It's a bit weird to be playing a game from two years ago along with a game from last month ago to find so many comparisons between them. Well, as long as you're not playing a Nintendo console(don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the new Mario and Metroid, but isn't it time for a new IP from them? just maybe?).

I picked up inFamous the weekend after it came out, and ordered a copy of Crackdown from eBay that I received the monday after getting inFamous. I mainly got Crackdown because of all the recent buzz about the theme and what ended up being the announcement of Crackdown 2 for the 360. Also, I really dug the demo that came preloaded on my 360. Speaking of which, do they still do that? I had a demo for Kameo and Crackdown and a few others. I would guess so. Anyway, both games are open world in which you shoot people. inFamous you shoot them with electricity, and Crackdown with guns. In Both you're a superpowered individual, gaining new abilities as you unlock them. Both have a leveling up aspect to each ability that stems from what you do in the game, both with the missions and with killing normal dudes. And both have a sort of morality counter. Now, of course, inFamous is much more in depth with the ability to go either way, inFamous or Hero. Crackdown is more like, you should stay good or else our cops will shoot you. And that rating, either way, resets itself either after some time of not killing normal people, or when you boot the game up new. The big thing I really noticed though was the idea of traveling on rooftops as the main way of getting around the city. inFamous more so just because you can't drive, but once you get the agility attribute up enough in Crackdown, it almost becomes easier to just run around and jump than to steal a car. Especially when driving a car is so hard until you get that attribute up.

But I guess that's really where the similarities end. The story is much darker in inFamous and is more guided. There are also more side missions that actually have an effect on your character and the gameplay. Crackdown, as far as I can tell, has virtually no story and the little that is there, just explains who the next boss guy is that you need to kill. The side missions are only there to help increase your stats, mainly with driving and agility. I kind of enjoy Crackdown's leveling better because what you do is reflected directly in your level. So you shoot and kill a guy, you get gun experience. You kick a guy to death, strength. And so on. inFamous is more of an open ended thing. Every guy you kill and such gives you XP that pops up on the screen. You then go into a Powers menu and choose what you want to upgrade. It works just fine, but I like the idea that I don't need to drop out of the game to upgrade things, it'll just do it for me according to how I play the game.

But here's where things really change. Crackdown has been sitting on my shelf for some time now and I've finished the good playthrough on inFamous. I'm about halfway through the second gang in Crackdown, but there's nothing there pushing me on. The story in inFamous is not the best, but gets a lot better towards the end and helps make you want to finish the game. I need like 2 more trophies for the good side and then I'm going to go back in and play through on bad. I'm curious to see how the story changes for bad since there is a distinct split point about 3/4 the way through the game. And who knows when I'll get back to Crackdown. I finally started in on Odin Sphere for the PS2 and I've got Sly Cooper 2 hanging out. I burnt through Sly 1 over last weekend and I plan on writing a review for it to start of the long talked about 'Retro Reviews.' That game was way more awesome than I expected. I'm going back and picking up old games that I missed and it's been a great experience so far. Thankfully Sony's PS1 backlog is getting larger especially with Capcom. I'll finally get a chance to play Dino Crisis and RE3. And I know somewhere Dino Crisis 2 was also mentioned even though it's not in that list. So that's official according to the internet.