Infamous Second Son

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The Dynamic Second Child (styled as inFAMOUS Second Son ) is an action-adventure video game developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 4. This is the third installment in the Infamous series. This game was released worldwide on March 21, 2014. The player-controlled protagonist has superpower capabilities that players use in combat and while traveling across the city. The story follows the protagonist Delsin Rowe against the Department of Integrated Protection (D.U.P.) in fictional Seattle. During the game, Delsin gains new strength and becomes good or evil as the player's choice affects his morality.

Sucker Punch started planning games as early as 2010, when they started discussions with Sony to bring the Infamous series to new generation hardware. They provide feedback to Sony about what hardware evolution they would like to see on the PlayStation 4 system. Sucker Punch considers the Second Child as the new beginning for this series because of the new protagonist features. The super power of Delsin Rowe is designed to feel liquid and fits with the open world design.

Infamous Second Child met with generally positive reviews; critics praised his game, dynamic, visual and design battles, while critics aimed at the game's moral system, some considered ancient and binary, and repetitive side missions of the game. The story is greeted with mixed responses, with some critics finding the narrative and character to be a step back from previous installments in the series, while others see the writing as an improvement over its predecessor. Infamous Second Son is a commercial success, and it sold over a million copies in nine days, making it the fastest selling entry in the Infamous franchise.

Video Infamous Second Son

Gameplay

Infamous Second Son is an action-adventure game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. The player controls the main character of Delsin Rowe, who can park vertical surface forces such as high-rise buildings. Delsin is a Conduit, which allows him to use superpower capabilities by manipulating material such as smoke, fluorescent, video, and concrete. These materials can be sprayed (so Delsin can carry a melee attack or fire a projectile from his fingertips) or use it to deftly navigate the game world (such as using neon to bypass buildings). Use the power of spending a meter on the head-up screen (HUD), which can be recharged by drawing from a power source such as the smoke from an exploding vehicle. Delsin gained new strength as he progressed through the story, which saw him fighting against the Integrated Protection Department (D.U.P.) during the mission. Whenever Delsin gets a new power set, he must destroy D.U.P. Core Rele to learn the basic skills that suit it. Delsin enhances and gains new abilities by spending the Blast Shard that has been collected, they are scattered throughout Seattle. Players become stronger in battle by expanding Delsin's abilities.

Players can choose to act in a good or evil way. Examples include healing civilians, doing drugs, and stopping the brutality of suspects for good, or killing innocent civilians and killing, instead of capturing the enemy. Several times throughout the story, Delsin finds himself in a scenario where he has to make good or evil choices, such as whether pushing Conduit to Abigail's own judge "Fetch" Walker to stop mass drug dealers, or train him to become a more productive killer.. Player selection affects results in some subsequent missions. In battle, Delsin can use his ability to paralyze enemies or destroy them with headshots. He may choose to shoot innocent civilians. Delsin's choice manifests in the logo shown on his jacket and HUD, which features blue (both) and red (evil) birds. Performing evil actions gradually changes the logo so that the red birds dominate the other, with the opposite happening with heroism. This is a visual representation of the level of Karma Delsin, which increases either good or evil depending on his choice. As the Karma level increases, Delsin can gain new powers that match his style of play (eg very destructive forces with high levels of crime Karma) and his jacket also changes. If you have good karma, the jacket really turns white whereas if the crime of the jacket turns red. A continuous barrage of good or evil actions fills a bar in the HUD, which then allows Delsin to perform a strong finishing movement called Bomb Karma.

When not completing the story's mission, players can explore the city and complete activities such as marking graffiti spots or killing D.U.P. secret agent. The city is divided into districts that are all overseen by D.U.P., but Delsin gradually frees each district by completing activities. When is D.U.P. control of a district falls below 30 percent, Delsin can enter the District Showdown which requires him to eliminate the D.U.P wave. troops, eradicate D.U.P. presence there.

