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The Bad and the Good of BioShock Infinite (Spoilers!)


Fire Mage
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Preface:

So I just finished BioShock Infinite last night. Let me say that it was a pretty great game and I'm certainly glad that I played it. I love the BioShock games, and let me say that I played the first game with bated breath, a heavily-pumping heart, and this totally heeby-jeeby feeling as I went through, feeling as if I was playing something that I truly felt was amazing.

 

Now, I must say, that I did not get that from BioShock Infinite. There are many, many people saying that the game is nigh perfect, but actually, it didn't really meet that for me. And in some points in the game, it didn't actually feel like BioShock to me. I'm not sure of everything, but I'll get on with it. I'm not a great articulator with these so I'm sure people will disagree and some I'm just not specific enough with, but please let me know your thoughts or if you get the same feelings.

 

There are SPOILERS below! Sorry in advance for the essay!

 

The Bad:

  • Further linearization. Sure, BioShock isn't an open-world game exactly, but you could, for the most part, have free roam to go back to certain places in Rapture, and you could also save when you wanted. In Infinite, the game has a checkpoint system and most areas are rather flatlined (with the exception of a few places) and I just felt this weird sense of disconnection. You can argue that the story doesn't allow you to return to places, of course, or that 1999 mode would be easy if you could save. But they could have allowed you to move between certain places and just block certain ones off if it really made no sense to return there. They did that in the original and many, many games do that. And similarly, they could disable saving and just rely on checkpoints in 1999 mode as meant.
  • It doesn't meet the developer's own expectations. Remember the awesome demo they showed years ago? (Thanks martdude16). Look at it in the post below--everything's different and they lost so many things, e.g., telekinesis, kicking ass with Elizabeth, etc. Elizabeth, at least I always thought from the previews, was supposed to turn into this crazy magical woman who would kick the shit out of things with me. Instead, she only found items for me and occasionally let me spawn a turret, barricade, some health packs or whatnot. There were a few scripted occasions that she let out madness, but besides that, nothing. Just from the trailer below, they showed her create a mini-storm and let you electrocute everyone. They showed other similar things in previews but they were all scrapped--a major letdown.
  • The third quarter of the game just felt like this weird drudge. I guess around the Finkton Factory the game just seems to be spinning its wheels and just throwing random things at you as it can. Granted, the game is pretty much always throwing random things at you, but it just seems to get boring here. I really hated the Downtown Emporia section as well. The atmosphere was great to look at, but by this point in the game, the gameplay just had me wishing the game would reach its end (and the story seemed to drift about too). The game picked back up with the Atrium and I loved that part all the way to the very end. But drudging through the alternate portals before that and then Downtown Emporia taking a while to just do the same basic "Find this room, clear enemies, and leave" mess. I can't put my finger entirely on it, but this leg of the game just felt worse than the others to me, even if the gameplay doesn't change too much all in all.
  • Lack of balance in difficulty and gameplay style. Many may beg to differ, but I found the beginning of the game to be easy, the middle portion to be okay, the third quarter or so (that I described above) to be an UTTER pain in the ass, and then the last bits (including the final battle) to actually be a joke. I don't know if I lucked out, but I never died once or even came close to dying from the Atrium onwards. Mostly I think it's because the game kind of forced me to recycle the same moves of using the Carbine, and using Bucking Bronco and Devil's Kiss in combo to defeat enemies. I kept using the same damn pattern (otherwise I felt like I WOULD have died) as opposed to other parts in the game where I felt safe in changing up strategy.
  • Money. Money makes the world go 'round in this game. You use it for Dollar Bill machines for basic things. You use it for Vigor upgrades. You use it for Weapon Upgrades. Anything that you can get (besides scavenging) is through money. I felt like this added an annoyance to the game because I enjoyed having the other substance of Adam in BioShock. Further, I had enough trouble finding money in my Medium playthrough that I dread 1999 mode. And that's not to mention that Weapon Upgrades were "free" in BioShock with Power to the People stations. Now that you have to pay, they make it difficult along with Vigors.
  • Random gear. This was really annoying. Gear is basically Tonics, and they randomized them when you find them. So many times would I pick up useless ones (to me) like the one that increases movement on the skyline. I never had issues with moving on that so I don't see how that or some of the other silly Gear made it in.
  • The Vigors/Plasmids. Again, preference, but I found Charge, Murder of Crows, Return to Sender, and Shock Jockey all to be rather underwhelming. I only ever used the other four, and even then I only used Undertow in about 3 fights (though it WAS useful). Really, preference, but I thought those four Vigors to be rather a waste. I guess I didn't utilize the Murder/Devil's Kiss combo enough though, so I suppose that's pretty powerful. That's partially because...
  • No health packs or Salts packs to carry. Seriously. Why remove the capability to carry health and Salts packs with you? It really just didn't make sense.
  • No map. No statistics. I really would have liked a map. Yes, I know that's counter-intuitive when I say the game was even more linearized but I think a map still would have been beneficial, as would some sort of statistics screen and perhaps some notice of how many Infusions were in an area or something. I made it through the game and got ALL of the audio diaries, but I missed ONE of the scopes and ONE of the Infusions.
  • Story lapses. There are only a couple points that I could name, but the biggest one I really felt upset about is Songbird. Songbird was given such this big focus (at least before the game was released, it seemed) and then really only showed up less than a handful of times and was just thrown away like an empty point in the plot. They could have given some more information (as all of the audio diaries didn't really give much) perhaps or dealt with it differently.
  • It just didn't seem to be BioShock. This is the most random and probably least "founded" quirk I have with the game, but really, I just didn't feel like I was playing BioShock. I know that's silly when you essentially have Plasmids/Vigors, Tonics/Gear, the weapons and the upgrades and the sort of atmosphere, but for some chunks of the game, I just didn't feel like I was playing a successor of the original game that I had held so dear. There were plenty of parts that were reminiscent of the original game, sure, but other parts of the game just felt... like a drag. I said more on that above though. I think part of it had to do with the atmosphere, but part of it had to do with so many changes in gameplay that they did (as I said above), in addition to removing hacking games, cameras and alarms, the "horror" in general, and so on. I loved BioShock for the horror, but I never felt scared in BioShock Infinite except for the Atrium towards the end. Perhaps part of this all is my connection with the first game--maybe I just hold that so high that this game just seemed to fall below it in perspective?

