inFAMOUS 2: Festival of Blood

inFAMOUS 2: Festival of Blood was released back on October 25, 2011 and I unfortunately haven't gotten a chance to play it up until now.

This single player DLC is completely separate from the inFAMOUS 2 story line. If you do not own inFAMOUS 2 (which I don't understand way anyone wouldn't), you can still download and play Festival of Blood without being lost as to what's going on in the game or needing the inFAMOUS 2 disc to play. There's also a quick tutorial of the controls for all you first time players.

Now, I bet you're thinking to yourself right now "How could the inFAMOUS games possibly get any better?" These games already come complete with a hero you can make either good or evil and has some pretty great powers. When you get into these games it's hard to rip yourself away from them, but what was missing? Vampires.

In the beginning of the game, Cole goes to the catacombs of the church in New Marais to help the people that got trapped by a collapsing ceiling. He goes on saving one person to the next until he gets to his last target who then attacks him! When he comes to, he sees that his blood is going to be responsible for bringing Bloody Mary, the head Vampire, back to life. To show her gratitude towards Cole she decides to give him the gift of immortality. From that point on, you learn that by daylight she will control Cole and make him one of her minions. You have 8 hours (no, there isn't a timer) to unravel the mystery of defeating Bloody Mary. If you do not make this deadline then you will be under her control forever.

Those who are familiar with inFAMOUS 2 may be happy to see that the UGC (User Generated Content) feature is back with some Festival of Blood missions created by fellow gamers. Festival of Blood adds some powers to Cole's arsenal that compliment his existing powers quite nicely. The more you dig into the game, the more powers become available to you.

If you're a fan of the inFAMOUS games but have been on the fence about this DLC, I would say definitely download this. It keeps things close enough to the disc games where fans will enjoy it and also be happily surprised by the new powers.

inFAMOUS 2 - First Impressions

It's finally here!! I've had inFAMOUS 2 on pre-order since March of this year and eagerly waited for this day to come. I kept reading up this game on various video game websites to get a feel of how the game was going to turn out and minus a few changes that were made to Cole, I was pretty happy with the direction it was going. I always thought inFAMOUS was a truly epic game and couldn't wait for the sequel to come out. Well, that day is finally here and I was happy to see my Hero Edition of inFAMOUS 2 waiting for me when I got home.

As the release date approached, pre-order information became available to the public. Certain stores (Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Amazon, and GameStop) will get you certain extras to unlock at the start of the game for ordering with them. The Hero Edition gives you what each of the four stores are giving and then some. Since all of the extras sounded good to me so I thought it was a good idea to get them all in one package. I thought getting a Kessler Skin, a 24K Amp, the Electrocution Grenade power, and the Lightning Hook power was great but then the Hero Edition threw in a code for the inFAMOUS Red Soundtrack, a mimi comic, a replica sling bag, and a Cole statue! With all those powers, that's a great way to start a game.

So far I like the customization of skins, Amps, and powers. You have the choice of changing your Amp to either 24K gold, a Samurai Sword, Sly's Cane from the Sly Cooper games, or a Caveman Club that looks pretty sweet! you can also change Cole's appearance to be either Classic Cole (just the clothes from the first game), New Marais Cole, Kessler (assuming you got the code to do so), or a Reaper from inFAMOUS. It should be entertaining to play through the game as Kessler or a Reaper just for fun.

Before you step into the inFAMOUS 2 world you have the option to either continue the story from the first game bringing all you choices with you or starting new with a clean slate. If you choose to continue with your inFAMOUS 1 save (as I did) you get bonus' which include starting with Level 1 Evil Karma (or Good Karma if that's the route you went), extra XP, and extra energy storage. I decided to continue my inFAMOUS 1 story and was able to use my red lightning I obtained for being evil in the first game.

The controls are pretty much the same as in the first game. You do get added abilities and even get to choose which ones to use through out the game. Another new feature is the UGC (User Generated Content) you can play as side missions. There was a beta not too long ago where PS+ members were able to create missions and publish them online. Sucker Punch took some of that UGC content and put it onto the game. You too can even create and publish your own UGC missions.

inFAMOUS 2 has a lot to offer and I can't wait to see how the story unfolds.

Demon's Souls

Demon's Souls is not your regular RPG with a very unique MP aspect. It has that classic dungeon crawler aspect where you have to complete each section in one sitting. You need to be in this game careful because if you die, you start back in the beginning with all enemies re-spawned and without the souls (the game's currency) you have acquired. You get the choice to play either in human form or soul form. You have less HP in souls form which could make things more difficult but if you choose to play in human form, your game gets harder. It's definitely not a game you can rush your way through.

I've owned Demon's Souls for a little over a year now and didn't really gotten into in until recently. When I first started playing it, I tried to rush through the first level and learned real quick that you need to take your time in this game. After many tries, I just couldn't complete the first level. I would keep dying and only got irritated because of that fact. I ended up putting Demon's Souls to the side for a while so I could cool down. When I picked it back up I kept in mind that I need to go slowly, that helped a lot. I was able to finally beat the first real boss in the game and that gave me some hope.

After finding out that an online friend had Demon's Souls as well, I wanted to try out the MP aspect of the game. In Demon's Souls you'll see white phantoms running through your game from time to time. Those are other players that are in soul form in their game. When someone dies, you see a bloodstain and that shows you how that person died so you can possibly learn from that. The way the MP works in this game is that someone needs to be in human form in order to summon another player. That player then comes into your game as a Blue Phantom and can help you out. The level will only count as completed for the person in human form but the Blue Phantom does get half of the souls earned through out the level. The only downside is that while in human form your game can be invaded by a Black Phantom that can kill you or even go after the Blue Phantom in your game and take their souls. Some people like to play PvP and summon Red Phantoms to fight.

Once you complete the game, you can start a NG+ with all the souls and equipment you had in your previous game as well as the level you ended with. This doesn't make your game easier since the difficulty goes up with each game completion. I ended up being level 158 by time I got my platinum but the level cap is 712. I can only imagine how difficult the game must be at that level.

Once I had a friend to play with on a regular basis, we kept getting more and more trophies. By the time we reached 50% of the trophies we knew we wanted to get all of them! It takes a lot to get the trophies since you have to fully upgrade different with every type of material as well as beat all bosses and obtain all spells/miracles. It took a long time to get through some of the levels but after learning from our mistakes and reading up on the different areas we got it down to a science. It took us 155+ hours to finally get that platinum but it was well worth it!

For anyone that's a hardcore fan of RPG's or is just looking for a game that truly challenges them, I would suggest picking up Demon's Souls. The servers are set to be shut down by October this year so if you're looking to play with someone, you need to act fast.