2013
03APR
Bioshock Infinite
Title: Bioshock Infinite
Genre: First Person Shooter
Platform: PC, 360, PS3
Would you kindly beat me over the head with the plot again?
To be blunt, I was not a fan of Bioshock. I appreciated the setting and the overall style, but the actual gameplay was beyond abysmal. Suffice it to say, I never played Bioshock 2, and I feel like I dodged a bullet there. Obviously, I'm not a raving fan of the series.
Despite this, I played - no, marathoned - Bioshock Infinite to completion. And I enjoyed it. I think.
Spoiler note: When I get to my ranting on the story, I will warn you. My ranting on the gameplay will be relatively spoiler free.
For those under the radar, Infinite is a shooter that mostly takes place in a faux-utopian city above the clouds called Columbia, which is governed under the caring thumb of religious zealot Comstock. The city is bright, peaceful, and gilded as a quaint little 24-hour-party and parade, with just a splash of racism and steampunk. Like its predecessor, the city itself is the big draw of the game, and the first hour is a thinly-veiled tutorial that lets you wander the sights and get a feel for society before all hell breaks loose. I'll admit, I was pretty engrossed, even if the whole "shining city of Stepford Wives floating over a sea of corruption" has pretty much been played out since Charles Dickens roamed the earth.
But, alas, Infinite is not a "first person smalltalk maker," but a first person shooter, and you'll eventually get thrown into the meat of the game with little warning. The good: it's vastly improved from Bioshock's strategy of "lightning-wrench-lightning-wrench." Most enemies fall relatively quickly, and minibosses are suitably thrilling, if a bit easy thanks to easy-to-maintain stunlocking. There are a dozen or so different weapons and magic powers (called "Vigors" this time around), but despite this, it's very easy to fall into a groove you like and use just those powers (420 shoot crows erryday) and weapons for the entire game.
But, going deeper, how does the actual combat in its entirety feel? Well, let's say it's less Call of Duty and more Serious Sam. What I'm saying is, there is a certain lack of finesse involved. Waves of enemies will bum rush you from every angle, but you can effortlessly mow them down with your favorite automatic weapon. There is a serious problem with the so-called cover system - it seems like, more often than not, enemies can shoot you through cover - probably because your character is something like 6'5", but there is no indication as to whether you're safe or not apart from "still being shot." This is an issue because your first line of defense is a sort of regenerating shield, and certain enemies (particularly snipers) will absolutely kill you in one or two hits once your shield is chipped away.
Bizarrely, death is meaningless - hell, it's almost a blessing, as you start right where you were but you get some free ammo at the cost of losing a tiny amount of cash. If you thought the respawning Vita-Chambers in Bioshock were ridiculous, you haven't seen anything yet. I'll admit, death doesn't seem to have the same impact in gaming any more nowadays, and Infinite's system keeps the momentum going well enough that I still felt ashamed when I died even though I wasn't forced to replay entire segments. A different sort of punishment, I guess.
As with many latter-day shooters, there are pickups everywhere - health boosting food, "salts" which power your magic, ammo, coins, and... well, that's about it. Unlike a full-on RPG like Fallout 3, you'll tear through every openable container by hammering on the square button to pick up everything without having to give it a second glance. This goes doubly in combat, as you can instantly scrounge up items from corpses, and you'll pretty much have to as health and salts disappear in a flash. This further adds to the "late nineties" feel of the shooting, but it also makes it almost impossible for me to take the combat or the game seriously - the mental image of frantically turning corpses over and shoving handfuls of bananas and cans of coffee into my gullet in the middle of a firefight is just ridiculous. It's an exercise in button mashing... but, unlike with the first game, at least it never got boring.
Combat - and, really, the game on a whole - gets vastly better upon rescuing your partner NPC Elizabeth, as introduced in the screenshot above. She cannot die, which is already a godsend, and she actually helps you by conveniently tossing you health kits, salts, and ammo when you're low. This sounds like it would make the game a cakewalk, but her generosity is limited by time constraints, so it's more of an "oh shit" leg-up than anything. She can also pull interdimensional allies and pieces of cover into the battlefield for you, pick locks, toss you money (with the most satisfying coin flip in videogame history), and will call out minibosses who will be marked on your HUD, which is especially good because enemies tend to be hard to see at first as start a long way from you, and you may not even know you're being attacked until the red damage indicators start popping up.
