Bioshock Infinite

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General Disarray

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Bioshock Infinite
« on: March 30, 2013, 06:40:03 PM »
I just finished the game, and I loved it. I can't say that the plot was the most surprising thing ever, but it was pretty damn good. The scenery was amazing. The gameplay was very similar to Bioshock 1&2, but there's a whole new mechanic introduced with the skyhooks.

And the best part of the game is Elizabeth. It's basically an escort mission that doesn't inconvenience you, but rather helps you. She gives you cash when out of combat, and ammo/health/salts as you need them when in combat. Plus, the animation is pretty much Disney quality.

It's definitely worth at least torrenting.
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Rushy

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #1 on: March 30, 2013, 06:50:11 PM »
Haven't finished it yet because I'm playing it very, very slowly. Amazing game so far.

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General Disarray

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #2 on: March 30, 2013, 06:54:04 PM »
You just have to find every apple and soda. The bars don't matter, take them all.
You don't want to make an enemy of me. I'm very powerful.

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Vindictus

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2013, 01:24:39 PM »
Waiting for a steam sale 1 year from now because I'm a cheap bastard.

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Blanko

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #4 on: April 03, 2013, 10:56:48 AM »
6/10 it's ok

Gameplay is what you'd expect from a shooter and the enemy variety is pathetic. The decision to have a two-weapon limit in an unbroken adventure where you're not issued specific weapons "per mission", where you're introduced new weapons pretty late into the game, and where you can upgrade weapons is inexplicably stupid. Vigors were pretty fun to use and some of the combos you could do with them sparked up the gameplay, but the cost of upgrading them is so high that I was constantly left wondering how the game expected me to have that kind of money. I also didn't like the mini-collectathon the game had going, where nothing you find is particularly useful (health items that restore a whopping 5% of your health, single coins lying around) with the occasional actually good item thrown in that have you going "what if" every time that makes exploring feel non-rewarding and it constantly breaks the flow of the game.

The plot is pretty good, the premise alone pretty much tells that there's going to be a tweest, but the game does build up to it pretty nicely without blatantly giving it away. What I didn't like was the ending, which tried too hard to be 2deep that it relies on a massive amount untold information the player is forced to assume just to be in internal consistency with its interpretation of multiverse and timelines, and it hurts the story as a whole. Also, the setting doesn't tie into the plot at all really, which makes for a pretty disappointing venture from the original Bioshock.

The PC port is consolitis as fuck, but it's hard to expect anything better at this day and age.

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General Disarray

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #5 on: April 05, 2013, 07:55:38 PM »
I thought that towards the end of the game it got tougher, because they introduced new weapons (and the types of ammo dropped were more varied), so if you preferred a few weapon types, it got a lot harder to keep them stocked with ammo. You had to switch up the types of weapons you used to be able to fight, and like you said upgrade costs are expensive.

I think there was enough foreshadowing embedded in the game to make it not too much of a 'tweest'. And when I first heard about the game, I thought the whole 'flying city' thing was a huge stretch, and still do. But I tend to put a large amount of suspension of disbelief into games that I play, as long as they play by the rules they set up for that universe, I'm fine with it.
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Vindictus

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #6 on: April 05, 2013, 11:12:48 PM »
Appreciate that review, Blanko. I've only found praise for the game, but I haven't read a whole lot of reviews.

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Blanko

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #7 on: April 06, 2013, 06:05:47 AM »
In retrospect I feel like I overemphasized on the negative aspects in that review to parallel all the undeserved praise the game has been getting. To reiterate, the game does do a lot of things well. The combinations of vigors and weapons you can use do make the game more interesting than your standard shooter, as does the occasional skyline plunging action. Columbia itself has nice visual design (although hindered by UE3) and the game is well paced, barring the Vox Populi sidetrack that didn't really go anywhere. All in all, it's a well written and well produced little adventure, that misses the mark on a lot of game design aspects.

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Rushy

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #8 on: April 07, 2013, 09:05:32 PM »
It was a fantastic game for me, though some of the difficulty spikes on hard mode were a headache. Most of the game is mind numbingly easy save for some of the boss battles (I won't spoil anything), and still they were fairly easy, just hard relative to the rest of the game. The two weapons only choice is sort of frustrating, but forces you to use vigor a lot more and in different combinations. The story is pretty amazing, contrary to Blanko's "I hate everything" repertoire. The characters feel like they have multiple dimensions and modulate pretty well with the story, though some of the middle-story mechanics feel completely out of place or just plain ridiculous. It felt like the story was made to justify rehashing the first Bioshock.

All in all it is a good game, it has good graphics (taking the game's art style into account, the game isn't supposed to look ultra-real), and the story gives me clear, interesting goals so I don't feel like I'm a hapless nobody shooting people for giggles.  I would recommend this game.

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Blanko

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #9 on: April 07, 2013, 09:27:55 PM »
The story is pretty amazing, contrary to Blanko's "I hate everything" repertoire.

wat

I didn't say I hated it.

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Rushy

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #10 on: April 08, 2013, 07:07:17 AM »
wat

I didn't say I hated it.

I never said you said you hated it.

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Blanko

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #11 on: April 08, 2013, 07:43:54 AM »
wat

I didn't say I hated it.

I never said you said you hated it.

Then I wouldn't have applied my supposed repertoire, clearly.

