Infamous. First (And Best) Light!

Now I’ll confess, and you can preserve this admission for posterity or any litigious process you care to employ against me in court, but I didn’t mind Delsin in Infamous: Second Son. Now it may also be noted that this confession may appear only like a modest castigation, but I can assure that Delsin, by many aggrieved fans is as well received as bucket of chicken is to a vegetarian. I’m not suggesting that I fashioned an empathetic rapport with him, I just didn’t hate him with the same unanimous ferocity that most instigators have protested. He was acceptable furrow from which I could kick the crap out of hostile adversaries, and that was fine by me. But admittedly Delsin was the Second Sons most notable hindrance. I was always far more enamoured by fellow conduit Fetches conception. Her rather brief emergence in SS was one of the more alluring countenance of an otherwise by the numbers story. Generating more indelible empathy in one solemn glance or ascetic sneer than Delsin could capably emote if he were weeping oceans worth of tears. “First Light” really takes advantage of the far more amiable, as well as superior protagonist by delving into her rooted, mental attrition. And though the eponymous title “Infamous” infers much revered notoriety, the overtures of her character is one of humble repute.

“Killing has never looked so resplendent.”

Fetch’s story recants her incarceration by a government agency commissioned to apprehend individuals that display less than benign characteristics, such as excreting concrete pillars out of your butt! Shifting back and forth between her current isolation and her capture. A conduit who can absorb and harness the manufactured luminance of Neon, reconstituting its inherit attributes into incendiary projectiles, increased speed and one hell of a bandanna. The story is largely ambient, more of a series of incentives that utilise Fetches inert attributes. And it feels so damn fun to use them. Whereas Delsin was negligibly impeded by his restricting provenance, forced to absorb the attributes of more powerful conduits to improve his impoverished set of skills and his glacial retainment of new abilities was debilitating. Fetch however doesn’t possess these limitations. You can ascend buildings without restriction, drift effortlessly across roads while leaving vibrant stream of luminance behind you. Imagine if the Flash streamed a trailing 90’s rave behind him and had spent his formative years listening to Nirvana. That’s what you’d get with Fetch. Even the city feels incandescent despite retaining the exact same setting as SS. Everything is laced with resplendent definition, traversing the city feel less laborious with enough additives that it almost resembles a sequel. Almost! First Light understands the fluidity of vertical ascent coupled with forward momentum has to be harmonious, and above all consistent, so vortexes that embellish your already expeditious pace are dotted in recurring positions around the city to allow for increased mobility. There are even races where you can navigate frenetic, twisting tracks to consume skill points that can be used to purchase upgrades for existing or latent powers. And it’s when you start hitting those slipstream’s with perfect precision that you relish every marker situated on the other-side of the map. This is one of the few occasions that I actually “want” to travel expansive distances to advance the story!

“Even procrastinating is fun!”

Much like Second Son, you can choose whether to advance the narrative or simply collect power-ups to enhance your cached feats of destruction. You can race, protect civilians from robbers or graffiti. Defacing public properties with rebellious slurs of liberation make their return, albeit with more iridescent luminance. Rather than using compressed gas derived from canisters, you instead harness Neon to project the shackling conformity of liberalism. Using the controller to tilt a bright beam, you guide the beam like paintbrush on a canvas. It’s akin to a proton accelerator in Ghostbusters, just without apparitions sadly. Of course we all know that vandalising constructs with abstract imagery of human repression, is the very definition of anarchic rebellion associated with disenchanted adolescence. Right? In any case you’ll soon have to engage in other visceral tasks, and boy do you have a depository of weapons at your disposal. There’s a variation of combination you can utilise to vanquish opponents; repeatedly clobbering aggressors in the face, casually shooting beams of lights from hand into their groin (other areas of the body are susceptible to your attacks, I guess?) or projecting fields of pure energy to displace guards off rooftops. But on those rare occasions that the ensuing conflict begins to sway in their favour then “singularity” comes into play. A move generated by your own distributive kills, Singularity stores your enemies into a magnetised sphere of obliteration, before expelling their carcasses with expedient fervour. Of course this should only be used under drastic circumstances as you can simply consolidate your depleted abilities through appropriately scattered signs that emit replenishing sustenance, or retreat into temporary remission by averting conflict until virility is restored.

“Battle arenas are enjoyable, but latterly frustrating!”

Your main antagonist, seemingly because you play as a woman has to be a douche with enough flirtatious pomposity to make a snowman blush. This exhibitor of such odious misogyny and salacious ardour, whose amorous insinuations makes him the repugnant embodiment of feminists perception of male gamers, has a deserved “conclusion” that is as gratifying as it is opportune. Outside of the fictitious depiction of Seattle is an alternate battle hub, where you engage with never-ending waves of enemies that as you progress become more numerable and increasingly aggressive, constantly reminding you that you’re not impervious or invulnerable. By the end of these challenges it becomes less about your aggregated score and more about survival, as even the destructive volatility of Singularity has limited benefits. But this game, add-on, whatever you want to call it all comes down to missed opportunity, the glaring omission not to of had Fetch as the “First Daughter”. She is the exact antithesis of Delsin. Whereas as his mandatory quips felt frigid, forcibly administered to evoke personality from a Twilight reject with as much levity as a tent-peg. He was a succubus capable of the absorption of other powerful conduits abilities, but not their character. Fetch should have been the natural successor to the Cole MacGrath, not Delsin. First Light, elongated, could have been the sequel the series deserved.

What did you guys think of First Light?