A month later: How do you feel about Infinite now?(Spoilers)

Now that I've had some time to really look at the game from a distance, I would say I enjoyed BioShock more than Infinite. I still feel that Infinite was a wonderful game, but I think, as a whole, the original was still better. My main gripe is that the multidimensional travel aspects feel as though they greatly overshadow other parts of the game, particularly the fleshing out of characters. I definitely appreciate a lot of the things the game did, but much of the game felt overly convoluted for the sake of being convoluted.

So, now that the immediate hype has settled, what do you people think about the game now?

It did take me a while to form an opinion, but I pretty much settled on it after a week.

It's weird, and a shame, that all this city-in-the-sky, ultra-mormon, ultra-patriot American racist, civil uprising, working-class revolutionist stuff all just came down to explaining the concept of infinite universes. I already know what that is! Why bring in all these heavy themes just for an everyday SyFy channel trope?

I think the combat was done better in Bioshock. Hacking security cameras, turning health stations into traps, bringing a Big Daddy over to your side, freezing enemies on the spot, catching guys standing in water with Electricity and all this cool, weird stuff was filed down.

BUT-- I did really enjoy skylines. Those rails are fucking cool, and a great idea. Bringing stuff in through tears worked pretty well too. Bringing down those zeppelins was a good idea, even though it only showed up a couple times.

It's still a great game, and Columbia is amazing, even though it's not a huge springboard forward from Bioshock 1.

I still love it.
It's as simple as that

I 1000/1000 achievemented the game.

Also audio logs, right?

They work great when you're wandering around an abandoned appartment block in the middle of the night, but it's kind of not the same when I have to keep pausing it to chat to people.

Same with picking up coins and hotdogs- you can loot a dead city, but stealing everything in Columbia was maybe not a great idea.

EDIT-- I guess main takeaway is that it's a fantastic game with a goddamn billion things to nitpick about it.

I still think it's a great game. On my second playthrough right now, this time on normal instead of hard so I can experiment more with the vigor combinations and now I have to say, I'm kinda liking the gunplay a lot more. Also in the middle of installing Bioshock as I type this to see which one I like better.

My opinion hasn't changed that much since I played it. I felt, at the time, that the game changed its focus from Columbia, its themes and characters, and Booker-Elizabeth relationship into pseudo-scientific stuff and I was not a fan of that then and that opinion stays the same. I feel that the beginning of the game is still one of the strongest in video games (I still enjoy the rowing dialogue) and the beach part is still my favorite from the game.

I wasn't bothered with the audio logs or the loot part of the game then and I don't understand why people would pick on that. I mean, yes, if you think about it from a logical, worldly way it doesn't make sense, but from that point of view most things in video games don't make sense, so why only pick on these two things.

I still think it's pretty good! The shooting was pretty good for what it was, even though I didn't use maybe two-thirds of the guns, since the double pistol combination worked for most of my encounters once I got the hand cannon. And the storyline is still really good to me. Despite the imperialistic values and American Exceptionalism trends being used as a way to couch this science-fiction narrative, that science-fiction narrative was still pretty damn good in my eyes.

Probably the thing that keeps coming back to my mind are the weird anachronisms and time-leapings of media, particularly the music. It's gotten to the point where I downloaded 'Will the Circle Be Unbroken' and have been listening to it non-stop.

I still love it, and fuck me if I still get goosebumps from only thinking about the opening.

"Hallelujah"

I still like it a ton, and playing through Bioshock 1 again, anyone who thinks the combat is worse in Infinite is insane.

i felt the ending was fucking stupid.

Right!? I started BioShock again after I finished Infinite, and while I still feel Rapture was a better realized place, Infinite is still the better game because the combat is so much better it is ridiculous.

Also, the other idiots are the people that say BioShock looks like shit now. Even though it is running Unreal 2.5, it still looks fucking fantastic: Screenshots

I might replay Infinite in a couple months, it is one of the best games I have ever played. It is a fantastic achievement in videogames.

