inFamous: Second Son

An open world game devoid of meaningful content will be forever remembered only as a tool for making astonishingly beautiful screenshots.

Sucker Punch have managed to boil down the essence of the series whilst retaining the most enjoyable elements, all topped off with a level of polish and detail that, for now at least, helps justify this new generation of hardware.

In terms of gameplay mechanics and story progression inFamous: Second Son is like a typical sandbox game from the previous generation. The most important thing about it is the graphics - they're amazing, and Seattle in this game outshines every other virtual city. Second Son is "just" a good TPP shooter that shows the power of PS4 - but there will be lots of better and prettier games for this console in the future. Buy it only if the graphics are the most important thing for you and you need to test your expensive new equipment. Otherwise wait for a price drop.

Moving about the impressive cityscape with the help of your miracle powers is a boon. But Second Son is lacking in plot, characters and worthwhile side missions, to be something genuinely impressive. Instead, it's a bit too content to tread well-known paths.

A strange hybrid of a game: It delivers just enough to be enjoyable, but not nearly enough to shine.

The city is the true star of Second Son, and for that alone it is worth playing. However, you need to go in knowing that this is a refinement of the series, and not a revolution in terms of gameplay. The fact that Delsin can absorb other people’s powers means that you’re always getting new toys to play with, and Sucker Punch smartly avoid trying to be ultra serious.

The best in the series to date, inFAMOUS: Second Son tells an amazing story and gives players a ton of relishable power to play with. It's held back by some outdated and formulaic ideas, but overall it'll keep players happy.

If you're looking for a next-gen showpiece to demonstrate the power of PlayStation 4, inFamous: Second Son will definitely do the trick--it looks great, plays well, and gives you a dozen or so hours of city to explore. The gameplay itself isn't all that revolutionary, but the stellar presentation and enjoyable characters assure you'll enjoy your trip to Seattle--even if you'll wish there was more to do there.

As an open-world game, Second Son feels emaciated. There’s little to do in the way of side missions, and what is here becomes repetitive, unlikely to sustain interest beyond a single playthrough. Approach it as an action game that just happens to be set in a nonlinear environment and it makes more sense, but its not-inconsiderable achievements take effort to uncover.

The novelty alone is worth a punt.

I was left satisfied. This is an Infamous game through and through, and I'd like to have seen Sucker Punch venture further from its comfort zone. Still, Second Son holds its own as a fundamentally sound entry that makes great strides in presentation thanks to a new console.

Locomotion in an open-world game is oftentimes the most enjoyable part of the experience, but don’t expect Second Son to totally revolutionize the brand or the genre. I’d have liked melee combat to get a bit more involved with lifts and longer strings of attacks, but zipping around to recover health or blasting a helicopter out of the sky with an elemental missile feels perfectly entertaining for the early adopter set.

This is a marked improvement on its predecessors, both narratively and gameplay-wise, and it’s a huge amount of fun to play from start to finish. However, without trying to sound like a dick, it’s a game much like its protagonist: absorbing until you come into contact with something more appealing.

As pretty and playable as it is, in no sense is inFamous: Second Son a post-Grand Theft Auto 5 open-world game. It's just a tidier, shorter and shinier one. It's easy to enjoy and has a winning personality, but it's reluctant to deviate from a stale streetmap of game city. It's no rebel, then. In fact, it's a conformist.

It’s genuinely fun once you hit that sweet spot and shows off the PS4’s potential in a big way, it’s just a shame that it plays it very very safe throughout.

It’s enormously frustrating. Second Son feels so close yet so far to being the PlayStation hero Sucker Punch and Sony want it to be. It’s likeable, fizzy and nearly always moderately entertaining, but is held back by the mundanity of its missions and a lack of the ambition needed to make it great. A diverting superhero adventure that just isn't adventurous enough.

Second Son comes off as gorgeous, carefree fun, but a disappointing next-gen entry. The combat is as fast-paced and open to experimentation as it's ever been, but there is never the same sense of real power that the previous games delivered. Sucker Punch clearly wanted to create a big-hearted hero in Delsin, but there's a surprising lack of soul in everything else.

Infamous: Second Son looks great and plays well enough, but ultimately, the combat, world and story never proves gripping enough to come back for more.