So how good is Bioshock:Infinite really ?(Spoiler free)

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mohit9206

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Oct 13, 2012
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So when Bioshock Infinite first came out it received rave reviews from everybody including Adam Sessler who is one of my favourite video game critics but since i had a backlog of games i held off from buying it and avoided every kind of potential spoilers and discussions.
But after recently reading Gamespot's controversial second take on the game and also watching TotalBiscuit's review i am very curious to know what are your honest opinions about this game ?Do you still feel that this game is as great as most critics make it out to be or has the launch hype worn off or did you never liked the game to begin with ?
I have not yet played the game its currently downloading from Steam so before i play i want to hear what you all think of the game and please avoid any and every major spoilers for others like me who have not yet played the game.
 

Legion

Were it so easy
Oct 2, 2008
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I think it is a very good game, but I feel that the game-play, or more specifically the combat let it down a little bit.

The story, writing and characters are fantastic and are miles ahead of the vast majority of the games on the market, and for the most part I cannot find any criticisms.

The combat in comparison is quite dull in my opinion. The weapons are pretty bland, and the mods are nowhere near as cool as the ones in the previous games. They are basically more damage, accuracy and a larger clip for the most part. I miss the electric shells for the shotgun and the bolt traps with the crossbow.

The Vigors are also pretty unexciting as well. They seem kind of cool on the surface, but in-game they are not that enjoyable to use. They aren't bad, but again I felt the ones from Bioshock 2 were a lot better.

I'd recommend it to most people and I did think it was pretty great overall, but I wouldn't say it is perfect.
 

King Billi

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Jul 11, 2012
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I for one loved the game. Personally I consider it worth playing just for the scenery and for the creativity that clearly went into creating it both visually and conceptually.

The gameplay is fun but not astounding, it's not really different from the gameplay of Bioshock 1 and 2 although it certainly could be considered either dumbed down or more accessible then either of those games depending on your point of view.
The story was alright and I found the characters to be very interesting and memorable.
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
13,769
5
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*shrug*

I loved it.

Cool setting, great story, fun gameplay, cool character and good dialogue.

It's not perfect mind. The story drags a bit around the middle and involves some dodgy twists. The ending get pretty surreal, which some people weren't impressed by, although i was fine with it. Lastly, I felt the run-and-gun action, while good fun, didn't really fit the story all that well.

I don't read Gamespot, but TotalBiscuit is so full of shit that it's in danger of leaking out his ears. I wouldn't give any weight to whatever he says.
 

Stephen St.

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May 16, 2012
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I also loved it.

As an experience, it was pretty damn near perfect.

The story has some dodgy parts, but the characters and atmosphere generally don't let you notice it.

It may be important to state that the game is not an RPG. It's an interactive story where the gameplay element is shooting. That said, I liked the shooting in Infinite, but I also disliked the combat in Max Payne. Infinite's gameplay is stable, suitably challenging and has enough interesting ideas throughout to not get boring.
 

PsychedelicDiamond

Wild at Heart and weird on top
Legacy
Jan 30, 2011
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It was pretty okay. It never quite reached the heights of the first Bioshock, ironically, but it was still pretty solid. The plot was kinda overambitious, the writing was overall solid but had a few downright horrible moments ("i want a puppy" is all i'm saying...), Comstock was nowhere near the villain that Andrew Ryan wasand the level design was fairly linear and boring compared to that of Bioshock 1. But it was by no means bad, a perfecty good first person shooter with a pretty good story and a fantastic artstyle.
 

BQE

Posh Villainess
Jun 17, 2013
334
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I would of honestly liked the game so much more if it wasn't tied to Bioshock in any way.

To me, there is no topping the beauty and claustrophobia of Rapture. The dread and anxiety that precedes an encounter with a Big Daddy or Big Sister was masterful. The environment and enemies in Infinite weren't as meaningful to me. Rapture was a fight for survival in a dark and unforgiving location rather than a romp in the sky.

Some of the mechanisms duplicated as a result of namesake didn't quite make as much sense within the context of Infinite as well. One way to put it I suppose would be if Fallout 4 took place in a utopian and beautiful society rather than the wastes but maintained the scavenging and cobbling junk together. Those aspects don't suit a new environment with essentially a new story and locale.

That may have been a tad disjointed but worry you not, lest your enjoyment be fettered by complaints truly immaterial.

It's a good game. You will have a good time.
 

MysticSlayer

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Apr 14, 2013
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Yeah, I've criticized the game enough left and right. Sort of hard to not do when you realize that all its redeeming factors came during the first half of the game. Just a quick rundown:

Story: Too ambitious for its own good with absolutely horrible pacing, bland characters (yes, even Elizabeth), awkward writing ("Yeah, well I want a puppy!"), and a seeming lack of understanding of what it wanted to be.

