inFamous 2 on PlayStation 3 Hands-On Impressions.

They're still apparent in inFamous 2, though Sucker Punch has gone out of their was to improve the visual clarity of the open-world environment and up the number of combat mechanics at Cole's disposal.

Our demo starts out with a bunch of super-natural goons for us to slice up with Cole's new melee weapon. A simple tap of the Square button launches Cole into a flurry of cinematic strikes and punches. Sucker Punch has clearly been watching some Michael Bay movies lately, as our short demo is littered with slow-motion close-ups of Cole showing his agility.

As we clear out the bad-guys, we take to the chase of a white limo. inFamous 2's travel mechanics appear refined. The game's got a pace to it. Sliding on rails can be chained into drain-pipes across buildings. The code is still early so the frame-rate's a little jumpy — but the pace is sharper than the previous game. The city also looks way better too. Again the demo is still early so there are some elements of texture pop-in and aliasing to fix — but the clarity is certainly up a notch from the original's slightly disappointing effort.

As we close in on the limo, we're chased by an armed helicopter. There's the sense that Sucker Punch are aiming for something more emergent with inFamous 2 — and the team's clearly been inspired by Naughty Dog's work on the Uncharted franchise. We tackle the helicopter with another of Cole's new abilities — the Ionic Vortex. This creates a huge electrical hurricane and sends it speeding down the city streets, whipping up any innocent by-standers or parked vehicles along the way.

It's chaotic in a way that inFamous should be. The frame-rate's a little rough, but it's safe to assume that Sucker Punch understand the importance of the game staying rock-solid whatever happens on screen. That was the original's strength, and looking at the new weapons on offer here Sucker Punch are definitely looking to up the ante a notch.