But I think I will now, thanks for reminding me. While I do agree the story and writing in the game are quite good, considerably better than in most video games, in fact, the game has some serious issues with conveying it. Basically, the game is split into two main components: you have the story sections, in which you walk around and trigger scripted conversations and have the story told to you in a manner in which you have virtually no stake in, and you have the combat sections, in which you fight nameless, faceless, insignificant crooks by the legions that also have no stake in the unfolding story.

And why is this bad? It tells you a story and you get to shoot things, right? Well, yes. But neither component complements the other. Defeating the crooks is not in itself story-progressing and does not represent character growth because that's not what the story is about, and the story sections pretty much forget about the existence of those combat sections in order to feed you plot where they're not relevant in the slightest. Basically, you could remove 90% of the combat encounters in the game and the story would unfold in pretty much the same way. And if you do, the game would simply be a walking simulator, because all that is required of you to uncover the plot is to walk into dialogue triggers. You don't feel like you're uncovering the story of the game yourself, you feel like the game is merely telling you to sit back and listen while randomly throwing a jar of bugs at you that you have to take care of in order to continue.

The inclusion of voxophones does reward exploration a bit, but it's a very contrived way to feed you backstory, being literal story-telling devices, and most of the time they're just lying in the way of your main path, as if the developers wanted to make sure you wouldn't miss anything about their precious story.

I think that's the main gist of Irrational Games, really. They're great at making visually appealing fantastical worlds, filled to the brim with interesting backstory and the stories themselves are top of the crop. But they're bad game designers.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2013, 07:46:39 AM by Blanko »

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Rushy

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #12 on: April 08, 2013, 07:46:45 AM »
Then I wouldn't have applied my supposed repertoire, clearly.

Incorrect.

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Vindictus

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #13 on: April 08, 2013, 01:39:04 PM »
Sounds a lot like Bioware.

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Rushy

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #14 on: April 08, 2013, 01:52:08 PM »
In short, the story would make a decent movie, but the story feels like it was squeezed into a game where it didn't quite belong. Blanko is correct in saying that the combatants feel as if they are there just to shoot while the game feeds you the ongoing story.

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General Disarray

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #15 on: April 08, 2013, 08:44:53 PM »
I think the music was a large part of how good the game was, my favorites are the following:

" class="bbc_link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Will the Circle be Unbroken
" class="bbc_link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Welcome to Columbia
" class="bbc_link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Awesome barbershop quartet of God Only Knows

Also, the red tears you sometimes find were pretty enlightening, they were basically stealing music from the future and adapting it to the current time period. The results were pretty interesting.
You don't want to make an enemy of me. I'm very powerful.

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Rushy

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #16 on: April 09, 2013, 06:31:48 AM »
The music playing in the background of Battleship Bay (only after you meet up with Elizabeth) is Girls Just Want To Have Fun.

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OrbisNonSufficit

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #17 on: October 06, 2013, 08:08:29 AM »
Just bought the game for 12 bucks, I am assuming that Vindictus will be doing the same as he said he would.

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Supertails

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #18 on: October 06, 2013, 01:02:28 PM »
I agree more with Rushy than Blanko here. I loved the story, and while I can agree the combat wasn't totally necessary to the story, it never felt very jarring to me. And, transpericized for maybe-spoiler, I loved that it enforced Booker as sort of a cold-blooded killer in the face of his protests that he was different now. And I loved the end, too; I didn't think it was that difficult to follow or understand. Maybe they piled it all on too much, but I don't really mind that. I like having to do some thinking to put things together. That's why I played Hotline Miami so many times.

And I usually don't like FPS' if they aren't Metroid Prime, so the fact that I enjoyed Infinite so much is a testament to it.
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Blanko

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #19 on: October 06, 2013, 07:23:37 PM »
I think it's the opposite of that. BI's ending is only good if you don't think about it, and kindly accept whatever it's trying to spoonfeed you.

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Rushy

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #20 on: October 06, 2013, 08:38:04 PM »
I think it's the opposite of that. BI's ending is only good if you don't think about it, and kindly accept whatever it's trying to spoonfeed you.

Please do go on.

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Supertails

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #21 on: October 08, 2013, 04:32:58 PM »
I see.
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Rushy

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #22 on: October 08, 2013, 06:54:25 PM »
Still waiting for Blanko to tell me about how he thought about the ending until it didn't make sense anymore and somehow gauged how good it is based on that action.

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Blanko

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #23 on: October 08, 2013, 08:44:20 PM »
I see.

Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #24 on: October 09, 2013, 10:55:21 AM »
Are you not going to tell him, Blanko?

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Saddam Hussein

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #25 on: October 09, 2013, 11:11:45 AM »
Come on, don't leave us in suspense.

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Blanko

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #26 on: October 09, 2013, 11:23:23 AM »
Sure, if someone would decipher his post for me. I have no idea what he wants me to say.

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Saddam Hussein

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #27 on: October 09, 2013, 11:31:38 AM »
Why is BI's ending no longer good if you think about it?

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Ocius

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #28 on: October 09, 2013, 11:50:05 AM »
Because it isn't Morrowind.

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Blanko

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Re: Bioshock Infinite
« Reply #29 on: October 09, 2013, 11:58:22 AM »
Because it isn't Morrowind.

Send off the fucking book, Andrew.