Infamous: First Light

If you're hesitating about whether or not to pick up inFAMOUS: Second Son, this is a great sample and precursor. Those who have already played it will enjoy learning about one of Second Son's most interesting characters.

When inFamous: Second Son hit the PS4 just short of six months ago it was one of the best experiences available on the console. I played it incessantly, unlocking everything, and loved every super powered second as evident in our original review. Rock solid gameplay accompanied by the same level of story, acting and visuals it was a winner all around. One of Second Son’s most endearing side characters, Fetch Walker, was my personal favourite and to see her get the spotlight in First Light was something I very much looked forward to when it was announced. A standalone piece of DLC that doesn’t ...

Gameplay is the usual open world affair with story-driven campaign missions that mainly boil down to heading to an objective marker and utilising Fetch’s “neon powers” to obliterate enemies. Aside from the story, there’s not a great deal to do in this game’s recreation of Seattle apart from collect shards littered across the map and complete combat challenges, which luckily you’ll be fairly motivated to do as they enable you to upgrade Fetch’s abilities.

Whether you’re new to inFamous or not, First Light is definitely worth looking into. The only reason you won’t enjoy this is if you didn’t get on with Second Son at all, and although there are some improvements, there’s not enough difference here to convince those who dislike inFamous. The plot may fall flat at points and there might be a sense of repetition, but a return trip to Seattle isn’t something you should turn down. And if you have never visited before, then what are you waiting for?

Infamous: First Light is a decent story around a better character than Second Son, but its battles don’t have the same scale or superpower variety that Second Son’s do. After the short campaign, its challenge maps put a new spin on combat by taking away your ability to escape danger on a whim, making it much tougher.

inFamous: First Light offers an interesting backstory of Fetch, giving us a better understanding of her plight before she met Delsin. The excellent combat and colorful powers make combat and travel as enjoyable as Second Son's main campaign, but the lack of power variety is more of a handicap after experiencing them all as Delsin. First Light does have some spark, but lackluster missions ensure that this light remains dim.

First Light is Second Son with most of the fat trimmed, making it ideal for newcomers.

“Infamous: First Light is all gameplay no heart. The action that made Second Son feel so tight is back, but it lacks the earlier game's excellent story and design.”

Despite how nicely their stories slot into one another, the ideal scenario for playing Infamous: First Light is to have never touched Second Son. This works best as an introductory package for newcomers to the Infamous series, a tightly-wound, dramatic story with solid action and very little in the way of excess. It's not different enough from the Infamous game that released earlier this year to totally stand out, but it doesn't suffer much for that similarity.

Infamous Second Son has to be one of my favorite games on the Playstation 4 so far and of course the best non port, re-release or remake to hit the platform itself, I have spent extensive hours with the game and have loved almost everything about it, however notably there were a few major issues that really did bother me about Second Son. The first of these issues was the lack of emphasis on good and evil which is a major thing within the Infamous franchise, it was not necessarily bad but the game and the story really showed no distinction. The other issue came from the games main protagonist ...

Battle mode is arguably the best thing about First Light, and it really uses the combat system and Fetch’s powers to their full potential. There are only a few difficulties for the modes but you’ll probably be spending some good time beating the high scores of your friends and of course your own. Players with a Second Son save on their system will also be able to play through these arenas as Delsin, including his full set of powers.