I think the idea that they don't fit into the fiction is a pretty tired topic, but they also rub against how the game plays.

To peek into dead people's lives when they're all gone, in an empty post-apocalypse setiing, is realy good! It's scavenging, it gives more character and life to a smashed up building, it makes you feel too late and alone, and is a really interesting way to deliver exposition. Reading backwards through a failed experiment is awesome.

In Columbia though, I have to pause the audio log whenever someone around me is talking, and I think it'd be a lot more fun to have conversations with the ACTUAL PEOPLE who are walking around. A couple of times I actually listened from within the pause menu, which I never would've done in Bioshock 1, because listening while walking around works out so well in that game.

As for picking up so many hotdogs, just look at all the times people triggered a hundred enemies after stealing by accident, or didn't pay attention to Elizabeth cos they were opening drawers.

But yea we're on the same page with basically everything else.

@i_smell: Only once I had that happened to me and it was on that part of shantytown where a few people are trying to break into a vending machine and there are coins right next to a purse that is considered stealing. Apart from that (which is definitely a mistake from the game) never I stole by accident or missed Elizabeth conversations because I was out there looting.

My point was if you start picking on audio logs or the loot stuff then you might as well keep going and say that vigors are out of touch with the world. And why are there vending machines selling weapons or ammunition? I mean, who in Columbia would use those things? And you can keep going on from there. At some point you are questioning the fact that this is a video game.

It was fun!

It was fun while it lasted but I don't know if I'll ever go back to it.

I feel the same now as I did after playing it. It had a really enjoyable start but once past the first real combat zone with the zip line that went around that wharf store area the game got bad fast. Everything up to then had a good pacing with interesting characters and story development, but past that it dragged on. The story bits were spread out way too far in between samy combat that was extremely boring and repetitive. Just like Bioshock the combat ruins that game for me and I wish they would do it in any other genre as they are obviously really good at coming up with stories and amazing worlds to set them in that make me want to know more about them. Unlike Bioshock however, I didn't enjoy the story or characters by the end.

I started out liking the characters and setting but when all the time travel/alternate reality crap came into effect I lost all interest in it. Let alone the story being dragged out by bad and long combat encounters. It's as if they wanted to punish you for wanting to see how it ended by forcing you through long boring combat back to back to back to stretch out the gameplay time. The chinese district and the backtracking for ghost mom being the worst offenders of all.

By the end of it all though I just stopped caring for the characters. Admittedly it may have been my fault for marathoning the game in two sittings, but pushing through the boring back half made it so that when it was over I was just ready to be done with the game so that I didn't have to play it anymore and I couldn't care less what happened to the characters o world. The fact that I had to force myself to keep playing says a lot in my books as I shouldn't have to force myself to play any part of a game.

In summary, alternate reality story cliche that ends with the game making everything you have seen, everyone you have met, and everything you have done the entire game pointless rubbed me the wrong way. Add to that the extremely boring and repetitive combat that was filled through a good two thirds of the game brings down the first third that I enjoyed. Also, thinking back there was not a single likeable character in that whole game. Everyone was a huge dick. Elizabeth was the closest but I just found her uninteresting and seemed to be nothing more than eye candy. I never grew to feel any attachment to her.

I'm also surprised they never did a Luke/Leia thing with Elizabeth and Booker where before they find out their relationship they get it on or show some kind of interest in each other.

I still love it. I stopped in the middle of my second playthrough (on hard) because I don't know. Haven't been in a gaming mood lately. I'll pick it back up again when the semesters over and I clear some of my backlog.

I love the world and the storytelling, but I was bored with all the shooting by the end. If I play it again, I'll probably step down to Easy so the shooting bits get shorter.