Gameplay: Short of a few interesting fights near the end, the game felt too generic, overly restricted, and failed to really push BioShock's gameplay forward. BioShock 2 at least tried to improve on the first game's gameplay, even if I felt it wasn't as enjoyable in the end. Infinite was basically a hollow shell of the first game when it comes to gameplay, and its inadequacies compared to the first game in this department were the most noticeable things to me when I went back and played the first shortly after finishing Infinite. I don't mind a streamlined approach (you could argue that BioShock 2 was just a streamlined BioShock), but Infinite went far beyond just simple streamlining. Oh, and don't even get me started on the Siren!

The Ending: A pathetic, boring, mind-numbing 10 minute meander of the game trying to explain itself in the most laughably pretentious way imaginable.

I'll stop there. The presentation was at least good from beginning to end and it's one of the best looking FPS games I've played. Outside of that, it was an absolute disappointment.
 

JazzJack2

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Feb 10, 2013
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I thought it was piss poor really, the story especially which was nonsense self-contradictory tripe masked with themes and issues it refers to (but does not explore) to give the illusion that it's deep or meaningful.
 

Smooth Operator

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Oct 5, 2010
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Style is great, story is great, characters are good, graphics are good, gameplay is alright, and the UI is for children.

The only real problem I see with the game is storytelling and gameplay contradicting each other, otherwise very good stuff.
 

shrekfan246

Not actually a Japanese pop star
May 26, 2011
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I liked it enough that I played it twice, consecutively, first on the normal difficulty and then on the hardest difficulty. Just for a bit of context, the last game that I did that with was DmC (which was also a much shorter game, technically), and before that was probably Devil May Cry 4 about three years earlier.

There are a lot of split opinions about the game, partly because of all the hype and rave reviews it got, but I loved it through and through. Sure, the level design wasn't quite as interesting as the first or second Bioshocks, but the actual levels were interesting enough to make up for that for me. Sure, the two-gun limit was a bit more constricting compared to the entire armory you could hold in the previous two games, but especially on the hardest difficulty, it made the combat much more tense when you had to fly around the battlefield trying to find replacement guns you still had ammo for. Sure, the Vigors have no real place in the story, but it's a city floating in the sky. Among other spoiler-riffic things, I can suspend my disbelief enough to accept their existence, especially when most of them were just so bloody fun to use.

Also, the arenas where you could zoom around with the skyhook were some of the best fun I've had in a first-person shooter, and I much preferred them to anything the first Bioshock had, even if it was a bit of a pain trying to aim while you're actually on it.

I talk primarily about the gameplay because most people will talk about the story, I imagine, and many people seemed to have lukewarm response to the gameplay in the past threads we've had. Contrarily, I loved the gameplay and think it's one of the best FPS' I've played once I got used to the aiming.
 

TheSteeleStrap

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May 7, 2008
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Since I can't play Last of Us (no PS3) Infinite is my GOTY, even after I gave it time to process. You won't be disappointed.
 

hazabaza1

Want Skyrim. Want. Do want.
Nov 26, 2008
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I thought basically all of it was really fucking great.
Gameplay was fun, dialogue and characters are the such were well written and entertaining, the actual story could get a little sketchy but that always happens when dealing with the subject matter Infinite tries so that was to be expected. Like others have said the middle does drag a little but it clearly tries to make it as interesting as it can be with the setting used.

Certainly a contender for my GOTY.
 

J Tyran

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Dec 15, 2011
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The setting is great and the story is superb, Columbia is a great environment and Elizabeth is one of the best NPCS ever. The gameplay lets it down though, adequate gunplay at best with bullet soak enemies that have no real tactical value apart from DPSing them down. The Vigours are OK but not as fun as plasmids, the balance is broken too. There is no middle ground between them being useless or overpowered, you can take out whole rooms of enemies out with the right vigour and clothing. Some effects stack and chain, so a person killed by fire will spread the fire to a neighbouring npc that was already on fire which then spreads again, meanwhile the clothing bonuses stun lock and damage enemies taking damage with lightning which also jumps upon death. There are other OP combinations but no need to list them as I think that example makes the point well enough.

I will get flamed for this but I think Bioshock 2 has more longevity, I started playing it again after GFWL was removed and the gameplay is the best in the series. The story is the weakest but after you have played through the story anyway I think gameplay matters more, the Big Daddy and Big Sister fights are way more fun than the Handyman fights in Bioshock Infinite. Plasmids are better and character builds are more involved. You can do things like build a melee and plasmid focused character or make tactical combinations of gene tonics and plasmid/weapon upgrades.

The planned DLC will bring me back to Infinite as it looks like it will be awesome but other wise I think I would enjoy playing Bioshock 2 more than Infinite as the gameplay is so much better.
 

briankoontz

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May 17, 2010
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Historically games with detailed small to medium-sized worlds like Bioshock: Infinite have been adventure games. But because of gamer prejudice against adventure games (many of whom have never even played one) almost every AAA game these days has to be marketed and made as FPS, RTS, strategy, and/or RPG. They have to fit the conventions of the genre, so in Bio:I's case there had to be guns and the subsequent mass-scale shooting and murder.

