Not even to mention that the soundtrack almost perfectly compliments the time period and environment. Everyone kind of conveniently forgets that to try and peg it as "another shooter".
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Bioshock Infinite, overrated and repeative [spoilers]
- Thread starter Nilaul
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Not even to mention that the soundtrack almost perfectly compliments the time period and environment. Everyone kind of conveniently forgets that to try and peg it as "another shooter".
Even on 1999 mode that battle was not that hard. It took me a couple times to figure out what worked best. Once you knew what to expect it was not bad. If you wanted to "exploit game play mechanics" you could easily do that (by leaving a couple guys up to prevent the next wave, you could equip gear that makes you immune after dismounting skyhook + aoe fire when landing, you could push patriots off the deck with the water move. You could do it like you should, which means you use the the "special" to clear the deck then target a airship after. The hits on your airship (that clear enemies on the deck) recharge much faster than the hits on the enemy ones.
That's an extraordinarily stupid message to send when one 'ideology' is the most cartoonishly evil, oppressive, racist, classist cardboard cutout of a society you can muster up, and the other side is loosely comprised of a coalition of the people who have been oppressed by the former group, with an 'ideology' that is essentially "Hi, please stop treating us like animals, because we're willing to shoot some people to get it to stop."
Like, it's really fuckin' dumb. As in, it is an improvement if you choose to interpret that messaging as "This (part of the) game had no message at all", because it's just such a worthless, thoughtless position.
In fact, the quality of the game's narrative is drastically improved if you interpret basically 100% of Vox-related plot elements as though they say nothing more than "We need another four hours of shooting or else we can't sell this game for $60, so let's have the player beat up on Red Team instead of Blue Team for the back half of the game, and bookend it with the story we actually want to tell (which is good but really has fuck all to do with this rebellion)". Then you're left with a game that has a 'pretty good' story but is padded out for length with a bunch of irrelevant stuff, instead of a story-focused game that wildly oscillates between story elements that are 'pretty good' and other story elements that are just goddamn awful.
The game did a lot of really, really good things with story, art, sound, and other non-gameplay, non-mechanical 'fluff' (edit: And it probably did at least as much right as it did wrong when it came to mechanics, but that's sort of beside the point here), but holy crap did it ever fall down when it came to dealing with socioeconomic issues.
Fahrenheit
Banned
I'm not saying it was hard, I'm saying it was tedious. If anything game was way to easy and since there is no penalty for dying (well except for the air ship fight) the firefights end up being dull. Of course I think the core game play is bland
Die too much on 1999 and your game ends. I wish money had been harder in 1999 mode to be honest. I think I may do a play through on 1999 with no upgrades to see if I can complete it.
Trent Strong
Banned
Sad that a story that is the equivalent of an episode of Sliders, or a mediocre episode of Star Trek is considered to be milestone of video game story that has moved the entire medium forward. If this is true (and I don't think it is, the GTAs, for example, have far better stories than Infinite), then how long will it be until a video game has an actual good story? Probably decades.
Fahrenheit
Banned
I played on hard 1999 was locked out at the start. Even with that I only died twice in the whole game. Once was testing to see if I could jump off the city and the other was in the air shop fight.
TrantaLocked
Neo Member
If you were playing just to get through it, you obviously were not allowing yourself to absorb the environment, characters and narrative.
BioShock is not the kind of arcade shooter you get with Call of Duty, but if you play it like one, you won't enjoy the game nearly as much as you potentially could. I probably spent half of my time in this game looking at the architecture, reading signs, and just appreciating every bit of my surroundings.
With all of that said, I simply cannot agree with you about the gameplay. It never got old for me, and the atmosphere and narrative supporting each fight always made fights interesting.
If you were not moved by the boy of silence level, then I can't really argue with you about the game. I believe the people that love BioShock Infinite are the people that were moved by it.
BioShock is not the kind of arcade shooter you get with Call of Duty, but if you play it like one, you won't enjoy the game nearly as much as you potentially could. I probably spent half of my time in this game looking at the architecture, reading signs, and just appreciating every bit of my surroundings.
With all of that said, I simply cannot agree with you about the gameplay. It never got old for me, and the atmosphere and narrative supporting each fight always made fights interesting.
If you were not moved by the boy of silence level, then I can't really argue with you about the game. I believe the people that love BioShock Infinite are the people that were moved by it.
I think Spec Ops: The Line and The Walking Dead both had better stories than Bioshock Infinite, but are less cohesive packages all around.
Huh? Just because she's not a typical damsel in distress like Peach, doesn't mean her character is "non-sexist." Everything from her animation, design and dialogue was deliberately designed in a manipulative way to appeal to men in a way that would make them want to "protect" her.
