The downside of E3 is that trying to keep up with all the news can really cut into your gaming time, so between that (and a random sidetrack into Farcry 2 on the Xbox) I’m only 11% of the way through Infamous 2 after my first weekend with the game.

To put that in perspective, I’m still in the first “chunk” of the game, but have gotten past the tutorial sections and into the ‘open world’ parts. I’ve also unlocked the User Generated Content stuff. I’m not sure how the game determines % of completion but I have spent a lot of time chasing down blast cores (you collect these to increase your energy storage capacity…or in other words they give you more ammo between re-supplies) and Dead Drops (audio logs on USB thumbdrives strapped to the legs of pidgins flying around). Plus doing my hero thing of stopping crimes in progress and fighting the evil Militia.

Point is, I’m not rushing through the missions by any stretch of the imagination.

In my first post I worried about the twitchiness of the controls, but as anticipated I’ve become much more comfortable with them now. I do still shove innocent people over now and then, but most of New Marais seems to be in party mode so they’re all pretty laid back about this kind of thing. Hell, I’ve hit a few with electric bolts and once they’ve picked themselves up, they’ll still run over to me and thank me for saving them from the bad guys. They understand collateral damage, I guess (plus I have that Hero Boost that means I don’t do much damage to civilians).

Side missions have started to repeat, but so far I haven’t found anything as tedious as those “Remove the surveillance devices from an apartment building.” missions the first game had. Disrupting the off-loading of supplies from docking ships is the one I’ve had twice, but they’re fun missions. Fighting on boats when water means instant death is always interesting. Though I did get a Trophy for killing a baddie by stepping in the same body of water he was standing in. Electricity charged the whole area and down he went. Evil Karma for that, though..even if it was an accident.

The story hasn’t really taken off yet, but the Dead Drops are really cool if you played the first game, since they fill in a lot of what was going on ‘behind the scenes’ while you were running around chasing Kessler. I’m not sure they’ll be as interesting to folks who hit the series at game #2.

So the most important question: Am I having fun? Well hell yes I am! I’ve gotten back into the grove of grinding power lines, leaping and then hovering over baddies and finally doing a slam into the ground, throwing goons every which way (for example). The people are starting to love me (I’m headed for that full Hero Trophy) and it’s always gratifying to heal a crowd and have them all cheer me afterwards. I’m doing good in New Marais…. but the Militia aren’t the only evil lurking in the streets and I think things are just getting started.

My biggest problem is that I focus so hard on the game and get so into it that I tend to be in a kind of daze for a while after playing it! While that’s bad, it’s also high praise when a game sucks me in like that.