The Moral Ambiguity of InFamous

Why extract the leeches out of the Reapers’ lives when you can alternatively just restrain them? InFamous’ moral system tolls its narrative and depiction on the way you want to perceive your superhero, or in this case, your antihero. 

Last month marked the release of Batman: Arkham Asylum, the belated conception of an unusual Batman game that clutches to its roots and mythological basis, as opposed as being rashly adapted from a media-based fabrication. The game has exceedingly been well received by major critics and fans alike, to the point where one magazine declares it as “this year's BioShock”. A seldom adulation, considering this is a superhero game after all. Yet, by the end of the day, this is still a Batman game. Regardless of the fact it’s been originally crafted and written from a painstaking and creative endeavor, nostalgic sentimentalism is bound to be one of the prominent reasons of immediate purchase. Many people will buy it because they want to play as Batman, to purport on his prowess, and to relish his world from his own vantage point. It’s a game that dovetails its directive practices and pleasurably ventures its narrative and choices on the player. There is a moral conviction here; a basic mandate that predestine its acts without any consultation from the player, a stability of the subgenre. But why fix something if it isn’t broken? Isn’t this the main notion that derives our relentless affection on playing superhero games over and over?

Leave it to Sucker Punch to challenge such convention, however. This Washington-based, Sony-funded game company has envisaged a masterstroke that postulates a classic model of refinement, particularly in terms of narrative design. Here, the principle that separates InFamous from other adherers of the conservative superhero commandments is, perhaps, within the same vein that shapes Cole MacGrath’s character, our literally electrifying protagonist. Both the game and the leading character share a moral ambiguity; an entity that is flexible enough to fit into the player’s own worldview and style of play. The inclusion of a karma system within a superhero game such as InFamous, not only it is quite foreign but also defies the nature of the genre; it is a system that can allow a superhero to become a supervillain, or transpire him or her from the usual underdog approach to a more despotic one. Imagine, for example, playing as Batman but instead of arresting or temporarily hindering your foes’ action, you decide to venture on a killing spree, or rather to take on the role of the night guard of Gotham’s populous, you go all gung-ho on them, GTA-style. Such unfortunate and oblivious freedom in gameplay is certainly the last thing you want to see in your favorite superhero game, isn’t it? 

Fortunately, this is not the case with InFamous. While Cole is conceivably the same character that has been pulled off the production line for countless other games –shaven head, rough voice, lean build–, both his rounded façade and mannerism pave the way for the player to reach an understanding of his world. Arguably, Cole serves as a blank canvas for the player to build his/her own morality around, within the limit that constitutes how far a hero can go, malevolently. Unlike Fallout 3 or Fable II, Cole cannot become a purely evil character when given a moral choice; this is, after all, not the superhero way. Instead, Cole assumes the role of an antihero, where malice and offensiveness are merely tools to reach the bigger goal. He still wants to protect the city and save it from the Reapers, but if few people have to be sacrificed to obtain such a demanding prospect then so be it. Perhaps, this is the original approach that Sucker Punch wanted to dare their audience to commence upon picking up the game for the first time. After all, masterfully disabling your foes while protecting the citizens of Empire City, simultaneously, is far more taxing than going all out without an ounce of concern; the game is called InFamous for a reason.

Nonetheless, the karmatic system doesn’t singularly act as a shifting scale of a moral arbitrariness. Sucker Punch has tinkered the archaic system to extend its consequences to the way you play the game instead of just how you view it. Cole’s power upgrades are contingent to the path that you route for him when ethical choices surface. For instance, will you share the food aid with the other hapless pedestrians, or will you keep it for yourself by scaring them away with your thunderbolt ability? Deciding on either of these options will set the parameters of the karma system and branch Cole’s power-ups to accommodate either of his heroic or treacherous ventures. Many games have indeed employed similar juxtaposed contrivances, but InFamous definitely feels more multifarious and accentuated than the most.

The brilliancy of meshing the two genres as it is seen in InFamous has certainly presented Cole the opportunity to grow and act as a vivacious character than the stoic protagonists found within most Western RPGs. While his rendering is riddled with worn clichés and a puerile demeanor, his association with the usual superhero mythologies features some kind of internal struggle, the nemesis of the self. This form of resistance habitually takes its place out of the player’s reach to become just another plot device or an excuse for flashbacks; yet with infamous, it plays out in the hands of the player, fashioning the destiny of Cole’s moral life in the fictional Empire City. Indeed, upon confronting a moral preference within the main story, Cole almost always assess his options and foresees the outcomes of his choices with himself, making him less than a mere vassal to carry out the different missions enforced by the NPCs of Empire City.

