official Bioshock Infinite

[Doli]

I am still only about 30% - 40% through the game itself based on the walkthrough I referenced to find out how far along I am in the game, and it truly feels very laborious and tedious. I am not having that much fun. This article from Kotaku pretty much sums up perfectly why this is my experience thus far.

The Problem With BioShock Infinite's Combat

Here is an except from that article...

The Atmosphere and art direction? Brilliant. Underlying themes and message? Phenomenal. Combat? Just okay. For a first person shooter, which is at the end of the day the genre Infinite falls under, this is a HUGE shortcoming IMHO.

As such, and perhaps my opinion will change once I experience the much talked about ending, I just am completely let down with the game. Especially thanks to all of the praise it has received to date. I am actually considering going back to Tomb Raider. I stopped playing it to play Infinite, and I enjoyed it so much more from a gameplay perspective.

Perhaps I should state for those newer members who may not know, I am a somewhat older gamer. I am going to turn 40 fairly soon in the grand scheme of life. As a result, I have, and still continue, to read the written word. These archaic things known as books some of you younger readers may or may not have heard of. Because of my fondness for the written word, I have always been of the opinion video game stories are mediocre at best. In fact, the original Bioshock is what made me believe they were/are mediocre, prior to that I thought they were atrocious, with one or two games being the very rare exception to my belief. I am old school in regards to the fact that I play video games first and foremost for the experience of playing video games. I enjoy the game-play itself.

So a great game on all fronts except for the aspect I personally play games for, and that is the gameplay, is an okay game by my standards. Not the second-coming as others would have me believe by their reviews.

And sure, people are entitled to their opinion, this is what makes the world go round, I just expected so, so much more. It may very well go down as one of the bigger disappointments in gaming history for myself.

I think as a FPS the game near the standards today (not always a good thing), as a BioShock game it was a bit of a letdown. At the start is melee and guns but then it just turns into mostly guns. I liked hitting people with a wrench or drill (charging and smacking them is the best) in the first two BioShock games..

The machine gun in Infinite is way better then the one in BioShock 1, it looks like something you would see in a modern shooter type game. I might have missed a recording explaining the better weapons, maybe they copied the designs they found using a Tear that took them to the future.

[threetonesun]

I think as a FPS the game near the standards today (not always a good thing), as a BioShock game it was a bit of a letdown. At the start is melee and guns but then it just turns into mostly guns. I liked hitting people with a wrench or drill (charging and smacking them is the best) in the first two BioShock games..

The machine gun in Infinite is way better then the one in BioShock 1, it looks like something you would see in a modern shooter type game. I might have missed a recording explaining the better weapons, maybe they copied the designs they found using a Tear that took them to the future.

Eh? By the end you can ram them, or you can pull them to you, punch them in the face and set them on fire. You can also zip around and then drop kick them with boots that do all kinds of crazy things.

In fact, by the end it's all very silly. Booker is

scared of a girl who can barely control her ability to open up portals to new worlds

, yet there he is

throwing birds at people, convincing his enemies to fire upon their allies, who then die, which causes them to send out electric bolts to their other allies, which causes them all to die, and then their bodies decompose into more birds which attack more people.

The only guns I used were the hand cannon and the sniper rifle. Everything else seemed oddly ineffective.

[Noir Angel]

Same weapon choices here as well. The fully upgraded hand cannon is a great weapon :D

[Victor Rambo]

Hand cannon is the best weapon in this game. :D

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

I am still only about 30% - 40% through the game itself based on the walkthrough I referenced to find out how far along I am in the game, and it truly feels very laborious and tedious. I am not having that much fun. This article from Kotaku pretty much sums up perfectly why this is my experience thus far.

The Problem With BioShock Infinite's Combat

Here is an except from that article...

The Atmosphere and art direction? Brilliant. Underlying themes and message? Phenomenal. Combat? Just okay. For a first person shooter, which is at the end of the day the genre Infinite falls under, this is a HUGE shortcoming IMHO.

As such, and perhaps my opinion will change once I experience the much talked about ending, I just am completely let down with the game. Especially thanks to all of the praise it has received to date. I am actually considering going back to Tomb Raider. I stopped playing it to play Infinite, and I enjoyed it so much more from a gameplay perspective.

