Infamous: Second Son and First Light

The Infamous series consists of 3 games (Infamous, Infamous 2, and Infamous: Second Son) and 2 DLCs  (Infamous: Festival of Blood, and Infamous: First Light). The Infamous games are open world action-adventure and platforming, and the series currently has 3 main protagonists: Cole Macgrath (Infamous, Infamous 2, and Infamous: Festival of Blood), Delsin Rowe (Infamous: Second Son), and Fetch Walker (Infamous: First Light). The series is known for it's Karma system, which rewards players with positive or negative karma points (positive points are for doing good things, such as healing civilians and sparing enemies, while negative points are for doing evil things, like killing civilians and enemies), and there are some parts of the story in which you have to choose between two options (such as saving your friend or a group of doctors) and your choice affects your karma. You karma points affect how you upgrade your abilities, how civilians who see you react, and some parts of the story.

(This paragraph is a plot summary of the Infamous games. You have been warned)
In the beginning of the first game, Cole Macgrath, a bike courier, is delivering a package containing the Ray Sphere, a device created by an organization known as the First Sons and capable of draining neuro-electric energy from surrounding people (killing them) and channeling it into a person with the Conduit gene (named after Conduits, the people who undergo this), unlocking their powers (which revolve around a specific object or element, such as ice, smoke, neon, electricity, and concrete). When he reaches his destination, Cole is told by phone to open the package, and when he does, the Ray Sphere is set off, creating an explosion that wipes out several city blocks and turns people into Conduits, including Cole, who gains electrical powers. After he has found the Ray Sphere, defeated the main villain, Kessler, and either saved or conquered the city, (in the beginning of Infamous 2) a Conduit known as the Beast (who was prophesied by Kessler) appears in the city, destroying things and turning people into  Conduits with his powers. Cole fights him, but is unable to stop him from destroying the city, although Cole and his two allies escape by boat. They then go to New Marais where Cole, Zeke (his friend from Infamous), and two Conduits named Lucy Kuo and Nix battle the Militia, led by the Conduit and former First Sons (who were essentially destroyed in the first game) member Joseph Bertrand III, and the Beast himself. In the canon ending (the good ending, the evil one is considered non-canon) Cole uses a device called the Ray Field Inhibitor (RFI) to kill himself and all other Conduits, including the Beast (in the evil ending, Cole fights alongside the Beast, and kills Zeke and Nix amongst others, and eventually the Beast gives Cole his powers, turning Cole into the Beast, while the original simply dies). Infamous: Festival of Blood is a non-canon DLC for Infamous 2, and in it Cole is turned into a vampire by a vampire queen known as Bloody Mary, and has one night to kill her before the change becomes permeant. Five years after the end of Infamous 2 is Infamous: First Light, a prequel DLC for Infamous: Second Son that has Fetch Walker (one of the characters from Second Son, she has Neon powers) as the main character, and details her backstory and her capture by the DUP (Department of Unified Protection, a government group that was created to capture and contain Conduits, labeled "Bio-Terrorists"). Infamous: Second Son takes place in Seattle 7 years after Infamous 2, and has Delsin Rowe as the main character. In it, Delsin (who's Conduit power is the ability to absorb part of the powers of others, and they keep their power) witnesses the crash of a truck being used to transport Conduits, then helps one of the Conduits get out of the crash (two other Conduits, Fetch and a boy with Video powers named Eugene, escape), absorbing his powers in the process. Then, the Conduit, Hank, is attacked by Delsin's brother Reggie, the sheriff, and a chase occurs between Delsin and Reggie and Hank. This chase ends when the DUP, led by Brooke Augustine (a Conduit with Concrete powers and the leader of the DUP) arrives and apprehends Hank, before Augustine interrogates Delsin and almost everyone else it the village (wounds that are slowly killing them) regardless of whether or not you chose to confess (the game's first Karmic choice). The DUP then sets up it's base in Seattle and Delsin and Reggie go there to fight the DUP, find the other two Conduits, and take Augustine's powers so that Delsin can heal the other people from the village.

The first problem with Second Son and First Light is the premise of the story. While the games' stories are both very good, all of the Conduits and everyone with the Conduit gene on the entire planet were killed by the RFI to protect the rest of humanity at the end of Infamous 2. All of the Conduits in Second Son and First Light couldn't be there, they're dead, and no explanation was even attempted to explain how there are still Conduits, especially Second Son's main villain Auguastine, whose backstory puts her in Empire City after the Beast's rampage in the beginning of Infamous 2, so the RFI would definitely have killed her. Another problem with Second Son (but not First Light) is that although the story is good in concept, it's presentation is very linear. The first part of the game is spent learning Delsin's first power and beginning the fight against the DUP, then one of the escaped Conduits is commiting crimes. You hunt for them, find them, fight them, gain their power, learn their power with their help, help them solve one of the problems from their backstory (using either good or evil methods), and hit repeat. After that has happened twice, you have a small break, a fake finale, another small break, and the real finale.Once you complete the story, you can go back to the overworld to complete the very short seeming DUP side missions that cause you to feel like you are speed running through the post-game. Aside from the story problems, the gameplay also suffers from the developers trying to do too much. Although Delsin has four different powers by the end of the game, none of them feel fully developed or equal to Cole's electricity and Fetch's neon. Although the story would have been drastically different, if Delsin only had one power (smoke, for example), the developers would have probably given it most of the time they gave Delsin's four powers, and it would have felt more complete (for smoke, maybe an upgrade for smoke bombs could have sent a large cloud of smoke through a fence or vent, blinding everyone on the other side).

First Light, however, feels like a full Infamous game, although it is short (being a DLC). Though the story switches between Fetch's time in Curdan Cay and her time in Seattle 2 years earlier, it's easy to follow, and the events aren't anywhere near as linear. It also has a post-story battle arena in Curdan Cay, and open world in past Seattle (which you can go back to even after finishing the story), two separate sequences reminiscent of the original Infamous in which you are riding on top of a truck and shooting at people chasing you, and new sniping sequences that, while potentially irritating, are fun. Fetch's Neon powers are shown to be much greater than what she was seen using in Second Son, and what Delsin got from her. She is capable of blasting people into the air and potentially over an edge with a shockwave-like attack, firing groups of neon missiles, her main shots can be upgraded so that enemies whose weak points are hit can be temporarily mind controlled (turning them into allies) before they are automatically restrained, and can create a "neon singularity" that acts like a pink black hole before exploding. She also uses her super-speed when melee attacking, all of which makes her powers seem complete, like Cole's were.

The Infamous series has an excellent reputation, but in Second Son, I believe that the developers tried to do too much with Delsin's powers, making them feel incomplete by comparison to Cole. In First Light they only did Fetch, who only has power over Neon, and her powers in it felt much more complete. Both games had very good stories, but how those stories can even exist after the RFI was activated was unexplained, although that can be fixed in the next game. Overall, Second Son is a very good game, but it's difficult to compare with the other Infamous games, including it's own DLC.