Video Games for Moms - inFamous
Busy Gaming Moms Don't Have to Wait to Play Sucker Punch's Hit Game
Aug 1, 2009
An explosion caused Cole McGrath to have a really bad day and it spread the bad day to the rest of his life. The blast blessed Cole with powers of electricity, which has led the people of Empire City to believe that the explosion was his fault. The federal government enlists his help in helping them solve the mystery as to what happened as well as helping the people of Empire City defend themselves from the gun-toting Reapers.
Cole has many tasks and missions to take care of while he uncovers the mystery of the explosion, and these tasks, coupled with the ability for players to save the game whenever they choose, allow for players to fit in game time whenever they get a few spare minutes. For the busy mom who may only have thirty minutes to just herself a day, this is more than ideal.
Quick Overview of inFamous Gameplay
Cole MacGrath embarks on several missions during his quest; some are story missions but a majority of them are optional side missions. In addition to gaining experience for completing these missions, Cole will have opportunities to make moral decisions.
The way Cole's karmic alignment slants gives Cole specific powers (for example, Good Cole will learn Overload Burst whereas Evil Cole will learn Arc Lightning), changes Cole's appearance, changes how civilians react to Cole, allows Cole to partake in specific Good/Evil side missions, and changes how Cole's story progresses and ends.
Cole MacGrath Sports Lightning Quick Gameplay and Saves
The big highlight of inFamous for the busy gaming mom is the ability to save Cole's game whenever and wherever. This does come with a slight caveat though. When starting a saved game, the game places Cole in the current respawn point of the game. If the player has started a story mission, the mission will still be active, but any progress made before saving and quitting will be null and void. It's the same for side missions.
This seems like it would be a giant pain for gaming moms. They don't have much time as it is, so they don't really want to replay a mission every time they quit before the mission is over. The game helps this dilemma by making the missions relatively short, so it's easy to quickly play a mission to the end before saving and quitting. And even if a mom has her game time cut short, it won't take long to replay her last progression.
The story missions take at most thirty minutes to complete, and that's typical only if she dies and respawns often. The side missions often take five minutes, tops, which is perfect for those short gametimes, i.e. naptimes.
Cole has plenty of other things to do in Empire City besides missions. For short game times, moms can readily busy themselves with blast shard seeking, dead drop hunting, and Reaper hunting.
Empire City Controls Have a Sharp Learning Curve
The biggest downside to this game for moms is the learning curve for the controls. It takes only a couple of missions to learn the controls, but it takes a few more missions to become truly comfortable with them. This isn't as steep or as forbidding as they could have been, but if moms can't play inFamous at least once for a couple of hours every two weeks, she will have to reteach herself the controls.
Thankfully, though, the inFamous pause/menu screen can give moms a little refresher course. It has an image of the controller that describes the function of each of the controller's buttons, and the Powers menu explains each power and what buttons will activate them.
Gaming Moms Should Not Miss inFamous
InFamous is easy to recommend to all gamers, just for the sheer fact of how much of a "blast" it is to play. Since it has so many features that are easily conducive to fitting into a mom's busy schedule, no matter if the mom has newborns or teenagers, there is no reason for moms not to at least rent this electrical treat.
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