From December 10, the "Gigawatt Blades" superpower - which had previously been available only as a preorder incentive - will be released for free, for everyone. To quote Sony, it performs "massive damage".

Along with the new DLC, Sony also announced that the game will be dropped to $40, have its soundtrack released later this month, and has now sold 1.2 million copies.

Oh, he'll still be the same old Cole. He may just sound a little different, a little more like actor David Sullivan. G4's The Feed spotted Sullivan's tweet about an audition for Cole in "the sequel of Infamous" today, unofficial confirmation that part two is a go.

The sequel, if Sullivan's going to the right audition, could very well have face-melting moments. The potential Cole replacement may be best known for his role in the 2004 independent time-traveling film Primer, giving Sullivan some semblance of sci-fi cred.

More details at G4!

Sucker Punch Auditioning For inFamous 2, Possibly Recasting Main Character [G4's The Feed]

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Turner pitched the movie to Sony Pictures, which pre-emptively caught it, and the studio is now working out a deal for rights to adapt the game into a major motion picture. The Arad's are set to produce, just as they are producing the Uncharted: Drake's Fortune feature film.

As for Sheldon's take on the game, his comments are nothing if not heartening to fans of the Sucker Punch-developed, free-roaming superhero title.

"What excited me most about the game was it was the first of which I've come across that had a big idea and a character arc," Turner said. "It is, I believe, the future of gaming. The game, while big and fun, is at its core a love ballad to the underachiever, which is what our hero, Cole McGrath, is."

An underachiever who turns himself around rather quickly, but he certainly seems to have a firm grasp. Between that and the fact that the main character is so bland that any actor with a shaved head can play him, and we might have a winner here.

Scribe takes on 'inFAMOUS' [THR via Empire - Thanks Ris!]

Astoundingly and to their everlasting credit, both Radical and Sucker Punch participated. First up, Radical sent in two submissions, but that monstrosity takes the cake - Cole McGrath with Vegas showgirl peacock tail, a Marilyn Monroe birthmark and ... oh God are his pubes showing? NEXT.

Here's your winner: Alex Mercer, who shapeshifted up some heaving bosoms thanks to Sucker Punch, in a tableau that "could be the cover of a romance novel." Per Yahtzee's award citation:

It's a close call, but I'm going to declare Sucker Punch the winner by one lovingly-rendered pair of breasts. Also their unicorn is a much prouder, mightier steed, and Alex's expression is delightfully coquettish. Therefore InFamous must be the better game. Buy InFamous. Prototype's still good, though. Buy it as well.

Yahtzee's Prototype vs. Infamous Challenge [The Escapist via Joystiq]

The inFamous-themed Abandoned Docks of Empire City arrive with several new activities for players to participate in. There's f course the requisite shooting bad guys with lightning mini-game, which allows you to compare scores on global leaderboards. Sucker Punch will be delivering exclusive video content to the space as well, showing inFamous fans the love long after they've decided their final fate in-game.

Perhaps the most interesting addition, however, is the graffiti wall, where players gain access to various graffiti creation tools, allowing them to create new designs, share them with their friends, and have them voted on by the community for mad props.

Check out the video below to see the new inFamous Home space in action.

The announcement is hidden at the bottom of an otherwise unspectacular post regarding some fun facts and figures that Game Informer printed in their July issue. Along with statistics regarding the number of babies born during the game's development (10) and the fact that the development team prefers diet Coke to diet Pepsi is the news that the inFamous demo was the fastest demo to reach the 1 million milestone on the PlayStation Network, and of course a mention of the PlayStation Home space.

One wonders why these big name game Home spaces aren't launched with the games, instead of a couple of months after. Wouldn't it serve as better marketing for the game, helping to get more people excited about its release? Will this ever actually happen, or will Home continue to feel like an afterthought?

While the only pic we currently have of the space, which includes areas to explore and a new mini-game, is the tiny one you see above, Sony's post on the matter assures us that more details to come. We cannot wait...much longer than we already have.

inFAMOUS Facts, Figures, and Future [PlayStation Blog]

What with all of the E3 planning and news shaking loose these past couple of weeks, I haven't had a chance to really dig that much into the game, so I've had to make do with the guide.