Perhaps I should state for those newer members who may not know, I am a somewhat older gamer. I am going to turn 40 fairly soon in the grand scheme of life. As a result, I have, and still continue, to read the written word. These archaic things known as books some of you younger readers may or may not have heard of. Because of my fondness for the written word, I have always been of the opinion video game stories are mediocre at best. In fact, the original Bioshock is what made me believe they were/are mediocre, prior to that I thought they were atrocious, with one or two games being the very rare exception to my belief. I am old school in regards to the fact that I play video games first and foremost for the experience of playing video games. I enjoy the game-play itself.

So a great game on all fronts except for the aspect I personally play games for, and that is the gameplay, is an okay game by my standards. Not the second-coming as others would have me believe by their reviews.

And sure, people are entitled to their opinion, this is what makes the world go round, I just expected so, so much more. It may very well go down as one of the bigger disappointments in gaming history for myself.

I just finished the game, and I somewhat agree with this.

The combat got very repetitive after a while. At about the mark you're in -- from about a third of the way through the game to three fourths -- it seems like the story was almost abandoned for brief periods and generic combat was thrown in to make the game longer.

You'll find out that the ending is fantastic -- far better than the original Bioshock's ending (and by that I mean the post-Andrew Ryan stuff that was completely unnecessary), which makes up for a lot of the combat issues. I can't say which game I preferred more, because I much preferred the setting and atmosphere of the original to Infinite, although Infinite has a much better payoff at the end.

I can't see how people are calling it the best game ever, but it's very good. It and Dishonored are two of my favorite games in the past year or so.

[Victor Rambo]

Everything Bioshock Infinite Gets Wrong

[mattmatik]

Finally started my playthrough and I'm about 3 hours into it. Don't really want to judge anything at this point but I will say playing on hard with a PS3 controller and no aim assist (on PC) has given me a bit of a challenge. I do think the combat is a bit bland but we'll see what happens, although I'm not expecting too much. I played through BioShock 1, never played 2. Have to agree with the earlier statement that the melee is a bit of a downer - I really liked that in the first game.

Can't wait to get into some dialog about the ending as I have a feeling from just my brief time with the game as well as some things I've read the ending certainly leaves open for interpretation.

One issue I do have - anyone else having to put Steam in offline mode to get the game to load? I can get to main screen but when I go to play it locks up unless I'm offline. Really weird.

[Noir Angel]

I didn't find the combat to be all that bad... OK, it's not revolutionary but it's not terrible either.

[Sjokkel]

Everything Bioshock Infinite Gets Wrong

Sums up the problems pretty well.

[mattmatik]

Man, loving the experience on Hard difficulty and turning off flashing items. Fighting the Handyman is a challenge as I'm dying 3-4 times before defeating him. I think the first Handyman encounter I died 10 times,

what with that back turret and all.

Also, since I lose $ every time I die, I have to make sure to scour all areas for coins. So far, so good, loving it.

[Billus]

Man, loving the experience on Hard difficulty and turning off flashing items. Fighting the Handyman is a challenge as I'm dying 3-4 times before defeating him. I think the first Handyman encounter I died 10 times,

what with that back turret and all.

Also, since I lose $ every time I die, I have to make sure to scour all areas for coins. So far, so good, loving it.

Yup, totally agree. I think playing on normal made the game far too easy for me even using a PS3 controller. I didn't die until the latter half of the game and even then it was by stupid mistakes and me not judging the situation correctly.

Does anyone else have trobles playing with the mouse and keyboard? I really can't play any Bioshock games using the mouse and keyboard as I find it far too twitchy.

[Victor Rambo]

Yup, totally agree. I think playing on normal made the game far too easy for me even using a PS3 controller. I didn't die until the latter half of the game and even then it was by stupid mistakes and me not judging the situation correctly.

Does anyone else have trobles playing with the mouse and keyboard? I really can't play any Bioshock games using the mouse and keyboard as I find it far too twitchy.

You can turn off Mouse acceleration and also do this:

Adjust Mouse Sensitivity

If you?d like some finer control over the lowest settings of the in-game mouse speed, you can easily change the option menu?s slider range. Again, you want XUserOptions.ini for this one.

