BioShock Infinite often has frustrating gameplay including extremely dull boss encounters and hinges upon your lack of noticing the seams around the story; namely, the point at which criticism of racism becomes all-out racism, the point at which Elizabeth's internal conflicts are solved with Booker's rocket launcher, and the point at which all consequences of the world around you sort of become meaningless because the world can just change at any given moment. Also, Columbia is a horrifying racist Disneyland that manages to sucker white people into the "It's so beautiful" response with the first few hours and drive several to feel subjugated in a world where they're supposed to be the protagonist within twenty minutes. And all of the detail that makes those first few hours so "well-realized" disappears by the time you've made it out of Shantytown/Finkton.
Sorry, I don't like hyperbole. I actually really love BioShock Infinite. I love the story for what it does well, even in spite of some of the things it does very poorly. And I do think Columbia is beautiful, even if it's a beautiful evil, and those first few hours give a glimpse of what interacting with video game worlds can be. And, for the most part, I enjoyed the gameplay, though Lady Comstock and the Handymen are the only encounters I've played this year that rival those in The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct for my least favorites of the year.
But the idea that "opinions can be wrong" or that something being "objectively good" means you can't have intense and serious problems with it is the way you stop discourse. And stopping discourse is the worst. I think there's a lot BioShock Infinite needs to do better, even if I adore it for what it does well. But no, it's not just "objectively good", and there are loads of reasons to dislike beyond the "gameplay is meh" conversation which is entirely personal so who gives a shit, there are loads of people who just don't have fun killing dudes in games and they're not "wrong" for that.
Just a few of the better...yeah, better criticisms I've read about Infinite.
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