inFamous on Playstation 3 Hands-On Impressions.

Despite the commentary of the outside world though, Sucker Punch have been quietly moulding inFamous into a game worthy of discussion and certainly deserving of gamer's attention. inFamous may be late to the hype-train, but that certainly doesn't make it any less of an experience.

You play as Cole, a man able to absorb the power of electricity and use it in a number of different ways. The game is set in an American city which hosts the platform for a reasonably sized open-world environment. This is where inFamous comes into its own - if you see it, you can climb it. The entire city is scalable, essentially allowing you to reach anywhere in the city; something which is undoubtedly going to make the game hugely addictive when it releases later this month.

Climbing is handled by simple jumps and flicks of the analogue stick. On the whole the game does a good job of anticipating where you want to go, and Cole is well animated making scaling environments fairly seamless and generally good fun.

Combat is handled by holding the L1 button. Like other third-person shooters this puts Cole into an offensive position, allowing simple electrical bolts to be fired with R1 and shock-waves with the X button. Of course, Cole's arsenal grows with the player.

The development of Cole is a key part of inFamous' gameplay. The player will be able to decide at certain points whether to play as a good character or a bad character. The karma will have a direct impact on the look of Cole, aswell as his abilities and relationship with the cities locals.

inFamous isn't without its problems. Graphically the game is weak, with pop-in occurring frequently and a short draw distance. The framerate, however, remains fairly solid regardless of the amount of action occurring on screen.

The key to inFamous is in its verticality and combat. From what we've seen they are fun enough to turn inFamous into a potential classic, if not more.