InFAMOUS/Walkthrough

inFamous is half platformer, half third-person shooter. Platforming through the city consists of running or grinding across wires and gliding through the air. There are many missions where you will have to race through the city in timed sequences; so, you must learn to use the wires and gliding to your best advantage. There are also missions in the sewers where you will have to do some more traditional platforming, jumping from platform to platform or pole to pole – in some cases, you'll have to jump to moving objects or jump to platforms that fall away, forcing you to make your next jump quickly.

Combat makes up the primary action in the game and there's plenty of it. You'll face off against three gangs: the Reapers in the Neon (first island); the Dust Men in the Warren (second island); and, the First Sons in the Historic District (third island). Each gang has similar types of members, as outlined on the ../Enemies/ page.

The gangs get tougher as you reach new islands; fortunately, so do you. You'll constantly earn new powers and be able to upgrade those powers as you play. Also, as you play you'll reach Karma Moments. These decisions affect whether you are considered Good (Heroic) or Evil (Infamous). The game changes a little bit depending on your path, but not much. The biggest change is to the types of ../Powers/ and upgrades you receive.

Contrary to many of the reviews, the moral choices are not subtle or powerful or anything other than the typical black and white choices common in most games (with one exception). You should be able to easily figure out which is the Good option and which the Evil since the Evil option almost always involves other people getting hurt.

Difficulty
There are three difficulty levels in inFamous: Easy, Medium and Hard. Easy and Medium difficulties vary mostly in the number and frequency of random enemy spawns. On Hard difficulty, not only do random spawns increase, but the mobs are harder to take down and you earn less XP from each take down and stunt. (You still get the same amount of XP from completing missions.) Here's a comparison of the difficulty levels from the Neon:

Missions
The game features a mix of both story missions – marked on your map with a blue exclamation mark in a blue circle – and side missions – marked on your map with a yellow exclamation mark in a yellow circle. Most directions are given in cardinal points based on the compass of the mini-map. While the mini-map rotates with the camera, there's an arrow on the outer ring that shows north. You can calculate cardinal directions from that compass point.

Story missions are worth 500 XP. Story missions that take you into the sewers to re-establish power will also earn you additional powers. Most story missions have a Karma Moment that gives you a big boost to your positive or negative karma. Story missions begin as soon as you walk into the marker.

Side Missions
There are a total of 99 side missions in the game. Sixty-nine missions are neutral and can be completed by any player. Thirty missions are split between Good and ../Evil side missions/ (15 each) and can only be completed by a player with the same Karma. The Good side missions are marked by having the yellow circle filled with blue; the Evil side missions are filled with red. Side missions are worth 100 XP. Good and Evil side missions are also used to purchase Good or Evil powers.

When you complete side missions, you clear territory. The game will tell you enemies will not return to the cleared territory. The game lies. Random enemy spawns will drastically decrease in cleared territory, but they will still occur. You can clear every territory (there are 84 total) in every district and still encounter random mobs.

Death
inFamous uses a no-penalty system for dying, which is good because you will die a lot. If you die while on a mission, you will restart at the last checkpoint. Checkpoints are not noted while you play, but they are plentiful, so you never have to replay a huge amount of the mission again. If you die outside a mission, you will respawn at the closest clinic or other safe spot (e.g. Zeke's pad).

When you load a game, you always start back at the closest clinic or safe spot to the point where you last saved your game. This is also the case if you save your game in the middle of a mission and the mission will have to be started all over again. inFamous auto saves your game after each mission; so, you'll never lose hours of game time from not saving – unless it takes you hours to do a mission, which should never be the case.