I generally like to go into reviews with a highly critical standpoint. That way if it’s bad I’m not disappointed, and if it turns out to be good then I’m pleasantly surprised.

Such was not the case in this instance. I’ve been hyped for this game for months and after getting my grubby little hands on a demo code, I can now say that I have fulfilled my short-term dream of playing some inFAMOUS. Find out if it was all the dream I hoped it would be, or a complete and utter nightmare, after the jump.

I can’t keep you waiting any longer gang, this demo rocks some serious socks. Oh how I would love to pretend otherwise and pull at your proverbial chains but I just can’t spend any more time fooling around. This… demo… is… awesome.

Graphically I firmly believe inFAMOUS could use some more polish, I don’t know if this demo is from the retail build or not but it is certainly not as high a quality as I was expecting. That said, it’s still pretty, just not “Killzone 2″ pretty.

This demo has long legs, and I mean LONG. There haven’t been many demos over the years that have kept my interest to keep going back, but this one definitely ranks highly in that short list. You’ll participate in several main story missions as well as a couple of side missions, each one generally involving destroying or protecting something from the bad guys. The entire first island of the game, of which there seem to be three overall, is your playground throughout these missions. Beat up your enemies, zap a few innocents and free-run your life away.

Which brings me to the free-running. It’s quite reminiscent of Assassin’s Creed in this regard. You have a jump button and a drop button, and every building on the map has been meticulously designed to allow for ground-to-rooftop escalation. You can climb poles, girders, grind across electrical wires, constantly utilising the “float” option for those distances you want to jump but seem a little too far. Upon starting the demo, I jumped off of the rooftop I was standing on and landed squarely on a bollard of sorts. Tiptoeing gracefully upon its heightened dome, I proceeded to electrify a few innocent bystanders (literally, not just impress them with my balancing act). The only issue I’ve found with free-running is getting down from a heightened area can be relatively annoying. If you just want to drop to the floor you will invariably end up grasping at nearby ledges. Unless of course you utilise the Shock Drop. This enjoyable little aerial maneuver allows for you to hurl yourself at the ground resulting in a thunderous – and electrical – crater-forming landing. Everything (and everyone), in the nearby area will most likely explode. This is not advised, however, when attempting to land next to your side-quest giver. Mine died… horribly.

Each mission casts you as a different alignment.  There’s not a whole lot of difference between Good Karma and Evil Karma in terms of powers within the demo, but your interactions with people differ greatly. This includes the quest givers, one of which virtually refuses to talk to you if you’re evil.

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