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

[BloatedGuppy]

Debatable really, yes it does make some attempt to establish this idea of constants and variables early on but given that it establishes no precedent for why something is constant or why something is variable (bar what the designers would find convenient) I don't think it's incorrect to call its usage as a 'solution' to a major plot hole as a deus ex machina.

Well of course it's based on what the writers find convenient. It's a work of fiction. The entire reason for writing it up that way in the first place was to create a series of conveniences that would allow the plot of the game to unfurl. Those expecting or wishing for Rube Goldberg style plot intricacies will certainly be aggravated by Infinite, because it's not that kind of story. I thought that was pretty apparent from the onset though.

As for Deus Ex Machina...it quite literally has to come out of nowhere to be Deus Ex Machina. That the writers never felt it necessary to establish a set of rules as to what constitutes a fixed point vs a flexible one would certainly frustrate someone who likes a very structured story...fans of hard science fiction, say...but it doesn't make it Deus Ex Machina. This kind of "loosey-goosey" plotting is sort of a staple for magic realism and fantasy (most particularly when the narrative is shaped around the characters as opposed to the world, as it is in Infinite), which is why it doesn't really bother me and I tend to give the story a pass on those elements...but I can see why it would make a certain type of player grit their teeth.

Mind you, I also liked the ending of Lost, because I appreciated what they were trying to do. THOSE fans at least had cause for outrage, as the show very casually switched genre for the final season.

 

[freaper]

I was quite unfamiliar with the Bioshock combat system, having only seen a LP of Bioshock. I still found the gameplay to be entertaining; trying to find a combo of vigors that would suit me well and upgrading a weapon to the fullest both appealed to me.

The story and characters really gripped me. Elizabeth will probably reside among my favourite videogame characters for a long while, and the fact that the story managed to keep up its mystery until the very end, really made me appreciate all the little hints we got throughout the game.

I recommend you pick it up, whether you've played Bioshock before or not, this game is definitely worth a shot.

 

[RaikuFA]

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!

This. It pisses me off even more that Ken Levine did it this way because he wanted to please the CoD crowd. Seriously, his whole "Diffrent cover" was cause he was butthurt that a frat house didn't play the first. Then the whole "2 guns just like in every other other shooter nowadays" thing popped up.

 

[FourCartridge]

It is a pretty good game from what I have played.

Columbia is a pretty nice world to explore despite the middle of the game being dragged down in a revolution that turns out to not affect the plot much(Finkton is a rather boring place). It may not be as memorable as Rapture, mostly due to Comstock not being able to embody the city as well as Ryan did Rapture, but it is a more interesting locale than most other games can offer.

The combat feels right(go Hand Cannon!) but like said earlier, it lacks any real interesting twists and turns. Weapon and Vigor upgrades are almost nonexistent, and enemy variety is still dull as ever. The RPG elements have also been toned down as well, which is one of the things I LOVED about the original Bioshock.

There is a Youtube vid that covers pretty much everything that the game did wrong and still holds it up as good. However I can't link it as per OP request.

All in all though, I would recommend this to anyone.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I loved the game, the writing, the setting, the characters and the environment, I thought were all pretty much perfect. Unfortunately I also thought that there were some things that the game could have done much better in terms of general gameplay stuff.

1. For one, there needed to be more enemy types. I mean, all there is are the normal enemies, the rocket guys, the patriots, the firemen, the handymen, the crow guys, and robots, and that's pretty much it for the majority of the game. Eventually you get some new enemies in the form of the boys of silence, but they aren't much of a threat and they're only around for one level. It also doesn't help that the majority of the enemies all fight the same way. You only ever need to vary up your tactics if there are firemen, crow guys or handymen.

2. Skyhook seems underused. There are some really awesome areas in the game where it's a large open place, with a lot of rails where you can ride around using the skyhook and take full advantage of all of Booker's abilities, but unfortunately you can count all those areas on 1 hand from what I remember. This means that while the combat can be really interesting and unique sometimes, for the most part all you do is run through hallways or on the streets while spraying people down, without using the really cool floating city motif in the combat.

