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    BioShock Infinite

    Game » consists of 20 releases. Released Mar 26, 2013

    The third game in the BioShock series leaves the bottom of the sea behind for an entirely new setting - the floating city of Columbia, circa 1912. Come to retrieve a girl named Elizabeth, ex-detective Booker DeWitt finds more in store for him there than he could ever imagine.

    Bioshock Infinite: Sometimes the Critics Are Wrong

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    Video_Game_King

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    #51  Edited By Video_Game_King
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    Little_Socrates

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    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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    Ravenlight

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    @video_game_king:

    I'd love to see a different take on Infinite. A Telltale/Walking Dead adventure take on that story seems like it could be awesome.

    That or go full retard in the other direction and make it a super-self-serious, gravel-in-underwear gritty, Gearsy of Warsies with even more setpieces and much less walkies-and-look-at-the-scenery-times. Hyphens.

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    Video_Game_King

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    @video_game_king:

    A Telltale/Walking Dead adventure take on that story seems like it could be awesome.

    You mean make Elizabeth a seven year old girl? Or just remake The Walking Dead, except give Clementine reality warping powers?

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    wrighteous86

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    #55  Edited By wrighteous86

    I love the game and what it does right, but it is deeply flawed and full of half-baked gameplay ideas that were abandoned as the game changed over the course of development.

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    Funkydupe

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    Why do you want to touch this after all it did receive the bukakke treatment by most critics. Does anyone even play Bioshock Infinite anymore?

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    chilipeppersman

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    kindgineer

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    The ending was quite a shock, but I can't say I sat at the end of the credits pondering all the pathways. I look at it this way, critics are entertainers as much as they are journalists. They need to make their subjects seem more dramatic, be it positive or negative. While the ending raised the bar in terms of "awe" for me, it wasn't nearly the discussion-heavy idea that gaming websites were toting. It's kind of like how you're watching a person play Amnesia on YouTube will (normally) be a far different experience than if they played it alone. There wouldn't be a many screams and gestures.

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    Zekhariah

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    Now that it can be picked up for a hamilton ($10 for those that hate carrying cash), I gave it a go.

    Kind of an odd experience. The story is good enough to push the game forward, but it gives an art house "this is intellectual and good because it is cryptic and disjointed" thing. Bioshock Inf. gives me a mixed sense, like there is a serious stab at implementing a story, but it seems like it would only be meaningful if I was looking at it from my prospective 18 years ago (e.g. latching onto any game/book I liked as having literary quality if there was any level of thoughtful pretensions).

    Gameplay is surprisingly good - I found Bioshock 1 unplayable, but this game is completely serviceable. Dropping the inventory system or expanding it would be nice - it sits in a weird middle-ground of interest. I'd suggest playing through Quake II before it, but it certainly is a more pleasant sort of world to play in.

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    Missacre

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    Ugh Bioshock was probably the worst game I've played all year, and there were plenty of bad games this year. The gameplay was terrible, there's no real sense of danger, you can literally stand in the middle of the room and shoot everyone, seeing as how they're all horrible shots. Elizabeth is a horrible partner. She just stands there, pulling ammo, health, and salts out of her vagina every two seconds so it makes the game laughably easy, and yes, I played it on 1999 mode. The story was so ridiculous and full of holes it's amazing it was even used for the game. I feel like a 10 year old wrote it, and judging by the way it played out, it probably was. The shooting was horrible. Some of the guns were literally reskins. The vigor system is so uninspired, it feels like they tacked it on in the last month or two. The AI was pretty bad too, and the enemies lacked variety. It really was a badly made game, and it seemed very rushed.

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