Here's a quick sample of what I've found inside so far.

A PlayStation 3 exclusive from development studio Sucker Punch, InFamous charges that something besides the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound or to unsheathe Adamantium claws from the back of one's hands is the ultimate video game super-power: electricity. Infused into a hero's body, that crackling force can be shot at enemies or used to enhance grinding and hover movements that turn a city's skyline into a skate park.

Everyman protagonist Cole begins the game dazed by an explosion that has turned the fictional Empire City into a riotous ruin, its electric lines frazzled, its parked cars smashed and burning, its citizens terrorized by gangs. The developers have walled off the three-island city, setting in motion a plot that allows the player to receive a new electricity-based super-power about once an hour as friends are made, hundreds of buildings are scaled, streets are cleansed of gangs, and the player's actions fork toward one of two moral paths. Those paths alter the plot, the reactions of Empire's citizens to Cole and the powers he can improve.

But some might wonder if it's safe to mix your KOTOR with your Crackdown.

Loved
Playing With Power: Rockstar taught us that open-world games should be full of mayhem. DC and Marvel taught us that every super-hero battle must leave at least one city-block shredded. InFamous arms and preps the player to over-satisfy those needs. Blasting this much electricity and sending so many citizens, cars and giant-sized enemies flying all at once should hobble Sony's machine. Or turn the gameplay to a mess. Neither happens. By the game's final third, the level of power under the player's command feels almost dangerous.

Raccoon in Cole's Clothing: Screenshots and interviews will tell you that this game is a departure from Sucker Punch's kid-friendly, PlayStation 2 platforming trilogy, Sly Cooper. But the deeper one plays, the clearer it becomes how much Sly is here. This isn't a Crackdown clone, despite the feel in the game's first third that that Xbox 360 game's over-charged guns have simply been ported to the PS3 and turned into electricity-charged hands. By that point, the player has learned that, like Sly's adventures, this game is designed for easy but deft character movement. It's a game for a hero who hops from rooftop to rooftop, runs across power lines, can commit big-scale actions via controls whose responsiveness and simplicity belies the acrobatic magnificence of what's on screen. Yeah, this feels like Sly.

The Sights, the Sounds: Empire City is that rare architecturally memorable video game city, with some great facades and dramatic skyscraper crowns. It's coated with grimy but attractive detail, and scored with Hollywood mood music. This is made possible because Sucker Punch breaks a major rule of open-world adventure: It retains much control. The color of the sky and time of day are fixed, changing only when programmed to shift, allowing the studio to set moods with visuals and audio. The developers know which moments deserve bright sun and which are best coated in darkness or fog.

Stuff Rockstar Didn't Do: Sucker Punch smartly tries some things the Grand Theft Auto makers haven't executed in their open worlds. Chiefly, inFamous' world reacts. Play as a classy hero and the people love you. Play as a rogue and they throw rocks. But the improved reactions of the citizenry illuminate the uncanny valley of non-player-character behavior. Surely, these people should react even more convincingly? Sucker Punch also distinguishes itself from Rockstar with — thank goodness — several new open-world mission types: wall-crawling challenges set on the sides of skyscrapers, some inspired activities set on train tracks, a macabre bunch of death-march missions and even a batch involving public hangings.

Hated
Moral Confusion: Developers, beware your morality plays. Cole can gain more destructive powers or more benevolent ones depending on how a player steers him through clearly-identified karmic crossroad moments. The game's cut-scenes adapt. Plus, 15 good missions are locked off from evil players (and vice versa). But while all these mechanics work, the story strains to allow such moral range. It's hard to buy that a guy established with Cole's clean origins and care for his friends would go rogue or still be friends with said people if he did. InFamous is advertised to present its players with the quandary of how to wield great power, but, early on there's no quandary at all of what a guy like Cole would do, given the nature of his relationships and the low intensity of his starter powers. InFamous feels less like an opportunity to explore a range of behaviors than it does a game that can either be played a true way or in a way that disconnects player motivation from that of the on-screen character.

