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.

[Crushinator]

Just beat it tonight, I'm in awe of the world they created with Infinite. Much like my experience with Fallout 3, I spend a lot of time gawking around and taking in the sights of the game, all the little details, the music, etc. The mindfuck twists the story took keeps you on your toes, but the game keeps itself bound together pretty well. Elizabeth is adorable in a disney princess kinda way, and I think her and Booker's banter gives a really solid feel for both characters. Other main characters in the game fell a little flat, but it doesn't really do anything to take down the game. The Lutece's are fantastic though, definitely outstanding supporting characters.

One thing that confuses me is that because I feel the story wrapped up so well, what the hell are they offering with a season pass?

I don't want to dig into story spoilers or anything to deep here so as to not ruin it, but its an awesome ride, definitely an early GOTY contender.

If you're playing with a controller I recommend changing the control settings to "Marksman" which sort of apes COD controls. The default scheme has weapon swap on RB/R1 and melee on Y/Triangle which resulted me always getting "lost" trying to melee, and meleeing on accident when i tried to swap weapons. It also moves the ADS from clicking the right stick to the L2/LT which makes the gunplay much more enjoyable. If you're playing on console "unlock" the framerate too, most of the game it was 60FPS anyway, and I didn't notice any screen tearing, even at the final encounter when shit gets real heavy.

Cosign on the retarded checkpoints, it was Dead Space 3 all over again. At least when you quit out of BioInf it tells you how long its been since your last autosave so you don't go out "blind" like on DS3.