T2 TAKE TWO BioShock Infinite (PS3)

Bioshock Infinite is really a game of two halves. On the one hand you have a game that is very well presented with an interesting story and interesting characters, and on the other you have a game where the actual mechanics aren't all that interesting or engaging to actually play with, which leaves it in a weird spot.To start with, the game is gorgeous. Columbia is very well designed and the atmosphere that is set is very impressive indeed. The world is colourful and lively but also does a good job of making you feel uneasy since it's very openly racist and bigoted against anyone who isn't of their particular stock, ranging anywhere from black people to Chinese or even Irish immigrants. The story does a well at touching on themes like racism, religious extremism and nationalism and is at its very best when you're simply walking around and taking in the atmosphere. Finding collectible items like "voxophones" (audio logs) along the way also really helps in setting the tone and giving you different viewpoints from various characters on a whole host of things.The music is also fitting and appropriate give the year the game is based in (1912) and the choices of both Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper as the voices for Booker and Elizabeth are fantastic. You control Booker throughout and the relationship that he develops with the computer-controlled Elizabeth throughout the game is very compelling. Along the way you also meet a smorgasbord of different characters who each add their own unique twists along the way. In general it's also quite nice to have a game where the story doesn't treat you like an idiot and one which has quite a bit of nuance to it instead of just spoon feeding you the plot.Alas, this is where the positives end, for Infinite isn't all that fun to actually play. For example, although Elizabeth works as an interesting ally during the battles she also has a tendency to interrupt. If she finds something like ammo or health then the game gives you a few seconds to essentially pause the fight where you press the square button to collect the item, which also gives you invulnerability for the duration of that mini cutscene. That help makes sense since she's an ally but the actual implementation of that in particular is just bizarre and feels disjointed.Similarly the weapons themselves aren't all that fun to use. You get given a whole host of choices but in the end I stuck with the machine gun + rifle combination for most of the game since those were by far the most effective and least annoying to use. Oh, and yes, for some reason the game only limits you to holding two guns at a time.You also get to use "vigours" which essentially give you magic-like powers that allow you to do things like harness electricity or crack open a shield that absorbs bullets. These were fun to use from time to time although they did seem overpowered from time to time.The biggest problem with the gameplay, however, is that there are far too many times where playing it feels tedious. Depending on the mission you're on there is a lot of time spent simply fetching something for someone or looking for some particular item, with you often times needing to backtrack and go through the exact same levels. These things can be fine, but since there's zero variation in gameplay between these instances it felt a lot more boring than it needed to be. Go over here, shoot these people, pick up the thing, go over there, shoot some other people, pull the thing, go over to that place, shoot these new people, walk through the thing. Between these instances the gameplay itself isn't mixed up at very much at all so it feels like you're doing the same thing ad nauseum, which gets tiring quite quickly.Don't get me wrong, the gameplay itself isn't what I would call "bad", it's just very mediocre and it lets down a game with an otherwise brilliant story. Overall it's simply a game with a five star plot but with three star gameplay to accompany it. On balance I would still recommend Bioshock Infinite to most people since the narrative alone makes it worthy of your time, with the only exceptions being for gameplay purists who should probably stay away from it.

A brilliant follow up to the other Bioshock games which features that unique and charming style that has made the series so captivating.The first thing of note is the beautifully rendered world of Bioshock Infinite. In the first 10 minutes I found myself exploring every little detail, from the posters on the wall to the floating buildings bobbing like boats in the sky. There's so much to see and the environments and characters within it really feel like a labour of love. The graphics are vibrant and pretty, though perhaps not the highest resolution which gives it a slight 'old-skool' quality.The gameplay is fun. Initially I found the fighting distracted from the story and the environments, but as the game goes on and you gain new skills, weapons and gear, you can be a bit more creative and tactical with how you choose to take on enemies. I felt it would have been aided by some ability to sneak up on opponents, to use stealth in some capacity - instead it seems like you're almost always on the defensive, as enemies instinctively know where you are most of the time. The AI of the enemies is also a little lacking; they don't work together or take cover, and generally seem pretty stupid. However, overlooking these flaws, there is still a lot to enjoy about combat.The story is deceptively complex and layered. This is where BioShock Infinite really stands out. I'd say it's on equal footing in terms of storyline with The Last of Us, perhaps with the additional credit of being even more original. There are a lot of themes explored, including religion, politics, multiverses and redemption. At times the story can be a little hard to follow, but if you put the effort in, it's rewarding to have that depth of narrative. The characters of Booker and Elizabeth are reasonably three-dimensional, though I felt Elizabeth had more character development; Booker doesn't open up or really give us much of an idea of who he is or what he thinks (except at the very end), so I didn't care much for his character.Overall this is a great game with one of the most thoughtful story-lines in the FPS genre, wonderful art and sound-design, fun gameplay and is a must-have for the PS3.