Really, I dare say that combat isn't even the main draw of the game, which is odd considering it's a first person shooter. In fact, the action is pretty much a mediocre experience all around - especially toward the end of the game, where enemies become bullet sponges and minibosses spawn in squads. The real draw of the game is the experience: the world, the characters, the story, and the setpieces. There is lots of worldbuilding - some obvious, some subtle - including that favorite crutch of the hack writer, the posthumous audio log, of which there are almost a hundred. However, even though there is a lot of delicious background to be had, it still feels like the world we're presented with is full of holes, and I would have liked a less peppery sort of presentation. There is a serious disjointed feel, where your motivations are quickly pushed aside and your goal gets mired under a dozen different other actions you do first, and it makes most of the middle of the game feel like a haze rather than a path. People you meet have motivations, but the actual encounters with them are over too fast and don't feel like satisfying culminations. It gets worse though, as I will elaborate upon below.
Before I get into the story stuff, what is my recommendation? Well, it's like a theme park ride - you're pretty much on rails, and it's got its ups and downs in the action, and an overall dreamlike quality that tries to tell a serious story while playing out, to be polite, like a cartoon. The whole thing is over in 12 hours, and I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to replay it after that ending - assuming you can tolerate the exhausting and repetitive combat - but I think a rental is a fair compromise. It really is an experience, albeit a heavily flawed one, with hints of greatness crippled by some tangential plotting and lazy storytelling.
Plot nitpicking starts here. Mild spoilers to follow.
The most distressing aspect of the game is that the entire experience - the world, the characters, the creatures and inhabitants - feels progressively more "wasted" as you run the rails of the story, culminating with one giant "fuck you" of an ending. At around the 2/3 mark, the entire world has basically gone to shit, and all of the political intrigue and character motivations are completely forgotten. Before that even begins, though, you're subjected to all kinds of hand-wavy time travel and interdimensional bullshit that tries to shoehorn itself in as the new "theme" of the game, and it's about as lazy and insipidly handled as it always is in fiction. I wanted a more grounded experience, to be honest - I can swallow a floating city with a megalomaniacal ruler, giant robotic bird monsters, a brewing uprising, and a young lady at the heart of it all. I cannot tolerate using time travel to patch up your plot holes. You eventually jump to a timeline of the world that is completely at war, and from that point on, the game becomes a generic shooter setting with all of the charm and intrigue sucked out. (It still looks pretty good, and is exciting to experience, though).
There are hints of foreshadowing throughout the game, but it's just not enough considering the ending is a complete 180 swerve boxed up as 20 minutes of pure exposition. I wanted more characterization: more of Daisy's plight, more of Columbia proper, more of the twins' history. Not time travel nonsense that serves as an excuse to re-use assets and backtrack through entire levels. It's a recurring problem with AAA games trying to have a "point" or a "message" - metaphor is good, but in this case it comes off as smug and lazy at the same time, as they can't be arsed to actually finish the plot they started. Like I said before, it felt like a waste of my time and emotional investment in the end, and that ending is some of the most self-righteous wanking I have ever seen. Overall, it's all smoke and mirrors posing as a deep and meaningful experience.
But maybe your palate is just soft enough to appreciate that sort of thing! Sure, I thought it was dumb and hackish, but I still played through to the end, and I'm still recommending it. Even though the gameplay is flawed, and the good parts are only carried halfway, it's still a reasonably well-put-together package, and fans of the series should absolutely go for it. It's refined enough to not feel like a total retread of the first game, and Elizabeth's presence should be experienced as a model to future game designers - it's so well-done that the segments where she's taken from you are genuinely distressing. Like I said, it kept me playing from beginning to end, just to see what would happen, and that's what a story-driven game should be all about.
