One of the less talked about powers in Infamous - for obvious reasons - is the ability to deliver a healing jolt, which reinforces your role as an agent of divine justice. Except we're playing the game as bad, bad men. So, if we resurrect you, we have done you no favor.
The sort of fun one can have in a sandbox is tied to the tools at one's disposal, and in Infamous these tools are an arsenal of electrical superpowers. This caused me to preorder it, something I almost never do, because people who do so get an exclusive ability called Gigawatt Blades. The words "Gigawatt" and "Blades" are linked to a video of same - a melee power - but since I specifically try not engage foes at that distance I think I could probably have lived without it. Something to consider.
I should have the game completed today I hope, at which time I can be less cagey and more useful to you. I feel like I understand the game at this point, but would love to be proven wrong.
Red Faction: Guerilla wasn't really on my radar, and the single player demo released did not spur a reevaluation of this hastily constructed and poorly considered policy. The multiplayer demo, though - hm.
The demo acquits itself well, with substantial weapons and an unsparing damage model. Play is customized in more or less real-time via equipment stations, which look like twenty-fifth century hatracks. These abilities make encounters anywhere on the field extremely unpredictable, which is a Good Thing for any game, but especially one where you must often return to the same places (capture points) and do the same stuff (capture them). From my own experience, while waiting to defend a point,
1. In defiance of natural law, a man may fly o'erhead, shooting lightning.
2. A man will run directly through the wall you had your back to for protection.
3. Some motherfucker will bolt across the playfield, like a cheetah.
4. You may be leveled by a concussive wave of force.
or some combination of the above. It is annihilation, a la carte.
The default melee weapon in Red Faction is a sledgehammer, a surprisingly rare choice given how awesome it is to hit people with them. In the "Damage Control" mode available in the demo, you capture points like you would in many other games - except that you build a tower on the point to secure it, and if there's an enemy tower there, you need to get rid of it first. You can do this with weapons, certainly. You can even do it with the Rhino pack, which lets you break through walls. What happens most often is that you get your sledgehammer out and smash their stupid shit into tiny pieces. This act has a pronounced "Fuck You" quality that has brought me back time and time again.
(CW)TB out.
