Genuinely one of the biggest let-downs in gaming history.

I remember buying this at GameStop the day it was released in 2013. Stayed up all night playing, and upon beating it, literally turning to my friend and said “what was that?” I had been following Infinite’s development closely after getting into the series with Bioshock 2, theorizing about the twist with my friends and wondering how it would tie into the other games. But that’s Infinite’s biggest flaw: its title. The base game is Bioshock only in name.

It’s gameplay is mind-numbingly simple, akin to a much more “modern” and mainstream FPS experience, which is ironic considering that was what 2K was trying to do with 2. Booker can only carry two guns at a time, which severely waters down the gunplay. Vigors are more boring versions of some of the best plasmids; Devil’s Kiss is a useless grenade before upgrades, Charge is just Drill Dash, and Bucking Bronco is just Cyclone Trap 2 + Telekinesis. Despite this blatant mechanic plagiarism, Infinite ignores almost every bit of 2’s lore minus the occasional reference to some of its locations. So while 2 is thankfully still canon, it’s obvious Ken isn’t super jazzed about the game he didn’t work on (and how much better it is than either of his games).

Now for Liz… I hate to say Mary Sue, but Disney Princess Mary Sue with time travel/multiple dimension powers that cave in on themselves story-wise because of how poorly thought-out they were. Not to mention the story constantly being halted by forced interactive “cutscenes.” The Lutece Twins are obnoxious, the Songbird is useless… what a mess.

The sad thing is that, like Bioshock, the first half is really good… but Emporia onwards is painful. They drop all of the actually-interesting racism stuff to talk about quantum physics, which is a shame because it felt like Infinite’s politics were mirroring the first game’s with Ryan’s ideology, etc. Overall, it’s a horribly mixed bag. Like, who thought it’s be cool to have Troy Baker— I mean Booker… be fully voice-acted and then have nothing but boring centrist opinions on everything that happens to him?

Genuinely one of the biggest let-downs in gaming history. I remember buying this at GameStop the day it was released in 2013. Stayed up all night playing, and upon beating it, literally turning to my friend and said “what was that?” I had been following Infinite’s development closely after getting into the series with Bioshock 2, theorizing about the twist with my friends and wondering how it would tie into the other games. But that’s Infinite’s biggest flaw: its title. The base game is Bioshock only in name. It’s gameplay is mind-numbingly simple, akin to a much more “modern” and mainstream FPS experience, which is ironic considering that was what 2K was trying to do with 2. Booker can only carry two guns at a time, which severely waters down the gunplay. Vigors are more boring versions of some of the best plasmids; Devil’s Kiss is a useless grenade before upgrades, Charge is just Drill Dash, and Bucking Bronco is just Cyclone Trap 2 + Telekinesis. Despite this blatant mechanic plagiarism, Infinite ignores almost every bit of 2’s lore minus the occasional reference to some of its locations. So while 2 is thankfully still canon, it’s obvious Ken isn’t super jazzed about the game he didn’t work on (and how much better it is than either of his games). Now for Liz… I hate to say Mary Sue, but Disney Princess Mary Sue with time travel/multiple dimension powers that cave in on themselves story-wise because of how poorly thought-out they were. Not to mention the story constantly being halted by forced interactive “cutscenes.” The Lutece Twins are obnoxious, the Songbird is useless… what a mess. The sad thing is that, like Bioshock, the first half is really good… but Emporia onwards is painful. They drop all of the actually-interesting racism stuff to talk about quantum physics, which is a shame because it felt like Infinite’s politics were mirroring the first game’s with Ryan’s ideology, etc. Overall, it’s a horribly mixed bag. Like, who thought it’s be cool to have Troy Baker— I mean Booker… be fully voice-acted and then have nothing but boring centrist opinions on everything that happens to him?