Bad Drop: Cole is a better-controlling wall-crawler than Spider-Man or Assassin's Creed's Altair — when he's on his way up. Clambering up the side of any building is an enjoyable cinch. Jumping off of them to the ground without fear of death is fun too. But collection and combat challenges often have the player wanting to lower Cole down the side of a building handhold by handhold, and that action — along with some infrequent platforming glitches — often feels clumsy and imprecise, costing the game some of its gymnastic grace.

Sucker Punch's previous game, Sly 3, was a laboratory of experiments. More than just a platformer, it was a playground for 3D-glasses gameplay and even fit a set of pirate ship battles staged across a grand map of the sea. As a follow-up, inFamous couldn't be anything other than more streamlined. It benefits from being a game of grand action without being a game trying to pack in too many things.

Whether it's the best super-hero game ever made, though, depends on your desire to play as a super-hero who has never starred in movies or decades of comics. For those who don't require a famous cape or claws, this is strong stuff. Cole's adventure is bombastic and constantly exciting, ready at its end for a sequel. It is a game of satisfyingly powerful action, one of the best showcases for climbing and shooting yet set in an open world, even if it stumbles in provoking the player to feel the moral weight of the actions they perpetrate.

InFamous was developed by Sucker Punch and published by Sony Computer Entertainment America exclusively for the PlayStation 3, released on May 26th. Retails for $59.99. Played through the game's 40 core missions, and more than 30 side missions. Was as evil as possible, though dabbled with a little bit of the goody-two-shoes style as well.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

We're talking finished, in a box, on a disc, slapped with the logo of development studio Sucker Punch. There's even an instruction manual that includes a penultimate-page tease for Uncharted 2, hyping the fall 2009 availability of that game.

The news here is that inFamous appears to be the rare game that is finished, shrink-wrapped and mailed to the press more than a week before release. Usually such deliveries arrive just a few days before or after a game ships to stores. Copies of games sent earlier than that to the press typically arrive in paper sleeves or on discs that can't be played in the home consoles sold in stores.

InFamous already appeared to be finishing up sooner than expected. Last month, Sony announced that the game's June release date was being swapped for a May 26 one.

The takeaway may be that inFamous was finished comfortably and confidently by its deadline. Not having popped the game in yet, it's hard to say for sure. Reviews are not permitted until next Wednesday.

Chris goes into great detail about the stunts included in the game, which are sequences of events and combinations of powers used to kill the enemy creatively. Sucker Punch teamed with the Sony testing team to generate a list of more than 80 stunts, narrowing that down to a little over 20 using an "experience monitor" that measured the power used versus the damage done.

Chris also delivers details on the trophies included in the game, which they've broken down into six convenient categories, including:

Game, story and mini-mission completion
Collect all dead drops and shards
Traversal
Stunts
Power-Based
Karmic decisions

Examples include the "Get off my cloud", which is received for knocking someone off a high building to their death. Once again, I find myself extremely glad that life has no achievement system.

inFAMOUS - Trophies and Stunts [PlayStation Blog]

Originally scheduled for a release sometime in the month of June, developer Sucker Punch has apparently been working so hard on the game that Sony has pushed the release date up to May 26th. Not content to deliver just a little good news, Sony has also revealed the pre-order bonus items for inFamous. Dropping a deposit at select retailers will give players a chance to get a Gigawatt Blades power; a Reaper gang member costume for PlayStation Home; or early access to the inFamous demo on May 7th, two weeks before it goes live on the 21st.

Looks like Sony has a huge amount of faith in Sucker Punch's latest. Here's hoping it's well-placed.

inFamous Not Releasing This June, After All [PlayStation.Blog]

It's pretty straightforward and not exactly a trailblazing concept—similar mechanisms have been fully explored in popular games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Fable—but the option to be a good guy or a plain old meanie adds replayability to the open world superhero (or super-anti-hero) game.

