EatinOlives
Member
(warning, wall of text below)
Recently got an XB1 and Sunset Overdrive was one of the exclusives I always wanted to check out. Little did I know I would not only love the game, but that it would actually turn out to be everything I wanted in a current-gen inFamous game.
Now, before I get into the main topic (why SO is so good and why it was so much better than Second Son), I should preface by saying I (almost) 100%ed both games. Got the platinum for Second Son, the plat for the First Light DLC, and 100%ed Sunset Overdrive vanilla (havent gone through the DLC sadly). I also beat the previous two inFamous games and I really enjoyed both, so I consider myself a fan of that series.
Now, onto Sunset. I really did not think the game was going to be like inFamous at all. I expected a third person shooter with some fun traversal options and I did get exactly that, but the way it structured its entire gameplay and movement, it reminded me of inFamous more and more. For those who dont know, Sunset has a sort of parkour system where you can jump high, grind across street and rooftop handrails, bounce off a bunch of different objects, run across walls, etc. You may notice most of these are supernatural. You can grind uphill as long as you want, you can dash across the air, wall-run infinitely, pick up speed by pressing Right Bumper whenever you want, bounce off objects super high distances, ski across water, etc. When I grasped how unrealistic the traversal options were the Playable Character felt more and more like a superhero, and thats where the inFamous comparisons in my head began.
One may also think but inFamous is a superhero game and SO is a third person open-world shooter!, well yes and no. Aside from the traversal options being much closer to inFamous than they are to GTA, inFamouss combat is also largely based off of third person shooters themselves. In my opinion I think it was eventually to its detriment. In inFamous you have regular pistol shots, your shotgun-blast shots, your sniper shots, your grenades, your rockets, etc. etc., its just that visually they were all made to look like superhero powers. I can see why Sucker Punch felt the need to have those weapon archetypes in inFamous 1, since going nuts with powers may have confused players as to how they worked, and making a game function closer to a shooter than a completely new style of third person action game wouldve felt like an insurmountable effort. But even by the time we got to Second Son we still had gameplay that by and large followed the third-person shooter formula.
Anyway, back to Sunset Overdrive, it turns out that many of the weapons and the way they work end up feeling pretty similar to inFamouss powers. Of course, Sunset doesnt disguise these as superhero powers, but theyre all the same kooky variations of traditional weapons. Thematically these weapons are very different from inFamouss powers, but gameplay-wise they actually functioned quite closely. Much like in inFamous, Sunset Overdrives combat is highly dependent on movement. Second Son was the game with the fastest combat in the series, largely because the traversal options let you move across vast amounts of space. Sunset Overdrive embeds the combat with the traversal HARD. It makes a point of telling you over and over that you HAVE to grind, bounce, jump, and move all over if you want to survive enemy encounters. Tying the traversal so closely with the combat I feel is one of the biggest reasons why I was reminded of inFamous.
However, Sunset Overdrive doesnt just FEEL like an inFamous game, I dare to say its actually better than the last inFamous title. Im probably going to catch flak for this, but hear me out.
First is the traversal options. This is the BIG one. Despite being a massive fan of the inFamous series, I actually felt like the traversal options in Second Son were not that great. What are you talking about?? Im sure people will say, Neon was SO COOL!. Well yeah, it was cool in paper, but in execution it was actually a pretty detrimental thing to the game as a whole. You see, inFamous cut its teeth in parkour-esque traversal. You unlocked powers that not only made you powerful, but gave you abilities to travel across the city farther and faster. At first you unlocked grinding across power lines and train rails, but then later you also were able to gently float downward while you kept your horizontal speed. This combined with other powers (like the ice launch jump in inFamous 2) let you move faster and more gracefully. The longer you played the more you FELT like a badass superhero zipping across a metropolis.
With Neon you...pressed O. Forever. No longer did you have to jump off a huge building and immediately start looking for the next powerline you can zip across. No longer did you quickly scan your surroundings to ensure you jumped across buildings without falling to the ground. No longer did you go around a building because it was far taller and climbing it wouldve slowed you down. No longer did you need to pay attention your surroundings to figure out the best way to traverse the city while keeping your momentum. With Neon you ran up walls, across the air, in the ground, in the rooftops, ANYWHERE, and you never had to worry about slowing down. For all the flak that Assassins Creed gets for having auto-traversal, Second Sons Neon was far, far worse. Video was just about the same, you just needed to press O more often and fly through the area (although needing to find satellites that launched you in the air was slightly more fun). Smoke was the best of all, since that was the only power that had you actually look at where you were going and look for building architecture, finding exhaust fumes through which to teleport to the top of buildings and launch you further up in the air. Concrete was about the same as Neon except you couldnt run up walls. But despite the fact that you had four different traversal systems, Neon was by far the fastest way of getting around. It was pointless to use any other kind, especially Smoke, even though Smoke was the best designed system in terms of gameplay. Once you unlocked continuous run for Neon, all sense of traversal went out the window.
