.  Somebody might say that the owners were at fault, for bringing in the pizza and charging so low for entry fees.  But the real problem was that people were coming in and not buying anything, not even the entry fee to their events.

They used the Coin Shop as a place to meet up with friends and play a game of EDH, or a board game on occasion. They would come, not participate in the other events, and use the space without providing anything back, and they would do it three feet from where the shop owner sat.

So why is this a big deal?  Kids are poor, they want to play a game with their friends, they have a safe friendly place to meet up and do something they love to do.  Sounds great, right?  Unfortunately not.  The fact of the matter is that places like this are businesses,  and while I know that many shops love to have people come in and play, these shops have bills to pay.  They have to keep their products stocked, they have to keep the lights on and the air conditioning going.  They have to have the rent covered and their employees paid.  When a group of four people come in and take table space without purchasing anything, they're using the resources of that shop, draining them.  It doesn't matter if the space wouldn't have been used if those players weren't there, the point is that it is being used, at a loss to the store.

Supporting your Friendly Local Gaming Store (FLGS) is the responsibility of every single gamer that steps foot into that store.   Cheaper prices can be found online in almost every example I have ever experienced, but there's something that the FLGS offers that no online deal can match: a place to come and play, and the community that surrounds it.

It's too late for my FLGS.  Sure, there's other places to play, larger, more organized places, but it's not the same community.  They're not places that I can take my daughter to, whom the store owner knitted blankets for.  They're not offering snacks and drinks on hot days.  They're not bringing birthday cakes for their players.  Don't let this happen to your FLGS.  The next time you're there, buy a small something.  A pack.  A die.  Sleeves.  Something, ANYTHING to let them know that you appreciate everything they do and you're going to help make sure that they can keep on doing it.  Otherwise before you know it, you'll lose the game and the community that you've grown to love, just like we did. 

What I've Been Playing this Week 7/15 - 7/21

PC - Nothing on the PC, but the Steam Summer Sale has locked me in to several new games.  Max Payne 3, Witcher 2, Krater, Alan Wake, and Deus Ex have all joined my library and hopefully get played soon.

PS3 - Spending most of my time here, playing Infamous 2.  I'd say I'm about 75% through the game right now, and I just don't see what's so revolutionary and awesome about it over the original Infamous.  It's a good game, but it's still an open sandbox super hero game.  Maybe the last 25% will blow me away (probably not).  Will probably have a review of this up next week.

Table Top:  Tonight we played Blood Bowl: Team Manager, and Small World, and last week we played Kingsburg.  Blood Bowl met with some mixed reactions, but the group wasn't really enthralled by it quoting balance issues.  Small World met with a fair reception, but Kingsburg blew the group away.  Expect a review of this up soon, too.

Video versus the 32 Years

A couple years ago I started this blog as a way to share my experiences as a slightly older gamer, one who grew up watching the generations of gaming go by.  It slowly evolved into a review site, and a way for me to keep track of what was coming out so I would have an idea of how I was going to pace my time. 

A few months ago, I became a dad with the birth of my daughter.  Have no fear, I fully intend on raising her as a diverse gamer.  Somebody who can appreciate excellent design even with sub-par graphics.  Somebody who can pick up a designer board game and teach others that there's better things out there than Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit.  I don't know if she'll ever grow into that, or what she'll end up liking, but I want to show her the world and communities that I've discovered with the best people possible.

Because I want the best for her

There's a bit of a problem, though.  If I thought my gaming time was limited before, and I was behind the curve of where the "professional reviewers" were in reviewing their games, well, these last three months have shown me that I am not going to be able to keep up with the latest.  Keeping up with the blog has been very difficult, as proof in the updates becoming further and further apart from each other. New games?  Well, fortunately there's not a whole lot coming out right now that demands my attention, but I've got quite a back log to get to.