The Good:

 

  • Beautiful game. Downright beautiful. The floating city of Columbia is solid.
  • The ending. Wow. The ending was one hell of a mind-bending one, although I had already estimated some aspects of it early on. I appreciated (read: LOVED) the callback to the original game and got all giddy when it appeared.
  • The twins. Honestly, it may seem silly here, but I loved the twins. They, besides being an important story aspect, just showed up at the best times and always made me feel better with their quirkiness and their overall omniscient sense of things.
  • The Hall of Heroes/Whores and the Atrium. Probably my two favorite places in the game, whereas other places fell short (like the Factory, Emporia, etc.).
  • The interesting enemies, although they sadly ran out after a while. I was expecting new enemies that they hadn't already released information about but I was sad to find that there weren't any more. I do have to say that I had totally forgotten about the Boys of Silence by the time I reached the Atrium, so seeing the "No Sin Will Escape His Gaze" sign made me go "Oh... shit!"
  • The skylines. I loved fighting battles when you had the skylines to fly about on. I just felt like these were under-utilized, however.

Sorry for this essay everyone. Please let me know your thoughts as well, and whether I'm crazy, whether you want me to try to spread my thoughts out more, and so on. This list isn't comprehensive as I had other things I wanted to note that I can't think of at the moment.

 

I am NOT saying this game is bad by any means. Maybe part of it is a case of expectations, but I think some things really could have made it better. It is still a great game and one of my favorite that I have played in 2013, however, but I just don't feel it is the "Infinitely Amazing" (to quote X360A's review) game that people say.

 

Thank you!

Edited by Fire Mage
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Agree with you in some of your points. As much as I enjoyed Infinite, one of the best games I've played in a while, I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the original Bioshock.

 

I didn't particularly enjoy the story; I never like alternate dimensions, time travel, etc. in anything. It just complicates things and there's always plotholes.

 

Also, was a bit disappointed that the final product differed so much to the gameplay demo that was released into 2010. No telekinesis!