It also gives players a chance to shoot red lightning. And that's cool.

inFamous' karma system relies on a series of moments and decisions that will determine whether protagonist Cole is well regarded as a "Hero" or feared as an "Infamous" super-powered force. These include things as straightforward as inflicting damage on civilians or less obvious, like choosing a representative propaganda poster that conveys either heroism or intimidation.

Cole's good-standing with the inFamous populace is ever present in the game's HUD, showing how heroic or infamous he is.

It will also be present in his electric powers, giving off an electric blue or eerie red glow. As Cole's powers progress, in either good or bad flavors, they'll be influenced by the choices you make. Cole's lightning grenade power, for example, appears to be far more deadly when red and evil. Similarly, his shockwave power exerts more force and sweeps through a larger area when approaching the blue heroic levels.

There's more to the karma system than how the game's powers evolve, including how Cole's status affects the city as a whole. When good, the city has a brighter, more lively appearance, teeming with lie. When being bad, its citizens are more obviously despondent, with a darker tone and visual style.

We'll have more impressions from our extended playtime with inFamous later this week.

The new trailer for the Sucker Punch-developed game has more than just a melodramatic soundtrack courtesy of the eminently soundtrack-able band If These Trees Could Talk. It has a new, never-before-seen ability from inFamous protagonist Cole McGrath, the Polarity Wall Shield.

inFamous was recently dated for a June release worldwide if the above gameplay trailer has you reaching for your man purse and a calendar.

Its last was way back in September of 2005, the PlayStation 2 game Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves. Obviously, inFamous is huge departure for Sucker Punch, whose previous work was more cel-shaded anthropomorphic raccoon Sly Cooper and less lightning-wielding bald bad-ass Cole McGrath.

Greg Phillips, producer at SCEA, writes on the official blog that Sucker Punch will be readying a demo for the game, but didn't provide specifics on when that will hit the PlayStation Store.

Also not specified: why the game is curiously capitalized as inFamous in print and as inFAMOUS on the game's newly released box art. Maybe because it's a PLAYSTATION 3 game? Your theories on why this is is welcome in the comments.

inFamous Date, Demo, and Art revealed [PlayStation.blog]

It's a fact: little girls narrating the trailers to movies and games that take place in a dark fiction setting are at least twenty times better than those narrated by movie guy voice. Don't believe me? Check out this trailer to the 1994 cult hit The Crow, or the Clocks trailer for TimeShift. That trailer alone was enough to get me to buy TimeShift. I returned it two days later, but I bought it, and that's what counts.

Look for the PlayStation 3 exclusive inFamous later this year.

What It Is
Infamous is an open-world Playstation 3 game geared towards a more adult audience. The premise of the game focuses around the character, Cole McGrath, who is given eclectic super powers after an unexplained explosion occurs in Empire City. This is being developed by Sucker Punch, the same team that brought us all those great Sly Cooper games over the years.

What We Saw
I went hands-on with the second tutorial mission in the game. The other level shown, a prison sequence, was played by a Sony rep. This demo took place at a Sony preview event, not at the New York Comic-Con, and lasted about 30 minutes.

How Far Along Is It?
The demo I saw was a pre-alpha build. The game is scheduled for release in May.

What Needs Improvement?
Good Cop, Bad Cop?: One key element in InFamous is being able to do good or bad deeds throughout the city, ether helping citizens or punching them in the mouth. This changes the type of powers you acquire throughout the game, but how (or if) this affects the overall main storyline is still in question.

Heads Up!: This is a bit nitpicky (actually it's really nitpicky), but I'd like to see a fading HUD (a la Gears of War) for this game. Not because I own a plasma television and am scared of image-retention, but because the game is so expansive looking and pretty, it would be nice to be able to clear the screen of the icons and static graphics when not in combat. It would make an already great looking game pop even more. This is actually something I want out of every game released from now on.

What Should Stay The Same?
Climbing: It's fun and easy to climb! I was told Sucker Punch has two people dedicated to making sure every area of the game that looks climbable, was climbable.

