Hey guys, what’s up. It’s DJ Horus of Wiseguy Jukebox! That’s right, not only tackling music but video games as well. So expect some cool posts from me as well as the other staff here on The Arcade! But for now going to highlight some characters I think deserves some merit for what they do in their respectful universes. Now this doesn’t limit to just heroism, it goes both ways. Today’s Character Highlight goes to…Cole MacGrath of the Infamous series.
*Discretion is advised for Highlights might have spoilers in them for anyone interested in the series*
The Backstory
Now Cole MacGrath starts off as a street courier delivering packages to people for there convenience but one day he accidentally delivers a package holding a large bomb called the “Ray Sphere“. When this bomb goes off it absorbs the electrical energy of people within a 6 block radius into one host body giving them superpowers. But one must be a special kind of person, A Conduit. Basically a catalyst much different from everyone else, kinda like the mutant gene in the X-Men series. Cole survives the blast from the Ray Sphere being a Conduit himself and gaining electrical superpowers. This changes everything. After the bomb goes off, Empire City (the setting of the game) goes to hell. The place gets locked down by the government and everything inside turns into a dystopian society with gangs taking control of the streets. Now players get to choose to either save this city or make it their playground with the Karma Gameplay which gives you different missions to either rescue people and basically help the masses recover from what you caused or add on to the chaos and do whatever you see fit. Either Karma you choose the basis of the story stays the same. Cole is forced to help the Government find a man named John and another Ray Sphere in exchange to free himself and his friends.
The Conflict
Every character has conflict at some point. In the first Infamous series we watch as Cole’s life goes to hell as he watches the City he lives goes to hell then turn on him as they blame him for the cause of it’s destruction. Heck even his girlfriend Trish was giving him the cold shoulder since her sister was lost in the blast and thinks he’s to blame for it. To make matters worse your best friend almost risked the lives of millions trying to activate another Ray Sphere so he can be supped up like you and joined the guy behind all of it, Kessler. Your target John dies and the government been lying to you the entire time (kinda how the government works) and Kessler makes you choose between the life of your girlfriend and the lives of the the city’s doctors who are important in which the city needs all the medical help they can get. Either choice you make she dies anyways. The ending was even more dramatic as you find out that Kessler is actually Cole from the future of an alternate timeline who failed to save his family and the world from a powerful entity known as “The Beast“, who ravages the planet and eventually kills Cole’s family due to his decision to not learn how to work his powers and grow stronger. So he decided to go to the past and give himself powers earlier than expected and forcibly kill the love of his life to remove distractions for a greater threat. So your girlfriend is dead, your best friend is untrustworthy, you are literally you’re on enemy and the city has torn itself apart and it’s practically your fault.
Now Infamous 2 makes it a bit lighter on him as he does whatever it takes to take down The Beast who does appear eventually after your victory with Kessler. Along the way he gets a device called the “Ray Field Inhibitor” which will weaken The Beast enough for Cole to defeat it. You meet some other Conduits and find out that the Beast was actually John from the first game who got turned into a Conduit after his death from a Ray Sphere blast. With the world slowly suffering from a plague called by “Ray Field Radiation” caused by the activation of several Ray Spheres (one from Cole, One from the games antagonist Bertrandt) John aka The Beast makes a proposition with Cole stating and then proving that he can save people who are potential Conduits from the plague, but everyone else is doomed to die. Along the lines you find out that RFI has the ability to possibly cure mankind from this sickness with the cost of killing potential Conduits such as The Beast and Cole himself. According the recent sequel and the game devs at Sucker Punch the choice to use the RFI from the Hero Karma is canon to the plot and thus Cole sacrifices himself and thousands of Conduits to save millions and millions of people.
Gonna miss him purely because he was a character with depth especially down the Heroic Karma. It’s cool to watch the game play the cutscenes as a comic book and watching Cole struggle to do what’s right reminds me so much of my favorite superhero: Spiderman who risks everything dear to him for the greater good of the people and gets no merit for it. It takes a lot to put your life at risk for sake of another and Cole did it on occasion even after he’s lost so much and has more incentive to turn the other cheek. At least at the end of Infamous 2 he gets a statue in his memory so there’s that.
Cole MacGrath. A Hero. A Villain. And holds my favorite element for a superpower. Definitely on my list of favorite characters and hopefully he’s on yours as well. Until next time.
The Arcade 