For the uninitiated, inFamous is a PlayStation 3-exclusive open world adventure that places you in control of Cole McGrath (whose last name I’ve only just discovered thanks to Wikipedia). The game begins as a massive bomb devastates the fictional Empire City. The story, told via a series of beautifully animated comic book-style transitions, opens with Cole waking up from the explosion to find he’s able to control electricity. Large amounts of it, actually. As Cole, you can blast bolts of electricity from your palms and absorb juice from just about anything connected to the mains. So much for the ol’ carbon footprint.

Cole’s power (and actually, almost everything else) then revolves around electricity, including the majority of your mission objectives and movement throughout the open world environment. To begin with your electrical powers just let you zap baddies and blow things up, but as you progress you’ll unlock the ability to glide, shoot rockets, electricity grenades, use the current as a shield and, eventually, pretend you’re in the X-Men and summon huge lightning storms from the sky.

Cole looks out over Empire City

Being a conduit for 40,000 watts apparently gets in the way of driving, so, although you’ll see a lot of them around Empire City, vehicles aren’t much chop for getting from A to B. You can run about the city’s streets but what you’ll really want to do is grind the game’s many railway tracks and powerlines for speedy movement. Anyone who’s played a Sly Cooper game will spot inFamous’ roots here, and it’s this fast-paced aerial platforming where the game shines.

It’s a safe bet Sucker Punch played a fair bit of Assassins’ Creed last year, as Cole climbs from object to object on any building or structure with all the agility of Altier. Climbing buildings is also good sense if you don’t fancy being riddled with bullets (for all his powers Cole doesn’t last long in the firing line) as the rooftops offer the best protection.

My biggest problem with inFamous was the ordinary story and iffy pacing. There are a few key characters – Zeke, Cole’s tubby friend, FBI agent Moya and her husband John for instance, but they’re all terribly developed. Cole’s primary motivation is his girlfriend Trish who’s in a strop having come to the conclusion he deliberated detonated the device. As a result, you’ll spend many of the missions trying to make things right with her. The problem, and it’s a big one, is the she’s the most one dimensional, unlikeable, wooden character in the game. It doesn’t help that her character model looks like it belongs in 1999’s Quake III…

If you don't fancy the hero route you can wreak plenty of havoc.

So, the story is pretty rubbish (although a few plot twists – one in particular – do perk things up a bit). But once I’d given up on the story getting any better, I really enjoyed the gameplay. In terms of the pacing, things start off well, take a real nosedive around the ten hour mark with predictable escort and shooting gallery missions, then pick up rapidly for the game’s conclusion. One section around three quarters in asks you to ascend a massive tower made from debris (rubble, metal beams and destroyed cars) – this was a real treat.

The game’s three islands, clearly influenced by Rockstar North’s Grand Theft Auto design, look pretty samey. I only noticed I was on a new island when I crossed a bridge to return to an earlier objective, so there was a missed opportunity here to diversify the experience more. For a first party PS3 game that’s been in the oven as long as inFamous has, it actually looks pretty ordinary. It’s serviceable – the frame rate holds up and when you’re up high the scale is pretty impressive – but put it next to Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune or, worse still, Killzone 2 and it looks like a high def PS2 title. The character models and animations during in-game cut scenes are particularly poor.

You do get the sense by the end of the game (when all your powers are finally unlocked) that you’re a real superhero. There’s also plenty to do once you finish up if you’re a little OCD – hundreds of blast shards and ‘dead drop’ satellite messages are hidden away if you fancy extending your maximum electricity and Trophy hunting, and you can play through again making different good or bad decisions to influence minor story changes.

With better writing, even given the pacing issues, inFamous could have been really special. Still, all in all, I had a great time with this one.

The official PS3 Tekken 6 wireless fight stick.

The sticks will retail for USD$150 (AUD$190) and will come with the art book pictured in the right of the images above and below.

Tekken 6 will release in Australia during the fourth quarter of 2009 – a specific date has not yet been announced. No news on these official sticks making their way down under but fingers crossed – if all else fails, you can always import (or use those expensive Mad Catz Street Fighter IV sticks you splashed out on earlier this year).

The official Xbox 360 Tekken 6 wireless fight stick.

