Bioshock Infinite review

[SUMIRE]

Well I am still plodding through this as I want to complete it before selling, but honestly, I have no idea where the 'love' for this game is coming from. I have spent at least 50% of the playtime searching corpses, trashcans, chests, desks etc. and it is boring as hell. The boredom is interrupted by short bursts of FPS action which is not great.

Yes, it looks very good, but that is about it. for me so far this 5/10 it just an average game. (I am about 80% through it). As for 10/10 no way, I mean NO WAY!! Lol

Yeah, like the original, a good game, but way overhyped.

[SuperBeatBoy]

Amazing game. Much preferred it the original Bioshock. Which wasn't a slouch either in the great game department.
What i liked more in this than over the original is that it had more life to it and moments of what you would consider to be a normal day to day life in Columbia.

[zeroboo]

not much a fps fan but i loved the story. prob wont play it again though...

[dataDave]

I'd put it almost on par with Half-Life 2. It's not often I enjoy a Western gaming experience.

The setting, intense combat (played on Hard), and even story were all pretty decent. A brilliant little piece of fiction. Glad I took the punt in the end.

[PeteJ]

I'll keep spoilers under spoiler tags, but be warned that if browsing on a tablet the spoiler text is often revealed automatically. I'll stick them in the second half of my post. The videos I link are from early gameplay demos but might include spoilers if you know nothing about the game.

Finished it yesterday afternoon (gotta love videogame-based four day weekends!) and thought it was a superb game...but not quite to the quality I was hoping.

To be fair, my expectations were stupidly high. I loved Bioshock and the 15 minute Infinite demo they put out a few years ago was so bloody incredible that I was going in expecting a new standard in gaming. Yeah, I was only ever going to be let down.
15 minute demo from a previous E3:


While I realise that demo was a target rather than a proper demo (and the developers always said it was a target), I feel the final game falls short of what they were expecting. Only a couple of times throughout the entire game does the combat come anywhere near approaching that scale...and when it does, it's scripted encounters. The skyhook is a tremendous achievement and a really original and bold mechanic, but I think it was underused in the end.

A bit like Tomb Raider before it, the game suffers from combat fatigue. I didn't think the combat was ever bad, but I could have done with much less of it. The larger combat scenarios mentioned above are superb fun (if not ever fully realising the potential) but the minor encounters felt like padding which I could have done without. I preferred exploring to shooting.

It's the story and the environment we come for in a Bioshock title though, and it barely puts a foot wrong here. Compared to the early demos they put out I feel again that the scope and scale isn't quite realised but it is close. I wonder if their vision had to be cut back due to the limitations of current consoles? Irrational have said they had to cut enough content to fill another two games too, which explains why a lot of what was shown previously doesn't make it into the final game.
First gameplay demo:


I loved exploring, soaking in the atmosphere, reading the posters and listening to the conversations. The audiologs are again where most of the story detail is filled in and they are just as well done here as in the original. The game feels dated in so many ways - the AI characters are static until you approach them, the loading scenes are archaic, the mission objective marker is straight out of the 90's etc - and this perhaps makes the experience less impressive some of the other modern shooters, but Infinite has character. Columbia is the most interesting FPS environment since Rapture.

I felt the characters were far more interesting in Infinite than Rapture and that's where this game propels itself into one of the best videogame stories I've seen in a very long time.

This is heavy spoiler time, so look away now if you haven't finished

->Open Spoiler<-

The idea of the multiverse was nicely built up throughout the game, in fact looking back through the experience pretty much everything was incredibly well signposted. If I was a smarter person I think every little detail could have been figured out before the immense final half hour.
I've had to sleep on it to even try and understand what went on at the end, but here we go:

Rosalind Lutece found a way to open up rifts, was funded by Comstock to create Columbia. Comstock used the rifts\tears to see into the future and become the Profit. Fink used rifts to get ideas from other universes - it is implied he saw a Big Daddy being created from Rapture and used that to create Songbird and Handyman (?). Finks brother used the rifts to steal music from other timelines (hence the Beachboys song near the start, Tainted Love on the radio, etc)
Fink was hired by Comstock to kill Lutece due to the secrets they knew, the result was that Lutece ended up everywhere and everywhen.
Rosalind Lutece was ok with this as it meant the 'twins' could be together, Robert Lutece was not since he could see the end of the universe.
Meanwhile...

DeWitt killed hundreds of natives in the battle of Wounded Knee. He is half native american (?) but in order to prove his worth he slaughters native american women and children too.
After the war he cannot live with himself, so he turns to religion. When about to be baptised, he either accepts the bapitism creating the path of Comstock or rejects it, putting him on the path we play in the game.

This explains why Slate knew DeWitt from Wounded Knee but claims Comstock was never there - because he wasn't.

