Infamous screens and Q&A

[duckman2000]

IGN: How much choice do you have in being good or evil? Is it on the scale of Knights of the Old Republic, where your actions carry over for the length of the game?

Nate Fox: We don't think of good and evil as binary choices in the narrative the player makes. It's not like you come to the point in the script where must press Circle to rescue the trapped baby, or press Triangle to apprehend the carjacker. Instead you are playing through the game deciding how at each moment you want to proceed. If you lob grenades across the street, you'll probably harm some civilians along with the thugs there. Maybe that's the choice you make, maybe not. Similarly, the civilians don't just have a love or hate relationship with Cole, each person and each small neighborhood in the city has a unique relationship with Cole, and they'll act that out during gameplay.


IGN: Are you able to control your powers to just knock people out instead of killing them if you wish to play the good angle?

Nate Fox: Absolutely. The hero has a variety of powers- some are surgical, some are not lethal, doing the minimum amount of damage to incapacitate the enemy; some are brutal, leading to overkill moments and lots of collateral damage. The choice of which to use and when is up to the player. They'll just have to live with the consequences.

IGN: What sorts of powers will players have access to through the game?

Nate Fox: Probably the best way to characterize it without being overly specific right now is to think in groups. There are pure offensive powers (smaller bolts, lightning strikes) which you can see in the videos. There are electro-kinetic powers (blasts and grenades) and there are heroic powers (shock-healings, arrests). There will of course be more than the list here, but I'm just trying to give you the basic groupings now.

IGN: With regards to electricity, does he control it or simply generate it without a direct target?

Nate Fox: A good way to think of it is Cole is developing command of electricity. He's not an intrinsic source of energy, but he's able to manipulate it quite effectively.

IGN: Given that this is essentially a superhero game, does that mean that we're going to see some over-the-top boss battles?

Nate Fox: Enthusiastically YES! We think having incredible villains is core to this genre. …and that's all I can say for now.

IGN: How does movement play into the overall mechanics? How easy is it to leap around from wall to rooftop to light post?

Nate Fox: Pre-blast, Cole's passion was urban exploring. He's got excellent climbing and athletic skills; climbing up a face of a building, leaping across rooftops, and jumping from a light post to the elevated train tracks are all things Cole can effortlessly execute. We've worked really hard to try to make the climbing and movements all feel great, and we're excited with where we are.

IGN: How immersive and full is the world? Will you see people going about their business, like you might in Grand Theft Auto?

Nate Fox: We have a team of guys who are working on that specific area! It's not just "going about their business" to add flavor for flavors sake though. The entire city is built up from objects the citizens can use and interact with. When you enter new areas of the city, the civilians are unhappy and desperate – you'll find them digging through trash, sleeping on the streets. As the tide turns in the city, their behaviors will all change. This all is one of the most important and visible parts of making you feel heroic or villainous.

IGN: How destructible is the city?

Nate Fox: When you get done fighting in the street it'll often look as if a tornado has torn through the place --it's very satisfying. But really the city is more than just destructible... it's completely wired for electricity and conduction. It's also completely climbable and useful for combat.

IGN: Do other characters in the game have powers like Cole, or is he one-of-a-kind?

Nate Fox: I'm going to politely duck this question in terms of specifics, but we certainly think it would be a very boring game if Cole didn't meet any powerful enemies.

IGN: How does the power progression work, and how are new abilities introduced to players?

Nate Fox: We will be discussing that in the near future.

IGN: inFamous has drawn a lot of comparisons to Prototype. What makes inFamous stand out against its competition?

Nate Fox: This is probably a question for me to ask you!

IGN: Being that Cole's powers look to be largely electric in nature, does that mean that water is a hazard to him?

Nate Fox: Not a bad guess. Not that I'm confirming anything….

IGN: What sort of cool whiz-bang visual tricks are we going to see? Are you implementing pro-pixel leatherization diffusion?

Nate Fox: I think the most important "visual trick" isn't really a trick at all. It's building the technology and artwork necessary to create an incredibly detailed urban landscape. Buildings are detailed down to the last window frame, lighting sconce and storefront. Of course this is necessary for us because you're climbing all over everything! Oh, I guess the other "trick" is that we're using a somewhat unusual lighting model called Deferred Shading. That makes it possible for us to have any and every light in the scene moving, flickering, or changing colors. It's not just the headlights on all cars, it's also the power grid turning on and off, and Cole destroying individual pieces of the lighting setup.

IGN: Could Cole beat Batman? (You can answer Adam West vs. Michael Keaton vs. Christian Bale as separate answers if you'd like)

Nate Fox: Cole certainly has a larger arsenal of powers than Batman, but … he's Batman. Let's just say I'd pay a lot of money to read the graphic novel that had that battle in it!

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/889/889368p1.html

I swear he was named something other than "Cole" in the GI preview.