Maps Infamous Second Son

Plot

Settings and characters

Second Child takes place in 2016, seven years after Infamous 2 ' s protagonist Cole MacGrath sacrificed himself to heal humans from plague and destroy the Beast. Cole uses a powerful Ray Field Inhibitor weapon, which kills him and most other conduits. The Government of the United States designates D.U.P. to hunt down and capture the remaining Conduits in the world, dubbing Conduits with degrading "Bio-Terrorists". The protagonist is Delsin Rowe (Troy Baker), 24-year-old graffiti artist and Akomish's local reservation arrears. Delsin has unique Conduit Power Absorption capability, allowing him to use other Conduit power. Her brother, Reggie (Travis Willingham), is a local sheriff, and often catches Delsin for his vandalism. Both are native American Akomish, whose territory is located on the coast of Salmon Bay, Washington. The antagonists are Brooke Augustine (Christine Dunford), director of D.U.P. and Channels with power over Concrete. His actions in the Akomish reservation prompted Delsin to travel to Seattle, now locked by D.U.P. troops. Delsin and Reggie met with three other Channels: Henry "Hank" Daughtry (David Stanbra), a prisoner with control over Smoke; Abigail "Fetch" Walker (Laura Bailey), a former addict who uses his Neon power to hunt down illegal drug dealers in Seattle; and Eugene Sims (Alex Walsh), a closed video gamer who uses video (digital materialization) power to rescue suspected Channels from D.U.P.

Story

After Reggie caught Delsin ruining the billboards, their next argument was interrupted when a military truck carrying three Conduit prisoners crashed on an Akomish reservation. Two of the Conduit escaped, but Delsin managed to pull the third one, Hank, out of the wreckage, and accidentally absorbed his smoke powers. Shocked and frightened, Delsin pursues Hank in an attempt to find out what has happened and how to control his powers. However, both cornered by Brooke Augustine. He wraps Hank concretely and questioned Delsin, suspecting he was hiding something. Delsin may choose to tell Augustine the truth about his power or reveal anything. Regardless, Augustine made her unconscious before moving on to another tribe member.

Delsin woke up a week later and discovered that Augustine had tortured the remaining tribes in a failed attempt to obtain information. However, he has left them to gradually die from the shards of concrete buried into their bodies, including their leader Betty (Karen Austin). Reggie, who escaped torture, learned that the only way to remove the shards was to use Augustine's power over them. Delsin realized that he could absorb the power of Conduit and decided to go to Seattle to take Augustine's power and save the tribe. Reggie reluctantly accompanied Delsin to watch him. They reached Seattle and found that it had been laid down under strict martial law by D.U.P. to find another escaped Conduit. With Reggie's help, Delsin fought with D.U.P. forcing and tracing the core fragments to develop its strength. He finally meets with two other Channels, Fetch and Eugene, and absorbs their power. After both confrontations, Delsin defended the Conduits from Reggie, who initially regarded them as "freaks", and could choose to redeem or damage them.

Now having three powers, Delsin meets with Hank, who has run away again. Hank told Delsin that Fetch and Eugene had been captured by D.U.P., and held on an artificial concrete island in Puget Sound. However, the situation turned out to be a trap made by Augustine. Reggie shows up and rescues Delsin with a rocket launcher. While the brothers freed Fetch and Eugene, Augustine shrouds Reggie's legs concretely and blows them off the stage. As they dangle over the ocean, Reggie realizes that Delsin can not save both, tells him that he is proud of him, and lets Delsin's hand go and fall to his death. Feeling desperate and angry, Delsin climbed back onto the stage and fought with Augustine, destroying the whole island.

Augustine fled back to D.U.P. headquarter. Delsin tracks Hank down to the dock, where he runs away from D.U.P. troops. Hank begs forgiveness, saying that he only works with Augustine because he threatened to hurt his daughter. Delsin may choose to kill Hank, or let him escape from Seattle with his daughter. Assisted by Fetch and Eugene, Delsin attacks D.U.P. headquarter. After breaking through the building's defenses, Delsin confronts Augustine and reveals to him that he has learned that he is conducting a Conduit escape in Akomish to instill fear in the population and give D.U.P. reason for continuing their regime. Augustine allowed Delsin to absorb his power, and told him that he wanted to save the Conduits by imprisoning and protecting them from the population. Battle of Delsin and finally defeat Augustine with his new concrete powers.

If Delsin had good Karma, he avoided Augustine and exposed his evil to the world. He was arrested and D.U.P. disband. Delsin, Fetch, and Eugene convince humans that they can coexist with Conduit peacefully. All imprisoned Conduit were released. Delsin returns to the reservation and heals tribal members, then paints a mural dedicated to Reggie.

If Delsin has an evil Karma, he kills Augustine and, along with Fetch and Eugene, takes control of Seattle. He released all the imprisoned Conduit and absorbed their power. Upon returning to the reservation, Delsin meets with Betty who has a wheelchair driving her from a tribe to murder in Seattle. Shocked and angry, Delsin destroyed the entire reservation.

