My Negative, Finite Review

[Ayayron]

For those who want a short statement with a numerical score: read the last paragraph.

I don't intend to write this review to convince anyone that loves Infinite to jump on the negativity train with me, but I've been noticing a lack of articulation from some of the community that has not been satisfied with the game. I merely intend to express my reasons why I was disappointed with Bioshock: Infinite overall. Forgive me if I concentrate too much on the negative aspects, but with a game such as this, the positives can be found anywhere else with minimal effort. There is no need for me to do so. I have nothing to prove. I am trying to review this product on its own merits; however, in some instances I do need to provide some comparing and contrasting with the original to further illustrate my points. As a reference and a heads up, I am not a lover of the original game in the franchise either. I thought it was solid, but not necessarily the masterpiece it is claimed to be. So overall, try to take my thoughts as what they are --just one man's attempt at explaining his feelings towards this game.

For a franchise that has roots in creating a good atmosphere combined with a marketing campaign showcasing the environment (not to mention the countless reviews gushing over it), Bioshock: Infinite was lackluster. This is not due to built up or unrealistic expectations. The first major concern is the lost opportunity to embrace the setting. In the beginning sequences of Infinite, the idea of a floating city was touched upon and showcased in several places ; soon after rescuing Elizabeth, I got the sense it was forgotten about. This could have been any city -- not necessarily a fantastical one built and living in the sky. The content of the city was very uninspired as well. Throughout the game you travel through much of the city and explore various parts of it. For the life of me I could not explain to you the environments that I saw or the places I visited mere days after playing it. The city was forgettable and generic.

This creates further problems when the gameplay has a secondary focus of encouraging you to explore and find "goodies" to assist you in your travels. If I'm going to be spending hours of extra time exploring through spare offices, trash cans, desks, and shelves to find next to nothing, It would at least be nice to be doing this in an environment that I find breathtaking and memorable. This is direct contrast to Bioshock 1, which triumphed in this regard. The item system was ultimately the same between these games with the risks, time investment, and rewards being very similar. The main difference was that I found Rapture a complete joy to explore for much of the playthrough. Bioshock 1 used shadows and lighting masterfully to craft an environment that could generate thoughts and emotions in the gamer. This game took a different approach by trying to embrace the daylight, the colors, and the overall vibrance of a city built in the past -- but failed to generate any of the interest, emotional, or intellectual appeal of its predecessor. Another lost opportunity.

Let's move on further into more of the actual make-up of the city, it's population. A short way of describing my thoughts on this topic is that the city of rapture which was beaten, broken, and depopulated felt more alive than this city full of lifeless people. When I walked into the streets of rapture, full of the destruction and debris of previous conflicts I could imagine in my head what may have happened here. I could envision the horror of what it would have been like to be on the streets, or in the room when the city started in its downfall. I could picture these streets and the buildings before the downturn and envision what life might have been for them in the past. This was a vastly underappreciated aspect of the original Bioshock. In Infinite, we have a city that is populated with people that have nothing to say, are fixed in place, and add very little insight and value to my experience. Many of these people are often complete copies of a character several feet away. The beginning directly after the baptism sequence is an embarrassment. In games of the past, it could be justified due to technical limitations. In a franchise like half life, technical limitations were mitigated by having these copied characters actually be the same person. What happens to one happens to the other, they are the same and merely are being put into the story to give you familiar faces and further emotional weight to the story. This cannot possibly be the case in this game. Another lost opportunity.

The main character is another example of lazy storytelling. The character starts out as a blank slate, with little to no back-story, previous experience in prior games, expectations, or personality. This is not inherently a bad thing, but it is in this case. Over time, some pieces of his life are scattered into the story when necessary. The downside to this is that for much of the game I have no reason to care about him. I have no reason to be surprised by his past, any actions he took, any actions he chooses to take, or much of what he has to say. I don't know him, I was given little back story, his lack of personality and lack of a past of any kind for much of the game gives me no basis to have any meaningful opinions or reactions to what happens in the story when it concerns him. Surely he becomes a bit more developed as the story moves on -- but again, how can I possibly be surprised or shocked when being in this lazy storytelling environment. Would it be a twist if I told you that I was a girl? Would it be a twist if I told you that I played this on a different platform than you guessed? No, it would not. The characters that drive the story are also very uninspired and generic ; they are often too reminiscent of the original Bioshock game with respect to the story arch and evolution of the events. One interpretation of the ending may suggest that this may be intentional, but I think it's more likely that it was sloppy and unimaginative storytelling at work more than anything.

One issue that has plagued this franchise from the start is the poor pacing and the poor structure of the story. Infinite is no different. Throughout many of the first hours, it is hard to tell at what act of the story you are in. The events that the character experiences in the game are often very bland and impact-less. Events trigger you to do other events before you can do the original event, and while you are on your way to completing your secondary event you have to do a third quest to accomplish the previous. Where exactly am I in the story now? Is what I'm doing currently truly important? I don't know, let's just continue and see where the story goes. The third act problems have been addressed before with the Bioshock games, but it should also be noted that it is actually hard to even know when the end of the game is approaching. The original Bioshock had this problem more than this one, where the player thinks they are finishing up the game and yet they still find themselves playing several hours later with the same feeling. The third act in this game drags on a bit unnecessarily, and much of it is to do with the constant sidetracking that is due to the "mission" structures.

