Parent's Guide: Infamous: First Light - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

Infamous: First Light is a third person action game on the PS4. Available as a download, or in some territories on a disc, this is a prequel to the popular super hero game Infamous: Second Son, although you don't have to have played that to understand this.

The story centres around Fetch, a young woman on the run after she discovered she was what's known as a conduit. Conduits are humans with the power to control certain elements or materials, and are feared by the populace, and hunted down by an organisation known as the DUP, which wants to imprison them. With the power to control neon, Fetch is effectively a super hero, who can run up walls with lightning speed, and fire bolts of neon lasers out of her hands. With an entire city as your playground, there's a lot of fun to be had here, and a definite super hero vibe.

Set in a small, yet open world Seattle, there's plenty of things to do in Infamous. If you feel like chilling and taking in the sights, you can hunt down over a hundred hidden neon sparks, which are glowing like orbs just out of reach. Spot one, and you'll soon find yourself hunting down every spark in the city, as you figure out which building you have to leap off to get close enough to grab it. If you're after something more structured, you can take on one of the game's story driven missions, which are mostly protection style missions that ask you to defend a certain character or object, but occasionally become a lot more varied - and fun - asking you to hack cameras, or hunt down police security drones. Finally, if combat is your thing, there are two score attack style modes to try your hand at - Survival, which simply asks you to see how long you can last against wave after wave of enemies, and Rescue, which is much the same as Survival, only with added pressure, as you'll occasionally have to break off the combat, and hunt down a hostage that's being held somewhere in the giant open arena.

In terms of complexity, Infamous: First Light is a game that relies heavily on dual analogue controls. With Fetch's primary method of attack being lasers which let her shoot at enemies from a distance, you'll need to be able to handle moving her with the left analogue stick, and aiming the camera with the right, as there's not really any auto aim to help out here. While this isn't an issue in most levels, as you can usually find somewhere to hide and pick the baddies off, it is an issue in the odd survival-style levels, where there's nowhere to hide, and the enemies are coming thick and fast. With an open world to explore, it can be handy to keep setting yourself waypoints on the map.

Parents should also keep in mind that, while the game is fully subtitled, with subtitles of a decent size, the game's optional mission objectives are displayed using one of the smallest fonts we've ever seen in a game, which is almost unreadable sitting all of four feet away from a 32" TV.

Seeing as you're playing as a super hero, Infamous is lighter on questionable content than other similar games. The violence, especially, is a lot less severe, with no blood to be seen, and mostly being projectile based, with you zapping enemies from afar with your neon laser powers, which simply cause a flash effect to happen when they hit your foes. Even physical attacks happen in a bit of blur, so you can't really see what happens.

However, there is some swearing here, with "s**t" and "pu**y" being as strong as it gets, and some very tense scenes in some of the missions. There's also a genuine sense of danger and urgency from time to time. One of the missions has you follow a character being chased by a people trafficker, and while nothing happens from a content perspective, this is disturbing enough that it's probably not suitable for young children.

There are also some references to drugs, as the lead character is a recovering drug addict, and you regularly have to go on raids to either ferry, or destroy drugs. Sex comes up from time to time in conversation too:

"We made a great team out there on the streets! Imagine what we'd be like in the sack!"

"I'll lase a hole in your sack..."

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Playstation 4