And there's where I got my idea.  A lot of my posts don't happen because I think that nobody would be interested in what I thought of a game that was three years old.  But then I noticed my page view history, and I'm getting hits on things like You Don't Know Jack from over a year ago, and Tales of the Arabian Nights which came out in 2009.  There is a want to know about older games and what people think of them still.  This is something that I can do.  There's a ton of games that I've just never gotten around to and have wondered myself how they are.  This is where I will live.  Not at the cutting edge of gaming, but in the days of past. 

I looked at my back log, and thought to myself... "I'm going to review these games." 

What have I gotten myself into?  Seriously, this is just part of  my Steam list, and I've finished exactly two games on it.

So, effective immediately, Video, Gaming at 30 will be about the games that I'm playing right now, no matter how old they are, no matter how long they take me.  There needs to be an appreciation for what's already here, and the ability to find lost gems and take another look at how they're holding up in a modern day arena.  How much can a new dad actually game?  How much can I teach my new daughter about what makes something great?  And we're not just video gaming, oh no.  This is a board game and Magic: The Gathering house, too.  We're going to game.  We're going to teach our baby girl, and we're going to share our experiences. 

What's this mean for the articles?  The Ones to Watch will still be around.  I don't intend to fully abandon the latest.  I have some ideas for What's Wrong in Gaming that I plan on putting up soon.  VG30 will be at Gencon 2012 (much thanks to my beautiful wife for helping that happen), so the Road to Gencon will be starting up very shortly.  I have some ideas surrounding my addiction with Kickstarter that I'd like to get on paper.  And I have a massive backlog of games that we need to talk about.  I'm going to commit myself to one article a week for the blog.  At the end of each article will be a short update about what I'm playing and how it's going, even if that's the entire article.  I love the people that come to the site, and while the page views certainly inspire me, I love to write about a hobby that I'm so passionate about.

So to kick things off, here's what I'm playing right now (I'll probably improve this presentation in the future):

PC: Dead Space - Enjoying it so far, it's less jump out and scare you than I had expected so far, but I had just finished the first chapter.

PC: Dungeon Fighter Online - I've been playing this since it came out on Steam.  I wish I could play some of Capcom's D&D arcade games, but this is an awesome alternative.

PC: Diablo 3 (waning) - I'm level 59 with a Witchdoctor and stuck in Act 3 of Hell.  It's losing its charm pretty quickly, if only that I have never really understood Auction Houses as well as other players, and if I want good gear I have to either farm for it or buy it through the AH, and clearly I don't have time to farm for items or gold, so this is a losing proposition.  I started a Hardcore Demon Hunter, but the arcane enhanced minions are starting to catch me with my guard down, so I've come a bit too close to dying more than once now.

Xbox 360:  Unplugged.  I'm a little tired of the 360 right now, if only because of what Sony's doing with the PS3 these days.  I don't think I have reason to turn it back on until Halo 4 hits, either.

PS3:  Infamous 2 - I went ahead and subscribed to Playstation Plus for their Instant Game Collection deal.  The idea of being able to download a library of slightly older (but still awesome) games to play for free is an amazing concept.  I'm almost completely converted to the PS3 platform.

Wii:  Unplugged.  Still unimpressed with any offering on the Wii.

Tabletop:  Citadels - I picked this up because it supports 7 players and I have a 7 player play group, but we've been enjoying it with 5.  I'd like to do a quick review of this one in the near future.

Tabletop: Pandemic - Had 5 players, so we broke out the On the Brink expansion.  Still difficult.  Still fun.

Tabletop:  MTG.  It's the release of M13, so it's limited format time.  I did pretty well at the pre-release by taking 5th place in sealed and 1st in draft, but I'm not real impressed with the set.  Some other things are going on right now that are making me question dropping out of Standard, but we'll get into that in the future.

So there you have it.  What's on my gaming plate at the moment.  I want to focus a bit more on Dead Space and Infamous 2, so I'll check back in in a week to let everyone know how that's going.   Until then, thanks for reading!