In other Tekken 6 news, it’s been confirmed that Penny Arcade’s famous Cardboard Tube Samurai will feature in Tekken 6 as a downloadable costume for Yoshimitsu. No word yet on pricing or availability outside of North America where the DLC will be offered as a pre-order bonus at retailer GameStop.

I was a big fan of 2007’s MotorStorm. Launching alongside the PlayStation 3 (nearly $1,000 at the time), the game was a technical showpiece. Developed by British Evolution Studios (of PlayStation-exclusive WRC fame), the first game had some very obvious failings, but there was something about that floaty, easy to pick up-difficult to master physics system that kept me glued for hours. MotorStorm: Pacific Rift isn’t a huge departure from the first game, but there are some immediate, high-impact improvements. Set on a series of pacific islands, the game’s colour pallet is refreshing. Gone are the muddy browns of the canyon from the first MotorStorm, replaced with rich jungle greens and deep blues soaked in a generous helping of high dynamic range lighting.

There was a time not so long ago when simulation racing was ruling the roost – happily it seems like, even though Forza 3 and Gran Turismo 5 (the real one…) are on the horizon, racers designed to thrill are enjoying a renaissance. I’ve earned my fair share of Gran Turismo licenses over the years, but I’m a bigger fan of the extreme racing genre. That’s why I’m enjoying Pacific Rift so much – it’s the same kind of reckless thrill-seeking buzz I first got from Burnout 3: Takedown, the SSX series and, more recently, Blackrock Studios’ excellent Pure.

Pacific Rift is structured pretty similarly to the first game (sans the horrible loading times between tracks and vehicle selection). The MotorStorm festival is back with rev-heads from around the world setting up camp to watch filthy off-road racing where tankers, ATVs, dirt bikes and monster trucks lock wheels. As with the first game, the kind of vehicle you select dramatically changes the kind of race you’ll run, even though all vehicles compete on the same track. Multiple paths are always present and interestingly, a path that’s a shortcut driving an ATV can end up wasting you precious seconds if you try and take it with a heavy vehicle (the same is true in the reverse), so you need to always pay attention. Pacific Rift seems to strike a much better balance between its vehicle classes than the first game, but you can still play to the strengths you know (big rigs may be slow but dirt bike and ATV riders don’t stand a chance in their path).

Motion blur fans unite.

The boost system, which I always thought worked well in the first game, has been tweaked slightly. As before, all vehicles have unlimited boost, but boosting too much can cause your engine to overheat and explode. The twist this time around are the elements on the tracks – driving through or underneath water will cool your engine, allowing you to boost without waiting so long for things to cool off. Depending on your vehicle, driving through water can really slow you down though, so it’s an interesting compromise. Conversely, driving over lava in the hotter stages causes your engine to overheat more quickly, reducing the amount of boost you can use.

The game’s sixteen tracks are divided up between earth, wind fire and water categories. Earth tracks take you through dense, tropical forest floor (generally tighter, more technical races) while wind tracks are set at the peaks of the game’s mountains, encouraging you to boost off enormous ramps (oftentimes without knowing where you’ll land) and hurtle down sheer cliff faces. Fire tracks are probably my least favourite, forcing you to battle with lava and rocky terrain. Water tracks are similar to earth routes but they’re more spacious and (surprisingly enough) feature more water.

You can actually race on this terrain.

Evolution has obviously gone to the trouble of addressing underlying concerns from the first game – all the great stuff like real time terrain deformation, gorgeous visuals and a pretty amusing implementation of Havok’s rag doll physics engine returns, but the real focus is on balance, improving a sense of progression in the game and – wait for it – the return of local split screen multiplayer! Note to all racing game developers: the internet is great, but so is my couch. Never omit split screen multiplayer. The game also features Trophies (I’ll admit, I’m a Trophy and Achievement addict) and PSN online races seem to hold up well.

Chances are, if you’re a PlayStation 3 owner, you’ve already picked up MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. If you haven’t, it comes highly recommended. If I put my reviewer’s hat on I could call out an inconsistent difficulty arc (you’ll need to be content with a silver medal from time to time or you’ll go insane) and the odd piece of track design that doesn’t take the best advantage of the physics engine, but on the whole, Pacific Rift is one of the most compelling reasons to own a PlayStation 3 this side of God of War 3.  Now, where’s that copy of inFamous…