An analysis of why Bioshock Infinite is incredibly overrated.

[surpriselol]

First of all let me begin by saying this game is good, but not great. It has a lot of polish that makes it seem good. Passable graphics, well designed mechanics, standard but enjoyable weapons and powers, excellent voice acting and interesting locales.

But if you dig just a little bit under the surface of this game, it falls apart. First of all, this is barely what I'd call a 'game'. It's more of an interactive story, much like the early Metal Gears (especially Metal Gear Solid 2) which are more story than game. Yes, there are guns and stealth and other 'game mechanics' but the fact is that those things are just there to primarily support the story of the game, not enhance fundamental gameplay. And this is the case with Bioshock. Yeah, there are enemies. Yeah, there are guns and vigors. But they feel forced and the vigors seem unnecessary relics of past Bioshocks. Why do the vigors exist in this world? There is no logic for them to be here. They make the world seem more unbelievable than add to the believability of an early 'colonial' floating city (already initially a difficult thing to sell). Even the enemies and weapons just seem kind of pointless; supporting roles in a game lead by a brash, overzealous story, which leads me to my next point.

One of the things modern video game script writers absolutely do not understand is subtlety. I think a lot of the time they struggle with implementing a story that works in tandem with the action in a way that will not only enhance the action, but reinforce it. One of the big problems with Infinite is that it bashes you over the head repeatedly with its anti-right wing, anti-colonialisation message to the point of comedy. There are valuable messages to be had here, but they're not terribly new in Western society, nor are they subtle in any conceivable way. Quite the opposite. At every possible opportunity this game is just pounding you with its 'this is good, this is bad' message and after about 5-6 hrs of playing this game I am totally sick of it. You know what? I GET IT IRRATIONAL GAMES. RACISM IS BAD. SEGREGATION IS BAD. WHITE SUPREMACY AND EUROCENTRISM IS BAD. Yes, we all know. If there was more to the overarching story than that it might be interesting but for the love of God I GET IT. Which brings me to my next point.

Booker and Elizabeth have a good relationship and this is a really good aspect of the game, but why in the world can she open tears? Was this added purely to add a cool factor to the game? Because honestly this doesn't add to the believability of this world, at all. First of all, if she hated being trapped in a tower for her entire life (and everyone would) then hey, guess what? YOU CAN OPEN A TEAR AND ESCAPE YOU KNOW. The fact she is still 'trapped' in that tower at her age is 100% baloney. I know that you can try to justify the story and explain it with reason in ways like 'maybe she just never found a tear she wanted to escape through' or 'maybe she was afraid to leave' but I just don't buy that at all.

Edit: After finishing the game I understand why she couldn't open any tear she wanted but it does not explain why she couldn't escape through one of the tears she *could* open. Somewhere in the tedious first half of the game she mentions she doesn't want to escape because of 'family' yet she has no family and talks endlessly about escaping. Towards the end she says she'd rather die than go back to the tower. None of this makes any sense.

And unfortunately it's all a little too hard to swallow for me. Columbia looks nice and it has interesting and well-designed locations, but the combat is average FPS fare. Gone are the days of laying traps with your plasmids and mini-turrets and preparing to fight a Big Daddy or hordes of splicers while you protect a little sister. Gone (most importantly) is the time and thought you'd put into these areas of combat and the choice that came with overcoming those obstacles. This doesn't exist in Infinite. One of the best things about the combat in earlier Bioshocks is completely absent here. You can put 0 thought into what you're doing and still easily come out ahead. Shoot things, use a vigor every now and then and you're done. And this is exacerbated by the fact that this game is too easy.

I am not a big FPS person. I don't play Call of Duty games or Battlefield, but I do enjoy 'themed' FPS, I guess you could say. I played the original Doom as a young teen, and Quake, and enjoyed both of those games and their sequels immensely. I enjoy FPS games that don't attempt to be straight up 'realistic world' shooters and that's purely an issue of subjective taste, but it's also the reason why I enjoyed the first two Bioshocks a lot. Having said all of that, I'd say I'm 'decent' at FPS games. Par for the course, not instantly headshotting from outside draw-distance by any means, but I'm decent.

