Infamous: Second Son - 7 Reasons It's Sadly Not A System Seller

5. Karma System Is Too Simple

Returning to a problem with the original inFAMOUS game; the karma choice system that defines whether you become a hero or a villain is just too simple. There is no blurring of the lines with regards to choices; blue always means good and red always means bad. Once a player has made their decision there is no turning back or even a grey area between the two. Literally players are forced to choose between two really pre-scripted extreme €˜decisions€™ that most of the time don€™t even have any real consequence or influence on the story. If anything the inclusion of two ever-so-slightly different stories feels like Sucker Punch€™s justification for the campaign being so ridiculously short, with them encouraging players to experience the game from a good and evil perspective (even though a majority of players won€™t do both.) This karma system just completely misses the point of morality and decision-making in games, as most players will make their choices based on the colour each choice corresponds with and not actually truly consider what they would do if they were really in Delsin's shoes. Hence heroic players will blindly select every single blue option without hesitation - resulting in a game with barely any weight to its choices whatsoever. InFAMOUS 2 at least had a fantastic heartbreaking moral dilemma at the very end of the game whereby your choices began to blur. Throughout the game two other super-powered conduits had attempted to influence Cole€™s choices like something representing a devil and angel on either shoulder. However at the end, the good angel chose cowardly selfish decisions whereas the devil performed an action of self-sacrifice to save others. This was a fantastic twist which really made players think carefully about the devastating repercussions that would occur because of this final choice. Second Son however is severely lacking in providing serious repercussions for your actions. For example towards the end of the game players can choose if one minor side character lives or dies, yet either way he is never again shown or mentioned in the story. In fact the story generally follows an almost identical path for heroic and evil players apart from the last five minutes of the game which can conclude with either a good or a rather over-the-top evil ending that seems too extreme and shocking for Delsin's character arc.