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_DSfjAdhlU]BioShock Infinite Gameplay (10-Minute Demo) - YouTube[/ame]

 

As I said before, I really liked this game, but prefer the orginal. I reckon we'll be in the minority though.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_DSfjAdhlU][/ame]

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The Good and the Bad of Bioshock Infinite...

 

Well said. I agree with some of your points under the bad section of your summary although not to severity that it took the game down very much for me in the end. If I was reviewing this game I would score it in the high nines, the perfect reviews around the internet are a bit generous. If my review was purely based on enjoyment I would give it a ten but critically speaking there are a few very minor issues that hold it back from being perfect.

 

As far as you feeling the third act of the game drag a bit, I actually felt that way in the middle. The Factory and Shantytown portions of the story were a little long for me. I don't remember the names of the specific chapters off hand but while those parts were good overall, I was looking forward to getting finished with those areas.

 

The one thing I will note is that some of my greatest fears about this game came true and that's that they showed us way too much of the game and the characters long before release. I was never terribly surprised by much of anything but the delivery of it all was still well done. I think they dramatically underused some of the main characters and heavy hitter enemies. For example, when I was getting close to what was obviously the end of the game I was wondering why I hadn't come across the Boys of Silence yet. When I finally saw them, they were as excellent as I expected but I felt they could have been used more. The same goes for the Songbird. I don't feel like I know nearly as much as I would like to about that incredible character. I could have done with more boss fights ala Big Daddy encounters from the first one, which in that game was slightly overused.

 

Overall it was great and I loved the ending even with it being a little confusing, I think I walked away with a good grasp of what unfolded. I loved that the epilogue went on for a good twenty minutes or so and didn't cop out like so many endings of games and movies so often do.

Edited by WalterWhite
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@martdude16:

Yeah, really! None of the stuff in the demo happens (at least not in the particular manner they show--e.g., the woman sweeping the burning shop happens elsewhere, the initial picture is in the game, but most of it isn't). Kind of a shame.

 

The atmosphere isn't ever really that hectic or cool. The connections between places (e.g., from that man's podium over to the big guns) are never like that. No telekinesis. Elizabeth only ever finds items for you or does the same thing over and over through tears. You can't ever kick ass with her like the demos showed years ago. I knew something else was missing as I played and that was one thing--she never turned into the crazy fighter that I thought you were supposed to use during battle.

@WalterWhite:

I suppose revealing the game so much before (as happens often) does create a build-up that is sometimes hard to meet, and I feel like that happened here as well.

 

---

 

Further, I added one more gripe that I forgot. Money. I hate how they made money the universal item in the game when before we had Adam as well as Power to the People stations. Now money is the way to do everything, and I felt like money was scarce enough as it was for me in the game.

Edited by Fire Mage
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One of my favourite moments of the game was after being baptized for the first time, waking up in the garden of New Eden and looking up to see the statues of the founding fathers and the luscious colours of the water and shrubbery. This gave Columbia it's heavenly feel which was all lost when the Vox Populi started fucking the city up, leaving the city of Columbia nowhere near as pretty as it once was. This combined with the difficulty of the enemies ramping up made the last third of the game a drag for me. Until the ending of course.

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I don't agree with most of your points, I could go into specifics on each one, but it would be sooo long. The only thing i'll say in that regard is - how are you sure what you think was better, was? How do we know what you think was wrong with the game could have turned out better? The reason I say this is most of what you said is your overdramatizing what you consider flaws. Personally, I loved every second of the game, I was never frustrated or annoyed, and I found every area to be unique and full of random details that make up a whole lot of hidden information.

 

The thing is.. with the story, I too wish to know more about songbird and the heavy hitter fellows, but it also adds to the mystery of the game. It's very possible we will get to understand them in DLC. I believe the mystery of the game is somewhat integral to the overarching storyline. As for plotholes... I'm usually a very heavy hater and sometimes crybaby about ridiculous plotholes, but I find none in this game. This is easily the most well done multiverse storyline across any medium I have ever heard of or experienced. Nothing short of brilliance.

