Price: $39.99
Infamous Collection Review
The Infamous Collection bundles together all of Cole McGrath’s different adventures (Infamous, Infamous 2, and a PSN code for Infamous: Festival of Blood) into one collection. For just $40, you’ll receive a trio of open-world, free-roaming games where you play as a super-hero or super-villain depending on your choices, all while mastering the powers of electricity.
What I Liked
Infamous and Infamous 2
The original Infamous is one of my favourite PS3 games. Prior to this release, I had beaten the original twice and my third journey through Cole’s initial adventure was still enjoyable. Controlling Cole as he travels through Empire City, learning about the extent of his new electrical powers in full open-world glory is always fun. The tense story mixed with the good/evil mechanic of the game also make it worthwhile to play from start to finish over again so you can see the powers you get when you play the game differently.
With Infamous 2, it continues the story of Cole as he travels to New Marais in order to find a way to defeat The Beast. Just like the original, you travel through an open-world, learning new powers, completing objectives, and trying to figure out if you want to be good or evil. The sequel isn’t perfect though. While I did enjoy the improved combat and wide assortment of powers, there are some frustrating missions near the end of the game, the story isn’t nearly as good as the original, the good/evil mechanic isn’t executed very well, and the endings aren’t wholly satisfying. I still enjoyed my time in New Marais, just not as much as I wanted to.
Infamous: Festival of Blood
This 2-4 hour piece of DLC adds a brand new story into the Infamous universe that has Cole being turned into a vampire by Bloody Mary and he only has 8 hours (not real time) to save himself. Eating humans to gain power and killing vampires by staking them is a welcome change of pace from just completely destroying everyone with Cole’s electricity, though you’ll still be shocking your fair share of enemies.
The new method of travel, transforming into a flock of bats so you can fly through the sky, makes getting around New Marais a whole lot easier and gives you a fun perspective of the city. Though the short length is a little disappointing, Festival of Blood is a worthy entry into the series.
What I Didn’t Like
The Games Aren’t Perfect
Though the Infamous games have been out for a while, they still aren’t perfect. Various audio issues where background noise overshadows the characters still occurs, certain missions either won’t activate or you’ll complete them with nothing happening, and random glitches still pop up. While this is a byproduct of the open world genre, you won’t have a 100% smooth ride with these games and it can be jarring at times.
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Final Word:
Despite the games held within the Infamous Collection not being perfect, this is still an awesome collection of PS3 games. With the low $40 price of admission and high amount of replay value, you owe it to yourself to pick this up if you’ve never experienced any of Cole’s adventures before.
The Infamous Collection was reviewed with a copy provided by Sony.
