A gorgeous game with a nice world, but little replay value
Bioshock Infinite is in short a gorgeous looking game. The world of Columbia on the whole is beautiful and the sky scenes are interesting. I would even go as so far to say that the main character and Elizabeth are interesting as well.
Mechanically the game is very solid. The first person shooting aspects are good and the use of the Vigors (ahem Salts) is mostly just as fun as it was through the previous games. The game also has the the signature "twist" that we are starting to see from all of these Bioshock games. In short it is a wonderful game that everyone should play.
In short......Yeah that is sort of it too. The game is fairly short. Don't get me wrong, it isn't 6 hours short, but the 10-12 hours it took me to play through it felt incredibly short based upon the grand scale it was trying to convey. I also don't feel there is a lot to go back to unless you are trying to find all of the collectibles.
I wonder if many of the shortcomings of the game have more to do with the limitations of the current generation consoles than of the design. While Columbia is beautiful it mostly feels a bit lifeless. It felt like there should be more people moving about the city and that the people you do see should be doing more than just sitting there. The streets of Columbia unfortunately had a very Disney vibe to them as if the whole thing was just a scene laid out.
Mechanically I found the game to grow a bit stale about mid-way through as well. While the game tries to throw new weapons and Salts at you I unfortunately found myself going back to just a couple. I also missed a lot of the improvements they made in Bioshock 2 with the duel wielding and and creation of traps. Ultimately it felt a bit ho-hum and a bit mechanical towards the end when I would run into enemy A and know I had to do XYZ to defeat them.
Overall though that doesn't detract from the wonderful world that was created. I just wish I could have seen a more dynamic version of it.