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Development

Original and PlayStation 4

Sucker Punch Productions started developing Second Child while PlayStation 4 is still being designed. After they finished their work at Infamous: Festival of Blood, they began planning new entries in the Infamous series under the heading of Infamous 3 work. In early 2010, they discussed with Sony their desire to bring Infamous to the new PlayStation platform.

Sucker Punch is closely associated with the architect of the PS4 leadership system Mark Cerny, who visited the studio several times. They gave Cerny feedback about how much power the new PlayStation system needed to realize their ideal open world, how fast it would be able to do that and get to the level of texture detail. "We have some experience there that is useful to the team as they plan some aspects of hardware design," producer Brian Fleming explains. He found that during the development of the PS4, there was a great degree of interactivity between system designers and game developers like Sucker Punch.

Sucker Punch makes the suggested improvements they want to see for DualShock 4 gamepads. Second Son Designer ' Jaime Griesemer goes to Sony headquarters in Japan to discuss the increase. Developers have found that they can adopt the DualShock 4 touchpad into Second Son Gameplay ' (for example, players mimic the in-game fingerprint scanner using the DualShock 4 touchpad).

The game is expected to take full advantage of the hardware, without imposition of porting to older platforms such as PlayStation 3. This hardware allows developers to improve the particle system that illuminates Delsin's face as he draws fluorescent signage from the billboard and adds a detailed reflection to the gaming world. Increased memory bandwidth allows the team to create characters with higher precision. They find the architecture simplified by the PS4 making it easy to work with them so they can achieve very high graphics quality even though the hardware is new.

More than 110 developers are working on the game, a number that Nate Fox's director thinks is small. He feels that working with small teams requires having a clear vision for the game from scratch, "to answer the first questions about what you want your game to be". Sometimes, ideas arise during development that must be discarded because they do not match the original vision of the game. "We killed our beloved at Sucker Punch, it's not easy, it's necessary," Fox explained. Second Child display native 1080p resolution at 30 frames per second.

Design

Sucker Punch chose to set Second Child in their home city of Seattle as they can take from their personal experience in an open world design. During the initial development when team members debated where the Second Child will be set, Seattle is highly rated in the list of possibilities. Fleming assumes that the city is not featured in many games before Second Child and so will not be "excessive", and feels that Seattle weather and a mix of "old and new" architecture will make it an interesting setting. The team conducted field research in nearby Seattle forests with audio and video equipment, used to reproduce local flora and sound chirping from local American robins. Seattle landmarks such as Pioneer Square, Space Needle, and Elephant Car Wash feature in this game. Developers license logos and signs from local businesses. Griesemer calls the game world a "abstraction" of Seattle rather than a re-creation because the layout is incompatible with the Second Child 'gameplay and requires the team to make the necessary changes. The team wants to thematically explore the legacy of Seattle Pacific Northwest, Native American tribes in the game.

The designers use a graphical slider in the game engine to determine the amount of water that covers the streets. Like Seattle, rain often happens in the game. Lighting effects (like fluorescent light from Delsin's strength) coupled with reflections help bring color to the dark and rainy atmosphere of Seattle. Due to the PS4 move, Sucker Punch is able to create a more open world than what was possible in previous Infamous games. "You feel better than the city when you can see more of it," Griesemer said.

After deciding on Seattle for the setting, the developers started thinking about the super power that Delsin had. They added neon lights to the city to reinforce "beautiful reflective streets", and then decided to make neon a source of strength for Delsin because of its prevalence. Animated director Billy Harper considers Delsin's smoke force challenging to be designed, as the team wants to make the power feel more fluid than in previous Infamous games. They remove Cole's "wrinkled pose" to improve the relationship between Delsin and his powers. Fox feels that smoke helps Delsin deftly navigate the gaming world by letting him hack buildings and through enemies. Griesemer (who previously worked with Bungie in the Halo series ) wanted to bring the first-person shooter's fluidity to the Second Son battle '. The team reviews the control schemes of previous Infamous games and removes some of the complexities that prevent people from interacting with games.

Griesemer says that the recurring theme throughout the Infamous game that they want to continue with Second Son is the idea of ​​"the power of modern elements", a variation on the general power drawn from the gaming world. Producer Brian Fleming finds that graphics effects help inform players about the amount of power Delsin has. "This is a game about superpowers, so for us, the way the effect tells you a lot about how you play the game," he explained. Fox considers that the similarity of the gaming world with Seattle helps the superpower element feel authentic. "Because we have a good foundation, you buy a super-powered element", he explained.

