BioShock Infinite

The Good
The graphics are pretty damn awesome. Perhaps the best looking UE3 title on the market right now. The game has an ending, thank god. Ken Levine was involved in the process of making this game. Excellent voice actors and music. Elizabeth's body.

The Bad
It gets repetitive very quick. Many of the weapons feels less powerful than what they appear to be. Almost every weapon works the same, no matter if you use the Vox's or the "standard" ones. Most of the plasmids, or VIGORS in BSI are downright useless. I kept using only Possess and Shock Jockey. There's no exploration at all, just a straight line to the goal. Many of the game's NPC's are mute and can't be interacted with so they appear as re-animated mannequins. The game includes rather tasteless racism. The Elizabeth character is immortal and ruins the game's stress factor by aiding you in battles by tossing ammo, health and salt just when you're about to die. When you do finally die, there's no punishment. Every Bioshock suffers from this. It began already in System Shock 2 though. A game I actually like. You don't feel as a part of the game world, it doesn't feel like you make an impact with your doings. It all feels so sterile. AI's freaking stupid. Most of the enemies just rush towards you, beating you with billy clubs.

The Bottom Line
Graphics doesn't make the game. And here's the proof why. Such an overhyped game and what did we get? One more linear game.

The Good
The game makes some improvements over the previous two games - the respawning has been removed which was my main annoyance about the first two Bioshock games and now you have a big living world - a world which is quite unique and very well designed with gorgeous artwork. It feels very real - like stepping into a book or a movie - and it's what will make it hard to forget this game even years after you've played it.

The story is quite imaginative as well and it makes clever use of concealing plot elements from you until you slowly unravel them by listening to audio tapes, watching movie clips, reading signs, picking up clues. I love when games let you figure it out by yourself instead of spoon feeding it to you. Half-Life 2's main strength was its mysticism (what happened to the world?) and for Infinite, it's "who or what is Elizabeth and how on earth could they build a city in the clouds?" and smaller questions later on.

Elizabeth herself is a very interesting character. She actually helps out, you never have to defend her and she never gets in the way - look at Daikatana to see an example of the opposite. She's definitely one of the most interesting companions I've seen in a computer game so far and she makes the game more interesting by far.

The Bad
While Infinite does improve upon some aspects of the older games, it makes the same mistakes as well and some new ones to boot:

You can only carry two weapons at once which is extremely annoying and a needless limit. You see, in combat you ideally have four types of guns: accurate single-shot ones for head shots (sniping rifle, pistols, etc.), you have close range weapons (shotguns), you have long range automatic weapons (machine guns) and you have splash damage weapons (rocket launchers, grenade launchers). Each have their unique use tactically: a single enemy you pick off with a single-shot weapon. Low ammo cost, accurate and fun. Big clustered crowds that don't move need splash damage weapons (rocket launcher), lots of moving targets at a distance require machine guns and moving targets up close require a shotgun. See, every situation has its type of gun. And then Infinite just forced you to pick two. And there goes what could have been great combat down the drain ... for every combat situation makes you curse since you have to make do with the limits (and it doesn't help that you very quickly run out of ammo and have to pick up random weapons lying around).

Sure, you have your Vigors (new name for plasmids or magical powers) but most are rather weak and pointless and they drain your salts far too quickly to be of any real use. They're poorly balanced as well - most Vigors barely work in practice. Sending crows to attack an enemy doesn't even kill him most of the time, for example. Throw down electric fields and the enemies simply won't walk through it either. It's more like a barrier than a trap this way. It just feel very underwhelming. The only Vigor I use a lot, is the one to turn a foe into a friend for a few seconds. The rest aren't worth the salt you spend on them.

They did add some variation in who you're fighting but after a few hours, it's still 90% identical foes you're gunning down and it does get a bit dull. The special enemies (which use Vigors) are interesting at first but you've quickly seen them all and then they are more a nuisance than fun to fight.

Mix this with lots of scripted events and a mostly linear experience like in the previous two games, and you feel like they kinda tarnished what could have been a much better game. Again. For the third time.

The Bottom Line
If you enjoyed Bioshock 1 & 2 but want something similar that isn't as dark and bloody, this is a great game for you. It shares many of its same flaws, however, and while I feel combat has been improved a tad, there's still a lot of room for improvements. In the end, however, this game is much more about the story, setting and experience than about the combat. The Victorian-inspired setting with the city in the sky looks amazing and it's a real joy to walk through. Just for that, it might be worth checking out even if the combat does get repetitive later on.

The Good
So much to like about this game. The environment was immersive and spellbinding. The NPCs seemed lifelike and interesting. Elizabeth was clearly created with heartfelt intentions. It's understandable how Irrational games didn't think they could top this game.

The music was well done and properly paced. The shootouts were tough but workable. The tears and the vigors added a good deal of strategic challenge. I hated the boss fight at the end until I figured out how to work it.

Riding the Aerial lines were a total blast. The voice actors were top notch.

The Bad
It's a nitpick but the action came at you so quickly that you didn't get to see how beautiful the local scenery was. If it was slower paced at times and required puzzles, I'd not complain.

The ending had me confused at first.

The Bottom Line
A fast paced story with actual historical references. Well researched and written Lots of excitement and action.