Enemy Design: One mid-sized enemy they showed from the prison featured a man encapsulated in this giant metal body that was made out of junk and being held together by this telepathic energy. You just have to see it. I have high expectations for the look of the enemies in this game.

Graphics: I don't know what it is about this game, but I just like the way it looks. Maybe it's because it was built from the ground up and the team could focus on developing for only one platform? Not just the geometry, but also the style in the textures. Really looks like nothing else out there.

Final Thoughts.
The game is coming around nicely. However, I'm starting to get to the point where I just want to see the whole thing rather than getting these little bite-sized chunks every few months. They said there will be a 2-minute or so install with this game. Also, Sucker Punch just loves demos, so while they wouldn't confirm one, I would get my hopes up if I were you.

Looking just as good as it did during my time with the title at the 2008 Games Convention in Leipzig, the new trailer wastes no time in getting electrified protagonist Cole into the thick of things, clinging to the sides of buses and leaping about as he serves up dish after dish of delicious electrified doom.

How many superpowers can you possibly create using electricity from the source? Check out the CES powers trailer below and see just how much Sucker Punch has managed to mix things up.

He specifically points to two games, one being God of War, the other Grand Theft Auto IV. The former clocks in at just seven hours or so, a quantity that sounds pretty OK with Fox.

"It seems to me that it's not about length, but about quality," Fox said. "And because I love both of those games, I hope that developers never try to shoot for a long game, but instead for the most fun they can pack onto the disc - at any length. That's what we're doing for inFamous." Fine with me really, just maybe a bit brief for this-gen sandbox expectations.

Update: Sony wanted to let us know — and let you know — that Infamous is still in development at Sucker Punch and that the game's length is still "TBD."

inFamous will be "about quality", not length, says creative director [Eurogamer]

The game begins with a massive explosion that decimates the heart of Empire City, leaving only one survivor – you. As protagonist Cole you must learn to deal with the mysterious new electrical superpowers you find yourself developing as you seek to solve the mystery of the Empire City disaster, a task that proves exceedingly difficult once you realize that all signs point to you being the cause.

After an introduction to the story told through cutscenes resembling pages from a graphic novel, the Sucker Punch took some time to demonstrate the gameplay of inFamous, beginning with out hero melodramatically standing atop a moving train, speeding through some of the seedier locations in Empire City. How seedy? As soon as the train stops, gunfire erupts from the rooftops. I'd say that's pretty seedy.

Luckily the demo version of Cole is already well-versed in the uses of his electrical powers, blasting an enemy with a bolt before hopping off the train and making his way up to the rooftop. As with the Sly Cooper series, exploration and ease of movement are a big focus in inFamous, with presenter Nate Fox name-dropping Assassin's Creed more than a few times when citing the inspiration for Cole's acrobatic journey upwards.

As with any normal guy with newly acquired superpowers, choice also plays a big role in how Cole develops his skills. There are powers that can simply incapacitate, knocking criminals out of commission, or powers that outright kill. He can even help wounded civilians by using his electrical powers to shock them back to life like a walking defib machine. Your actions have consequences, as Empire City features a fully realized social ecology – people remember your actions and react accordingly.

Empire City also features a fully realized power grid, allowing Cole to drain power from electrical devices such as pay phones and traffic lights in order to fuel his abilities. Though Nate couldn't confirm or deny as of press time, he did react to a question about how Cole travels around the massive city by saying that their goal was to develop the coolest electric super powers imaginable, and my suggestion that he would transport himself via power lines got just a tiny hint of reaction. They'll be announcing more in the coming months, but come on...it doesn't get much cooler than being able to transport yourself high-speed via electrical wiring.

It's hard to say how inFamous will turn out. The premise is interesting and the promise of playing as an electric-powered superhero quite intriguing, but right now I just don't know enough about the story and the game's protagonist to know whether or not I will care for him. Cole seems kind of bland at the moment, but that could certainly change as more of the storyline unfurls in the coming months.

So far the other two members of the holy platformer trinity have yet to let me down. Here's hoping Sucker Punch makes it a clean sweep.