If the world was to fall into an apocalyptic tail spin, and in the tumult, you were granted an arsenal of awesome super powers, would you use them to help those in need or would you shun altruistic responsibility and simply strive to take care of number one? So goes the moral quandary at the heart of Sucker Punch Production's PS3 exclusive, INFAMOUS.

Right off, despite any shortcomings I may gripe about as this review unfolds, I have to say INFAMOUS is one of the PS3's finest offerings. It's a class act from start to finish. I had a blast with it and it kept me coming back hour after hour after hour after hour until I beat it into a sorry, throbbing pile of bruised and battered pixels. Which is a feat and a half considering how damn busy I've been lately. Whether I was dead tired or behind on a deadline or skirting other crap that needed to get done, I somehow managed to let it all go and sneak in a little time (okay, a lot of time).

In many ways, INFAMOUS, is a spiritual successor to one of my favorite 360 games, CRACKDOWN. Like CRACKDOWN it takes the sandbox formula popularized by GRAND THEFT AUTO and throws a wildly powerful superhero into the mix. Rather than getting your sociopathic thug on and running around a nicely realized city, terrorizing innocents, stealing cars, shooting it out with pimps and drug runners and gang bangers, you get to get your man-of-steel on and fly around administering justice with an assortment of super-cool powers. CRACKDOWN (another title that had me shrugging off the world) was pretty awesome because the more you did something the better you got at it. Your powers were intact to begin with, but you had to work at them to get them up to snuff. If you wanted super strength, then you ran around the city and spent a few hours picking up cars until your strength index maxed out. INFAMOUS employs a more traditional kill baddies, complete missions, gain experience points (that you can spend on an array of powers and upgrades) design and while not as intuitive as CRACKDOWN (a sequel is dropping 2010 - commence salivating now), the dynamic works well and in the end you'll still feel like a major bad ass (which is all that really matters here anyway).

The game takes place in the fictional Empire City, a New York like metropolis that has been wiped out by a mysterious explosion. You control Cole, a bike messenger, who inadvertently causes the destruction by delivering and then opening a package (at the behest of an anonymous customer) containing the Ray Sphere, a super weapon that decimates six city blocks and leaves Cole sizzling with electric might. The government promptly quarantines Empire City's three island metropolises and the surviving populous is left to fend for themselves against plague, famine, power outages and scores of lawless marauders taking advantage of the rampant chaos.

Cole is mutated by the blast and becomes an unwilling superhero, his powers enabling him to help or hurt the cause, but it's up to you whether he becomes a shining paladin or an infamous bastard. I gleefully choose the bastard route.

Now, if CRACKDOWN kicks INFAMOUS's ass via innovative level progression, INFAMOUS kicks CRACKDOWN's ass by way of story. The narrative here is strong and compelling and it kept me riveted throughout. There are layers upon layers and wheels upon wheels turning within this nifty little tale of heroism, espionage, love, loyalty and redemption and it's worth playing just to unravel the storyline. I was intrigued and truly cared what happened. This doesn't happen often with games, but when it does, this nerd is in nerd-heaven.

So far so wonderful, but us nerds can't live on story and story alone, we play games for gameplay and I am happy to report, INFAMOUS delivers in spades. The control scheme is perfect and as you start amassing those experience points and unlocking those awesome powers you truly do become a god among men. Each power in the game is electricity based and feels as powerful as you'd expect wielding currents of flesh burning electro-death to feel. Our man, Cole, can shoot blasts of lightning from his hands or summon a massive bolt down from the heavens (perfect for dispatching gun turrets and mutant beasts). He can throw sticky bombs of electric fire and when he runs low on power, replenishing is as simple as leeching energy from telephone poles and power sources (phone booths, cars, traffic lights). He can push his palms down, generate some sizzle, and hover. Bad ass-ness abounds. Cole's skill set is impressive, easy to use and way powerful. If the story sucked, I'd be happy with the powers alone. Kudos to Sucker Punch for delivering on both. I think the game clocks in at about twelve to fifteen hours, but like most sandbox titles, you can abandon the main story mission structure and take to the city and just wreak havoc. Like most sandbox games, I found myself doing so often. It's loads of fun and stretches the value, upping playtime considerably.