I think that's a fair point to pick on though. For a game that goes so out of it's way to flesh out a city and setting to make it as believable as possible, when you interject it with stuff like that it can be very immersion breaking for some people. It's great if you can just shrug it off as "Video Game", but for those that can't it can drag the game down. It didn't do that for me as there are many other things that did that - see above - but I have had stuff like that ruin/hurt other games for me so I can sympathize.

It could have been really easy for them to add in a world logic thing to replace the vending machines though. I mean, giving it exactly two seconds of thought and I came up with this. The bit at the start where the cop is showing off the hook thing, they could have had him in front of a police store window where the officers go to equip themselves when they go on duty. Having those scattered around the city makes sense, and not having each one fully stocked makes sense too as not all districts would require the same kind of firepower to police. You could also have rebel weapon caches hidden for the crazier stuff like rocket launchers and sniper rifles.

My experience with the game would have definitely been better if the PC version had been patched up. It hasn't. So, you've got a lot of stuttering issues and framerate drops that really breaks it for me.

I've beat it twice still, but I find it hard to return to it. I felt like Bioshock 1 had a lot more going on for it. More variety, visual weapon upgrades, a bit less linear and so on. It was a hell of a lot easier to replay. Also, the story made sense in Bio 1. Because in Infinite, whenever you get something straight, something that makes no sense comes around.

I think precisely what you think - that it's a really good game but that, ultimately, the original Bioshock was a better game in many respects. The story of Infinite, particularly, is weird, and I'm not referring to the multiverse aspect of it. I'm referring to the fact that it sets up all these heavy-handed themes of racism and extremism and then switches to a personal story about Elizabeth and Booker. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, but why set up all of the racism and pretty much all of Columbia if the story you want to tell isn't about those things at all? Columbia is still a wonderful setting, but you can make a crapsack world ready for revolution without resorting to the faux-commentary. I just found that Bioshock's story felt tighter and better thought-out than Infinite's.

Gameplay? Yeah, it's still problematic at times and really fun at others. Not being to hold all of the guns bugs the fuck out of me, but on the other hand the camera mechanic is gone. Some enemies still feel too powerful (Handymen!), death still isn't handled well, and the right balance of Vigors could probably still break the game. But then, it's also still a lot of fun to zap four dudes with bolts of lightning and then bash their heads in with a hook.

Bioshock Infinite is the best game that has come out at the start of 2013 I've played. Nothing has changed that even though I take particular issue with the way combat works.

I'm never quite sure what to make of people who say Bioshock 1 was the better game. I see the clear improvement in level design and story telling in BI that were lacking in Bioshock.

@crusader8463: You know, this is a city that flies on the early 20th century. The belief is not that great ;) My point is why would those two be the things that break the game and not the other stuff that populates video games (the main character can get shot in the head and not die, eating hot dogs heals wounds, that sort of stuff).

In regards of your idea about the vending machines, it may sound good on the surface, but then what would stop the regular person from going there and just pick weapons? And how would that work with money? Would the police have to buy their weapons and ammo as well? And how does upgrades factor into that? Also there's the machines that sell salt for your vigors, which is something that the police doesn't use. Note that I'm not expecting for you to come up answers for all of these :) Just sayin that at same point you have to make concessions. And those concessions are "yo it's a video game". Could it be made better? Of course. But, it's as they say, if you do that then no video games would be released.

@believer258: I didn't get the racist vibes either. I thought it was trying to keep with the whole theme of choice and slavery and would come more into play later on in the story. But nope, acid trips, portals and flying ghosts instead.

I think it is a great game. Beautiful setting and the combat blows Bioshock out of the water. However (dramatic pause) the arena style battles got tired...I like that its not a Bioshock clone but I have to say the story and setting was better in the Original. The perfect combo would be Bioshock Infinite combat in the original Bioshock. All and all its just little nit picks at one of the better games I have played recently.

I haven't thought about it that much. Real surprised that it was ever considered confusing. Hell, Injustice has the same plot when you think about it.