Genre: First Person Shooter
Platform: PC, 360, PS3
Would you kindly beat me over the head with the plot again?
To be blunt, I was not a fan of Bioshock. I appreciated the setting and the overall style, but the actual gameplay was beyond abysmal. Suffice it to say, I never played Bioshock 2, and I feel like I dodged a bullet there. Obviously, I'm not a raving fan of the series.
Despite this, I played - no, marathoned - Bioshock Infinite to completion. And I enjoyed it. I think.
Spoiler note: When I get to my ranting on the story, I will warn you. My ranting on the gameplay will be relatively spoiler free.
For those under the radar, Infinite is a shooter that mostly takes place in a faux-utopian city above the clouds called Columbia, which is governed under the caring thumb of religious zealot Comstock. The city is bright, peaceful, and gilded as a quaint little 24-hour-party and parade, with just a splash of racism and steampunk. Like its predecessor, the city itself is the big draw of the game, and the first hour is a thinly-veiled tutorial that lets you wander the sights and get a feel for society before all hell breaks loose. I'll admit, I was pretty engrossed, even if the whole "shining city of Stepford Wives floating over a sea of corruption" has pretty much been played out since Charles Dickens roamed the earth.
But, alas, Infinite is not a "first person smalltalk maker," but a first person shooter, and you'll eventually get thrown into the meat of the game with little warning. The good: it's vastly improved from Bioshock's strategy of "lightning-wrench-lightning-wrench." Most enemies fall relatively quickly, and minibosses are suitably thrilling, if a bit easy thanks to easy-to-maintain stunlocking. There are a dozen or so different weapons and magic powers (called "Vigors" this time around), but despite this, it's very easy to fall into a groove you like and use just those powers (420 shoot crows erryday) and weapons for the entire game.
But, going deeper, how does the actual combat in its entirety feel? Well, let's say it's less Call of Duty and more Serious Sam. What I'm saying is, there is a certain lack of finesse involved. Waves of enemies will bum rush you from every angle, but you can effortlessly mow them down with your favorite automatic weapon. There is a serious problem with the so-called cover system - it seems like, more often than not, enemies can shoot you through cover - probably because your character is something like 6'5", but there is no indication as to whether you're safe or not apart from "still being shot." This is an issue because your first line of defense is a sort of regenerating shield, and certain enemies (particularly snipers) will absolutely kill you in one or two hits once your shield is chipped away.
Bizarrely, death is meaningless - hell, it's almost a blessing, as you start right where you were but you get some free ammo at the cost of losing a tiny amount of cash. If you thought the respawning Vita-Chambers in Bioshock were ridiculous, you haven't seen anything yet. I'll admit, death doesn't seem to have the same impact in gaming any more nowadays, and Infinite's system keeps the momentum going well enough that I still felt ashamed when I died even though I wasn't forced to replay entire segments. A different sort of punishment, I guess.
As with many latter-day shooters, there are pickups everywhere - health boosting food, "salts" which power your magic, ammo, coins, and... well, that's about it. Unlike a full-on RPG like Fallout 3, you'll tear through every openable container by hammering on the square button to pick up everything without having to give it a second glance. This goes doubly in combat, as you can instantly scrounge up items from corpses, and you'll pretty much have to as health and salts disappear in a flash. This further adds to the "late nineties" feel of the shooting, but it also makes it almost impossible for me to take the combat or the game seriously - the mental image of frantically turning corpses over and shoving handfuls of bananas and cans of coffee into my gullet in the middle of a firefight is just ridiculous. It's an exercise in button mashing... but, unlike with the first game, at least it never got boring.
Combat - and, really, the game on a whole - gets vastly better upon rescuing your partner NPC Elizabeth, as introduced in the screenshot above. She cannot die, which is already a godsend, and she actually helps you by conveniently tossing you health kits, salts, and ammo when you're low. This sounds like it would make the game a cakewalk, but her generosity is limited by time constraints, so it's more of an "oh shit" leg-up than anything. She can also pull interdimensional allies and pieces of cover into the battlefield for you, pick locks, toss you money (with the most satisfying coin flip in videogame history), and will call out minibosses who will be marked on your HUD, which is especially good because enemies tend to be hard to see at first as start a long way from you, and you may not even know you're being attacked until the red damage indicators start popping up.