 

I've heard some ppl cry about combat, which is beyond ridiculous to me. Its your own fault you don't want to properly use the other vigors, even if some are easier to utilize. I used crow all the time for its autodropping crow traps, its wonderful. Used possession a lot, really I used every skill a lot throughout the game. Altho undertow is the most overpowered after getting lvled up, toss 3 ppl off the map over and over :p. The only one i felt slightly lacking is the shield, which I imagine I will get better use out of late 1999.

 

I'm sorry but I can't call you anything but ridiculous on your not feeling like Bioshock comment. It's not supposed to, its not a sequel. Its hard to imagine how you could have any complete different set of atmospheres. Bioshock you were deep in the ocean in buildings at all times, while in Columbia you are almost always outside high up in the sky... So..yeah..Idk man..i feel sorry for you.. i guess...

 

The only real things I wished for BSI was some more heavy hitter battles and origins on them, thats really it.

 

I also have no idea how you didn't consider Elizabeth to be straight up revolutionary AI. There has never been an AI that not only felt so alive, with real emotions and thoughts, as one who was pretty useful consistently. Shes saved my life countless times.. some of you sound like you wanted her to do the killing for you :|.

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Disagree mostly, but I'll only comment on the bit about developer expectations not being met. The removal of telekinesis and of Elizabeth's combat abilities is a good thing, I think.

 

In regards to telekinesis, the game would be an absolute roflstomp if it were included. Being able to phase in healthpacks distantly on the battlefield and then being able to magic them into your hands would just be too much. If Elizabeth couldn't phase stuff into existence, it might work better, but then you'd be removing a very useful role she has in combat.

 

In terms of making it so that she isn't really part of the fight, in my opinion, that's the best decision they could have made. If she could do that deal where you use lightning on about 20 guys at once without it being a scripted event, then once again, it'd turn the game into a boring roflstomp. If she just had a set of scripted events, then it would divert time away from other interesting things that developers can put more time into unless it was going to be a very occasional novelty. Basically, if she could participate in combat to the extent that she does in the demo vid, the game would either be way too easy, or it'd be a novelty rather than a semi-reliable set of abilities.

 

The Elizabeth we got was amazing in terms of game design. It's primarily the player's job to kill crap in ANY game. In this one, her removal from anything but a support role was brilliant, because it left that in tact so that players can find the enemies engaging, but she also had a set of useful skills that could help both in and out of combat. I've never played another game where friendly AIs were actively useful without the game becoming too easy. It was brilliant. Honestly, I think her role in combat was perfect.

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Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I mostly disagree with yours. I think the collective opinion is that this is one of the better games to come out in several years and I just found it strange that 75% of what you wrote was 'the bad' and the section for 'the good' was so small it was almost an after thought. I guess I don't totally disagree with some of your points but this game deserves way more praise than criticism. Of course, that is just my opinion.

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Disagree mostly, but I'll only comment on the bit about developer expectations not being met. The removal of telekinesis and of Elizabeth's combat abilities is a good thing, I think.

 

In regards to telekinesis, the game would be an absolute roflstomp if it were included. Being able to phase in healthpacks distantly on the battlefield and then being able to magic them into your hands would just be too much. If Elizabeth couldn't phase stuff into existence, it might work better, but then you'd be removing a very useful role she has in combat.

 

In terms of making it so that she isn't really part of the fight, in my opinion, that's the best decision they could have made. If she could do that deal where you use lightning on about 20 guys at once without it being a scripted event, then once again, it'd turn the game into a boring roflstomp. If she just had a set of scripted events, then it would divert time away from other interesting things that developers can put more time into unless it was going to be a very occasional novelty. Basically, if she could participate in combat to the extent that she does in the demo vid, the game would either be way too easy, or it'd be a novelty rather than a semi-reliable set of abilities.

 

The Elizabeth we got was amazing in terms of game design. It's primarily the player's job to kill crap in ANY game. In this one, her removal from anything but a support role was brilliant, because it left that in tact so that players can find the enemies engaging, but she also had a set of useful skills that could help both in and out of combat. I've never played another game where friendly AIs were actively useful without the game becoming too easy. It was brilliant. Honestly, I think her role in combat was perfect.

Well said, tried to say that but came out wrong and ranty :p.