“Bioshock: Infinite” is both a masterpiece and a game that fails to reach its potential. The game world is awe inspiring, the product of the minds of the amazingly creative artists at “Irrational”. The game has magnificent graphics, tremendous attention to detail and some of the most beautiful moments ever seen in video games. This truly is one of the best games ever made and should be played by anyone with an interest in this “medium”. Its quite simply a visual work of art.The game does have its problems though. For all the creativity and thought provoking elements in the story, the game can sometimes feel somewhat pedantic or a bit pretentious, to be honest. As a player you get the feeling the game thinks its far more clever than it actually is. The story is over complicated, even convoluted and sometimes it seems it suffers from being a bit of a “show-off”, trying too hard to look “smart”. I must admit that the plot and all its elements are remarkably interesting and that the ending ties things up rather nicely but I still thought there were plots and characters highly underdeveloped in favor of a more “cryptic” and overly tortuous approach to story telling. The game also felt far too desperate for me to “like” and feel an attachment to “Elizabeth”. It partly succeeded, although never taking the “player character”'s relationship with her beyond a simple friendship that at times seemed to occur more because the game and the plot “said so” than because the characters, and me, as the player, connected. Fortunately the voice acting is absolutely sublime and really makes the characters and script come to life!The game seems intent on exploring some deep issues, regarding racism and religion, early on but suddenly, about a third in, seems to “forget” both subjects in favor of a bit of “sci-fi” and quantum physics, all very interesting but not very “grounded” or to be taken all that serious.The gameplay is intense, with huge firefights, “Vigors”, which are sort of super-powers and very fun to use, and your character “flying” around the area in “sky-lines”, shooting people, jumping on their heads and basically killing hundreds during the game. While the story is serious and “heavy” I found the gameplay and actual shooting quite cartoonish. The art-style is quite cheery and bright and the game is surprisingly, “over the top” violent with “first person” bloody executions with the “sky-hook”, people's heads being blown off and plenty more carnage. The game ends up being a little goofy in that regard and losing some impact. There is a lot and I mean a lot of shooting. Although the game is not extremely hard it can be frustrating in parts, with some very tiresome boss battles and many, many waves of enemies to slaughter. I felt the last third of the game dragged a bit and that even in the beginning, it did not take long for the action to become repetitive. There are lots of different areas you have fights in, the game is always pushing you forward into new locations but the core action soon turns familiar and sometimes even tedious. I found that the game was both more fun and designed for you to play aggressively and some moments are chaotic, with you possessing enemies, charging others, shocking or burning them but the weapons lack some “punch” and the shooting is not very rewarding, merely competent.The game is also completely linear and outside of shooting and killing, the player has no control at all in how the plot plays through. There are no decisions, no different paths to take, nothing you do in the game matters story wise. You simply follow the “plan” which is ironic considering the story in the game. Nothing will change in a second playthrough and that seriously hurts the game's replay value. Sure, there is a rudimentary upgrade system for your “vigors” and weapons, and as such you focus on a few as you play. If you really want, I suppose you could try upgrading different vigors or another weapon but the gameplay in my opinion is not strong enough to carry the game alone and once you “know” the story... there isn't much left is there?Still, even with a few “problems”, this is a game that deserves playing. It has a story with depth, a beautiful, fascinating world, intense if unremarkable action and a satisfying and thought provoking ending. Its an ambitious game, trying to be “more” and almost succeeding. In a world, where most games are close to being mindless, “Bioshock Infinite” deserves every praise.So long Ken Levine, and thank you!

Enjoyable game however I found it to be very short, despite the fact that I did all the optional missions. I played it on and off over three days and it was over. The ending was slightly confusing and I needed to look it up on the internet to fully understand what it meant. Vigors were good but there were quite a lot of them and I only ended up using about 2 or 3 regularly, then only one towards the end of the game. At least one seemed to be entirely useless and didn't work at all how it said it would. Health and salt were abundant, as were the three different types of machines, which I found useful, but it also makes the game quite easy. The story was interesting to follow which was one of the best things about the game for me personally. The Lutece twins were my favourite characters but their relationship was very vague. I first thought they were a couple then figured they were twins but it turns out that they are actually the same person and had found each other while travelling alternate universes. The hardest boss was Elizabeth's "mother's" ghost, it took me quite a few goes to do that as I never got the knack for that battle and she kept reviving the annoying little men. Handymen were fairly difficult to kill but towards the end I found that they would not come near me so killing them was quite easy. Patriots were the other difficult character but if you hide from their bullets and keep shooting them from afar they will eventually breakdown and you get their crank gun, which if not very practical is a least fun to unleash hell on a group of enemies. Something annoying I found, probably just me, was that you would be given a task so you would go and try to do that but then in order to complete that task you had to do another one and so on until you were in a web of missions where you need to complete a few to finish one. Overall, I would say look up the story online because I found out a lot of information that I did not find/understand/was missed out during gameplay. It's quite different from Bioshock 1 and 2, so if you didn't enjoy those then you might enjoy this. However, if you did enjoy them then you should still try this game out. I would say I enjoyed it but it won't be one of those epic games that stick with me. It was short and sweet.

Well I finally got around to this game and it really wasn’t worth the wait. All the hyperbole about it being the sequel that everyone wanted and it being a classic show one of my major gripes with game reviews at the moment – developer bias fanboyism!Bioshock 2 admittedly wasn’t a great a game as it basically just took the first game and slightly tweaked it, which I have no major problem with as the developer probably wanted to play it safe. With Infinite we get a totally new location, a new game play mechanic and new characters but the game really descends into a run and gun while you go from point a to b. You will probably die a lot but it doesn’t really matter as the checkpoints are pretty well spaced out and as such you won’t get stuck in too many sections unless your helpful route planner gets stuck and you have no clue what direction to go in. FYI this glitch is usually solved with a restart of the game.Bioshock infinite isn’t a bad game but it is also not the genre defining classic that it is sometimes made out to be. It is in my opinion an ok looking FPS with a fairly good story.