Character development

This Second Child ' that sees the protagonist Cole MacGrath sacrificing himself to save humanity. They looked at the Trophy data and found the majority (78%) of the 2 famous players voted this end, and agreed with popular choices. This allowed them to create a new protagonist, Delsin, from the beginning. "Move to the Second , we say 'Well, Cole is dead, people have chosen this, let's make a new hero'", explains Fox. Griesemer feels that taking the Infamous series to the PS4 signifies a new era, and that departing from the game's previous story will help them reach new audiences. "We need a new entry point, and Delsin is the first step for that", he explained. The idea to get away from Cole's story came during a pre-production staff meeting, and was confirmed after discussions both internally and with Sony Computer Entertainment. Griesemer described the contemporary sentiment as "It will be a new hardware, a new platform and we will have a new audience".

Native American heritage Delsin comes from a game setting in the Pacific Northwest, featuring Native American populations. Delsin wore beanie inspired by one that Harper would wear around the studio (Harper tells a particular staff meeting where four of the six team members wear hats). Delsin's character was inspired by the English street artist, Banksy, as the development team appreciated the hidden work of Banksy, satire. Developing Delsin's personality, the team put forward the hypothesis: "What if Johnny Knoxville has power? What will he do with it?". Harper considers Delsin "full of reckless negligence", the kind of character that will, having gained superpowers, jumps off a cliff to see what happens. Fox considers Delsin "flawed in a way I think many of us can relate to", trying to live up to his successful sister, Reggie. He calls this game a "hero journey".

Digital domains are brought on board for motion capture jobs. Fox helped direct the performances of the actors, but found that they did not need much guidance for their roles. "You have to let them understand what you need from a scene, but the actors are much better prepared to give it than me," he explains. Fleming considers that using motion capture adds the authenticity of the characters. "The ability to capture the facial reaction [Delsin] when he's like 'Oh, shit', but not saying 'Oh shit' - that's a big deal," he explained.

Most non-player characters (NPCs) that inhabit the open world are captured movements. Developers contact the casting agency, and ask their friends and family if they want to appear as an in-game addition. More than 75 people were scanned in a three-day period. They sit in chairs and are told not to move or smile, and high-definition digital cameras capture their faces 3D models. The camera sends a strobe light pattern to capture the volume and shape of each face. A 360-degree adjustment captures the bodies of actors in motion, but the mannequins are also used to help capture different styles of clothing. The data collected from the cameras is used by designers to create digital models, each comprising about 1.4 million polygons - each blank point on the model will be filled digitally by the designers. To create a model in the game, the data will be compressed by reducing the number of polygons.

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Release

On February 20, 2013, Sony held a conference in New York that announced the PlayStation 4. Fox appeared on stage during the conference and recounted participating in the anti-globalization protests in Seattle in 1999. He announced Second Son , and a featured debut trailer that introduces the premise of the game and the main character. The game was personally demonstrated on E3 2013, and the release date of March 21, 2014, North America was confirmed during the PS4 launch event on November 14, 2013. On February 25, 2014, the Second Child went to gold (completed development ).

On March 8, it was announced that pre-order Second Son ' has surpassed The Last of Us in the UK. Two special edition versions of the game were produced; a copy of pre-ordered games and first runs a Limited Edition, which includes the Cole ' Inheritance mission package that describes the story event between Infamous 2 and Second Child . The Collector Edition includes a unique box cover, a Delsin beanie replica, eight pins from a vest, an exclusive in-game vest, and a D.U.P. All previously booked game copies include four in-game vests for Delsin.

Downloadable content

Paper Trail is a free downloadable content (DLC) with an alternate reality game feature. The story is divided into six sections, with the first available after reaching a certain point in the main story. Each subsequent section is available every Friday from March 28, 2014 in North America and, ends with a final release of April 25, 2014.

In E3 2014, the Infamous First Light DLC package was announced and released on August 26, 2014 in North America and August 27, 2014 in Europe. In First Light , the player controls Fetch. This is a stand-alone expansion and Second Son is not required for game play, but Second Son's ownership gives players access to exclusive content. Infamous First Light received positive criticism from critics.

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Reception

Second Dynamic Kids received "generally favorable" reviews, according to metacritic reviewers.

Vince Ingenito of IGN told me that he was left "staring openly" at his visuals, and called the open world "beautiful and different" with impressive lighting effects. GameSpot's Tom McShea calls the visuals "extraordinary". Welsh oil from Eurogamer praised the art direction of Seattle, and found the distance of balance and frame rate consistent. David Meikleham of the PlayStation Official Magazine (OPM) was very impressed with the 1080p graphics and definitions, but cited the occasional picture frequency dips during fierce battles. He enjoys playing in Seattle and uses his power to equate a destructible environment. Tamoor Hussain from Computer and Video Games (CVG) praised graphic details such as particles and lighting systems. "[The game] is colorful, rich in detail and has some of the best effects we've seen on a console", he wrote.