Search for the lines: MinMouseLookSensitivity=0.100000 and MaxMouseLookSensitivity=4.000000. Change the Min value to 0.05, and the Max one to somewhere between 0.5 and 1. Again, this is purely for those wanting a finer spectrum over the lower range of mouse speed. If you prefer a twitch shooting style, you can happily skip this tweak.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/03/27/bioshock-infinite-tweaks-let-you-skip-intro-videos-increase-fov-and-adjust-sensitivity/

[ZakO]

Just finished this, one of the first games I've actually completed for ages. I enjoyed it, reasonably good story/gameplay and it wasn't too long so didn't get boring (took about 12-15 hours but I was searching for every voxophone/telescope/infusion). I played on hard with aim-assist off and the difficulty was a little disappointing, think I only died once but will probably play it again on 1999 mode which is hopefully more of a challenge.

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

Everything Bioshock Infinite Gets Wrong

I completely agree with this video. Infinite is a very good game, maybe even great, but there are so many things that hold it back.

The first two or three hours of the game are utterly fantastic. The world is dripping with atmosphere, there's lots of ideals and themes presented, but the problem is that all goes away relatively quickly -- almost as soon as you meet Elizabeth. And I completely agree with the criticism that the people in the world are lifeless. They're just like statues -- you can't interact with them unless they're scripted to interact with you. That's fine and dandy, but it misses its potential massively. The world of Dishonored felt alive, whereas the world of Infinite feels more like a Call of Duty game, just waiting for you to pass a certain threshold for scripted sequences to happen.

I'm particularly disappointed a lot of the gameplay features they touted never made it to the final game. The Vox Populi was a group I was really interested in interacting with, seeing the underbelly of Columbia, but nothing really happens with them. They're just used to set up another set piece, and all the talk of them in the game sets them up to be much more than they eventually are, clearly indicating the scope of the game changed. Additionally, having the characters being legitimate interaction points and people you could stealthily bypass or fight was something I was really interested in after the original Bioshock, yet that was nowhere to be seen.

The criticism of the story is spot-on as well. The vigors seem to come completely out of nowhere and serve no purpose to the plot, but plasmids in Rapture made perfect sense. Similarly, the characters are almost entirely unnecessary, unlike the original Bioshock. And, honestly, in terms of gameplay, Elizabeth was more a weakness than a benefit. She seemed like a clear gimmick and her uses never really impacted how I played the game much.

So the first three or so hours? Brilliant. The last 5-10 minutes? Brilliant. But the scope of the game was clearly toned down, and it suffered greatly because of it. The moments shown in E3 videos such as when Elizabeth opens a tear to the 1980s would have helped the storyline so much if they were inserted in that down portion of the game before the last third ramps it up and throws everything at you.

It's still a fantastic game, and I enjoyed how they refined a lot of things (the health system with the shield is much better than managing health packs, and the two-weapon system is great as well), but the original game was much more of an advancement than Infinite, which is really a shame. I'd say it's a solid high-8 or low-9 game, but it's not the best game ever as some have said -- not even close.

[neoadorable]

Hey Tosie, you did play it all the way to the end, right? clearly I can't spoil anything, but faulting this game for logic or realism is a little...off. to say the least.

I just spent the last ten hours finishing it. had seven hours done before since it came out, so 17 hours total. I don't care about all the criticism, so easy to criticize. Tomb Raider was game of the year for me so far, and i'm still in love with New Lara, but Infinite takes the cake. it will require quite an effort to dethrone this from GOTY status just for being so WTF

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

Hey Tosie, you did play it all the way to the end, right? clearly I can't spoil anything, but faulting this game for logic or realism is a little...off. to say the least.

I just spent the last ten hours finishing it. had seven hours done before since it came out, so 17 hours total. I don't care about all the criticism, so easy to criticize. Tomb Raider was game of the year for me so far, and i'm still in love with New Lara, but Infinite takes the cake. it will require quite an effort to dethrone this from GOTY status just for being so WTF

Yes, I beat the game twice.

[neoadorable]

Then you know very well that anything goes with that one. This doesn't mean you have to like it, I'm just saying criticism based on expecting it to be more interactive or realistic is misguided. I think they were going for one big shout out with this one, basically. Clearly a game best played with a smile rather than a straight face.

[Noir Angel]

The logic made sense to me. Unlike Bioware and ME3 they thought the endings to the game through. Also, she does open a tear to the 1980s when you're watching her through the glass.

