Video games are a great way of exploring the "what-ifs" in the moralities of fictional characters.
In Injustice, we saw Superman turn into an evil authoritarian dictator that rules the world through his Regime. In the Dishonored Games, we see protagonist Corvo Attano and his daughter choose how he dispatches his targets and the people that get in his way, which dictates how NPCs react to their presence when found.
Sucker Punch Productions is not a stranger to these types of games. The company already made quite a lot of games that give players the freedom to choose how they would play as the protagonists of their games.
inFamous is one of these games.
inFamous Story, Unique Features
inFamous is an action-adventure RPG developed by Suker Punch Productions and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 3 in 2009, per IGDB.
The game follows the story of Cole MacGrath, a bike messenger living in the fictional Empire City who suddenly and mysteriously received electrokinesis (the power to control electricity) after a job went wrong. However, he did so in the nick of time as his home city was falling victim to a plague. With the city quarantined, people started committing numerous crimes to survive - all without the city police doing anything (either eliminated by criminals or had already fled the city in fear of the plague).
As such, it is up to Cole and his friends to set things right in Empire City, find the cause of the plague, and stop it once and for all.
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In inFamous, you could be the hero that saves the day or the villain who dooms it. If you choose to live in infamy, Cole gets paler and the electricity he summons will appear red instead of blue.
Along the way, players must choose between good and bad decisions that change Cole as a person instead of the game's overall plot, like in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. Choosing either change how Cole appears and the powers he has at his disposal, along with the game's ultimate ending, per Inverse.
Choosing good decisions improves Cole's karma, allowing him to use his power to heal himself and others, while choosing bad decisions changes Cole's karma, appearance, and wardrobe for the worse, along with a set of powers focused on dealing as much damage as possible without a care in the world.
Critical Reception, Sequel, and Legacy
Critics welcomed inFamous with open arms; review aggregator Metacritic stated that the game got a Metascore of 85 out of 98 critic reviews, with critics stating they liked the game's shooting mechanics and how the game's moral choices change Cole's powers and how the public reacts to him.
Though the game is not perfect (i.e. its graphics), it impressed both critics and users alike that Sucker Punch eventually released a sequel that continues Cole's story - inFamous 2.
Unfortunately, Sucker Punch won't be making a new entry to the inFamous series anytime soon - the company wrote in a blog post that it has no plans to revisit inFamous or its other popular series, Sly Cooper, per Dexerto. However, Sucker Punch did use the notes it had and the lessons it learned in inFamous and used them to create an entirely new game that puts players at odds with morality - Ghost of Tsushima.
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