Games I’ve Been too Soft on Recently
Destiny jumps immediately to mind. Infamous: Second Son is the other one that haunts me.
Destiny:
Destiny is not a complete experience in every way I could mean that. Without friends it’s not as much fun. If you hit “the end” you’re left feeling empty. And the story, which I said was offensively generic, becomes even more appalling when you weigh everything else. This is a game that could’ve benefited from taking a single-player approach to the development and then expanding that. You revisit maps. You fight the same things over and over again. And there’s little substance to bind it all together. Eventually you grind enough dailies/weeklies/etc to hate it or you move on.
It’s like World of Warcraft. Except you’re always in one zone. And you can’t raid unless you personally know 6 people that own the same console as you and were stupid enough to pay money for it. So basically it’s WoW for the CoD crowd. And that’s as much as I can say because there’s an utter lack of anything noteworthy, for good or ill, when it comes to Destiny.
Infamous: Second Son:
Infamous: Second Son is just lacking. The supporting cast is given more screen time and it becomes excruciating considering how vapid and archetypal they are. Delsin and his brother have a solid relationship and it certainly enhances the experience. But it doesn’t reach Zeke and Cole proportions. It doesn’t really develop much either and is mostly there for the occasional amusing quip or cutscene. Delsin in particular has an overt lack of development. He’s the same unlikable prick at the end of the game as he was at the beginning. The gameplay is fine – fun even. But fine isn’t good enough. The reason Infamous 1 & 2 stuck with one power (for the most part) was because it allowed them to fully develop and implement that power in as many ways as possible. There is a very formulaic approach to the powers in Infamous: Second Son. It leaves a feeling of longing for what could’ve been. And again… smoke is a decidedly worse power than electricity – all flash, no zing.
While the story isn’t bad, it is smaller than Infamous 1. It lacks any looming threat and leaves no lasting impression. Apart from introducing a new angle for conduits there’s a sort of lack direction and the plot seems to exist simply to say: “see, we can keep making these games.”
I don’t give Infamous: Second Son a resoundingly bad review. The game design just got a little complacent. A side effect of trying to do too much while also attempting to appease the Next Gen Hype Machine. Assuming it gets off the milking DLC train, I will not be pulling any punches for future installments in the series. SuckerPunch got a pass because of my fondness of the first two. Never again.