Just because you weren't a fan doesn't make it bad. Everybody's entitled to there own opinion, so if people think's it moves the medium forward than they are entitled to feel that way.
Uno Venova
Banned
Same here.
Army of 2 the cartel featured a women where you had to protect because a gang was trying to rape her.
TrantaLocked
Neo Member
There is nothing wrong with that. I think being offended about it is sexist, as all women are different, and women like Elizabeth can exist.
Well, the same could be said about every single FPS game this generation then.
It's a complaint that makes no sense whatsoever.
I already said it before, but this is the thread for people who don't like shooters to come in and complain about a shooter. Which is fine, but it is kind of a caveat to many of the opinions present.
TrantaLocked
Neo Member
True thing.
See I just don't understand that mind process? Garbage? Really? I mean the visuals, the atmosphere ,the music, the characters, the world of columbia, all the small details surrounded and absorbed into the world, the narrative, the production values, I mean I can go on and on..but to say this game is garbage, in a industry FILLED with TRULY garbage games is just mind boggling to hear.
It's okay to not be a fan of the game. But to say it's garbage is just spitting on the face of Mr. levine and the hard working team at Irrational Games.
I agree. When Sessler compared it to Chinatown, I was incredibly excited. Instead, I got Inception.
You can do this on any mode, right? I'm not hardcore enough to not use Dollar Bill machine on 1999 mode. It's too late anyway since I'm already halfway through 1999 mode. Although I should really stop buying stuff if I want enough money to buy upgrades for Vigors.
Trent Strong said:
What is this old-school show fapping? Fringe, damn it. Fringe. The story looks like an arc out of Fringe.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
The game is pretty damn diverse if you know how to use the vigors imo.
Maybe I played it wrong but a bunch of the vigors were kind of samey;
Shock something then shoot it
Throws birds at something then shoot it
Light something on fire then shoot it
Bucking bronco then shoot it
Etc.
(Return to sender was cool, didn't really like the others)
Basileus777
Member
Not really. Many of those shooters have better combat and encounter design than this game, which is something Infinite really drops the ball on.
Cave Johnson
Member
I fully agree on the context by which the OP has presented. So far, too many people would overlook such glaring factors so they can place it on a high pedestal forgetting the supporting beam is inherently weak. The original 2 gameplay trailers years back had a completely different vibe, tone and delivery of the game.
You as the player observe and witnessed how people interact (such as the guy feeding the crows and then unleashes said crows to attack you). The current version of Infinite was mere background in equivalent like going through a movie set rather through a finished product of a final edited reel. This of course caused MUCH disappointment to me because NOTHING I've seen in this game should've taken this long to make. It's like the equivalent of the TLOU deciding to go back to Uncharted style gameplay because the design didn't pull through.
The more I see this game and controversy surrounding it [key employees leaving, delays], the more I'm inclined to believe that somewhere between development Ken decided that the ambition was too high or too risky that he falls back into Bioshock 1 (Sky Mod) instead because that's EXACTLY what it was!
You as the player observe and witnessed how people interact (such as the guy feeding the crows and then unleashes said crows to attack you). The current version of Infinite was mere background in equivalent like going through a movie set rather through a finished product of a final edited reel. This of course caused MUCH disappointment to me because NOTHING I've seen in this game should've taken this long to make. It's like the equivalent of the TLOU deciding to go back to Uncharted style gameplay because the design didn't pull through.
The more I see this game and controversy surrounding it [key employees leaving, delays], the more I'm inclined to believe that somewhere between development Ken decided that the ambition was too high or too risky that he falls back into Bioshock 1 (Sky Mod) instead because that's EXACTLY what it was!
No no no. Bioshock Infinite as a game is so disconnected from its narrative that the story is actually crippled by the weak justifications it needs to come up with to justify all this continued shooting. It's something that would have been better as a movie, and that's not the direction I want gaming narratives to go in. The gameplay and story should be working together, not acting at cross purposes. It shouldn't be reducing Elizabeth's gift to a fetch girl, or sidelining pretty much all of its NPCs into paper thin psychos. Even if you think the gamplay and story are good in BI, they go together like oil and water.
Spec Ops: The Line pulls this off much better. Despite being a shooter with a lot of fodder, the gameplay and narrative do actually feed off each other to the point where the line (no pun) between them is blurred. There's such a stark divide between the story and gameplay segments in BI they might as well have used FMV.
Hell, I don't even LIKE FPSs and I loved it. The combat wasn't the best part of the game, but it was fun. And the rest of the package makes it pretty amazing overall.