@winternet: I get what you are saying, but at a certain point when they are going so far out of the way to try and immerse you in a world and make it as believable as possible despite the fantastic settings "it's a video game" doesn't cut it for some people. If they took the time to explain how that beach has water run off infinitely, I don't think it's asking that much for them to do that for other parts of the game. Gameplay stuff like the vending machines just being there are the gameplay equivalent to the uncanny valley of 3D faces that make taking anything not made with real people impossible for some to take seriously and it takes them out of the experience.

Most people have the point of view as yourself, and I even agree that it didn't bother me that much as I've just accepted that very few devs take the time to flesh a lot of that stuff out, but I understand how it could bother some people and ruin the experience for them. Especially when it seems like a lot of that stuff could be reworked into such a way that they keep the same gameplay effects but by changing the look or names of some things intertwine it in the world in such a way that it makes sense. I mean huffing plumes of salt gives you magic mana? It seems like they just picked salt so that they could point to salty food scattered around the world and use it as a means to restore mana since they had food for restoring health. They could have just made it auto regen, or instead of making it magic seriums have them be linked to the armband and using them drains it of it's power. So you need to go recharge it at a charging station from time to time. Make all the cops have these and link the upgrades to different tiers of cops and you also have an excuse for why there would be charging stations everywhere.

I'm not going to go down a huge list of things they could have done to immerse this stuff in a more sensible way, but my point is that with just a few moments of thought I can come up with a dozen different ways to incorporate this stuff into the world that makes more sense then vending machines that sell guns/ammo and magic potions that give you superpowers that run on you eating salty foods.

I think its the best in the series. Although I think the story has a lot of things that will go right above most peoples heads. Which is a shame most people will plow through the game without finding all of the Voxaphones and then blame the game for not making sense.

Great game!

Same as I did when it came out

It looks nice, plays nice and has a good story, it's just the lack luster replayability(none) and gameplay(old stuff) that I wasn't too hot about and time hasn't helped those issues at all.

I really like a lot of that game. Some of the moments are incredible. I really like the shooting to despite what a lot of people seemed to say. But there are just moments that are hard to ignore. The moment with the mother was the worst part of the game both gameplay-wise and writing-wise. The finale with that character showed just real obnoxious writing and Elizabeth's VO in that segment was real rough. Around Fink, the first time through, I had this middle-game doldrums. As much as I like the ending I wish it had gone a little more complex and been a little less clear. I wish that, as it ended, I would have a ton of questions rather then just one or two. But it was by and large a great game.

@crusader8463: It's like I said, at what point to they stop developing their game? I mean, there's always something that could be done better and if they follow that line of thought then no game gets released. There has to be a stopping point. And there are resources to be managed. If they spend more on fleshing out things like vigors and vending machines, then there is less to spend at other parts of the game.

I enjoyed the story more than the gameplay. I love anything that plants the seeds early enough that without context are meaningless, but eventually click into place by the end.

I kept getting the tooltip to use the Vigours, which is rather telling when considered it's a major combat mechanic. With the Skylines available, I much preferred to zip around on them, pick people off and then Skyline Strike. The problem I found was everything being tied to one currency. I was frustrated whenever I'd die because I was losing cash that should allow me to upgrade the weapons and Vigours that would make future combat encounters easier. By the end I felt there was a great variety of abilities, but I was frustrated that I wasn't getting the most out of them.

In the build-up to release I was so excited by the enemies like the Handyman, Motorised Patriot and Boys of Silence. I thought they looked amazing, but when it came to fighting them I was underwhelmed. I never felt I could get the upper had on the patriot to get behind him. And the Handyman could always rush up on me almost instantly and remove 3/4 of my health bar. In the original BioShock I liked the feeling of improving and upgrading the character so that by the end, Big Daddy fights were no long a slog.