I'm currently playing this game on Hard, and I have no idea why it's called Hard. For me, there is absolutely nothing 'hard' about this difficulty setting. Enemies die quickly, Crows and other advanced enemies really aren't that hard to dispose of, and ammo and currency is plentiful. Infinite on Hard is actually a substantial amount easier than Bioshock 2 on Normal. Which is a direct result of being overly obsessed with story-telling and not with gameplay. This unfortunately, leads me to my next point.

Like I said, I'm 5-6 hours into this game and I'm bored. The world isn't believable for me; there's no strategy in the combat (or at least, nothing at all relative to previous Bioshock games); I'm incredibly sick and tired of being slapped in the face with the overarching, brazen themes of the story and most of all: it's too easy. I'm bored with the story and the game (if you can call it that) itself. I'm bored with the combat. I'm bored with the seemingly pointless journys to ironically interestingly designed locations to be given one more piece of story and not an interesting, intelligently designed area of combat.

Will I finish the game? Sure. Will I care? Not at all.

[Nerevars Goat Univeron]

Belive it or not, it can be a game while being 90% story. Look at walking dead. If it can be a game of the year, it is a game. She can open tears because of the pinkie she loses as a child in another dimension

[nutcrackr]

I must admit that about 5 hours into the game I was really bored too. Actually had me checking my watch and found how little time had past since I last checked it. Just not an engaging world relaly. Definitely with you on the game world believable aspect. There was no reason to prepare for battle, no reason to absorb the game world.

[MadMartigan]

Great post, surpriselol, and very nicely written. I was also disappointed by the game, and your explanation suits my sentiments exactly - the combat felt vestigial and "tacked on" to the story, and the story itself lacked subtlety or a hook to draw me in and keep me there for hours at a time. Because of this, I too was looking at the clock a lot and playing through the campaign became a chore, which sucked. I consider myself a pretty big gamer (compared to the average person), but I actually only play 3-4 games a year because I am only attracted to the titles that have a unique or potentially groundbreaking concept rather than, as you say, COD-type shooters. I was really disappointed with Bioshock Infinite because I usually consider myself to have good taste and choose games that I really like - this time I was wrong, mainly because of false advertisement.

[Bringonblink]

Originally posted by surpriselol:

Like I said, I'm 5-6 hours into this game

Maybe finish it first?

[MichZurek]

1) Some of your criticisms would go away once you get further along in the story. It doesn't take people long to realize something is up with the world, or they are missing some really important pieces of information. You simply don't have the full picture yet.

2) Are you playing on normal? If the game is so easy for you, then play it on hard. You can change the difficulty at any point. So far I've only played on hard and 1999 modes. When I've played through the game I could easily drop dead.

3) In my opinion, Infinite gives you freedom to choose how to fight through a battle. There's no one way to do anything. You can beat the game without using a certain weapon. You can customize your gear to make you better at using the rails, melee, or using a certain type of weapon. You can select which tear you want to open. It's not so much planning everything obsessively, but rather thinking what gear/upgrades/weapons/vigors are more important for my play style. Putting this aside, I played on hard and I thought the combat was a blast.

4) We can disagree on whether or not you like the combat or the story, but I honestly don't get why you say BioShock Infinite isn't a game. This makes no sense to me. You are in complete control of Booker for at least 95% of the game. Everything is in the first person perspective, and there are no animated cutscenes. You mention Metal Gear Solid, yet BioShock Infinite is pretty much the opposite of games like MGS. (Not that I'm complaining. I love Metal Gear) Closer examples of games that act like interactive stories are The Walking Dead, Heavy Rain, or a visual novel. Even Metal Gear Solid isn't an interactive story. It's a game with long ass cutscenes. Putting the lack of cutscenes aside, you are constantly playing the game. When you go up to the lighthouse, you are playing the game. When you are upgrading your guns, you are playing the game. When you are shooting people, you are playing the game. When you listen to the audio recordings, you are still playing the game. Even when the story segments happen, you aren't sitting there for 30 minutes doing nothing. They are either spread out over an entire section and/or you can still walk around or do your own thing.

