You could burn through the story missions alone in a couple of hours here, especially since the flight ability makes it so quick and easy to get from place to place. It's those collectibles that add a little bit of meat to what is otherwise a pretty lean experience. The game works the vampiric theme into the gameplay pretty well, since you're fighting (and staking) other vampires almost constantly, and you get a "vampire vision" sort of mode that lets you reveal disguised vampires walking among the populace, as well as some nifty hidden collectibles. Festival of Blood reminds me of BioShock 2's masterful Minerva's Den in the way it accelerates the progression of your abilities over a compressed timespan you start out with basic Infamous powers at the beginning and quickly advance to more powerful weaponry by completing combat challenges.
It's incredibly fast to get around the city now, so fast that you might have a hard time going back to Infamous 2 after this. There's one meaningful new ability in here-the power to turn into a cloud of bats and soar right over all those buildings you had to climb up slowly in the previous game-that really changes the feel of how this game plays. Since the game is still Infamous 2 at heart, it's worth noting that the same combat issues are here-mainly, it's easy to get ganged up on at inopportune times, or occasionally stick to a piece of the level design when you're trying to dodge. That means a lot of dodging and rolling in between hurling bolts of lightning and electric grenades and rockets at enemies. New Marais' seasonal makeover helps establish the mood.įestival of Blood is built on the Infamous 2 engine and assets, which is to say it feels almost exactly like Infamous 2 (which in turn felt a lot like the original Infamous). You've only got until dawn to kill Mary and break your enslavement, and the game does a great job of indicating the passage of time by reminding you at certain points during the story how many hours you have left, and subtly changing the world by lightening the sky to give the sense that time is in fact running out. The crux of the story here is Cole's transformation into a minion of the sly vampiress Bloody Mary.
The city also feels more alive than Infamous 2 did, with more and better ambient sounds, and street parades and revelers almost everywhere you look. That gives the game carte blanche to get as crazy as it wants with undead monsters overrunning the city during a booze-soaked nocturnal celebration known as Pyre Night, which dresses Infamous 2's New Marais up in some attractive seasonal decorations.
Your old pal Zeke is at a bar spinning a yarn to some comely lass, about that one time legendary electro-guy Cole MacGrath became a vampire for one night. Festival of Blood might be a little short on content, but there are things about it that are genuinely better than Infamous 2 itself, and for only $10, it's hard to argue with how much is included.Īs all good what-if games ought to, Festival of Blood works within a framing story that doesn't take itself seriously. This year it's Sucker Punch getting into the act, with a standalone Infamous game rife with vampires. With all its emphasis on monster archetypes and sinister atmosphere, Halloween is as ripe as any holiday for the game treatment, and around this time last year we got a double dose of creepy little downloadables with Costume Quest and the brilliant Red Dead Redemption add-on Undead Nightmare. Maybe it was too much time spent watching Charlie Brown holiday specials in my youth, but I find something fundamentally appealing about seasonally-themed games. Plenty of new enemies to stick a stake in.
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