They're samey? Because you shoot after using them? Okay...
I actually never used Return to Sender. I forgot it existed right after getting it. Never even tried it. I beat her and her minions mostly with Devils Kiss.
adamsappel
Member
The only thing I can relate with the OP is the treasure-seeking. "Money is important, so we like to store it in trashcans, plus it litters the streets. Our shopkeeps and citizens won't say a thing while you rob their cash registers and rifle their purses. And don't worry about your health, you can always eat this hot dog you found on a rotting corpse." This is a tired game mechanic that strains credulity.
MvmntInGrn
Member
I enjoyed it quite a bit with a few hiccups here and there. Liked it enough to start over right away (though I didn't finish playthrough two).
Great single-player shooter. As someone who thought Bioshock 1 had all around weak gameplay (not a good RPG, not a good shooter) I didn't mind Infinite going the linear shooter route because at least it did so pretty well. Curious to see if I will want to replay it years out (because while I think its a great single-player shooter its not a genre I tend to revisit games from).
Infinite's biggest praise from me is its production and art. Top tier when it comes to thoughtfully designed environments from an audio/visual perspective if perhaps uninteresting at times from a level design one. It was a fun world to look at up close (instead of as a quick set piece beauty).
The whole Vox/Founders sub-plot wasn't something I paid much attention to during my playthrough but I can see why it is so criticized. We are expected to dislike the initial societal climate based on the presence of oppression Columbia-wide but expected to dislike the actions the Vox based almost entirely on the actions of Daisy Fitzroy. I would agree that this whole sub-plot ultimately "says" nothing. I think its purpose was to have the player think about what is right and wrong in a non-absolute way and I think it may have a varying degree of success there (on the Vox side) but it does a poor job of expressing this from both "sides" involved if that was the intention (if it was it certainly didn't come across as even and I'm not sure how it ever could given the scenario).
Great single-player shooter. As someone who thought Bioshock 1 had all around weak gameplay (not a good RPG, not a good shooter) I didn't mind Infinite going the linear shooter route because at least it did so pretty well. Curious to see if I will want to replay it years out (because while I think its a great single-player shooter its not a genre I tend to revisit games from).
Infinite's biggest praise from me is its production and art. Top tier when it comes to thoughtfully designed environments from an audio/visual perspective if perhaps uninteresting at times from a level design one. It was a fun world to look at up close (instead of as a quick set piece beauty).
The whole Vox/Founders sub-plot wasn't something I paid much attention to during my playthrough but I can see why it is so criticized. We are expected to dislike the initial societal climate based on the presence of oppression Columbia-wide but expected to dislike the actions the Vox based almost entirely on the actions of Daisy Fitzroy. I would agree that this whole sub-plot ultimately "says" nothing. I think its purpose was to have the player think about what is right and wrong in a non-absolute way and I think it may have a varying degree of success there (on the Vox side) but it does a poor job of expressing this from both "sides" involved if that was the intention (if it was it certainly didn't come across as even and I'm not sure how it ever could given the scenario).
That's great. I hate using Return to Sender. So if I can defeat her using other Vigors that'd be better but my usual Murder of Crows/Shock Jockey combination didn't have any effect so I assumed that only Return to Sender works against them since that's the latest Vigor I got prior facing off against the ghosts.
This made me laugh, thinking back to the "stealing may have consequences" message. Apparently taking money from purses, stealing from crates at the docks, and sneaking a hotdog off of a stand isn't stealing. You have this game with so much effort put into its art and atmosphere, but then you play as a guy who's digging into trash bins for hotdogs, jumping on furniture, walking around public areas with a huge gun, and killing whoever he damn well pleases on top of all the theft. All that said, it didn't really bother me. It's just something funny to think about when the game takes itself so seriously.
there actually is a stealing mechanic in the game, when the loot is highlighted red. It is barely present, but before the hall of heroes on the docks you can steal from the ice cream shop's register and have the cashier attack you. Then you can cut his head off in front of everyone and the police reinforcements that come in just cause you feel like it. No actual repercussion really, aside from exposing columbia in a harshly videogamey fashion.
Everything podcasts and reviews discuss as being superlative and positive came across as sounding like such a limp and disappointing game experience to me. I'll get around to this game when it hits $20 or so just for the story, but this sounds like pure content tourism(ugh) tacked with a bland shooting experience. I'm sure the story is entertaining on some level, but this is not a game experience I expect from the studio.
Man those early trailers were such a cocktease, the final product sounds as if all the creativity got ejected.
Man those early trailers were such a cocktease, the final product sounds as if all the creativity got ejected.