[neoadorable]

Careful Javik, don't spoil this gem for the primitives.

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

Then you know very well that anything goes with that one. This doesn't mean you have to like it, I'm just saying criticism based on expecting it to be more interactive or realistic is misguided. I think they were going for one big shout out with this one, basically. Clearly a game best played with a smile rather than a straight face.

I don't agree. The gameplay demonstrations they hosted at E3 last year and before clearly indicate more interactivity was something they were going for, but it seems that was scrapped for whatever reason.

[Arceles]

I am still only about 30% - 40% through the game itself based on the walkthrough I referenced to find out how far along I am in the game, and it truly feels very laborious and tedious. I am not having that much fun. This article from Kotaku pretty much sums up perfectly why this is my experience thus far.

The Problem With BioShock Infinite's Combat

Here is an except from that article...

The Atmosphere and art direction? Brilliant. Underlying themes and message? Phenomenal. Combat? Just okay. For a first person shooter, which is at the end of the day the genre Infinite falls under, this is a HUGE shortcoming IMHO.

As such, and perhaps my opinion will change once I experience the much talked about ending, I just am completely let down with the game. Especially thanks to all of the praise it has received to date. I am actually considering going back to Tomb Raider. I stopped playing it to play Infinite, and I enjoyed it so much more from a gameplay perspective.

Perhaps I should state for those newer members who may not know, I am a somewhat older gamer. I am going to turn 40 fairly soon in the grand scheme of life. As a result, I have, and still continue, to read the written word. These archaic things known as books some of you younger readers may or may not have heard of. Because of my fondness for the written word, I have always been of the opinion video game stories are mediocre at best. In fact, the original Bioshock is what made me believe they were/are mediocre, prior to that I thought they were atrocious, with one or two games being the very rare exception to my belief. I am old school in regards to the fact that I play video games first and foremost for the experience of playing video games. I enjoy the game-play itself.

So a great game on all fronts except for the aspect I personally play games for, and that is the gameplay, is an okay game by my standards. Not the second-coming as others would have me believe by their reviews.

And sure, people are entitled to their opinion, this is what makes the world go round, I just expected so, so much more. It may very well go down as one of the bigger disappointments in gaming history for myself.

THIS, "Game of the Year" ... surely the standards are lower than the year before it... and the year before the last year... epic stories where written far before 3d, because indeed you have to compensate 2d graphics with something, and even so... 2d graphics made the games more "book-ish" because you actually had to still imagine certain things that simply could not be represented on 2d but were severely implied by the story.

[threetonesun]

Plot wise, the only thing I would have really liked is if instead of

going to the Comstock House, you were taken into the future where Colombia was bombing New York City. Also, the Vox Populi were, obviously, a side note, although I wouldn't be surprised if there was a DLC with Booker as the leader of the Vox.

[neoadorable]

That could well be true Tosie, but I'm personally glad they went for this approach instead. Reasons may have been practical or creative, doesn't matter to me.

And Arceles I agree they don't make em like they used to, they make em about a million times better!

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

I think I am about 50% through now, referenced a walkthrough and according to it I am on level 20 of 40, and I am not sure if I will ever see the ending. :(

Just feels laborious as I said earlier. Do some exploring, enter area where vast amounts of enemies come at you and figure out the best way to take them out. I think I even got to a pretty big point where things seem to change.

We went through the tear to go to the alternate Columbia where the gun maker Chen (iirc) is still alive.

So it seems like things may in fact be picking up, but holy hell, I am having a real hard time finding the motivation to carry on, and this has not happened in quite some time TBH.

Also the game actually had pop up to remind me to use my vigors. :s I just feel like it is then to easy if I use them. The bucking bronco seems to be the only one I really need. Wait for a larger group of enemies to come at me, put all those ******* in the air, take them out with relative ease.

[mattmatik]

Well, obviously I'm still playing through but one of my biggest complaints is that

the sky rails aren't open-world. I understand this would require a complete change in the game design but it would have been so awesome to be able to use the sky rails whenever to go wherever in the world.

But, really, its just a minor quibble. I finished Spec Ops (read: forced myself to finish) to see the ending hype and, thus far, I feel like I'm doing something similar with Infinite. But we'll see how it progresses.