Sunset Overdrive goes the complete opposite direction. There is NO easy way of traversing (unless you wanna count fast travel), no ability that lets you just skip everything else. You constantly have to use multiple movies if you want to get to where you want to go the fastest. And despite the fact that traversal is one of the things you do over and over throughout the game, it just never gets old. Its not super complicated to get the basic gist of it down, but keeping up a fast momentum and not breaking a traversal combo becomes a mini-game of its own. Sometimes I kept a combo going just because I could, just to see if I could go from point A to point B miles apart without dropping the traversal combo (the game counts each move and displays the combo number on the top right, and resets if you touch the ground without doing a move). I felt like I was getting better at vaulting over stuff, zipping across lines, and bouncing off objects with every passing hour. Every time I played I got a bit better at timing the grinds, at deciding whether to grind across a billboard vs. jumping over it, I learned to climb up buildings by wall-running and jumping off the wall-run repeatedly, etc. etc. I rarely ever fast-traveled because I just wanted to do the parkour, which is always the best compliment one can give a game: doing something not for an achievement, or for a collectible, or for some number to go up, but doing it purely just for fun.
The other major way I felt Sunset Overdrive outdid Second Son was in content and enemy variety. Second Son very obviously suffered from being a launch title, so ambition had to be kept at a minimum. That meant no sidequests, minimum amounts of collectibles, and just very few things to do outside of the main campaign. Sunset Overdrive, by contrast, has quite a lot to offer. Sidequests, tons of different types of collectibles strewn around (more like Blash Shards in inFamous 1 and 2 and thankfully not at all like the shards inside drones in Second Son), challenges that include weapon challenges, traversal challenges, etc. Not everything is a hit, some of the challenges are better designed than others, but generally theyre really fun and provide enough of a respite from the main story missions that it keeps things varied. Second Sons dearth of collectibles mixed in with really simplistic traversal options made for a very empty open world, to the point where Im hesitant to even call it an open-world game. Sunset ample amount of collectibles, sidequests, challenges, and collectibles, and traversal options, in contrast, keeps your attention for far longer in a city thats a lot more fun to run through. Enemy variety was also a big change. Whereas Second Son had only a handful of enemies, Sunset had three different classes of enemies (OD aka zombies, Scabs aka humans, and Fizzbots aka robots and mechs), each with their own enemy types, behaviors, strengths, weaknesses, etc., etc. I only wish they would mix in the three different types of enemies more often. Sometimes you come across one group of enemies of one class fighting another group of another class while youre running around the open world, but I dont think I ever found myself fighting all three classes at once.
Finally, theres the story missions. In terms of actual story, I dont think either game is strong. Second Sons story definitely tried harder at being a compelling narrative, whereas Sunset Overdrive was a lot more about being a means-to-an-end for gameplay scenarios, but both stories ended up kind of falling flat toward the end of their respective narratives. If I had to choose Id pick Second Son simply because of its ambition, whereas Sunset, by its own admission, was lighthearted and just winged it.
In terms of the gameplay of story missions, though, I do have to give it to Sunset Overdrive. There WERE a lot of missions that kind of repeated on previous ideas, but there was actually a surprising amount of new and fun content thrown at you. It even had a few boss encounters that worked REALLY well, and it threw in a couple of platforming sections that are only rivaled by inFamous 1 (2 and Second Son really dropped the ball in the platforming ). My favorite encounter for Sunset was easily the giant Fizzie balloon that shoots lasers and rockets at you while you grind through thin curved rods across a very tall building. There is NO solid ground here, you have to constantly keep moving and bouncing on radio tower drum...things (I forget what theyre called) to stun the boss and wail on him with your weapons from a very high altitude. It mixed platforming and combat in such a great way and was so over the top that it was only rivaled by some of the bosses in inFamous 1.
So, in the interest of not making an even bigger wall of text, I want to conclude by saying that Sunset Overdrive is the inFamous sequel I always wanted, especially so after having played Second Son. I really hope Sucker Punch makes another inFamous sequel and takes notes on what Insomniac did, because SS would end up being a very bad note to go out on IMO. Sunset Overdrive manages to do open world third person action zaniness with really compelling traversal options and fun combat.