The lesson I learn from this game is: stealing is okay as long as no one is around to reprimand you for it.
So don't take money out of the cash registers.....until everyone has left the shop due to the area being evacuated.
TrantaLocked
Neo Member
If BioShock Infinite has little creativity, then every AAA game released this year has negative creativity.
Even those who hate the game would agree that this game is mostly based on creative ideas. You should play the game and decide for yourself.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
That was kind of the story from the very beginning, though.
Yeah, the Vox were a really cool idea, but shoehorned in as basically a Deus Ex Machina for why shit escalated so quickly.
You really should play it before saying such a thing. At least redbox it for a 1.50 a night.
Because to say it's "creativity got ejected" is pure ignorance on your part.
Most delusional statement in this whole thread
It seems like almost every criticism comes from a group of persons who doesn't like FPS games in the first place - some of you complain about basic things which are just how things are
Do I think it's the game of the generation? Nope; but it's easily up there with the best of the best because the overall package has a quality that not many companies achieve nowadays.
It's important that you state if you didn't like something or think different about what other consider great - but it feels really like nitpicking at this point.
And to people who say the story felt kind of "meh" (I hate this fucking word by the way): did you play any shooter in the last 5-7 years? Infinite is on a whole another level when it comes to narrative; especially when you play it twice since you notice so many details about the story that slipped under your radar before
Oh, and if you think that BioShock 1's gunplay is better than Infinite's, then please quit the entire genre since you must have no idea what's good - opinions and opinions, yes, but that's like saying the sky is purple
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
King Beyond the wall
Member
I always hear this and often feel that only i understood this part of the game, but thats probably because i am a History graduate.
I hate to break to you, but revolutions are not nice things. One side may start out with good intentions, but brutal atrocities will inevitably break out. Look at the Russian revolution: this started as the working classes fighting for political rights, but ended in a horrific civil war in which both sides brutally murdered millions of each other. Not nice. Look at the French Revolution: France was plagued with civil wars that cost tens of thousands of lives.
A lot of people have a romanticised interpretation of revolution due to the American Revolution. This was a special case in many ways however, since the British army had a place to go - they were not fighting for their lives. In those other conflicts which I listed, and that of Bioshock Infinite, the ruling classes had no where to go. The founders in Bioshock were fighting for the survival of their own system and status, and they could accept no compromise. The vox were the same, but they were trying to tear down the system and there would be no place for the founders in their world. Eugene Genovese once wrote (I paraphrase as I can't remember exactly) that the entire structure of society would be washed away in a revolution so to start a clean slate.
I could list more examples but i think I've made my point. When I played the game I was actually very happy that they portrayed revolution as it is (brutal for both sides) rather than taking the simplistic approach whIch you suggested. The problem is, a lot of people who dont understand it will misinterpret it, so I hope that I've helped enlighten a few with this post.
An older post from the beginning of the thread, but it represents what many people think about the game and its one of the points i highly disagree. For many different reason. The main problem is that Bioshock Infinite never includes the player in its story. We have the rule of an cameraman, who tries to get the best pictures of the gameworld and the situations. And sometimes not even this. The story isn't represent in the gameplay, what i believe, is needed to make a game product round. In Infinite we have two different parts: Story and Gameplay. They sometimes overlap, but never want to include the other part. It changes it focus between an very weak Interactive Story and an Game. The constant twisting hurts both aspects of it.
So we have one part Interactive Story and actual Gameplay. Is there something bad about this? Only in the naming and with view of the medium. It is the same problem which accrues, when David Cage takes about videogames. He talks bullshit. Simple because he includes the wrong aspects. We finally have to difference between Games, Machinimas and Interactive Movies. They should not be viewed as the one and the same element of the Interactive Medium. If we make the difference, we get a clear view of the different aspect of what makes the three forms so interesting. Gameplay is for the challenge, Machinima for the linear story and a Interactive Movie for a story with different possibilities and views.
The problem of the constantly breaking of the flow of gameplay or story, come from this change in focus in the runtime of the product. We kill millions of people, but it doesn't has any consequences of the story. We can't excuse it for metaphors forever. It is only go around a problem, which never can a part (or a very limit part) of an actual game story. A game will always a simplification or an metaphor of an challenge, which most the time doesn't fit with narration. We need one focus. Bioshock Infinite has a good story, but the gameplay hurts it. No matter how great the story will be, the gameplay need to be equal good and most importantly linked with the narration. Or the twisting of the focus will hurt the game.
THIS!!!
It can be smart, interesting in its story, well-made and similar to other FPS (which isn't a compliment really) but what if it just isn't... fun?