'Serious.' or 'Seriously?': Infamous 2nd Son

this is a Videogame rant.



Infamous Second Son.
A game that I did not played.
And a game I will not play in a very long time.
One reason is because I plan to buy a PS4 when it will cost less and it will have some good games and the other reason is that the game is just not interesting.


But there is a surprisingly annoying problem in the design of the game.
Let me explain:


The game tries to have the “anarch” look that videogames tries to sell of as young and trendy, as late as only a blind corporation are, tries to slap the “occupy” trend in any game they can.

Not too far ago we had DmC that made a paranoid-religious ramble of “demons” that control the world.
Now Infamous tries the politicized X-man plots, and made a young punkish character as the player Avatar...

so the racist vigilantes of Infamous 2 are gone now, and they are replaced with a pseudo-fascist paranoid militarized control-freak...

the character is also a American Native descendent, convenient link to what the developers want us to think about the “Conduits”, the “mutants” of this series.


The game also prides itself to be “realistic”, in a realistic city based on an actual real city.
They seriously seems to put an effort there, as graphically the city looks “realistic” enough...

then I discovered the powers...
and here came the problems...

the series always used the powers in a bizarre way, mostly making them some “gun-replacer” and made them use as pistols or machine guns...

the past character, Cole, at his apex could only use 2 power-type (the 2nd game offer the possibility of use 3 powers-types but it was not canon as it was an uncrackable), but the 3 possible powers was rather simple: Electricity, Fire and Ice.
"Simple" here has also meaning for “more believable” as all 3 stuff can be made through chemical reactions...

Infamous Second Sun instead tried new stuff... or better changed the powers but still made the same use of the powers more or less...


these power-types are: Smoke, Neon, Video and Concrete...(maybe there are more, but I did not found them on the wiki...)

I can understand Smoke. It's not much interesting, as the special FX used for that power could just be added to Fire and it would be probably better. But I can understand it.

The rest? no.

first thing first Neon is a gas, and the game shows Light based attacks... but it's fine, after all "neon" is how we call the tube like lamps.
still the game is not sure how light works in real life, so it's just neon streaks hitting people as physical objects...

The weird part is that Video I really does not know what the hell it is, as it's not a “element”...

TV works with electricity and transmission are radio-waves or electrical impulses or a digital string of informations. So what is the base of those attacks?
in any case again they work as physical stuff and allow to... Summon holograms to fight?

And Concrete is...well...I guess  you got the point...


now everything I said could be just a “nerd-rage” based on whatever comic books or movie them use to define as their bible.


But the problem is an another one.

Simpler.

Worse.


The game pride itself of being “realistic”. It toys of REAL WORLD problems like lost of freedom rights, human rights, racism and over-control on people.
There is a sort of Gestapo making rounds to find the “diverse” and possibly kill them or deport them in “test labs”.

I'm sure that people die in there, used as a cheap rage fuel for the “rebel” character to hate those “bad guys” and then conveniently forgotten by the story because “it's just for fun, duh!”.


But of that realism, they then put some of the worst and most ridiculous powers ever done...
the bad guys shoot at you, with guns, and you? Throw “Neon” projectiles that hurts them as PHYSICAL MASS...

so the realism it's thrown out of the window in the actions the player will do for the 90% of the game-time...
Sucker Punch just did a visually jarring mix of “realism” and the dumbest comic book out there...


that was their best? SERIOUSLY?

frankly, I preferred Prototype ridiculous body-horror...as at least was portrayed as possible with the "rules" of the game-world...these? just an pathetic attempt to be flashy...

Well. Thanks of your time.