Comstock is visited by an archangel and is given a vision to create Columbia. The archangel is Future Elizabeth using Comstock to allow her own story to play out.
Comstock cannot have children so has Lady Comstock killed (framing Daisy) and uses Lutece and a rift to engineer a deal with DeWitt to take Anna, his daughter, across into his universe. In doing so, Anna loses her finger and is renamed as Elizabeth.

It is implied that DeWitt was always a racist, a white supremacist, so his path as Comstock was his views with no constraints. Daisy Fitzroy is the maid who is framed for murdering Lady Comstock, goes onto create the Vox, and a rebellion begins. Through the actions of the game, DeWitt accidently gives the Vox the advantage by meddling with the rifts and getting the guns to the Vox. DeWitt, having changed universes into one where he should be dead, is suddenly set upon by Fitzroy and the Vox since he was "more useful as a martyr" (probably the most clumsy moment in the whole game).

They never explain exactly how Elizabeth is able to control the rifts, but it is why she is experimented on. Lutece suggests it is due to her losing her finger through a rift, but never confirms this.
In the end, by killing DeWitt before he is baptised, Comstock cannot exist, Lutece never gets funding and baby Anna can never get taken meaning Elizabeth cannot exist, either.

I've probably got stuff wrong and having not found every audiolog I'm missing some detail, but I think that's the jist. Big implications for the original Bioshock too. DeWitt is Jack? Comstock is Ryan?


Woah

What a game.

[BIG EDD]

Completed this just now,loved the last sectionenjoyed it must admit

[fuse]

Not really sure how to guage how far I am in this (

->Open Spoiler<-

I have just gone through a tear in Chen Lin's cell

), but ehh... I'm not being blown away. Based on everyone else's reactions I'm expecting grand things of the story once it's all played out though - hopefully this will form my lasting impressions of the game rather than how I'm feeling now, which is much closer to frustration as I find myself spending far too much time going over each and every room with a fine tooth comb looking for pick-ups. Is it only me doing this?

Not really finding the shooting and stabbing and so on particularly gripping either. For all of the effort spent on making such a gorgeous and believable world, the brutality of the first encounter was a pretty good/bad reminder of what actually makes up a modern FPS game.

[dataDave]

I did the fine tooth comb thing as well. I also thought the game was **** up to that point.

The more challenging battles converted me somewhat later on. I've read only good things about 1999 mode.

[dataDave]

->Open Spoiler<-

As someone over on RLLMUK mentioned, it would have been nice if they had explored two or three other 'Shock locations before blowing their load with the multiverse thing. It may have taken another 18-20 years to go full circle but it would have been nice all the same.

[gambit6613]

Have been playing this all weekend and so far i have loved every minute of it. The setting is just wonderful and i just love all the attention to detail, it really is one of the most absorbing game worlds i have played in a long time, im playing on PS3 and have to say at times its just stunning to look at, it looks so nice and colourful, in a funny way i cant help thinking of DisneyWorld Florida, in particular Main Street, whilst walking round the streets and shops etc.

The story is gripping and for once i love having a sidekick. Elizabeth is a sidekick that doesnt need protecting every few mins and is totally useful giving ammo,salts and money, really hope other devs take note, this is how to do the sidekick role.

I also love the script/voice acting totally brilliant and is always interesting to listen. The music in the game is also fantastic, most tunes are just so catchy and foot tappingly brilliant So far i really cannot think of any downsides, i suppose the combat is not anything revolutionary but at the same time the guns are good fun and i love the Vigor's.

All in all so far probably my best game of the year so far, have Tomb Raider on ice at the moment until i finish this Just out of interest does this game have an in game timer as i cant find it, would love to see how much time i have spent playing.

[teddymeow]

There's an option to swap L1 with L2 and R1 with R2 but no trigger related iron sights.

Found it! Edit controls, choose Marksman.

[jim g]

Bought it, played it, completed it, for me an overall 5/10. It did getnmore interesting, but the gameplay remained the same throughout which was boring to begin with.

Great graphics and sound so credit to the creative team.

Off to Grainger Games tomorrow to swap for something Else.

[iloveannie]

I'm going rename it SimTramp. Never been through so many bins! In real life can I really make a living rummaging about like the Cookie Monster?

[chopemon]

I started this on hard, knocked it down to normal for an early chapter to see what it's like and then put it back up to hard. Now I've finished it does anyone know if I can just replay that chapter to unlock the completed on hard achievement. Given it a go and it didn't pop. Not sure if I did the wrong section or it doesn't work.

Tried Googling it but no one else seems to have the same question.

[Garny]

Just had a replay of this yesterday. Got about half way through the game on 1999 mode, and for some reason the damn thing hasnt saved at the last checkpoint. Instead it is still at the save point from my first play through on hard. I hope the idea isn't that you have to do the whole thing in one sitting. Pretty sure i could save System Shock 2 when i wanted back in 1999.