GameSpot's Mc Shea assumes a balanced battle between the slower Infamous Infamous Infamous 2 ' s action excitedly, and enjoys the agility and strength of Delsin. Chris Carter of Destructoid considers the combat's simplicity its strength, finding Delsin easy to control and navigate the world. Edge was overwhelmed by the opening of the game because parkour was "swift", but noted that once Delsin gained power and reached Seattle, the game became a lot of fun. They feel that the enemy is clever enough to make the battle a fun challenge, and calls the ultimate mission "for the most part well designed and proportionate". Ingenito IGN enjoys using the power of Delsin in battle, and calls each set "strong enough to hang the whole game". He found Delsin's increased strength helped keep the battle fresh and made a good replay score. Philip Kollar of Polygon preferred to use fluorescent strength, but praised the balance and variety among them all. He called the battle "very enjoyable". Eurogamer's Welsh finds an imperfect but pleasant battle, but does not think that improving Delsin's skills makes enough difference to his strength.

Destructoid's Carter thinks Delsin is a more interesting protagonist than Cole's "wood", which helps his investment into the story. Ingenito IGN thinks Delsin is an interesting main character, mainly because of chemistry with Reggie. He found the performance of Troy Baker Delsin "[imbued] with charm and leaving the young who made him from tropey [sic] or overwrought". However, he found supporting characters such as the retarded Fetch and the narrative too straightforward. Though calling the clichÃÆ' Â © d character, Edge feel that they are written and act well. GameSpot's Mc Shea calls Delsin annoying and immature, and finds gameplay more interesting than the "tired" story. Welsh of Eurogamer is considered a plot driven by "unnecessary MacGuffins" and thinks that the ending is in a hurry, but praises the story for not being too long. Polygon Kollar feels that his story does not explore the theme of oversight and security-freedom is good enough, so the impact is reduced. He was overall disappointed with the narrative, although finding the main character was written better than in previous Infamous games. OPM's Meikleham was delayed by Delsin's arrogance and underwhelmed with his story, but he was impressed by the quality of the capture motion show.

Edge and Eurogamer's Welsh blame the system of morality because they do not think it has sufficient influence on the story. Ingenito IGN calls it "very outdated", and feels that making a nasty choice is very offended by Delsin's character. He found the system excessive because Delsin became stronger when he strictly adhered to a good or evil play style, rather than crossing between the two. McShea from GameSpot feels that the morality system is too binary because there is no "moral gray area" between playing good and evil. Kollar Polygon reflects Mc Shea's opinion that the choices of morality are too binary, and the difficulty of connecting his choices is too polarized between good and evil. OPM's Meikleham feels that the morality system "has little or no impact on gameplay". Danny Cowan of Joystiq thinks that his morality system is balanced, with the same incentives and weaknesses associated with Delsin's choice.

GameSpot's Mc Shea finds an open world of Second Son ' tied to the date formula. He describes Seattle as a "playground for you to go crazy" instead of "a living and breathing world", with Seattle being only a food for the players. CVG ' s Hussain is called Seattle "very empty", with a widespread NPC behaving immeasurably. He feels that life without life in the world is the greatest reducer, and he draws unfavorable comparisons with Grand Theft Auto V, Sleeping Dogs and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag , which he says shows a better open world. Welsh of Eurogamer feels that Second Child does not innovate with the open world genre and that can happen because he depends heavily on many genres of genres. Kollar Poligon feels that there is not enough variation in mission and activity, since "almost everything leads to the goal of hitting more soldiers or thugs". Edge finds the amount of content in the game thin, finding little extra in additional games due to recurring side missions. "The Second Child Approach is an action game that happens to be arranged in a nonlinear environment and makes more sense," they wrote. Destructoid's Carter finds sufficient amount of content, and enjoys liberating the city and collecting the Blast Shards.

Sales

Infamous Second Son sold over a million copies in nine days after its launch, making it one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games and the fastest selling installment in the series.

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References

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External links

• Dinore Second Entry on PlayStation.com
• Traces of Infamous Paper , an alternative reality game
• Second Dynamic Child on MobyGames
• Second Dynamic Kids on IMDb

Source of the article : Wikipedia