I don't necessarily want to get into the nuts and bolts behind the ending, or address any spoilers. What I think is important is that at this point, a shocking discovery near the end is becoming expected with this series. I found myself anticipating this and guessing the "twist" before it was unveiled. Honestly, it was more of a "I hope they don't go there with this" than a guess, but it turns out my fears were warranted. I won't give away the details, but what I can say is that they introduce similar "discoveries" that many movies/books/games have done in the past whenever time travel and multi-dimensional story elements are added. None of these discoveries were particularly interesting or surprising. When I look at the final story, the discoveries seem completely self serving -- what was the point? What was the story trying to say or add? Was there an overall message? The twist and the discoveries exist merely as a facade of complexity and intelligence to try to convince the player that something meaningful or insightful just happened. It did not. The story is empty and hollow. Complexity and convoluted stories should not simply be interpreted as "good" or "smart" stories. There is a difference. I'd like to address some of the story elements as well before I move on to other thoughts. I felt that another lost opportunity was the lack of utilization of the racist and historic themes of the story. This could have potentially been used as a creative parallel to current events, but this was not really addressed. The social environment of the setting was also forgotten about and under-utilized like many more things in the game. Another lost opportunity.

Now in terms of gameplay, something that I haven't directly addressed yet with my thoughts. I found the actual vigors to be quite bland. I didn't find them nearly as interesting, useful, or creative as magical abilities in other games or the abilities in the original Bioshock. The comparison with the original may be nostalgia, but either way I did not find myself using them very much or being particularly interested in them or their effects. I felt the same way about the actual weapons as well. Many of them did not have much of a role, and some of them seemed to just be repeats of one another with a different skin. I finished the game with close to 6000 silver pieces as well, not because I was some champion of scavenging, but because I never found myself needing or wanting to upgrade many of my guns or any of my vigors. Why should I bother upgrading a vigor that I find uninteresting and not very useful with a mild upgrade that costs me over 1000 silver? I'll pass. It turns out that much of the upgrading was not even remotely necessary anyway.

Like the story and significant characters in the universe, the enemies that are actively being battled throughout the duration of the game are boring and monotonous. Guys with guns. More guys with guns. Guys dressed differently with the slightly different guns. Sure they added a couple tweaks to the recipe like the patriot and the handyman, but when compared against the originality and impact of the Big Daddy, there is no comparison. The lack of diversity is also apparent in how much they had to re-use the patriot just to add some sort of variety to the battles. The patriot was, what I thought, an interesting mini boss at the time. Little did I know he would be one of the main show of force throughout the rest of the game. Simply stunning in the lack of creativity coming from the same developer that introduced the iconic characters of the original game. The actual battles play out repetitively throughout many of the hours, and the A.I. behind many of these troops add no extra interest.

Auto save is one of the issues that has been addressed with previous comments, but I would like to add that I agree with the sentiment about it and I was negatively affected by it twice. I had to redo some lengthy sequences multiple times due to in game problems like getting stuck between barrels without any way of escape. Auto save only is a needless feature that introduces no value and only introduces negative aspects. I don't understand anyone who tries to justify this. It also inhibits experimentation.

I don't find myself caring much about the graphical engine because I tend to prefer content and quality over any visual glamour. But with the bitter taste that was left in my mouth with the other aspects of this game, I feel the need to provide more evidence of the laziness behind this development. The game looked good, but was this a 6 year advancement since the original Bioshock? I don't think so.

Obviously, Infinite has some positive aspects to it. I am not trying to detract from the experience as a whole. This is one of the only games I ever played where I enjoyed having a "partner". I didn't resent Elizabeth, and I actively looked forward to having her back with me when we separated. This is an achievement, make no mistake about it. Removing hacking from the game when compared to the original was another good move. And overall, the final battle sequence before the end of the game was a fitting way to escalate the gameplay. It was a much better alternative to introducing a lame and trivial boss like Bioshock 1 did. Not every game needs a "final boss".

I don't think numeric scores for art have much merit, but I know how obsessed many people are with them so I will do my best. I treat scores out of 10 a little differently than most. Many reviewers have ratings similar to a 6 being "okay" and a 7 being "good" and an 8 being "great", so on and so forth. Do must of us think that the majority of games that get 8's and 9's are great? Do most of us think that the majority of titles that get released should be 8's or 9's? I don't think so. If every game is an 8 or a 9, shouldn't standards be raised? There's no shame in having a score above a 5. I see it as a spectrum; anything below a five is on the bad side of the spectrum and anything above a 5 is on the good side of the spectrum. Let me repeat that ... anything above a 5 is on the good side of the spectrum. For me, it's a matter of how good. I look at the game based on originality, quality, message, gameplay, fun, longevity, and a myriad of other factors. Based on my views above, I would rate this as being "okay" with a 6/10 score.

