14 DAY TRIAL // Next up in our Softpedia Game of the Year 2014 awards is the best action adventure runner up title: Infamous Second Son, the latest title from Sucker Punch available exclusively on the PS4 platform.
The action adventure genre is a sprawling one that can have all sorts of titles categorized within it and 2014 has been a pretty big year, as quite a lot of games have appeared in the last 12 months. Unfortunately, the big contender each year, Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed, hasn't made the best impression, as Unity failed due to its bugs, while Rogue was weighed down by its poor visuals on the PS3 or Xbox 360.
As such, the second best action adventure game of the year is Infamous Second Son from Sucker Punch Productions and Sony. The title had already won the best PS4 exclusive of the year and looked quite strong in the action adventure genre until the fall saw the release of many big competitors.
Great gameplay and powers make Second Son stand out
Even so, the title managed to differentiate itself from others thanks mostly to its innovative gameplay and the imaginative powers that are wielded by protagonist Delsin Rowe.
Previous Infamous games have already delivered some pretty good super-powered adventures, but Second Son elevates things by bringing forth a realistic version of Seattle, which provides a really good open world for the adventures in the story mode. The city, while split into two different zones, is quite varied and manages to have distinct areas in order to make navigating it rather easy.
The gameplay offers plenty of great abilities to Delsin and players, starting with the basic smoke one and continuing with the flashy neon, and then with the outlandish video and concrete power sets. While they all control in a similar manner, they entice people to play in different ways and manage to keep things fresh and exciting.
This, in particular, can be a problem for many action adventure titles, as while they offer different abilities, weapons, or mechanics, players usually tend to go with a few specific ones, probably those they started out with, and not change their style, which then leads them to proclaim that the game is bland or repetitive.
By not allowing players to change their power sets on the fly, as they first have to find a source of smoke, neon, video, or concrete, Sucker Punch at least makes them experience different abilities and this ultimately leads to a refreshing gameplay experience.
For all this and more Infamous Second Son is among the best action adventure games of the year.
Check out our review of Infamous Second Son on PS4.