3.

Spoiler

The ending fight is extremely anticlimactic, and I really wish that you'd gotten to fight songbird, since the entire time you're playing the game it seems like it's building to this intense boss-fight against this unstoppable force of a boss, only for him to die in a cutscene without you having ever touched him.

Other than these complaints, I thought everything else about the game was fantastic, and I'm really looking forward to the "burial at sea" DLC.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

3.

Spoiler

The ending fight is extremely anticlimactic, and I really wish that you'd gotten to fight songbird, since the entire time you're playing the game it seems like it's building to this intense boss-fight against this unstoppable force of a boss, only for him to die in a cutscene without you having ever touched him.

Spoiler

A fight against Songbird might've been interesting, but it would've needed to be a fight you lost. Songbird's death was incredibly poignant and one of the highest points of a game that contained numerous high points. I'd be hesitant to change anything about it.

Particularly liked the Little Sister sobbing over a Big Daddy in the background as he died. Thought that was an elegant little touch.

 

[Colour Scientist]

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.

Pretty much this.
I enjoyed playing it more than I have any other game so far this year.

Some of the vigors were a bit awkward though.
There were times where I just didn't think of using them and the game would put up a prompt to the effect of "eh, remember these?"

 

[Chromatic Aberration]

-snip-

Okay beat it myself barely a week ago on hard so here are my thoughts: good to very good game with some flaws but imho inferior to the original Bioshock.

A more detailed, yet still (largely) spoiler-free explanation:

Spoiler: Pros

* Great, imaginative artdesign and showcasing Columbia: look at Columbia and you know why - they, once again, so capture the style of this time-period and couple it with some cool steampunk that it's just a joy to wander around the streets and simply relish in the scenery. It also gets some huge points in that it uses this to its advantage in that it deliberately gives you time to do so in an effort to immerse you in the game.
* Smart twist: The twist a the end is actually pretty smart. I'm not convinced that it makes perfect sense from a mechanical point of view but it makes for a good twist and actually forces you to think - not only about the story itself but about the theme it's going for - which is a huge plus in my book.
* Elizabeth: Very cute, very relatable character that is never in the way whatsoever. The game actually makes you care about her which is quite a feat, indeed. Still never down to Clementine levels of attachement, though.
* Makes you invested in the story: in contrast to Bioshock I was actually much more interested this time to know what it all means which motivated me to play all the way through. In the first Bioshock the story felt more like an optional sidequest all the time while I murdered Big Daddys or dealt with crazed psychopaths than an aim in itself.

Spoiler: Cons

* Narrative disconnects: it has a lot of themes and commentary it throws at you but doesn't really make an effort to show how all of this fits together. It seems crammed and strangely unfocused at times with regards of its themes and doesn't seem to know what exactly it wants to do with all this. That's not to say some connections aren't smart or not very much deliberate but many of it just seems to be in because they can and not because it made sense within the narrative. From the gameplay-perspective the vigours are pretty exemplary for that.
* Pacing issues: Has some severe pacing issues at times where it just throws you out in the open to deal with stuff that feels like needless padding and distracts from the more mysterious elements of the narrative.
* Elizabeth character progression: To me, it seemed really disjointed and rushed at times.
* Songbird: a missed opportunity all in all as it's mostly treated as a cheap story-progression device. For all the symbolism involving birds and cages, the cool design and the trailers I'd expected much more on that front.
* Unresponsiveness of the environment: For all the showcasing of a "living" Columbia the game tries to achieve, its people remain strangely static and uninvolved altogether. As long as you don't start randomly killing people the people in Columbia don't respond to anything you do except in some rare instances where you are not allowed to steal or some guy gestures at you not to proceed further - and that kills a lot of the atmosphere. Especially since I, for instance, accidently killed a host of innocent bystanders in one instance by brutally setting them on fire while nobody really cared - not even Elizabeth which probably pissed me off the most.
* Gameplay: Felt stiff and slow on the ground and I found it to be more uninventive than the one in Bioshock. Guns are comparably boring (I miss my flamethrower!), AI didn't do much and some enemies seemed strangely overpowered in contrast to the mass of canon-fodder the game sometimes throws at you. RPG elements enter with about the same amount as in Bioshock and are okay but don't improve on it. A good addition, however, is the skyhook which makes a lot of fun to use but appears not as often as I'd like it to and which also has some issues I think. Two weapon restriction annoyed me a lot, however, as did the focus on a much more linear world with less to explore. It works but feels inferior to the original Bioshock.