[Jimmi Stixx]

Bioshock promises great game play and great story and delivers boring game play and mediocre story. 7.5

[euryleia]

This thread is one confirmation bias fest. The structure of Infinite story is not the usual 3-arc framework ---exposition, climax, resolution. It is a 3-narrative from modernists. (Just read the first line of each chapter in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. There are only 3.)

Infinite's first part focuses on Comstock (prophet, Columbia). Then it moves to Booker (debt, death). Finally, Liz. Each of these parts have the next one lead in. The great thing about this is that you don't know where the game is heading until you actually past those parrts and look back. You have no idea the evolution of Comstock, or Booker, or Liz, until you get to the very end.

Took me a while to get into this style but it is very clear once you look back.

[Nerevars Goat Univeron]

Originally posted by euryleia:

This thread is one confirmation bias fest. The structure of Infinite story is not the usual 3-arc framework ---exposition, climax, resolution. It is a 3-narrative from modernists. (Just read the first line of each chapter in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea. There are only 3.)

Infinite's first part focuses on Comstock (prophet, Columbia). Then it moves to Booker (debt, death). Finally, Liz. Each of these parts have the next one lead in. The great thing about this is that you don't know where the game is heading until you actually past those parrts and look back. You have no idea the evolution of Comstock, or Booker, or Liz, until you get to the very end.

Took me a while to get into this style but it is very clear once you look back.

Never thought of it like that, but now that I look back, you are right.

[euryleia]

If you guys are not up to date with books, I understand. Just take two examples: Infinite vs Angels and Demon from Dan Brown.

Both of them have endings giving you pages and pages of information. But Dan Brown's book is all about explaining the motive of the crime. You can really skip all of that because you already know who did it.

Infinite, instead, gives a giant "info dump" at the end. You can skip it, but then you just won't get it. There is no resolution. Booker takes his way out, but you don't know for certain if that settles. All you have to go on is Liz's words---that everything will be alright. And how much you want to believer her depends on how much you love her all the way up until now.

Bonus points for Levine, He knows how to write a God. Liz is essentially one. She sees all doors and paths. She's like Dr. Manhattan in The Watchmen. Once you get to where they are, you lose your feelings. Liz doesn't even look sorrow as she walks you to the end. She just sees the action as taking that next step.

[Nerevars Goat Univeron]

Eur, than she must have either been very deeply attached to songbird, or just not really cared about killing you, because she was regretful she had to kill songbird.

[euryleia]

I will dispute your claim this way: The ending is all about evolutiopn of Liz, Booker and You.

Liz feels sorrow for Bird because she's not yet omnipotence. As the ending goes on, she starts to become more and more detached. You know she's learning too, when she pops out a key from the ether.

For Booker, it's about facing up to the Truth. And for you player, is to accept the End of History.

[euryleia]

Asking me?

[Nerevars Goat Univeron]

Originally posted by Kid³²®©™:

if you knew then what you know now, would you still buy it?

No.
I would by the ulitmate song bird edition.

[euryleia]

Aww Pew. Then I would not run into you and read up on bird fetching puppies.

Is this game anti right wing and colonialism? You bet. That's the fashion of the Indus. Rev. era. It also bashes on Imperialism. But it takes no stance and refuses to believe there is any. Vox's dogma is just as evil and failing as Founder's. That's one aspect of the game I find letting down. You just shoot everyone who isn't Liz.

[Nerevars Goat Univeron]

Originally posted by euryleia:

Aww Pew. Then I would not run into you and read up on bird fetching puppies.

But, I could make it look like the songbird statue was picking up a puppy.
Oh, and the rest of the internet hasnt thought of making a photoshop with songbird carrying a puppy. Half a page through a search page of "Songbird with puppy", not a single picture has been of songbird with a puppy.