Sorry about the last two weeks. This weekly post is now back in full swing! There are a few titles that I will be covering for the next week or two thanks to the Welcome Back program and also my birthday!

Here are some noticeable games that were released from 1 to 14 June:

• Alice: Madness Returns (PS3 / X360 / PC)
• Child of Eden (X360)
• Duke Nukem Forever (PS3 / X360 / PC)
• inFamous 2 (PS3)
• Record of Agarest War Zero (PS3 / X360)
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon (PS3 / X360 / Wii / DS)
• White Knight Chronicles II (PS3)
• Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 (PSN / XBLM / PC)
• Outland (PSN)

So what else happened during that period? E3. If you somehow missed out on it, you can watch videos of it over at GameSpot or GameTrailers or any other video game websites that you frequent.

Well, the press conferences were… Okay I guess. I know I was pretty bored with the Microsoft and Sony press conferences because there were way too many Kinect and Move stuff. I’m all for fun gameplay for those peripherals, but what was demonstrated on stage was pretty boring… Well I can’t blame EA and Ubisoft for not showing much of their games since they have their own press conference, but I’m pretty surprised some developers didn’t show trailers or gameplay footage. Games like Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Ace Combat Assault Horizon were on the showfloor but they didn’t appear in Sony or Microsoft’s press conference. Wonder if its because they found it redundant since their games are multi-platform.

New games/DLC we have played

• inFamous

New Releases

• Dungeon Siege III (PS3 / X360 / PC)
• F.E.A.R. 3 (PS3 / X360 / PC)
• Shadows of the Damned (PS3 / X360)
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (3DS)

inFamous

Developer: Sucker Punch
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Genre: Action-adventure, sandbox
Release Date: 26 May 2009
Buy it now!

Guuzen: Like many others, I got my hands on this thanks to the Welcome Back program. I have always wanted to get back to older games like these but never got the chance thanks to newer ones.

I jumped into this game probably in one of the worst possible ways: right after playing L.A. Noire. The cutscene animations in inFamous are not good, especially the face. It feels like all Sucker Punch did was piece together in-game animations that seem sort of right at the moment. Sure maybe comparing a 2011 game to a 2009 game is unfair, but even 2009 have games that did those things better (e.g. Uncharted 2). This was a huge bummer for me because I actually find the story genuinely interesting but the animations were kind of ruining the immersion. The visuals are pretty good. I didn’t put in much expectation knowing that it is a 2 years old game and it being open world means less poly count on the environment models, so no disappointment there.

So that was my views on the aesthetic side. Gameplay wise, it is quite fun playing through the story, travelling around cities, unleashing your powers and unlocking new ones. It is easy to control Cole in the city as he is very agile, however when it comes to platforming accuracy his agility may work against him as it is quite easy to misjudge the timing of jumps. The missions in the game can be a little repetitive at times but nothing feel too troublesome to play through.

Another good thing about this game is its replay value. As you can play Cole as a good guy or bad guy, there is a good reason to replay the game and experience both sides. Its pretty cool because the characters and citizens will react to you differently.

So to sum it all up, inFamous is not a bad game and I can see it competing with other triple-A titles in 2009. If you are interested to dive into the story thanks to the recent release of inFamous 2, then of course it is worth a buy. But if this title has never interested you before in the past, then you may want to just stick to newer games.