inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood (PS3, 2011)

inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood is a PSN title that to me seems like it was initially an inFAMOUS 2 expansion. In fact, they still refer to it as an expansion, but it doesn't actually expand anything and is downloaded and played like a separate game. Anyway, those details are irrelevant. I enjoyed inFAMOUS 2 a lot and decided, I should get this game as it was criminally cheap at the price of $7.99. Somehow, though, even at 7.99, I felt short changed.

The story this time around doesn't seem to connect with the actual story. It seems like it's a fun Halloween adventure set in an else worlds setting. Zeke is in a pub trying to pick up a girl, and he explains that one time he had to save Cole, the hero of New Marais. The girl is intrigued to here his story, and as he starts telling it, you start playing it. It's pretty cool in that respect, especially since it's such a bizarre ass story. Cole is saving people who got stuck in a catacomb....for some reason. When he gets captured by vampires... Uhh... what? Did I say vampires? Oddly, yes I did. They then drain some of Cole's blood into a coffin to resurrect Bloody Mary. Seriously, that is the plot of this game. Cole get's blood rage and starts having to drain people to keep powered up.

The only real point of this game is that Cole's powers change. Sure he still shoots lightening, but now he gets vampire senses (cause they turned him into one) and he can turn into a swarm of bats and fly across the city (this is a great addition). He has to kill Bloody Mary before sunrise or else he will be stuck as a vampire. This works out, because doing everything there is to do in this entire game takes about 3-4 hours.

Don't get me wrong, from a game design perspective, this is a very solid game. Just when the ending comes to be, you are left wondering what the point of the whole thing is. It has it's moments of charm, but the karma system isn't there, and the only side missions in the game are those frustrating user generated missions, where I would say lies the weakest points of the whole inFAMOUS series.

From an ethical perspective, I can't say that it's ok to make a super short 2 hour game and allow users to pad it out with their user generated content. Sucker Punch is a better studio than this and I feel like this was a cash grab in the most obvious of ways.

I don't recommend this game, unless it finds it's way down to 2.99 or something. Then it's a good very short time killer that let's you try out some fun vampire powers.

Man-Bat...seriously!