Sucker Punch praises Naughty Dog on inFAMOUS 2 aid

Sucker Punch has been taking notes from Uncharted 2 developer Naughty Dog on their upcoming 2011 sequel inFAMOUS 2, studio duo Brian Fleming and Chris Zimmerman have said.

“We got some notes from Naughty Dog when we were three months from releasing inFAMOUS about what frustrated them about the climbing system,” co-founder and producer Brian Fleming told NowGamer.

“It’s great because it’s like getting feedback from somebody you trust and respect and you know has your best interests at heart. They’re not trying to screw you, they’re saying here’s this piece of information that you can’t get from a focus test. Testers don’t understand what it is you’re trying to do at the level that someone who spends all day, every day working on Uncharted can.”

For inFAMOUS 2, the studio took a visit to Naughty Dog to learn how to better their approach for the title.

“Our visit to Naughty Dog really showed us some things where they just have better approaches to some problems and we’ve been able to fold that stuff into how we’re doing things,” Zimmerman said.

“And it’s not just technology although there’s lots of stuff there. Just their approach to how they integrate their game design with the story design. It’s great to see a team you respect – and any reasonable person would have a lot of respect for those guys given what they’ve been able to do in the last 20 years – and see how they work and how they decided to work that way and be able to apply those lessons to the way we go about things.”

“It’s an unbelievable luxury for us to be able to do that. Hopefully we’ll be able to make as big an improvement between inFAMOUS and inFAMOUS 2 as between Uncharted and Uncharted 2. That’s the goal.”

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was last year’s game of the year by most gaming publications. Could inFAMOUS 2 do the same for 2011?