Infamous: Second Son would have helped Sony out with its launch lineup had it been released alongside the PlayStation 4 as originally planned. It’s a fun game that really shows off the PlayStation 4’s technical capabilities. If next-gen gameplay had accompanied the next-gen graphics, it might have been a classic. Instead, it’s just fun.
Developed by Sucker Punch, a studio that Sony acquired in 2011, Second Son is the third in a series of open-world, super-hero action games. You play Delsin Rowe, a 24-year old graffiti artist from Seattle who hasn’t quite figured out his place in the world, despite frequent hounding from his more responsible police officer brother.
Over the course of the game, you acquire several super powers that help you navigate Seattle and dispatch enemies quickly. You’re also faced with some black-and-white moral choices which affect some of the critical scenes in the story and unlock certain powers.
Most of the powers are shared between the good and evil versions of Delsin, but there are a handful in each category that you can only get by going all-in on one or the other karmic imperative. It’s not very nuanced, but it makes it worthwhile for dedicated fans to play through the game twice.
Missions involve beating up an oppressive police force that’s cracking down on superpowered humans (think X-Men) and performing tasks around the city to seize districts from their hands. You’ll team up with a couple other superpowered individuals, too — both of them just as misfitted as you — before facing off with the head of the oppressive organization in hopes of stealing her powers to save your family and friends.
If it all sounds familiar, that’s because it is, but there are some merits that will make the game worth looking into for its target audience.

Image: Sucker Punch/Sony
Infamous: Second Son is a gorgeous technical achievement. It runs at a full 1080p resolution — one of the promises of the PlayStation 4 — with particle effects the likes of which we’ve never seen on a console. Delsin’s powers, particularly the smoke and neon ones, have visual details that just weren’t possible in previous games. They’re subtle, but they’re worth it.
The fact that none of Delsin’s four powers — smoke, neon, video and concrete — are elemental powers we’ve seen superheroes have before in video games gives the sense that older technology just wouldn’t have done them justice. When Delsin dashes through Seattle in neon form, his glowing figure is perfectly reflected in the rain-soaked streets.
The compressed recreation of Seattle is impressive in its own right. One of the things that endeared Infamous 2 to fans was its faux New Orleans setting — finally an open-world game that wasn’t set in some version of New York City! That continues here with Seattle, a beautiful city that has barely appeared in games before. Sucker Punch is based there, so its recreation is a labor of love. It doesn’t quite feel lived-in like Grand Theft Auto V’s Los Santos, but it’s lovely to look at.
The fidelity of the visuals and their effectiveness in making the unique setting and powers pop make an excellent case for 1080p. Sucker Punch’s dedication here makes it clear we can’t give other developers a pass for missing that mark on the PS4. The difference is significant, and it’s hard to imagine that any other graphical bell or whistle is worth sacrificing that resolution.
This is a crowded genre. Even if you limit the field to super-hero games, Infamous: Second Son occupies the same open-world space as Batman: Arkham City, Saint’s Row IV, Prototype, Crackdown, and a dozen other franchises. Gameplay-wise, it doesn’t do anything one or more of those hasn’t already done just as well.
For example, each of the power sets Delsin uses are pretty similar to each other, with minor variations. One has to charge, the other has splash damage. One lets you run really quickly up walls, one lets you climb buildings by dashing into air vents. And they all control and feel pretty much like similar abilities in other games.
The tasks you perform are mostly familiar too: beat up the people, collect the shiny upgrades, disable the enemy command center, follow the signal to the hidden item. They’re all fun, it’s just that the target audience of core gamers will have already executed them many times before.
It might seem harsh to knock Sucker Punch too much for this, given that the Infamous franchise started in 2009 before several of those games hit the scene. But other franchises have dared try new things in sequels — in fact, Second Son’s immediate predecessor Infamous 2 pushed things forward a lot more with its user-generated content.

The only thing that feels fresh in the game is the tagging system. You can optionally spray graffiti art on various walls in Seattle. The completed artworks are often quite creative, and the diversion makes good use of the controller’s motion-sensing capabilities. It’s not the first game to feature tagging, but it’s the best implementation yet.
With all this stunning new technology, it would have been nice to see more than that in the way of new gameplay ideas. What’s there is fun, fast, and strong enough, but if Sony really wants to show what its console can do, it needs to do more than show off the visuals and motion controls.
Sucker Punch knows its audience. A popular anecdote says the studio decided on its name by giving a middle-aged woman a list of possibilities, then choosing the one she hated the most because she was the "antithesis" of the young male demographic.
With a marketing tag line like “Enjoy Your Power,” it’s obvious that Infamous Second Son is, like many games, a power fantasy. Combine that with Sucker Punch, and you know it’s a power fantasy for young men. It has a rebellious young central character who’s struggling to find his place in the world while resisting advice from his more responsible older brother.
Thus, Infamous: Second Son is both a superhero origin story and a coming-of-age story. The heart of that story is Delsin’s relationship with his brother.
Their rapport is fun and gives the game most of its human moments. The story is otherwise predictable and formulaic. The female characters all fall flat, too, but they are at least prominent. Second Son hits the required notes for a superhero tale aimed at teenaged guys, but it doesn’t step beyond that task. That might be okay, but it doesn’t help the game become memorable.
Thankfully, the game clocks in at just 10-15 hours, which is somewhat brief for this genre. It means Second Son doesn’t outstay its welcome, so the arc feels just right.
The Good
Seattle is a setting not often treaded in games, so that’s fun to see.
The game is polished and solidly fun to play.
From resolution to particle effects, the graphics are truly a leap forward from similar games on previous consoles.
The various powers you unlock are unique in aesthetics and concept, if not in gameplay.
The Bad
There are no original gameplay ideas here; it’s a retread of what dozens of similar games have done over the past several years.
The story is predictable, with paper-thin characters.
Performance chugs in very large battles.
The Bottom Line
Very little about Infamous: Second Son stands out besides its Seattle setting and its impressive graphics. It’s polished and fun, so the target audience of young male gamers who can’t find enough to play will enjoy it as a springtime diversion. They’ll barely remember it a year from now, though.