[[H34D]L3SSH3D(0f)ST4T3]

The lack of a quicksave really ruined this game for me. It's not a bad game; but there's too much repetition because of the distantly-spaced checkpoints.

[skippyrocks]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Headless_Head_of_State:

The lack of a quicksave really ruined this game for me. It's not a bad game; but there's too much repetition because of the distantly-spaced checkpoints.

In my whopping 2 hrs of gameplay, I have already repeated about 2o mins because of a crash (due- I think to the game updating) and not being able to save more regularly.

[Bellomy]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von euryleia:

Ah. Here we go. Here we go. I see "lazy writing" at the Booker-no-backstory paragraph. Dude. Right at the moment you first die, you wake up at the apartment/office. You see bottoles, and horse race cards. When you walk to the door, you see the text on the other side of the door---you thinik of Pinkerton guard correlation back at the boat scene. Backstory at the start of the game APLENTY.

This is worth repeating, and let's not forget that as the game goes on if we pay attention to the dialogue we'll notice some interesting hints dropped occasionally about Booker's past.

That Booker was not given a backstory is simply not true. It's just not spoon fed, but that's never been BioShock's style (save the unfortunate info-dump at the end). It's always expected the player to pay attention and try and figure things out for themselves.

I wasn't a fan of the ending but I can't deny that I was EXTREMELY invested in the story up until that point. It had great voice acting and some genuinely moving moments. I really, really wanted that happy ending, and that's an achievement in itself.

Also - Columbia LACKS ATMOSPHERE??? You're kidding, right? The loving attention to detail that was paid to each individual section of the city was amazing in and of itself. Shantytown in particular was incredible.

I think combat gets a bit of a bad rap. The shooting and vigors are definitely generic, and it could be better, but I really think that the skylines can be a blast when you figure out how to maximize your usage.

[Okihara Jones]

While reading this, I imagined the voice of "Comic Book Store Guy" from the Simpsons saying it. Hilarious! OP totally captures Comic Book Store Guys Voice!

(Full disclosure: actually only read first paragraph. Come ON, man, a 10+ paragraph opinion on an internet forum people will forget about in a day? How long did it take to write that frickin thing??)

[CordedUberator]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Okihara Jones:

While reading this, I imagined the voice of "Comic Book Store Guy" from the Simpsons saying it. Hilarious! OP totally captures Comic Book Store Guys Voice!

(Full disclosure: actually only read first paragraph. Come ON, man, a 10+ paragraph opinion on an internet forum people will forget about in a day? How long did it take to write that frickin thing??)

Would you rather he wrote "This gaem sux" and leave it at that? Don't be lazy, read his points.

[SoulDestroy]

ITT: Bioshock fans display their inability to handle criticism.

[lkb]

Couple times tried to walk through this game, and every time had failed.
Baredom. This is the name of this game.

[GingerWitch]

I stopped reading the "review" when I saw it had chapters.

[Mumboejumboh]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von lkb:

Couple times tried to walk through this game, and every time had failed.
Baredom. This is the name of this game.

I didn't realize that "baredom" was a word.

[lkb]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Mumboejumboh:

I didn't realize that "baredom" was a word.

haha mistake! not as irreparable as Russia did with Ukraine, right? hahaha!... well.. sorry.
Think those "in a matter of subject" got me right though.
Boredom. Boredom this game is, imo of course.
BTW, I made up new word! Gonna get some appropriate meanig for it.

[Shadowspaz]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SoulDestroy:

ITT: Bioshock fans display their inability to handle criticism.

No fans of any franchise on the internet can handle criticism.

[Eat3n]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von EternalCore:

tl;dr *yawns* opinions are not reviews...

Agreed. Seriously OP, what the ♥♥♥♥ was with the 700 page novel you wrote?

[General Plastro]

I actually agree with you OP, great post.

My disinterest in the whole Booker/Comstock and daughter story arch left me nothing but disappointment with this so called "10/10" game. So many oportunities lost, the game could be all about the city and its conflicts and i would have loved it alot more, instead a silly story about Booker and multi-verses gets thrown in.

I have said this many times and i will say it again, Bioshock needs to learn from Dishonored, make the player be able to interact more with the story.

I mean, it gets really hard to take Booker's story of redemption if he is killing everyone he encounters, such a claring narrative problem that went on unfixed!

If they took Dishonored aproach and allowed us to be more of a pacifist through the game, it would go a long way in helping it become more fun and engaging.

6/10 would be my score too. If people think this is a "high" standard, i think your either too young or maybe your the kind of people that are afraid of giving any game a score below 5.

6/10 isnt bad in my opinion, its the averagely good game.

[Masi]

+1 to OP.. I was hoping to find some people who lack the Bioshock infinte enthusiasm as I did.
Graphics 9/10
Gameplay 7/10
Gun mechanics 2/10...it is not even fare to use the gun mechanics in a game that looks this nice.
Story 8.5/10

[Archangel138]

The final boss battle is what really sucks and drags the game down.