Infinite from someone who thought Bioshock sucked

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Rocket Taco

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Oct 9, 2009
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Since there were a lot of people in the impressions thread with the same perspective, I thought I'd share. I didn't like the original Bioshock. It came highly recommended on its strength of atmosphere, storytelling, and gameplay, and I didn't like any of them. I thought it was the most overhyped waste of sixty bucks I'd ever spent.

So I was understandably hesitant about Bioshock Infinite, despite everything about it looking right up my alley and the reviews being spectacular. After watching about twenty minutes of a friend playing it, I picked it up. That was 24 hours ago; I have now finished it. Let me put it this way - if I ranked every game I'd ever bought, Bioshock would be near the bottom of the stack, and Infinite would be on top.

The claustrophobic environments are gone, for one. Bioshock felt like a series of corridors stapled together, one long winding tunnel. Infinite, by comparison, cleverly uses both space and backstory to create large, open environments where the invisible walls feel justified (ie, the street that connects to this one flew away).

On the subject of atmosphere, it's also much better. The lighting is bright enough to actually see what you're doing, there is little of the empty backtracking that plagued Bioshock, and the populated world imparts a sense of reality that was previously lacking. Additionally, maybe it was because I know how Objectivist societies end, but Rapture's demise seemed utterly predictable to me, to the point of being a foregone conclusion. Bioshock expected me to be shocked by it, and it fell flat. By comparison, Infinite's shock and horror comes from watching a naive and innocent girl affected and transformed by the collapse of society - but at the same time, she never comes across as weak. The game also builds an investment into its characters before asking you to care about them, whereas Bioshock gave us ten seconds of a plane ride as characterization and called it quits.

On the subject of gameplay: this just isn't the same game. It's much faster, throwing hordes of weaker enemies at you backed up by a few heavies rather than a few obnoxiously resilient lunatics. The guns feel weightier and more powerful, there is enough ammunition around, and there are a wealth of creative enemies and tactics in play.

And finally, the way the game handles its story is masterful. It may not have quite the subtlety of film yet, but if anyone is still looking for gaming's Citizen Kane moment, may I present a contender? It really is that good. Even if you see everything coming, the quality of execution should still blow you away. I know I'm going to need a few more hours to process what I've just seen.

I hope that helps everyone who wanted an opinion from someone who found Bioshock disappointing. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go play it again.
 

Pink Gregory

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I reckon there's going to be three main groups with Infinite: those who loved both (me), those who didn't like Bioshock and loved Infinite (you), and those who loved neither and the splinter group of those who have a distaste for the series for not being System Shock 3 (perhaps understandable, it'd be like turning Deus Ex into a straight shooter).

I had a few doubts at first, but all that was allayed about 3 hours in when I finally got let loose on the skyrails during a big open shootout. Bollocks if that wasn't the most exhilarating thing I've played in a long time.
 

porous_shield

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Jan 25, 2012
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Rocket Taco said:
On the subject of atmosphere, it's also much better. The lighting is bright enough to actually see what you're doing, there is little of the empty backtracking that plagued Bioshock, and the populated world imparts a sense of reality that was previously lacking. Additionally, maybe it was because I know how Objectivist societies end, but Rapture's demise seemed utterly predictable to me, to the point of being a foregone conclusion. Bioshock expected me to be shocked by it, and it fell flat. By comparison, Infinite's shock and horror comes from watching a naive and innocent girl affected and transformed by the collapse of society - but at the same time, she never comes across as weak. The game also builds an investment into its characters before asking you to care about them, whereas Bioshock gave us ten seconds of a plane ride as characterization and called it quits.
I agree with you for the most part and Bioshock is no where near one of my favourite games, but some of this seems kinda petty. Lighting really?

Rapture was falling apart at the seems when you got there, of course it was predictable but what was fun was seeing how it came to be that way.

The main problems I had with Bioshock was it's horrible pacing. The games climaxes and then keeping slogging on for a few more levels to finally kill the end boss who they someone expect you to hate more than the guy they've been building up the entire game.
 

Rocket Taco

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Oct 9, 2009
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Actually, I had huge problems with the lighting. In many cases I could not see what I was doing. What I meant about predictability is that from the second I heard Ryan's opening speech every bit of backstory I heard went down exactly as I expected. I didn't enjoy seeing how it got there because I already knew. Maybe it seems irrelevant to you, but everything I mentioned really bothered me - I was trying to like Bioshock.
 

Comic Sans

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Oct 15, 2008
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I agree with you. Maybe it's because I didn't play Bioshock until after the hype dust had settled so I expected more, but the game offered nothing outside of an interesting world that lost it's charm quickly. Infinite is much more enjoyable in every way. I also agree that the lighting in Infinite improves the game, but for a different reason. The bright cheerful colors and sunbeams form a stark contrast to the dark things going on with the society. It creates an amazing atmosphere, and a nice break from the standard visuals of modern FPS games.
 

KoudelkaMorgan

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I only played the demo for Bioshock, hated it. Saw vids of the full release, didn't care for it. I totally skipped Bioshock 2, and the only thing I can say about Bioshock Infinite is that its gratuitous advertising has made me really hate hearing that Nico Vega song over and over and over.

As I like the band and own that cd, that kinda sucks.

Though, if I knew nothing at all about Bioshock, and Infinite were the first entry into the series I'm sure I might have been interested and maybe even enjoyed it. It at least looks considerably better than the first game.