Bioshock Infinite: Review
Wow. Just wow. I finished Bioshock Infinite about an hour ago, and it is seriously the best ending of a game in a long, long time. The game itself is also one the best I've played in a long while. This is definitely the best game of the year so far. All of my worries about it being a flop were gone after the first hour of playing. However, there was one or two things that could have been better in the game, however minor they were. Now, I'm going to tell you about all the amazing (and not so amazing) things that make up Bishock Infinite. Enjoy.This is my first proper game review. I did one or two a few years ago, but they were a paragraph long, so I don't think that counts. Let me tell you how I'm going to do this. The review will bPlot, Gameplay, Setting and Visuals. I'll talk about each one and then give each one a score. Then, at the end, I'll do an overall score for the game as well. *Takes deep breath...* Here we go.
e broken up into sections:
Plot
The first two Bioshock games managed to deliver a brilliant plot, and Infinite follows in their footsteps. The story will keep you completed compelled from the start to the finish. It's riveting events and questions about the characters will make you want to sit there for the whole 10+ hours it takes to complete this game. As for characters, there's Booker, the person you will be controlling, and Elizabeth, who you will definitely form a bond with throughout the game. The character development is subtle and clever. Bad guy wise, there is a host of the usual crazy antagonists that communicate with you almost exclusively through the various PA systems in Columbia. And the ending. Ohhh, the ending. Let me tell you this about the ending: When the credits begin to roll, you will be more confused than you ever have in your life. You will need to think about what happened for it to make sense, or, like I did, go online for the answers. But once you've got it sorted out, you will appreciate the ending more than you probably ever have before. It's unexpected, emotional, and mind blowing. But enough about the ending.
The premise goes like this: Booker DeWitt, a war veteran who has worked up a hefty amount of debt, is offered a way to clear the slate clean: Travel to the floating city of Columbia, and bring a girl named Elizabeth, a young woman with the amazing power to create tears in the world to other universes, back to New York. However, some stuff goes down, and DeWitt is suddenly recognised as the "False Shepard" of Columbia. Without giving too much away, Booker and Elizabeth end up fighting the endless forces of the "Prophet" Zachary Comstock, who is determined to stop him from "leading the lamb (Elizabeth) astray." The only problem with the story, and the only real problem with the game, is that it goes on for too much longer than it should have gone on for. There is a helluva lot of backtracking in this game. Around the middle of the game, you will have to go through the same area 3 times. The good news is that when you are moving back through these environments more enemies will appear to fight you. Other than the padded out feeling of some parts of the story, the plot was perfect.
Plot- 9/10
Gameplay
After you play Bioshock Infinite, you will never, ever want to play through the more mundane shooters like call of duty or battlefield again. The combat in this game hardly gets old. If you've played the earlier Bioshock games, you know what you're in for with the combat. Infinite takes the earlier games' combat systems, and, with a few small tweaks, makes them better. The combat is fast, frantic and challenging. With the usual wave of grunts (which can actually do damage) come special soldiers, such as the firemen, which makes your life harder by keeping a steady stream of fire grenades heading your way, the handyman, a big, strong robot man who is also quick and limber, and, in one level, the terrifying silent boys. I'll let you find out who they are.
The guns in Bioshock are pretty much routine. You have the good old pistol, the quick but weak machine gun, the sniper rifle the high powered hand cannon, the grenade launcher, and so on. However, the guns feel really satisfying to use. The shotgun blows enemies away when up close, whereas the sniper rifle can wipe heads clean off.
To help you along in combat are "Vigors," the new plasmids. Compared to the first two games set of supernatural abilities, I definitely prefer Infinite's powers. You'll get to play with Vigors like "Devil's kiss," which allows you to throw a "fiery grenade" at your enemies, "Bucking Bronco", which sweeps any people in the radius of the power off of their feet and into the air, leaving them to flail around helplessly as you unload your bullets into them, and "Return to sender," where you form an absorbant shield in front of you, collecting all of your enemies bullets, before sending their ammunition right back in their face. Those are just a few of my favorites. These vigors really make the combat more interesting. You can come up with some genius battle strategies using both the vigors and your guns. For example, towards the end of the game, I developed a strategy which turned me into a swift killing machine. Using the Shock Jockey vigor, which, when used, sends a stunning shockwave at your enemy, and the earlier mentioned bucking bronco vigor, I would run across the battlefield, suspending all grouped together enemies in the air and executing them with my shotgun. I would then shock and stragglers and do the same. There's a huge number of things like this to play around with in the game, and because of that they actually keep you engaged in the combat.