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I absolutely hated the part right before lady comstocks "Siren battle". I'm not sure what it was, pacing, repetive design, stale chapter... Something just didn't flow from that whole hour or so section. Irked me real bad. The shops looked like they could all be entered, and some could, some couldn't, then your backtracking, then you find these tears, kill the siren, then backtrack and follow the lit up footsteps... Gah. Bioshock 1 is still better imo, nothing can topple the objectivism and ayn rand atlas shrugged feel, but this was a great game. Best of 2013 I've played, and top 10 for current gen for sure.

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Very well said my good sir.

 

Is it me, or after playing the game and watching that trailer, I feel really robbed? Almost like was shown one game, but given a different one in the same universe. Kind of like expecting BioShock 1, and getting BioShock 2 instead.

 

There are, however, a lot of things that bugged me. What happened with the teaming up your Vigor and Elizabeth's powers? Further more, why remove that entire aspect from the game, and still advertise it? The collapsing building was awesome in the trailer (which I kept waiting for a similar scene to happen), and I was waiting for gun fire to rain down from the sky and blow up the building around me too! But I never got it. The Columbia in the trailer looked and felt more like a floating city in the sky than the one in the actual game. The Vigors were rather disappointing too. I mean, it felt like pretty much everyone was: Hit the button it use it, or hold it down for a trap. Where's the variation and creativity with that? The huge lack of interaction with Songbird was a big disappointment too. From the trailer I was expecting there to be a couple 'Run for your life' areas where you had to try and escape from him. I felt really disappoint with the Boys of Silence too. Only in one mission and they are nothing more than a mobile security camera? Seriously? The lack of Handymen were disappointing too. There were what, a total of like six of them in the game? And the huge plot hole midway through after you finally make it back to The First Lady? What the hell is up with that?

 

I still enjoyed the game mind you, but it did not live up to what I had come to expect from it. I felt it was way too short, even with the back and forth fetch quest in the middle of it (I know the Season Pass content is suppose to add like 40% more content to the game, but it feels like that extra 40% should've been in the base game to start with). I don't know if they felt like it was too much like the original BioShock (with Telekinesis and what literally was just Electrobolt) so they had to make a ton of changes, but I honestly expected a lot more out of the game with all of the delays it had. I especially wasn't expecting all those cuts with the delays it had. God only knows what we would've got if the game shipped when it was first suppose to.

 

And for the record, I don't want to come across as just bashing the game and saying I hated it. I didn't hate it, quite the opposite actually. For what it was, it was a really good game and I quite enjoyed myself with it. Do I plan to play it a couple more times? Yes. Am I going to play it anywhere near as many times as I played the original BioShock? No, it will sadly be I game I more than likely shelf after I get all the achievements in it. It just didn't live up to what it was being made out to be in my opinion, especially not living up to being a BioShock game. I really think they shouldn't have put BioShock in the title. I mean, Irrational Games is a well known enough studio that they shouldn't need a name drop in the title to sell copies.

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Very well said my good sir.

 

Is it me, or after playing the game and watching that trailer, I feel really robbed? Almost like was shown one game, but given a different one in the same universe. Kind of like expecting BioShock 1, and getting BioShock 2 instead.

 

There are, however, a lot of things that bugged me. What happened with the teaming up your Vigor and Elizabeth's powers? Further more, why remove that entire aspect from the game, and still advertise it? The collapsing building was awesome in the trailer (which I kept waiting for a similar scene to happen), and I was waiting for gun fire to rain down from the sky and blow up the building around me too! But I never got it. The Columbia in the trailer looked and felt more like a floating city in the sky than the one in the actual game. The Vigors were rather disappointing too. I mean, it felt like pretty much everyone was: Hit the button it use it, or hold it down for a trap. Where's the variation and creativity with that? The huge lack of interaction with Songbird was a big disappointment too. From the trailer I was expecting there to be a couple 'Run for your life' areas where you had to try and escape from him. I felt really disappoint with the Boys of Silence too. Only in one mission and they are nothing more than a mobile security camera? Seriously? The lack of Handymen were disappointing too. There were what, a total of like six of them in the game? And the huge plot hole midway through after you finally make it back to The First Lady? What the hell is up with that?