It still goes without saying that InFamous isn't a paradigm of how to craft an intelligent character progression. It doesn’t redeem itself of incorporating a wry commentary of an apathetic superhero, with a plot design that is, unfortunately, less individualistic to call its own. Furthermore, Empire City doesn’t add any authentic ambience to influence the players for another visit and to witness the city’s flourish; it is neither Rapture nor Gotham City. Ultimately, such imperative and slightly superficial issues are tolerable obstructions, despite the major gap in its plausibility that borders on mild ridiculousness. InFamous, though, gallantly manages to ask some serious questions and create many unique experiences without ever becoming esoteric. The worst thing that could happen to InFamous is that it wouldn’t imprint its polish memorably, thus, get discarded as another PS3 exclusive and blends into the homogeneous hum of the console’s catalogue. To be famous is what InFamous desperately needs to achieve at this moment.

Comments

[Sinan Kubba]

Sorry Angelo, but I found a lot of problems with this post. You mention Fallout 3 and Fable 2 as counterexamples to the inFamous morality system, but all three employ a very standard gaming convention; the morality meter. Sure, inFamous may dress it up as "antihero", but at the end of the day all three offer a moral spectrum and a set narrative path to go down, and inFamous doesn't really do anything hugely different with its plot to change that. In that respect, I think you cannot say it's more "multifarious or accentuated" than any morality system before it.

Secondly, Batman: Arkham Asylum is not being compared to BioShock because of how it handles morality, but because of how its world is structured. Batman is not a fair example to use here, simply because Rocksteady were obligated to keep within the realms of the license by DC, and Batman is a superhero that works for a good, albeit with dark methods sometimes. Either way, I think you'll find that many people would argue that if you gave Batman a morality meter and moral choices like in inFamous, regardless of license, you're making that game worse. Arkham Asylum worked because it was a set, clear-cut comic book tale. I also suspect many people would argue that inFamous would've benefitted from having its morality system removed, and its storyline more streamlined.

[Angelo]

@Sinan

Hey, Sinan! It's nice to see you here again. I appreciate the time you had offered to read my post. It's nice to get a sense of discussion around here. Anyway, it seems either I didn't elaborate my arguments adequately or that you didn't quite get understand what I was trying to convey. Here is my insights based on your arguments:

• The comparison I was trying to emphasize with the three games, initially, is that the other two grant you the opportunity to go malice from the get-go without any explanation. You just take it as a face value that you can be an evil person or a good person. The protagonists are silent and just mere avatars to shape our morality around; they don’t think of their own nor comprehend the consequences of their actions. In InFamous, however, it is quite different. Cole has a consciousness and awareness of his own. He thinks, assesses, and realizes the outcomes of what he does, especially within the main plot. Instead of a popping message that warns us of the danger of denoting an atomic bomb, for example, it is Cole that does that for us. Couples that with the way the game pave its husbandry and availability of the skills around its moral system, it makes more sense than just a mere arbitration of leveling up your skills and abilities. For example, in Fallout 3, I can be exceedingly a good moral character but at the same time, I can allocate all my skills on theft and sneak. In InFamous, you cannot access these malicious abilities without being a malicious person first. Thus, it is “multifarious and accentuated” in this regard.

• I never included Arkham Asylum with the morality discussion, only as comparison between the two as superhero games. This is way I pointed out the acclamation the game has generated due its firm stance to its roots and mythos. I was just illustrating the picture of how we would perceive a superhero game if it “went wild”. I didn’t criticize Arkham Asylum for not employing a morality system. My criticism of the morality system, as I pointed out, was with other W-RPGs. Also, I understood the comparison that was being made out between Arkham Asylum and BioShock, which it was from the point of immersion of the setting and the innovation it has for the subgenre of superhero games. In fact, you will see that I made a clear comparison between Empire City on one hand and Rapture and Gotham City on the other. The former doesn’t muster any genuine sense of its landscape, as it is dull and “gray”. And finally, truth to be told that I still haven’t got to play Arkham Asylum, and if I did, I would never want to incorporate a karmatic system, simply because and I quote from my post “this is, after all, not the superhero way”.

[Sinan Kubba]

I think you're really giving the inFamous morality system too much credit. I think all Cole is doing is explaining the situation - not any more than the peripheral characters in Fallout 3 or Fable 2 explain the situation. You're demeaning of Fallout 3's morality to its early bomb choice is totally unfair. There is far more to that game beyond that situation. To Fallout 3's and Fable II's credit, a sizeable amount of its morality choices are ambigious, unlike inFamous in which they're all clear-cut good or evil choices. So clear cut were they, and the tieing of abilities, that the whole thing felt like padding rather than choice, a way to make the player play the game twice instead of once - and not a subtle or appealing way either. I really like inFamous, but I do think you're giving it way too much credit.

If your case wasn't to relate inFamous to Batman, I find it a little confusing that you did mention it, and say that what Batman does is conventional compared to what inFamous does. Good-or-evil choices in games, and in superhero games for that matter - look at recent example Spiderman: Web of Shadows - is just as conventional as keeping players down a set path. Maybe you weren't directly comparing the two, but I just found the mention a bit confusing, and the mention of BioShock implied, given the conversation, that you were tieing it into the morality debate. But it appears I misread, so I'll take it back. We'll agree to disagree on inFamous, but the main thing is that we both enjoyed the game, right?

[Summer]

cool!