However, one of the huge and extremely impressive features in Bioshock Infinite is Elizabeth. For what might possibly be the first time in a game, ever, an NPC companion is actually useful. Your plucky young companion helps you in combat with two things. Here's the first: When in combat, Elizabeth will be looking for supplies. As you fight, she'll be finding health packs, salts (the new ADAM, which is used to power vigors) and ammunition. It's extremely helpful when you notice your gun's ammo ticking down, and then suddenly, Elizabeth shouts out to you, telling you that she's found ammo. Whenever she finds anything, she'll shout out to you that she's found something, and then an on screen prompt will appear. Holding the action button will make Elizabeth throw her finds over to you. The only thing that I didn't like about this was that Irrational had only pre-recorded a few lines of dialogue for Elizabeth to say when she makes a find. It gets annoying to hear Elizabeth shouting "Here, use this for the bleeding!" Or "Salts, Booker!" 5 or more times a battle. But that really didn't detract from the atmosphere. The second thing that Elizabeth does in combat is uses her supernatural abilities to aid you. Strewn out across every battlefield are tears containing equipment or other things which may be of use to you. Of course, Elizabeth can open the tears for you, giving you access to the things inside it. You can tell her to open a tear with medical equipment in, and then heal yourself, or bring a piece of cover into play. There's loads of different things that you can basically summon, and it's really fun to suddenly bring objects into the world to get the jump on your enemies.
There's a variety of vending machines strewn out across the city of columbia as well. There's one for general supplies, like health and salt kits, and ammo, one for weapons upgrades, and one for vigor upgrades, which are a good way to stock up after a long battle, or prepare for a big one.
I just have tiny complaint about the gameplay: You can't store health kits or salts. This really sucks because you might have a full health and salts bar and then come across a stash of kits for both of them. There's no way of taking them to use later. These kits will do their thing as soon as you pick them up. That's basically the only complaint I have about gameplay.
With all these seemingly powerful abilities that you can use with a click of a finger in Bioshock, you would think that the combat would be a cakewalk. Surprisingly, the game still offers a challenge while using all of these things. I played through it on the medium difficulty, and found it a good challenge at times. The gameplay and combat in Bioshock Infinite is different and satisfying- It's perfect.
Gameplay- 10/10
Setting
The city of Columbia is breathtaking. When I started this game, I'd seen quite a few gameplay trailers, And I knew what Columbia was going to be like, but when I stepped out into the city at the start of the game, I was still blown away. It really is something you have to see for yourself. The first twenty minutes of the game has you walking along the streets of the upper district of Columbia, and I really wanted to spend hours just exploring every inch of the city. There was so much detail, from the people gossiping on the benches, to the vigor salesman presentations that the citizens gather around. I watched in awe as the houses and streets floated by up-style, connecting to each other before flying off again. As well as the early 1900's theme to it, with old posters and finely dressed people all around, there's a huge steampunk element to the game, and being a huge fan of steampunk, I loved it. Through the course of the game you are taken to all the different districts of the city. I was surprised by the variety, as well. I was expecting most of the game to be set in the kind of area that I described above, but towards the middle of the game, you take a journey to the slums of Columbia. There, it's like a completely different place.
I would have given the setting category a ten out of ten, but it's the backtracking that cost it it's extra point.
Setting- 9/10
Visuals
There's two parts of the visuals category: The graphical side and the art style side. I'll do the graphics first.
I'm don't know much about graphics settings, but I can tell you that Bioshock is definitely up to scratch. I was very impressed with the crisp graphics, eso I've heard that it looks (and runs) better on the PC. I have only played it on the afformentioned platform, so I don't know what it's like on Xbox and PS3. Apparently it's not so great, so I'f you've got the specs, play it on your computer. As for the art style, the usual chunky (as I like to describe them) visuals are back. I've always got a strong sense of steampunk from the art style of the Bioshock games, with it's chunky guns and whatnot, and that's something I love.
Visuals- 9/10
Visuals- 9/10
The Verdict
I was thinking about giving Bioshock: Infinite a 9/10, mainly because of the backtracking and, as IGN described it, "Padded out" middle act, but it just wasn't possible. The game did so many things right, and because of them, it's impossible not to overlook that tiny little complaint. Excellent, breaktaking setting. Compelling, profound and original story. Satisfying gameplay. Impressive graphical quality and unique art style. Bioshock has all these things, but the best part is definitely the story. It's a masterful work of fiction, that is extremely thought-provoking and jaw dropping.
Bioshock Infinite- 10/10