EDIT: Now to the Guppy...

That's because the game is not about Quantum Mechanics.

Spoiler: Spoilerific disagreement on the importance on quantum mechanics in the narrative

Honestly I think that#s debatable: it would help tremendously if the game wouldn't go out of its way to constantly allude that it draws a lot of inspiration from quantum mechanics to the point where it almost flat-out says "Look! We are commenting on quantum mechanics!" - every single line of dialogue of the Lutece twins for instance does this. And this is not a bad thing: In fact, I as a physicist, actually like that play with the ideas a lot which is also why I have Noein [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/Noein?from=Main.Noein] on my shelf right next to me - a show that shares the same overall themes (the consequences of choice, quantum superposition and multiverse theory) with Infinite.

What pisses me off, however, is when a show/game clearly does not understand what it tries to comment on while it blows a big whole in my suspension of disbelief which so happened when Bioshock Infinite took Schrödingers Cat literally and turned into a bossfight that has no real comparison in-universe whatsoever. So, I think, these kind of issues are valid critiques for people who know what to look for and shouldn't be discounted as "aggressively wearying pedantry" as you put it.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The gunplay is utter crap!

It's fucking dreadful how limp and unsatisfying the guns in this game feel. Now this wouldn't be too much of a problem if not for the fact that the game throws hundreds of mooks at you whose sole purpose in life is to kill you. You can't avoid them, you can't sneak past them, and you can't choose not to fight.

Every fire fight in this game basically consists of you constantly soaking up damage from enemies all around you, and hopefully killing them all before your healthbar runs dry. There's no way to anticipate enemy attacks since they just come out of nowhere and start firing at you like crazy people.

And the two weapon limit means that during these clusterfuck fire fights you're constantly running around looking for ammo and swapping guns, taking even more damage in the process. Seeing as the game obviously wants you to blast everything on screen, having a two weapon limit is a stupid decission. And coupled with the weapon upgrades system, you're faced with the annoying dilemma of wanting to upgrade your two current weapons, but knowing you'll have to discard them once the ammo is depleted.

Can't say much about the story since I stopped playing, but as an FPS it's just really really REALLY bad.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

It's not really a Bioshock game. Plasmids are there, the decadent steampunk city is there, the little booth vendors are there, but it's missing so much that makes a game a Bioshock game. There's a weapon limit, you can't upgrade your weapons similar to how you do in Bioshock, there's no optional Little Sister or Big Daddy sidetracks, no splicers, no crafting, no freedom to explore previously explored areas.

Other than that, the shooting felt solid and was an absolute joy, though they could've used more weapons that weren't bullets or explosives like a crossbow or chemical thrower. No matter how much you hated the game, you have to admit the freedom of Skyhooks in combat is the coolest thing yet. Also, Elizabeth made combat too easy: you'll see why. Using Booker as a person worked out so well, and I don't think many people do that anymore. Columbia was so lively and the setting lets you see some interesting subtle views on old time racism.

I constantly trash on the story for being so overly ambitious. It's only the last twenty minutes of the game that I went from loving a slightly mysterious story to absolutely loathing the answer: it's not that I didn't like what happened some characters, it's that it was so stupid. It's a lot like how they couldn't just say that Columbia is flying because it can, they have to say "quantum Lutece field which suspends an atom yadda yadda". Too much mucking around with pseudoscience when some things are best left for the imagination.