And now let's ponder on "Cole MacGrath vs. Excalamume" fanfiction
Recently got an XB1 and Sunset Overdrive was one of the exclusives I always wanted to check out. Little did I know I would not only love the game, but that it would actually turn out to be everything I wanted in a current-gen inFamous game.
Now, before I get into the main topic (why SO is so good and why it was so much better than Second Son), I should preface by saying I (almost) 100%ed both games. Got the platinum for Second Son, the plat for the First Light DLC, and 100%ed Sunset Overdrive vanilla (havent gone through the DLC sadly). I also beat the previous two inFamous games and I really enjoyed both, so I consider myself a fan of that series.
Now, onto Sunset. I really did not think the game was going to be like inFamous at all. I expected a third person shooter with some fun traversal options and I did get exactly that, but the way it structured its entire gameplay and movement, it reminded me of inFamous more and more. For those who dont know, Sunset has a sort of parkour system where you can jump high, grind across street and rooftop handrails, bounce off a bunch of different objects, run across walls, etc. You may notice most of these are supernatural. You can grind uphill as long as you want, you can dash across the air, wall-run infinitely, pick up speed by pressing Right Bumper whenever you want, bounce off objects super high distances, ski across water, etc. When I grasped how unrealistic the traversal options were the Playable Character felt more and more like a superhero, and thats where the inFamous comparisons in my head began.
One may also think but inFamous is a superhero game and SO is a third person open-world shooter!, well yes and no. Aside from the traversal options being much closer to inFamous than they are to GTA, inFamouss combat is also largely based off of third person shooters themselves. In my opinion I think it was eventually to its detriment. In inFamous you have regular pistol shots, your shotgun-blast shots, your sniper shots, your grenades, your rockets, etc. etc., its just that visually they were all made to look like superhero powers. I can see why Sucker Punch felt the need to have those weapon archetypes in inFamous 1, since going nuts with powers may have confused players as to how they worked, and making a game function closer to a shooter than a completely new style of third person action game wouldve felt like an insurmountable effort. But even by the time we got to Second Son we still had gameplay that by and large followed the third-person shooter formula.
Anyway, back to Sunset Overdrive, it turns out that many of the weapons and the way they work end up feeling pretty similar to inFamouss powers. Of course, Sunset doesnt disguise these as superhero powers, but theyre all the same kooky variations of traditional weapons. Thematically these weapons are very different from inFamouss powers, but gameplay-wise they actually functioned quite closely. Much like in inFamous, Sunset Overdrives combat is highly dependent on movement. Second Son was the game with the fastest combat in the series, largely because the traversal options let you move across vast amounts of space. Sunset Overdrive embeds the combat with the traversal HARD. It makes a point of telling you over and over that you HAVE to grind, bounce, jump, and move all over if you want to survive enemy encounters. Tying the traversal so closely with the combat I feel is one of the biggest reasons why I was reminded of inFamous.
However, Sunset Overdrive doesnt just FEEL like an inFamous game, I dare to say its actually better than the last inFamous title. Im probably going to catch flak for this, but hear me out.
First is the traversal options. This is the BIG one. Despite being a massive fan of the inFamous series, I actually felt like the traversal options in Second Son were not that great. What are you talking about?? Im sure people will say, Neon was SO COOL!. Well yeah, it was cool in paper, but in execution it was actually a pretty detrimental thing to the game as a whole. You see, inFamous cut its teeth in parkour-esque traversal. You unlocked powers that not only made you powerful, but gave you abilities to travel across the city farther and faster. At first you unlocked grinding across power lines and train rails, but then later you also were able to gently float downward while you kept your horizontal speed. This combined with other powers (like the ice launch jump in inFamous 2) let you move faster and more gracefully. The longer you played the more you FELT like a badass superhero zipping across a metropolis.
With Neon you...pressed O. Forever. No longer did you have to jump off a huge building and immediately start looking for the next powerline you can zip across. No longer did you quickly scan your surroundings to ensure you jumped across buildings without falling to the ground. No longer did you go around a building because it was far taller and climbing it wouldve slowed you down. No longer did you need to pay attention your surroundings to figure out the best way to traverse the city while keeping your momentum. With Neon you ran up walls, across the air, in the ground, in the rooftops, ANYWHERE, and you never had to worry about slowing down. For all the flak that Assassins Creed gets for having auto-traversal, Second Sons Neon was far, far worse. Video was just about the same, you just needed to press O more often and fly through the area (although needing to find satellites that launched you in the air was slightly more fun). Smoke was the best of all, since that was the only power that had you actually look at where you were going and look for building architecture, finding exhaust fumes through which to teleport to the top of buildings and launch you further up in the air. Concrete was about the same as Neon except you couldnt run up walls. But despite the fact that you had four different traversal systems, Neon was by far the fastest way of getting around. It was pointless to use any other kind, especially Smoke, even though Smoke was the best designed system in terms of gameplay. Once you unlocked continuous run for Neon, all sense of traversal went out the window.
