City 16

For the first time in years I find myself wandering through a game world with no specific purpose. Nothing is left to do, missions have been completed and side-quests fetched. Oh sure, there are the inevitable collectibles to get but I’m not actively going after them. Instead I’m just happy to exist in the world.

This doesn’t happen often. The last time I spent any amount of time in a game world after completing everything the game had to offer was probably San Andreas, I was happy enough to get in a tank and roll over a few hundred cars, or head for the Harrier in my airfield and go bother the local military base.

The strange thing is that Infamous is a less successful open world than any in the GTA series. With the missions gone there is actually very little to do and the world itself just isn’t particularly interesting.

The reason I’m spending so much time there can actually be traced back to a gameplay mechanic that has built in popularity since 2007; its all down to the movement.

It started, or at least I first noticed it, in Assassin’s Creed. Despite the repetitive nature of the game’s mission structure I happily played it through to the end. The thing that captivated me, above all else was the flow of Altair’s movement and the ease of which it could be achieved by the game’s controls. Importantly this wasn’t platforming, with the genre’s need for inch-perfect accuracy; but instead something almost akin to a racing game, leaving you free to plan your escape route or even suddenly change direction when required to shake off guards.

If there was a problem with the movement in Assassin’s Creed, and there was, it was perhaps too removed from player control at times. The climbing was fine but traversing rooftops was simply a matter of holding down a button. It worked and was a smooth system, but taking away that last element of control sometimes left it feeling like the game was playing on autopilot. It was for this reason that when I finally finished the game I was, in fact, finished with the game.

The next year saw the release of Mirror’s Edge. A completely different beast from Assassin’s Creed, Mirror’s Edge was a platform game. It’s innovations in the genre, however, went far beyond the first-person perspective. Mirror’s Edge focused on the tactile. It worked because the actions you were asked to perform felt weighty and realistic; you had to consider velocity and momentum. Rather than wrestle control away from the player it asked you to manage every aspect of it: Do you take this series of jumps and vault over a gap, or slide under those pipes and wall-run across? As much as I liked some of the ‘puzzle’ elements that asked for you to get to a door at the top by free-running across a series of seemingly unconnected areas, the real thrill of the game came from those moments where the path became obvious and you were left to feel your way through it.

The problem with Mirror’s Edge is that the developers seemingly didn’t have the strength of conviction to follow through with their mechanic. Instead, in multiple places, you were forced to stop and deal with its terrible combat mechanic. I would have personally been happy if there had been no enemies in Mirror’s Edge whatsoever, but will accept that having a threat chasing you through sections of a level does add the thrill of outpacing and outwitting your foes. What the game should have never done is forced the player to stop and deal with multiple armed police before letting Faith move to the next section.

Which leads to this years release of Infamous… or inFamous. I should state categorically that Mirror’s Edge is by far the superior game. Where Infamous gets points is the ease in which the game allows you to traverse the city without ever taking away your control. It’s an intuitive system; Cole will snap to ledges and climbable bits of buildings, avoiding the fiddly nature of much modern platforming.

A few weeks ago I compared Prince of Persia to the skating system of the Tony Hawk’s games. If Prince of Persia represents the missions of the Pro Skater series, asking the player to flawlessly reach a certain location, then Infamous represents the bits in between. Yes, you could go straight to the mission objective, but you’re far more likely to take your time and bounce around the scenery. There are even rails that electrically-powered Cole can grind along.

An interesting world to experience may contribute to my enjoyment of a game, but its a simple and satisfying motion mechanic that will keep me coming back long after I have any reason to do so. Long may it continue.