Bioshock Infinite Options

[Scan_Man]

Beat it on Hard. Game of the Year unless Last of Us or GTA V somehow comes with a blow job.

Seriously though this game has amazing everything from music, to atmosphere, to gameplay, graphics, art directions, sound, to story. And I am not one that normally cares about story in video games because most developers try to be shoehorn their Hollywood movie idea into their game and you get lame dialogue and cutscenes that take away from gameplay. Bioshock Infinite's story telling is executed in that way that, imo, works best for games medium.

You know the same kind of style , to different degrees of course, that games like the Portal series, Half-Life 2, Super Metroid, Metroid Prime, Dark Souls, and of course Bioshock use. The sort of storytelling that there is something unknown going on but allows the player to fill in those gaps via gameplay, atmosphere and details of the environment.

This game blew me away at every corner. Mostly due because they keep upping the stakes and showing me something new.

Things that would annoy me in other modern FPS games don't here. Like only carrying two weapons at a time. It's fine because how ammo works. You will run out of ammo. The moments when you are scrambling to replace your gun can be very intense. It is executed very well, and how that balances with your powers. The game is linear (another gripe I have with modern FPS games) but the areas you fight in are open ended. You have so many choices on how to tackle a battle. Fighting never gets boring because of this. You have to think and have a strategy to deal with the enemies. I never once fell back on only a couple guns or powers. I can say that I used everything quite evenly, everything has a use. Especially in the last set of battles where you have to use "everything you've learned so far." Which how final levels should be. It's very balanced because everything has a situation it's best used. There is room for specialization via upgrades, but you really have to plan it out and spend quite a bit of money on it; which you will not have enough to get the majority of what you want. From what I understand these aspects don't really show on Normal difficult. So I would say Hard is the way it should be played.

By the way PC Gamer has a good video on why you should play on hard!

Very unlike Dead Space 3. Infinite proves when you do the above the game is actually better because of it. Dead Space 3 fell back on mostly the opposite with unlimited resources and ammo, repetitive linear combat, where what guns and ammo types you used did not matter. Dead Space I felt suffered for those design choices.

The other thing I tend to dislike about mordern regenerative health. It's here in the form of a shield. Basically, the shield takes damage first. Once your shield is gone you take damage away from your health, but will come back after a few seconds of not taking damage. You only get health back from medpacks and food. So it pretty much a mix of old and new. It works because the shield is flimsy. Lastly, the penalty for dying is you lose money and enemies regenerate about a third of their health it seems. Which I think strikes a nice balance.

My only problem with the game is the crappy checkpoint system strikes again, much like the one found in Dead Space 3. I am really hating this trend in games as of late. I activated one of those voice logs in a room and my character could no longer move. This was the only bug in the game I encountered. Had to reload last checkpoint which was 15 minutes back. Essentially had to do a big battle over again and rebuy upgrades. Annoying.


Still digesting this thing. And will play again. But this game is something special on so many levels. Pretty much going to ruin any FPS experience from now on. Well probably until Portal 3 or Half-Life 3, I hope.

[HC82]

Just finished this game and of course, the ending is one of those mind-fuck endings. I really wasn't "wowed" with the ending that much, but its better then most games out there. The game definitely has amazing atmosphere and is a solid experience. Really excellent production value and you can tell that a WHOLE lot of thought and detail went into every little specific piece to craft the whole sum of this game. I think this game takes the way an FPS can tell a story visually and aurally to a different level. There are so many subtle touches in the game which really make it stand out as a digital story. Like when you click on the guitar and you start playing, and Elizabeth starts singing and the little boy comes out as she gives him an apple. The game is definitely a fine work of art and that's the key difference between this game and many other games that have been released to much acclaim. A lot of games are really entertaining and highly cinematic, but this game has something more. I definitely consider this game among a few games that have been released over the years which could be called both art and game.

The thing is that I still paid 60 bucks for only a 12 to 15 hour game. Despite the production values and amazing quality, anything under 25 hours for me is really hard to justify a full price purchase. Granted the game has a special 1999 mode, but most games have some sort of extra whatever you call it mode. I am noticing that production values are going higher and higher, but game lengths have become pretty shallow.