The missions are typical sandbox fare, but exciting in that they put Cole's superb repertoire of abilities to the test. You'll find yourself defending medical crates from waves of attackers, or powering a train from one of the city to other while fending off waves of attackers. Sometimes you'll just fight waves of attackers for the sole sake of fighting waves of attackers. It all sounds a bit redundant, but Sucker Punch did such a great job with combat and movement you'll hardly notice. In fact, I eagerly awaited the next opportunity to punish bad guy after bad guy. In later levels, a few set pieces upped the ante and called for a little strategizing. Running in and zapping the enemy wasn't enough and I loved hanging back and experimenting using different powers in conjunction with one another. There's really nothing like throwing a leveled up sticky bomb into a puddle of water (as you might imagine water and Cole don't mix) and then using your shockwave (a force push power that hurls opponents and debris across the screen) on a crowd of attackers, propelling them into the watery explosion. Shit blows up real good.

INFAMOUS's answer to innovation (remember CRACKDOWN's leveling system?) is a karma meter that moves from Good to Evil (the designation Infamous being the pinnacle on the evil side) dependent upon how Cole reacts to certain situations. Early in the game, the government air drops food and supplies into the city. Lawless marauders move in and steal the supplies and you are tasked with getting them back. After some thrilling combat you succeed and then are given a choice - keep the supplies for yourself or distribute them to the general public? If you choose to be greedy your karma (represented by a little wheel on the HUD) shifts toward evil, but if you go Mother Teresa on 'em, the wheel shifts toward good. The nicer you are, the more the citizenry of Empire City like you. They compliment you and even throw rocks at the baddies in an effort to aid you as you fight them. If you go evil, folks will start hurling insults and rocks your way.

This is all well and good, innovative even, and I enjoy a good ethical dilemma as much the next guy, but the occasional karmic choice - be it good or bad - frustrated me. When you break shit down and clear away all of the smoke and mirrors, game design is a very linear, focused thing. That we are actually controlling something is manufactured, an illusion to make players think they have control. The best games do everything in their power to hide this and make the experience immersive. Here is where the great INFAMOUS loses a bit of momentum. Things are way too black and white and the game demands you choose sides. It takes a great game and keeps it from becoming a perfect game by reminding you it is only a game with a limited set of options. While being faced with a good or evil scenario I half expected a booming voice to ring out from my surround sound speakers proclaiming, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" I kept thinking, why don't I have the option to be both good and evil? Why can't I be a little more good than evil? Or a little more evil than good? Why can't I be a vigilante anti-hero without having to be a total white knight or a complete dick?

Wait. Not so fast. You could... I mean, you could perform good actions when you believed in them (helping a guy escape a pack of baddies) and evil actions should the desire strike (why not just take what I want?). You could... But the game's upgrade system is dependent upon these black or white choices and if you waffle in the middle too much - performing the just acts you agree with, and the evil acts that sound fun - you won't be able to grow your powers. You see, there are a total of seventeen powers - one neutral power that is available whether you are good or evil, and then eight distinct powers for each alignment. If you go good, you can't access certain evil powers. If you go evil you can't access certain good powers. Moreover, most powers are only upgradeable as you advance your position as a good guy or an evil prick. By playing the middle, you can buy a few powers from each alignment, but you can never max them out and take advantage of the awesome destruction at your hissing fingertips. I suppose this encourages a second play through, but (unless you're a kid) who has the time to do another fifteen hours of the same old same old?

Small potatoes, I say. Because every other facet of INFAMOUS rocks so hard I couldn't put the sticks down. There were moments where I wondered what it would be like to wield some of those good guy powers. I wondered what would happen if I helped the poor guy strung up by the angry mob, or if I chose to help the cops protect their precinct from droves of wild terrorists, but then, wonderment be damned, all I had to do was shock the fuck out of some poor old lady, hurl her into a car, throw a few sticky bombs, and then shockwave the whole burning mess into a sidewalk full of screaming pedestrians. Needless to say, I got over wondering such things pretty quickly.