Really, I dare say that combat isn't even the main draw of the game, which is odd considering it's a first person shooter. In fact, the action is pretty much a mediocre experience all around - especially toward the end of the game, where enemies become bullet sponges and minibosses spawn in squads. The real draw of the game is the experience: the world, the characters, the story, and the setpieces. There is lots of worldbuilding - some obvious, some subtle - including that favorite crutch of the hack writer, the posthumous audio log, of which there are almost a hundred. However, even though there is a lot of delicious background to be had, it still feels like the world we're presented with is full of holes, and I would have liked a less peppery sort of presentation. There is a serious disjointed feel, where your motivations are quickly pushed aside and your goal gets mired under a dozen different other actions you do first, and it makes most of the middle of the game feel like a haze rather than a path. People you meet have motivations, but the actual encounters with them are over too fast and don't feel like satisfying culminations. It gets worse though, as I will elaborate upon below.
Before I get into the story stuff, what is my recommendation? Well, it's like a theme park ride - you're pretty much on rails, and it's got its ups and downs in the action, and an overall dreamlike quality that tries to tell a serious story while playing out, to be polite, like a cartoon. The whole thing is over in 12 hours, and I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to replay it after that ending - assuming you can tolerate the exhausting and repetitive combat - but I think a rental is a fair compromise. It really is an experience, albeit a heavily flawed one, with hints of greatness crippled by some tangential plotting and lazy storytelling.
Plot nitpicking starts here. Mild spoilers to follow.
The most distressing aspect of the game is that the entire experience - the world, the characters, the creatures and inhabitants - feels progressively more "wasted" as you run the rails of the story, culminating with one giant "fuck you" of an ending. At around the 2/3 mark, the entire world has basically gone to shit, and all of the political intrigue and character motivations are completely forgotten. Before that even begins, though, you're subjected to all kinds of hand-wavy time travel and interdimensional bullshit that tries to shoehorn itself in as the new "theme" of the game, and it's about as lazy and insipidly handled as it always is in fiction. I wanted a more grounded experience, to be honest - I can swallow a floating city with a megalomaniacal ruler, giant robotic bird monsters, a brewing uprising, and a young lady at the heart of it all. I cannot tolerate using time travel to patch up your plot holes. You eventually jump to a timeline of the world that is completely at war, and from that point on, the game becomes a generic shooter setting with all of the charm and intrigue sucked out. (It still looks pretty good, and is exciting to experience, though).
There are hints of foreshadowing throughout the game, but it's just not enough considering the ending is a complete 180 swerve boxed up as 20 minutes of pure exposition. I wanted more characterization: more of Daisy's plight, more of Columbia proper, more of the twins' history. Not time travel nonsense that serves as an excuse to re-use assets and backtrack through entire levels. It's a recurring problem with AAA games trying to have a "point" or a "message" - metaphor is good, but in this case it comes off as smug and lazy at the same time, as they can't be arsed to actually finish the plot they started. Like I said before, it felt like a waste of my time and emotional investment in the end, and that ending is some of the most self-righteous wanking I have ever seen. Overall, it's all smoke and mirrors posing as a deep and meaningful experience.
But maybe your palate is just soft enough to appreciate that sort of thing! Sure, I thought it was dumb and hackish, but I still played through to the end, and I'm still recommending it. Even though the gameplay is flawed, and the good parts are only carried halfway, it's still a reasonably well-put-together package, and fans of the series should absolutely go for it. It's refined enough to not feel like a total retread of the first game, and Elizabeth's presence should be experienced as a model to future game designers - it's so well-done that the segments where she's taken from you are genuinely distressing. Like I said, it kept me playing from beginning to end, just to see what would happen, and that's what a story-driven game should be all about.