After its launch in Novem ber, exclusive AAA game releases slowed down sig nificantly for the Playstation 4 or included many games made for several platforms. Infamous: Second Son came out this month and sets a new standard for Playstation 4 exclusive games.

With an amazing open-world to explore and very fun powers to explore it with, Second Son is not only fun but a remarkable example of what the next generation can do.

Infamous: Second Son takes place in 2016, seven years af ter the events of Infamous 2 for the Playstation 3. The story revolves around an Akomish Native American in Washington, named Del sin Rowe, who is a delinquent in his tribe and gets in trouble with the law in general.

After the events of Infamous 2, the majority of the popula tion is wary of the conduits, people with superhuman powers, and has labeled them “bioterrorists” with the in tent to stop them all using the newly formed Department of Unified Protection. Through a series of events Delsin dis covers he can copy the powers of other conduits by touching them and sets off to Seattle to help his tribe.

Delsin’s internal struggle between rebellion and his new need to be responsible with his powers makes for an interesting conflict early on and throughout the game.

The game’s main villain, the brutal and cold Brooke Augustine, is smart and ef ficient in making the game’s climax a wild and satisfying experience. Augustine is also the catalyst for Delsin’s trip to Seattle and constantly tests him while he’s in the city.

Delsin’s brother, a sheriff named Reggie, is very hesi tant to accept Delsin’s new powers until he sees they are the only way to help the tribe. The banter between Delsin and Reggie is great and pro vides some very entertaining moments f leshing out Del sin’s character while showing his motivations when ques tioned by someone he cares deeply about.

However, Second Son has a problem with throwing away other interesting secondary characters too quickly. While main characters like Reggie and Augustine are kept in the spotlight and always made interesting, even fascinating characters you meet early on like Fetch, a conduit with the power to manipulate neon using it for vigilante purpos es, are cast aside too quickly.

The real draw to Second Son comes with the powers and open-world gameplay in Seattle. Delsin gains four sets of powers in the game and the first two, as the second two are slight spoilers, are smoke and neon. The powers show their differences well, as smoke works with explosive power and neon gives Delsin speed boosts and precision shooting.

Using neon, the player can run up the side of buildings, run at a very fast speed, jump very high and hover over to a different building, which gives an amazing sense of

 flow. Even with the smoke powers that don’t rely on mo bility as much as neon, Delsin can use air vents to launch himself high in the air and then hover over to another building to do it again.

Each power includes a skill tree to let the player enhance and modify what the powers can do. Some skills are locked by the karma system and a lot of the skills just include gen eral upgrades to damage or carrying capacity.

The karma system in Sec ond Son could have been a very interesting and strong point of the game but it falls a little short. Delsin is given very large choices during the game’s story that can have very large effects, but the choices don’t always seem to line up with Delsin’s charac ter.

For example, one way of getting evil karma is to kill civilians or protestors, and regardless of Delsin being delinquent early on in the game, it is made obvious he would never do something this evil. Even though the major evil story choices are a little tamer than killing civilians, the game makes it seem like the only way to get extra evil karma is to do some pretty evil things out of line with Delsin’s character.

Second Son truly shows off the power of a next genera tion console, and the lighting used in the game is amazing and the graphics and textures of Seattle look incredible. Of tentimes the reflection off a puddle almost looks real, and the parts of the game that take place at sunset or sunrise can create some very striking scenes.