 

I still enjoyed the game mind you, but it did not live up to what I had come to expect from it. I felt it was way too short, even with the back and forth fetch quest in the middle of it (I know the Season Pass content is suppose to add like 40% more content to the game, but it feels like that extra 40% should've been in the base game to start with). I don't know if they felt like it was too much like the original BioShock (with Telekinesis and what literally was just Electrobolt) so they had to make a ton of changes, but I honestly expected a lot more out of the game with all of the delays it had. I especially wasn't expecting all those cuts with the delays it had. God only knows what we would've got if the game shipped when it was first suppose to.

 

And for the record, I don't want to come across as just bashing the game and saying I hated it. I didn't hate it, quite the opposite actually. For what it was, it was a really good game and I quite enjoyed myself with it. Do I plan to play it a couple more times? Yes. Am I going to play it anywhere near as many times as I played the original BioShock? No, it will sadly be I game I more than likely shelf after I get all the achievements in it. It just didn't live up to what it was being made out to be in my opinion, especially not living up to being a BioShock game. I really think they shouldn't have put BioShock in the title. I mean, Irrational Games is a well known enough studio that they shouldn't need a name drop in the title to sell copies.

 

in Bioshock one the only sub-bosses were the big daddies and even they they would be random appereances (besides cohen etc.. etc...)

 

and like in bioshock gathering the audio logs helps illustrate the story that much better if you simply go through the story and dont get the audio logs then there will be parts that puzzle you.

 

also saying you hoped for bioshock and got bioshock 2 thats just mean bioshock infinite wasnt that "disappointing" ("quotation" because i didnt find it disappointing)

 

hope this doesn't sound ranty.

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Bioshock Infinite was an amazing game, but sadly suffered from mass murder syndrome. You can only walk down hallways and kill waves of enemies for so long before it eats away at you. I hope that next gen every game is like BI and no game is like BI. Every developer should put the same effort in detail for everything that Irrational put in, and create a rich unique world with amazing backdrops and visionary. We just need to move past the "kill everything" shtick in Fps's, expect when the sub genre demands it. IMHO every game should go towards the deus ex route killing everything should never be the only option...

 

Another disappointment, for me at least, was the lack of variety in enemies. It started off so well indeed. A new enemy for each Vigor, then it stopped... and so did the new enemies, unless you count the reskins. This killed the second half of the game for me. I actually stopped playing during Downtown Emporia for half a day(or so) I just so fed up with it. The 2nd half honesty needed another big set piece area like Battleship bay to break up the repetition.

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Bioshock Infinite was an amazing game, but sadly suffered from mass murder syndrome. You can only walk down hallways and kill waves of enemies for so long before it eats away at you. I hope that next gen every game is like BI and no game is like BI. Every developer should put the same effort in detail for everything that Irrational put in, and create a rich unique world with amazing backdrops and visionary. We just need to move past the "kill everything" shtick in Fps's, expect when the sub genre demands it. IMHO every game should go towards the deus ex route killing everything should never be the only option...

 

Another disappointment, for me at least, was the lack of variety in enemies. It started off so well indeed. A new enemy for each Vigor, then it stopped... and so did the new enemies, unless you count the reskins. This killed the second half of the game for me. I actually stopped playing during Downtown Emporia for half a day(or so) I just so fed up with it. The 2nd half honesty needed another big set piece area like Battleship bay to break up the repetition.

....Your paragraphs massively contradict each other... just.. ridiculous... also.. it would have been moronic if we didnt kill as many as we did - and I felt it was pretty low really the amount we killed, spent small amount of time in battle versus exploring... We were in the midst of a revolution.. it would have been beyond silly not to kill as many as we did.

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....Your paragraphs massively contradict each other... just.. ridiculous... also.. it would have been moronic if we didnt kill as many as we did - and I felt it was pretty low really the amount we killed, spent small amount of time in battle versus exploring... We were in the midst of a revolution.. it would have been beyond silly not to kill as many as we did.

 

One paragraph is lamenting on how I wish the game was, while the other is how it could have been improved in one aspect, in my opinion. Also, I never said that killing people was bad only that choice isn't. While killing people made sense in context, not killing people could have made just as much sense as it wasn't your revolution. Why fight in a war that you could just as easily bypass? Again, you couldn't in the game, but it was designed that way.