Sunset Overdrive goes the complete opposite direction. There is NO easy way of traversing (unless you wanna count fast travel), no ability that lets you just skip everything else. You constantly have to use multiple movies if you want to get to where you want to go the fastest. And despite the fact that traversal is one of the things you do over and over throughout the game, it just never gets old. Its not super complicated to get the basic gist of it down, but keeping up a fast momentum and not breaking a traversal combo becomes a mini-game of its own. Sometimes I kept a combo going just because I could, just to see if I could go from point A to point B miles apart without dropping the traversal combo (the game counts each move and displays the combo number on the top right, and resets if you touch the ground without doing a move). I felt like I was getting better at vaulting over stuff, zipping across lines, and bouncing off objects with every passing hour. Every time I played I got a bit better at timing the grinds, at deciding whether to grind across a billboard vs. jumping over it, I learned to climb up buildings by wall-running and jumping off the wall-run repeatedly, etc. etc. I rarely ever fast-traveled because I just wanted to do the parkour, which is always the best compliment one can give a game: doing something not for an achievement, or for a collectible, or for some number to go up, but doing it purely just for fun.
The other major way I felt Sunset Overdrive outdid Second Son was in content and enemy variety. Second Son very obviously suffered from being a launch title, so ambition had to be kept at a minimum. That meant no sidequests, minimum amounts of collectibles, and just very few things to do outside of the main campaign. Sunset Overdrive, by contrast, has quite a lot to offer. Sidequests, tons of different types of collectibles strewn around (more like Blash Shards in inFamous 1 and 2 and thankfully not at all like the shards inside drones in Second Son), challenges that include weapon challenges, traversal challenges, etc. Not everything is a hit, some of the challenges are better designed than others, but generally theyre really fun and provide enough of a respite from the main story missions that it keeps things varied. Second Sons dearth of collectibles mixed in with really simplistic traversal options made for a very empty open world, to the point where Im hesitant to even call it an open-world game. Sunset ample amount of collectibles, sidequests, challenges, and collectibles, and traversal options, in contrast, keeps your attention for far longer in a city thats a lot more fun to run through. Enemy variety was also a big change. Whereas Second Son had only a handful of enemies, Sunset had three different classes of enemies (OD aka zombies, Scabs aka humans, and Fizzbots aka robots and mechs), each with their own enemy types, behaviors, strengths, weaknesses, etc., etc. I only wish they would mix in the three different types of enemies more often. Sometimes you come across one group of enemies of one class fighting another group of another class while youre running around the open world, but I dont think I ever found myself fighting all three classes at once.
Finally, theres the story missions. In terms of actual story, I dont think either game is strong. Second Sons story definitely tried harder at being a compelling narrative, whereas Sunset Overdrive was a lot more about being a means-to-an-end for gameplay scenarios, but both stories ended up kind of falling flat toward the end of their respective narratives. If I had to choose Id pick Second Son simply because of its ambition, whereas Sunset, by its own admission, was lighthearted and just winged it.
In terms of the gameplay of story missions, though, I do have to give it to Sunset Overdrive. There WERE a lot of missions that kind of repeated on previous ideas, but there was actually a surprising amount of new and fun content thrown at you. It even had a few boss encounters that worked REALLY well, and it threw in a couple of platforming sections that are only rivaled by inFamous 1 (2 and Second Son really dropped the ball in the platforming ). My favorite encounter for Sunset was easily the giant Fizzie balloon that shoots lasers and rockets at you while you grind through thin curved rods across a very tall building. There is NO solid ground here, you have to constantly keep moving and bouncing on radio tower drum...things (I forget what theyre called) to stun the boss and wail on him with your weapons from a very high altitude. It mixed platforming and combat in such a great way and was so over the top that it was only rivaled by some of the bosses in inFamous 1.
So, in the interest of not making an even bigger wall of text, I want to conclude by saying that Sunset Overdrive is the inFamous sequel I always wanted, especially so after having played Second Son. I really hope Sucker Punch makes another inFamous sequel and takes notes on what Insomniac did, because SS would end up being a very bad note to go out on IMO. Sunset Overdrive manages to do open world third person action zaniness with really compelling traversal options and fun combat.
And now let's ponder on "Cole MacGrath vs. Excalamume" fanfiction