Also the game keeps up the Bioshock tradition of making eye contact with a person once then having them die the next time you see them. Really freaking annoying.

I preordered the game and I didn't feel like I lost money. Got it, played through it once, made around half way through it again in a second playthrough before I stopped and have yet to play it or install it in months. But I got X-Com and Bioshock 1 out of the preorder too.

It's worth money, but don't expect a Bioshock. I'm mainly waiting for the Burial at Sea DLC.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

It's a weak game with little to no real challenge...much like the other Bioshock games. The story doesn't make a great deal of sense (it is the story of a paradox after all) and the magic system is odd and badly presented (thank you achievements for informing me of some of the features). It took me 2 days to complete it and left me feeling nothing...

Lets be honest about it, it got rave reviews when it came out because the publisher paid for it and because it has nice graphics...don't let the shitty gameplay and story get in the way of hype reviewing There are many better games out there that can occupy your time but if bioshock infinite turns up for 5 quid, it's at about it's real value.

My suggestion: Rent it!
Personal rating: 4/10

 

[An Individual]

Personally, I loved it.

Game play wise it is so so. It basically took Bioshock's game play and made some changes which you will either like or hate or feel neutral about.

The story is what makes it great. But it's not simple. There are a number of aspects require you to sit down and think about them and the ending is particularly complex. There's a particular principal that can make it difficult to understand without some knowledge of. Knowing it isn't much of a spoiler but it does give a few things away so if you want to now it you can find it here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation].

So basically, the game play is fine but it's not worth picking up the game for. I love it for the story but it requires some brain exercise.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Spoiler

What pisses me off, however, is when a show/game clearly does not understand what it tries to comment on while it blows a big whole in my suspension of disbelief which so happened when Bioshock Infinite took Schrödingers Cat literally and turned into a bossfight that has no real comparison in-universe whatsoever. So, I think, these kind of issues are valid critiques for people who know what to look for and shouldn't be discounted as "aggressively wearying pedantry" as you put it.

I guess...I'll put my response to this in spoiler tags too. I don't know WHY we're talking in spoiler tags, but just in case I'm overlooking something really spoilery here, I'm gonna tag it out of respect to the OP.

Spoiler

"People who know what to look for". I assume by this, you mean "People who are actually bothered by this sort of thing". It's not like I played Bioshock Infinite and thought "Gosh, now I understand Quantum Mechanics! I R DUM!". Again, I'm going to point to the flying city, the vigors, the Handymen with the inexplicably large heads and giant exposed hearts, etc, etc, etc as many examples of OBVIOUS MAGIC REALISM/FANTASY, and signposts indicating "This is not a work of rigorous scientific realism". This is a work of fiction. It is an understood part of the writer/reader contract that we are not reading a historical account of documented fact, nor are we witnessing a scientific documentary about the actual consequences of quantum mechanics. Like Racism, like American Exceptionalism, like Religious Extremism, "Quantum Mechanics" are used as window dressing for the story. Much in the same way a game like Mass Effect will use pseudo-science to drape a veneer of legitimacy over what is functionally space fantasy, Bioshock Infinite uses buzz-terms like "Quantum Mechanics" to gussy up the fantastical elements like FLYING CITIES and MAGIC POWERS. Your fucking HANDS melt off and reform after drinking some vigors. This is not a science game.

The actual STORY is about Booker and Elizabeth. And maybe some people don't like that story, that's fine. People can like what they like and dislike what they dislike. What ANNOYS me is this refrain of "The story sucks because the writers don't understand quantum mechanics hurr hurr!" or "There was a plot hole, story = fail!" as if the only function of fiction is to dot all the i's and cross all the t's for the people whose suspension of disbelief is rocked the moment a fantastical narrative divorces itself from reality.