It's been said before in this thread that it's a great game with plenty to nitpick. Overall BioShock has a greater place in my heart, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the time I had with Infinite and wanting to see what they do with the DLC stories after getting some feedback.

I'm really surprised so many people had trouble with lady comstock on normal Im not even joking you can finish the battle in like under ten seconds if you do it right. Fully upgraded charge, Blood to salts, Brittle Skinned,Burning Halo and literally all you do is charge, shoot, charge and win. The upgraded charge auto refills your shield every time you charge the blood to salts refills your salts every kill you get and Brittle skinned makes melee targets extra vulnerable to damage for a few seconds.

On 1999 mode its a bit trickier but still not even the hardest part on that mode IMO.

I'd forgotten that. I spent ages wandering around soaking in the world. It was beautiful and got me so excited about the game I was about to play.

@beachthunder: I liked BioShock better. The atmosphere of Rapture was so oppressive and visually it was more interesting. I also appreciated the straightforward story-telling. Infinite's narrative was ambitious but the story was a bit too in love with its intellectualism to be really interesting to me, and frankly that metaphysics stuff is beyond me. I like a good, "simple" story told well, and the first BioShock had that in spades. Combat was better in Infinite, but BioShock 2 had the best combat of the 3 modern games.

I liked Infinite very much, and will play whatever story DLC comes next, but Bio1 remains my favorite game of the series.

Yeah.

Also, nice avatar.

This game is simply unbelieveable. I can barely remember the last time I cared about video games this much. There are things I don't like about it obviously, but that can be said about pretty much every video game (except God Hand). In general, it has raised the bar so high, pretty much everything else I've tried to play since just seems so lackluster in comparison. The game has almost killed the FPS genre for me. I really need to get into something entirely different now.

I can't shake the feeling that this game was really rushed along production because it was taking too long. A lot of story elements seem half-baked and characters don't develop as much as I'd like. Also the gameplay promised by the E3 demo was a lot more interesting than what we got which was a perfectly average shooter with a cool, but underused rail system.

The original Bioshock definitely had a longer lasting impact and I still think of it as an impressive game. This game to me was kinda shooter of the week. In and out in 12 hours. It's good, it's competent but it's kinda forgettable to me.

Who cares SMTIV are coming out.

It's still really, really good. There were a couple small things I thought could be done differently to make it a bit better but it's still a landslide GOTY for me.

The last 20 minutes are great, the first 10 hours are awful. The twins are great. Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper are phenomenal. Most disappointing game of the decade for me, right on top of Assassins Creed 3 and Max Payne 3.

Um, the same as I felt a month ago? Phenomenal game.

The storytelling was good, the combat was shitty. Pretty much how I felt after (during) my first playthrough.

To each their own, but I hardly think it's asking a lot for them to have taken an extra hour or so when they were writing these things down during the design phase to think them over a bit more. It takes the same amount of time to implement anything they would have came up with, so why not take the extra hour or two during the design phase to try and flesh that stuff out on paper? If I can come up with some logical workarounds that fit into the story with putting zero effort into it why can't a dozen or so game devs with decades of experience do it? I highly doubt I'm some savant game designer or something that makes it unrealistic for them to do the same. lol

Still waiting for a patch that fixes the stuttering for my 2nd playthrough, just bought the season pass and i cant wait for those 3 story driven DLCs.

Love the story, love the ending and even love the combat.

If you think that a couple of hours would solve it, either you're out of your mind or they should hire you, like right now.

@winternet: How would it have not? Before the game was being made and they were working this stuff out on paper in their design documents they could have just come up with other ways to visually implement the systems into the world that made more sense. It doesn't take designing worlds, characters, and stories first to realize things like eating trash bin hotdogs to restore health/mana will be silly or that have a gun vending machine in a peaceful city is out of place. When it came time to make them they would have allocated the same people the same time to do the same thing they did just differently. If it takes them days/weeks/months to come up with some new ideas for stuff like that then I don't know what to say. That's just sad.