If you’ve listened to some of the older After Hours podcast episodes, it’s no surprise that inFamous: Second Son and me don’t get along. While the audio visual and narrative parts of that title were on point, its gameplay felt antiquated to me. Paying $59.99 for a title whose gameplay, for all intents and purposes, felt like I’ve played before just didn’t sit well for me and I, despite Sean’s insistence, traded the game prior to what allegedly was the “best part” of inFamous: Second Son – meeting the Conduit who had neon powers.

As if someone at Sucker Punch was listening, it turns out that I’m about to give inFamous a second chance (see what I did there?), in the form of inFamous: First Light. And somehow, this has gotten me a bit excited. Let me explain.

Over the past year or so, there’s been a trend in video games where developers would take the base engine of their game and create a separate stand-alone experience with it. The two titles that immediately come to mind are last year’s Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, which was a fantastic game, and Assassin’s Creed 4: Freedom Cry, which I’ve been told was a great game, even so far as being described by people as “better than Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag.”

These titles fared just as good, if not better, than the original titles that they’ve forked from. Not taking away from the original Far Cry 3, but I felt that Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon’s unique motif and 8-bit style production values gave the gameplay a fresh new perspective and allowed the developers much experimentation and, by proxy, the allowance to make mistakes. In both titles, because of their smaller budget and timeline, the developers were able to focus in on specific of the aspects of each game that they wanted to improve or iterate better and were actually able to do so.

It’s this specific quality of these stand-alone games that make me excited about inFamous: First Light. If Sean’s insistence that this Conduit was one of the best things in inFamous: Second Son, then color me excited. And considering that Sony just announced that we can preload games on the PS4 today, consider this game pre-ordered.

Don’t fail me now, Sucker Punch. I’m giving you a second chance.