So yeah, I do find it to be "wearying pedantry", or at the very least an EXTREMELY depressing way to experience/analyze fiction. This is the sort of nit pickery that saw characters like Jeff Albertson spring to life. I'm not saying this is what YOU are doing, but this thread is FULL of people who are doing it, and they make me very tired. It's bad enough to endure this "WORST GAME EVER" bullshit in threads about the likes of Dragon Age 2, which is a game that at least deserved a helping of shit for all its sins. Infinite is a very soundly put together game, veritably swimming in merits. Yeah you can only hold two guns. Yeah the shooting is pedestrian. Yeah the writers do not have PHds in quantum mechanics. Whoopity fucking doo. I know that over the top criticism is fun to write, but it's only fun to read when it's done well, by people who know what they're doing. None of those people are to be found in this thread, or in many others on similar subjects. So you'll have to pardon my simmering disdain...it's not for YOU. It's for some of the other champs in this neck of the woods. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

 

[Fox12]

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.

Gameplay: Average. Like the original, you can't really die, so it's not too difficult. It's fun, and the sky hook is cool. The game is short enough that it doesn't feel to repetitive. I felt it was an overall improvement from the original, but there are complaints that some of your abilities don't mesh very well into the narrative, unlike the original game.

Art Design: Fantastic. One of the best looking games I've ever seen from an artistic viewpoint, which is supplemented by the wonderful graphics. It's a gorgeous game to just look at, and some of my favorite moments didn't involve any fighting or action whatsoever. Just standing on the edge at dusk, watching the city glow as the sun went down.

Story: I found it lacking, to say the least. It was heavy handed nonsense with terrible pacing. The characters were okay, but not great, with the exception of two twins. The villains were shallow as a kiddie pool in winter, and had none of the charm of Andrew Ryan and Atlas. Everyone tended to fall into stereotypes and cliches. Don't play this game for the narrative, I found it highly overrated. It was the most pretentious game of the year, easily. If you want narrative, go pick up The Last of Us instead.

Overall verdict: Average to above average. Maybe an 8/10, if I'm feeling generous. I can't justify buying it at the full price, however, because it doesn't have enough content and the story isn't good enough. It's a fun game to pick up at a discounted price at gamestop or on Steam. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go find my flame retardant suit and bunker before the fans arrive.

 

[gorfias]

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 think you were the first poster to mention the sky hook. I've never played a game with anything like it. It was a blast. And the dimension hopping and that giant song bird... they all added up to one of the best gaming experiences I've had in gen. 7. I'd put it in my top 20. Given that it's been 8 years of games now, that's pretty good.

And I never get tired of this (I bought it from Amazon)


Inspires me to play some more. Hope I wasn't ninjad.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

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.

Good post. The more I think about the more ludicrous the mixture of gameplay and styles in the game is. The question is, why does Bioshock Infinite have all the shooty bits? It doesn't need them. So either the developers think they are needed, in which case they are stupid, or they are there because the developers are scared the game won't sell without them, in which case they are cowards.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I liked it. I feel like it would have been a lot better if the actual game part of it wasnt a bland first person shooter and focused more on interaction and exploration. Booker interacts very briefly with very few characters aside from elizabeth and for as good as the world building was, I feel like it would have been a lot better had it been conveyed through dialog rather than audio diaries (which bother me in every game they're in, so maybe that's just a personal thing)

If somebody asked if it was worth playing I would say yes, but there are lots of other games I would recommend before it.

 

[RedDeadFred]

The story was one of the best I've ever experienced in video games. The setting was brilliant and beautiful. The ending was perfect. The gameplay did get a little too repetitive in some areas but whenever the skyline could be involved in the combat, I found it to be a lot of fun. I like using the Skyhook a lot so leaping up only to dive onto someone right away never really got old. Overall, it's a fantastic game and is tied with Saints Row IV right now for my GOTY pick.

 

[JokerCR]

It's THAT good. As good as every reviewer says it was. It is comparable to the original in the way it played with popular gaming conventions and created yet another incredible narrative that could only work as a video-game.
Go play it and find out for yourself, don't rely on a bunch of internet nerds to form opinions for you.