There seems to be a problem with releasing a game that has “sandbox” mentioned anywhere in it's development in that we all start thinking up crazy things that should be possible within this very open-ended definition of an environment. We dig around making hype-sandcastles, filled with intricate and impossible design ideas – when in reality it is what it is so don't dig too far or your likely to end up with a well concealed dog turd or two and an incredulous look of shock.

Putting it simply, any of the franchises that involve the sandbox mentality behind their non-linear, free-roaming environments have to draw the line somewhere. We can't have everything. Hell, both the 360 and PS3 break a sweat when we start piling on the pretty flashing lights in a linear game, let alone one that allows you to climb to the top of a very high building and take a birds eye view. The console would simply die.

So, in steps Infamous, a PS3 exclusive by Sucker Punch arriving on our doorsteps 2 weeks prior to Prototype, it's multi-platform rival, both of which offer a free-roaming sandbox environment. How will they fair I wonder? Well, in the case of Infamous the general idea is that you're some average Joe (“Cole” - see what I did there?) that gets caught in an electrical explosion. Walking away from the wreckage you realise the you've generated a certain affinity for electricity. This new found pro super-power / anti social networking trait, grows stronger with time allowing Cole to shoot lighting from his fingers, glide through the air, fire homing missiles and perform electroshock therapy treatment to the elderly suffering from arthritis.

Along the way you're blackmailed by some jumped up FBI bint to help push the story along the right lines and open up missions. After all, if we simply left you with the ability to God knows what you'd get up to. Although, in essence that's an additional point about how you play Infamous – good or evil? It's your call at certain points throughout the game that steer you down one path or the other and thus open up certain abilities and missions that are exclusive to each path.

Going back to the free-roaming side of the game, it's been done really well I'm happy to say. It's artistically pretty with 3 different islands that open up along the way. As far as roaming the environment goes, if you think Assassin's Creed with regards to Free Running, but with added features that largely utilise Coles new-found powers, you'll get a good idea of how the game shapes up. In fact, if you take Assassin's Creed as a game in general and compare it to Infamous you get a similar picture, where instead of monotonous side missions in Creed, perhaps the main monotony comes from the enemies in Infamous. They're everywhere and all go shopping at the same Goon store for their outfits.

Adding to that, they're highly accurate, which in the beginning stages can be extremely painful as you attempt to run away from it all on low health – but then this is only in the beginning stages and I'd love to tell you why, but it'd be a spoiler, so suffice to say you find the ability to kick ass comes more easily. All this said though, you need loads of enemies to pummel and if you keep your wits about you, getting your health back should be straight forward as Cole has the ability to drain electricity from anything that uses it, and of course in this day and age there's plenty of it.

Racing your way through the main storyline will probably take you around 15 hours or less depending on how frequently you stop to admire sights or complete side missions, of which there are quite a few and they're actually interesting to do. Additionally, time spent collecting shards from the initial explosion actually mean something – they give you additional energy slots to fill meaning your powers last longer before you have to recharge. My God... collectibles that are actually worth collecting – who would've thought?

My feelings about the game changed. Infamous, I have to say, starts of rather slow. From the opening section of wondering around randomly shooting things with electricity and dazed cops staring blankly into space, to what the game actually entails for the latter 25% by which point I'd started messing around trying to get to places I shouldn't and had fun with the somewhat dodgy collision in places, but hey that was my own doing, other than that the game didn't bug out every 5 minutes like I'd expect from a sandbox title. The game made it easy enough to get to the end – it was a game I wanted to finish. Always a bonus in this industry of course. The difficulty curb was almost spot on bar a couple of spikes, but even then the checkpoints were such that although might fail a section, the checkpoint was near by and so you never really felt frustrated as a player.

Infamous' atmosphere was the winner for me. The artwork on the cutscenes was bloody gorgeous, the music while perhaps infrequent was solid and how they wrapped up the storyline for the end was great – perhaps a little cheesy, but great nevertheless. There's plenty of replayability in the game with messing around, doing side missions, collecting shards, maxing your powers or playing the opposing alignment that means you certainly don't feel cheated for the price you paid.

Nicely done Sucker Punch – solid game.