The reason why adventure games exist in the first place, the basic reason for the genre, is realistic exploration and intellectual satisfaction. Some of the early adventure games, the Zork series, were very difficult games which made progression very satisfying.

The pacing of adventure games is dramatically different from the fast, frenetic pace of action FPSes as well as the slow, strategic pace of stealth or survival horror FPSes. Adventure games proceed at the intellectual pace of the player - the same pace that real life typically proceeds at.

Bioshock: Infinite FEELS like an adventure game. It could very easily have been made as one, and that game design is the correct choice for the material. But due to gamer prejudice, that choice was not implemented and the game suffers as a result.

Most shooters made are similar to movies such as Commando, Invasion U.S.A., and Death Wish, where the protagonist is a one-man death squad and the world is populated with soon-to-be-corpses waiting to be converted from their temporary state of living human being.

Adventure games have a completely different premise. They are about regular people puzzling their way through their world to achieve a better understanding and ultimately to achieve some goal. Combat is sparse and when it occurs is far more dramatic, since the protagonist is not a one-man super-powered death squad where murder is always the solution.

Game developers claim to have absolutely no understanding of the underlying psychological difference between making a shooter and an adventure game, which makes them adolescents at best.
 

thewatergamer

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Aug 4, 2012
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Legion said:
I think it is a very good game, but I feel that the game-play, or more specifically the combat let it down a little bit.

The story, writing and characters are fantastic and are miles ahead of the vast majority of the games on the market, and for the most part I cannot find any criticisms.

The combat in comparison is quite dull in my opinion. The weapons are pretty bland, and the mods are nowhere near as cool as the ones in the previous games. They are basically more damage, accuracy and a larger clip for the most part. I miss the electric shells for the shotgun and the bolt traps with the crossbow.

The Vigors are also pretty unexciting as well. They seem kind of cool on the surface, but in-game they are not that enjoyable to use. They aren't bad, but again I felt the ones from Bioshock 2 were a lot better.

I'd recommend it to most people and I did think it was pretty great overall, but I wouldn't say it is perfect.
Pretty, much sums up my opinion honestly,

I still regret buying it as I was more interested in the gameplay as opposed to story, a good game but just not my type of thing...

Bottom Line if you are in it for the story its a fair purchase, if (like me) you want a game you can sink lots of hours into, probably not the first game that you should pickup

Personally I wish I held out for the GOTY edition, (even though it shouldn't get one it will because of how well it sold and all the reviews) oh well I'll have to be more careful when I buy my games and make sure I'm buying them with gameplay in mind and not story
 

MHR

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Apr 3, 2010
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Like everyone has said, the game is good, the story and visuals are great, but the combat is somewhat boring and generic.

I liked the game, but GOTY material it isn't. IMO GOTY should be a game that excels at great gameplay just sayin'.

Gameplay is more important to me, and infact I'm going to replay bioshock 2 since they just released the DLC for it for free on steam as compensation for having to put up with Games for Windows Live which they've just removed from it. Bioshock 2 had a lame story depending on who you ask, but the gameplay in it is definitely greatly improved over 1 and not dumbed-down like infinite.
 

Kungfusam

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Jun 26, 2013
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Booker was alright but Elizabeth was just to nice and rather then develop her character she ends up being just a plot device in aid of a pretentious ending

The combat and exploration is also pretty weak
 

MHR

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Apr 3, 2010
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Kungfusam said:
The combat and exploration is also pretty weak
This too. There were no sidetrack areas and very little free-roaming and the only things to ever find were silver eagles in dustbins.
 

Marik2

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Nov 10, 2009
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mohit9206 said:
So when Bioshock Infinite first came out it received rave reviews from everybody including Adam Sessler who is one of my favourite video game critics but since i had a backlog of games i held off from buying it and avoided every kind of potential spoilers and discussions.
But after recently reading Gamespot's controversial second take on the game and also watching TotalBiscuit's review i am very curious to know what are your honest opinions about this game ?Do you still feel that this game is as great as most critics make it out to be or has the launch hype worn off or did you never liked the game to begin with ?
I have not yet played the game its currently downloading from Steam so before i play i want to hear what you all think of the game and please avoid any and every major spoilers for others like me who have not yet played the game.
The critics are mostly jaded by the hype,especially Sessler. The game while having some nice character interaction, suffers a lot from having a very bland gameplay where it is even more watered down than the first Bioshock.

The game doesn't have much exploration and it is very linear. They cut of a ton of content from what they were showing off in the trailers and it feels very rushed like they had a ton of great ideas, but had to scrape it all for a deadline.

Get it when it is dirt cheap.