[cool breeze]

Nate Fox: Cole certainly has a larger arsenal of powers than Batman, but … he's Batman. Let's just say I'd pay a lot of money to read the graphic novel that had that battle in it!

Great answer.

[cool breeze]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/36317.html

HD trailer.

Looks so good.

[Brehvolution]

I've always wanted a game where you could shoot lighting from your hands like the dude from Bug Trouble in Little China. Was his name Raiden?

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

I've always wanted a game where you could shoot lighting from your hands like the dude from Bug Trouble in Little China. Was his name Raiden?

You're going to be able to do that pretty soon when Bioshock comes out.


And that HD trailer is fucking smoking hot.  Do want.

[Brehvolution]

I already played Bioshock on Steam. Forgot about that.

[Kestastrophe]

Saw trailer, looks great.

[patrickula]

Looks fun, I hope there's a gameplay demonstration we can watch.

[dark1x]

I really hope this game is somewhat linear.  Crackdown had so much potential, but there was virtually no point to the game and it bored me to tears as a result.  I'm getting sick of sandbox games.  I want to see a world with the sense of scale of a sandbox game with the focus of a linear action game.

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

I don't know how sandboxy Infamous will be but I'm almost certain it'll have a lot more purposeful direction than Crackdown did.  I mean how could it not?

[duckman2000]

The GI preview mentioned story sequences being played out in form of comic book panels (ŕ la Sly), and everything seems pretty deeply connected with the storyline. The "sandbox" is in the openness of the world and how you interact with it, it doesn't sound like they are sacrificing story and direction at all. The fact that they are placing so much emphasis on bosses is another good indication of that.

I really like the mood they are going for. I'd go as far as to say that, judging from what little we have available, Sucker Punch seems to have cleared the jump from cartoony "mascot" game to adult "next-gen" with a greater margin than Insomniac (although R2 seems to remedy a lot of the R1 issues).

[duckman2000]

Some new screens. Hopefully that bloody awesome trailer makes it online soon (in good quality).

[cool breeze]

http://www.g4tv.com/e32008/hdvideos/27706/Infamous_DirectFeed_Gameplay.html

HD direct feed gameplay footage.

The guy playing is really bad.

[JustinP]

probably partly due to the guy playing sucking (assume he was a journalist), but it looks like they need to flesh out the fighting system more.  platforming system looks tight though. 

[cool breeze]

Man I want a new sly cooper game. Maybe with 4D glasses.

If you lob grenades across the street,

He can use grenades but not guns? Why?

Energy grenades.

And all they showed of combat so far included that lightening machine gun thing, the energy grenade, a huge thunderbolt from the sky attack, the force push attack, and normal melee stuff.

[JustinP]

i'm not feeling the lightning machine gun thing too much.  just doesn't seem responsive enough.  ranged lightning bolts has always felt clunky to me.  i'd rather it actually shoot something and have the character do some sort of throwing animation. 

and did anyone else notice the game has (almost?) no voices.  character doesn't make any vocal noise when getting shot, enemies don't do anything vocal when they get zapped, and i didn't even notice crowd screams etc.  just not in the game yet, i suppose. 

[WrikaWrek]

IGN: How much choice do you have in being good or evil? Is it on the scale of Knights of the Old Republic, where your actions carry over for the length of the game?

Nate Fox: We don't think of good and evil as binary choices in the narrative the player makes. It's not like you come to the point in the script where must press Circle to rescue the trapped baby, or press Triangle to apprehend the carjacker. Instead you are playing through the game deciding how at each moment you want to proceed. If you lob grenades across the street, you'll probably harm some civilians along with the thugs there. Maybe that's the choice you make, maybe not. Similarly, the civilians don't just have a love or hate relationship with Cole, each person and each small neighborhood in the city has a unique relationship with Cole, and they'll act that out during gameplay

Love how they dismiss the binary approach of KOTOR but avoid answering how the actions actually change the course of events in the story.

If they get the story right, and the action set pieces, and the street chaos right then this will mark a very special place in my gaming catalog.

[Brehvolution]

Looks alright. Whoever was playing was a moron.

[duckman2000]

Looks hotter than anything else

[Van Cruncheon]

i just wanna blow shit up with lightning

[Rman]

I'm really looking forward to this game.  Too bad it is ways off.

[duckman2000]

This is, in fact, waiting

[Bildi]

Sucker Punch

When is this likely to come out?

[cool breeze]

Not in 2008 is the clearest answer I could give.  Hopefully it stays in 2009 and doesn't get delayed to 2010

[Wolf Gang]

Spring 2009

[Bildi]

Sounds like a late 2009/early 2010 game.  I hope they spend the time to make something really special.

[duckman2000]

Not in 2008 is the clearest answer I could give.  Hopefully it stays in 2009 and doesn't get delayed to 2010

Spring 2009, according to the developer. It was originally announced as a 2008 title.