 

Time spent exploring is all perspective, I for one don't consider container searching to be exploring(for example), and while there are plenty of "off the beaten path" areas I still don't think it passes over the combat in total time, again all perspective.

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One paragraph is lamenting on how I wish the game was, while the other is how it could have been improved in one aspect, in my opinion. Also, I never said that killing people was bad only that choice isn't. While killing people made sense in context, not killing people could have made just as much sense as it wasn't your revolution. Why fight in a war that you could just as easily bypass? Again, you couldn't in the game, but it was designed that way.

 

Time spent exploring is all perspective, I for one don't consider container searching to be exploring(for example), and while there are plenty of "off the beaten path" areas I still don't think it passes over the combat in total time, again all perspective.

It was contradicting because you talk about there being too much killing (like you were looking for heavy rain type game..) then you go on to 'lament' how there wasn't enough variety in said killing... just.. silly.

 

If you don't enjoying exploring such a game I truly pity you, there are SOO many details you can glean from every zone with nigh uncountable references to various parts of the game within the game, its beautiful. To enjoy this game is to enjoy every detail they painstakingly put in. How you would even want to ignore these, I have no idea. I find it pretty funny you talk about how theres too much killing, but you basically complain that container searching isn't exploring.. you, sir, are ridiculous. You can find countless amazing details hidden throughout every zone, I probably spent at least 3 times the amount scanning every inch the the godmode setting versus combat.

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It was contradicting because you talk about there being too much killing (like you were looking for heavy rain type game..) then you go on to 'lament' how there wasn't enough variety in said killing... just.. silly.

 

No. I was complaining about the lack of choice, and the laziness of Modern gaming in which throwing waves of identical troops at you is acceptable. The premise and world have so much potential wasted for the endless bullets thrown at faceless drones. Killing in general doesn't have much to do with it just the lack of choice and variety.

 

If you don't enjoying exploring such a game I truly pity you, there are SOO many details you can glean from every zone with nigh uncountable references to various parts of the game within the game, its beautiful. To enjoy this game is to enjoy every detail they painstakingly put in. How you would even want to ignore these, I have no idea.

 

Who said I ignored anything?

I'm on my third playthrough, and I've collected everything. You can soak in the world without going to every piece of detail and over analyzing it.

 

I find it pretty funny you talk about how theres too much killing, but you basically complain that container searching isn't exploring.. you, sir, are ridiculous.

 

I don't know what you are trying to say here. I wasn't complaining about container searching I was using it as an example, as I wrote, and again I'm not complaining bout killing just waves of faceless drones.

 

You can find countless amazing details hidden throughout every zone, I probably spent at least 3 times the amount scanning every inch the the godmode setting versus combat.

 

Okay. Good for you... I know it might come as a shock, but different people have different playing styles. Regardless the exploration had nothing to do with my original points. You brought it up, because even if the game has a 90/10 split the 10 is still far from initiative. Instead of tying something new they stayed very cookie cutter with combat, and that is what both of my original paragraphs were about.

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now that I think about it; they were initially promising quite a bit more than what was actually delivered.

 

I thought there was going to be a bit more along the line of player choice. Specifically I remember an example where there is a dying horse. Booker suggests putting a bullet in it's head while Elizabeth mentioned something involving the tears and restoring it back to health.

 

I also remember something about the tears leading to an alternate 1980s. Specifically something about a movie theater showing "Revenge of the Jedi" and them almost getting hit by a car only for Elizabeth to pull them both back out of this alternate dimension at the last moment.

 

I also would have been ok with a telekinesis vigor though I rarely use TK spells to get items in games anyways; Bucking Bronco and Undertow did a satisfactory job of letting me fling enemies up and away every so often.

 

I distinctly remember hearing/reading about how Elizabeth was going to be able to; well not outright kill enemies but at very least stun some that got to close to her (like with a kick to the groin or a slap or whatever)

 

Definitely feels like they cut what could have lead to significant portions of the game despite it being delayed.

 

 

As for what we got. We still have a game that rates in the 9.5-9.75 range IMO

 

I don't get how Elizabeth is willing to toss you supplies in combat and money she finds lying around yet she can't be bothered to pick up the lock picks that she bloody uses. I would have liked seeing her stun the odd enemy that got to close. At one point during the first ghost lady boss fight (siren or some such I believe) I could have swore I saw Elizabeth jump over the ledge and run at and into a guy; but a lot of stuff was going on during that fight.

 

I do like that on top of supplying you during combat she occasionally points out the location of special enemy types, though I wish this triggered more often.

 

I also share a bit of the sentiment of feeling like the game petered out around the 3/4 mark however this game's lesser section still surpasses many games best parts.

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One paragraph is lamenting on how I wish the game was, while the other is how it could have been improved in one aspect, in my opinion. Also, I never said that killing people was bad only that choice isn't. While killing people made sense in context, not killing people could have made just as much sense as it wasn't your revolution. Why fight in a war that you could just as easily bypass? Again, you couldn't in the game, but it was designed that way.

 

 

Well TECHNICALLY... it IS kind of Booker's war. In the world with the revolution he does lead it (to a point)... and he couldn't bypass it. He needed the airship back from Fitzroy, which meant he had to help the Vox

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Well TECHNICALLY... it IS kind of Booker's war. In the world with the revolution he does lead it (to a point)... and he couldn't bypass it. He needed the airship back from Fitzroy, which meant he had to help the Vox

 

Alternate Booker leads the Vox, but he had ulterior motives and was out of options. Present Booker had 1 other option. Which brings me back to the killing hoards argument. Booker had just slaughtered over a 100 men getting to the airship yet he couldn't track down the Airship again, and kill the poorly equipped war fatigued Vox instead of equipping them for war with no reason to trust them? Video game logic would apply, but still if up to that point you had only killed a fraction of the enemies it would have been more believable that you had taken what would appeared to have been a less violent option.

Edited by TG BigChilly4
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The best part for me was probably the whole underlying racial and social issues the game had in it which was quite prevalent at this time in history. It worked well once the Vox rose up and started ransacking the city. Had you not got the glimpses the takeover wouldn't have had the same feel to it. In saying that I felt the takeover could have been done better.

 

The city of Columbia itself is absolutely amazing and I do like the differences from the original two games. The Raven enemeis are pretty awesome too and murder of crows was probably my favourite vigor.

 

It had some good humour especially the over capitlist dribble Fink spills out onto his workers. Overall it was a great game with an awesome ending.

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Alternate Booker leads the Vox, but he had ulterior motives and was out of options. Present Booker had 1 other option. Which brings me back to the killing hoards argument. Booker had just slaughtered over a 100 men getting to the airship yet he couldn't track down the Airship again, and kill the poorly equipped war fatigued Vox instead of equipping them for war with no reason to trust them? Video game logic would apply, but still if up to that point you had only killed a fraction of the enemies it would have been more believable that you had taken what would appeared to have been a less violent option.

 

 

Yes but at the time Booker doesn't know that this is the option. His world is pretty calm other than the general foot soldiers comstock throws at him until he passes through the tear, something he cant come back from, meaning he has to play the cards he is dealt.

 

Sure there may have been other ways around, but at the time he had just been hit in the face with a wrench, was totally helpless, got thrown out of the airship and didn't know where they took it. He was forced into helping them as a means of helping Elizabeth

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I have exactly one issue on which I'm disappointed, but maybe that's because I didn't read/watch a bunch of crap to make me anticipate stuff that wasn't delivered.

 

I wish that there were a few decisions in this game that counted for anything. It's not really something that's in the series at all so far, but when the premise of the game is that there are infinite universes, each representing a set of decisions, it seems like there should be more variety in outcomes.

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Agree with you in some of your points. As much as I enjoyed Infinite, one of the best games I've played in a while, I didn't enjoy it as much as I did the original Bioshock.

 

I didn't particularly enjoy the story; I never like alternate dimensions, time travel, etc. in anything. It just complicates things and there's always plotholes.

 

Also, was a bit disappointed that the final product differed so much to the gameplay demo that was released into 2010. No telekinesis!

 

 

As I said before, I really liked this game, but prefer the orginal. I reckon we'll be in the minority though.

This is what I never get with game developers, they show gameplay of something you'll never get to play.

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