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Does it feel to anyone else that the world has forgotten about Bioshock Infinite?

It completely misunderstood what made the first Bioshock great and instead became an unfocused arcade shooter. It's even worse then Bioshock 2, the story can only carry a game so much. No wonder it was forgotten.
 
I don't remember the reactions you're describing at all. Sure, people enjoyed the story, especially with that ending. But I always thought it was mostly regarded as a subpar entry into the series, considering the development hell it went through.

The approach to the actual gameplay was nothing like the previous games, and made everything feel like a wave based defense chore.

It also didn't help that Columbia and its citizens were nowhere near as interesting as Rapture.
 
Inuhanyou said:
I think this is the main offense the game had. YOU COULD TELL that the game languished for so many years and they had to just throw out what they had and Frankenstein it up to push the game out.

Shit like the four main enemies they hyped up to be normal enemies in the game world such as siren, the handy man ect, just became small one off segments of the game world that didn't actually connect to any sort of consistency in the environment or narrative.

Hell, Siren got taken out entirely and simply substituted as Elizabeth's ghost mom who you had to fight 3 times as previously explained.

And the alarm type enemies were only in the final very ending part of the game.
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The development hell aspect of the game often gets overlooked when criticizing its flaws, but I think it's crucial to understanding why the game is the way it is. Compare early trailers to the final product, and read mission statements from Levine and compare those to the final product. There's a clear distinction between what they went for and what they ended up being able to whip together to ship a product before crashing and burning.
 
The city of Colombia is nothing short of inspired, the opening sequence up until the point violence erupts at the fair and the game becomes a boring shooting gallery is stellar.

The story's reach exceeds its grasp, but it's still unique and compelling if flawed. My issue was that the gameplay never has the ambition of everything else in the game.

They give you this interesting world and no ways to interact with it other than shooting endless waves of faceless goons until the next story segment. The early E3 trailers were much more impressive than what they actually accomplished.
 
Infinite was the most disappointing game I have ever played. Mainly because Bioshock is in my top 3 games of the last generation. That game was just awesome, everything from the setting, to the story, to the atmosphere to the incredible ways to play where you could plant traps and hack and have so many options.

Infinite stripped out everything fun with the gameplay and produced an abomination of a story that makes M Night Shyamalan look like Shakespeare.
 
Modest Mauser said:
The city of Colombia is nothing short of inspired, the opening sequence up until the point violence erupts at the fair and the game becomes a boring shooting gallery is stellar.

The story's reach exceeds its grasp, but it's still unique and compelling if flawed. My issue was that the gameplay never has the ambition of everything else in the game.

They give you this interesting world and no ways to interact with it other than shooting endless waves of faceless goons until the next story segment. The early E3 trailers were much more impressive than what they actually accomplished.
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Everything before you start fighting felt like the e3 trailers and then they sat down and then they realized that they needed to fill in the rest with a game so they added a generic arena gallery shooter with simple powers (vigors)
 
Similar threads could be made for pretty much every game made. Sure some last longer than others but so many games release all the time that it's just normal that old games lose their appeal.

I loved the game and the series but with so many games to play you have to move on.
 
Modest Mauser said:
The city of Colombia is nothing short of inspired, the opening sequence up until the point violence erupts at the fair and the game becomes a boring shooting gallery is stellar.

The story's reach exceeds its grasp, but it's still unique and compelling if flawed. My issue was that the gameplay never has the ambition of everything else in the game.

They give you this interesting world and no ways to interact with it other than shooting endless waves of faceless goons until the next story segment. The early E3 trailers were much more impressive than what they actually accomplished.
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I agree with most of this post but I don't think the story was even compelling. When you factor in that it shat all over the rest of the Bioshock universe as well as itself at the end it really annoys me.
 
Modest Mauser said:
The city of Colombia is nothing short of inspired, the opening sequence up until the point violence erupts at the fair and the game becomes a boring shooting gallery is stellar.

They give you this interesting world and no ways to interact with it other than shooting endless waves of faceless goons until the next story segment.
Click to expand...

Agree, pretty much the only redeeming factor of the game is the peaceful Colombia, everything else is a snorefest with a story that tries oh so hard to be smart but fails miserably.
 
Bioshock Infinite was damn good, but a disappointment in the face of tremendous expectations and hype.

The Last Of Us is undisputed one of the best video games ever created. So that certainly didn't help BI's resonance.
 
You answered your own question OP. It came out, got good reviews, lots of talk going... then The Last of Us came out and sucked up all the attention from that point forward for a narrative based game.

Infinite got shoved aside everywhere as a result with TLOU taking up centre stage for awards, reviews, discussion, etc.

You can argue if justified or not but that's for sure what happened.

For the record I liked Infinite even though I had some gripes with it:

  • unnecessary links to Bioshock Universe and Brand
  • some wonky elements around infinity IMO
  • they lost track of narrative a bit falling through so many alternative world rabbit holes
  • the finale was dull (I know its a game but the switch from character to combat jarred - really strong narrative games should finish on characters) shootout
  • it really did suffer from ludo-narrative dissonance worse than Nathan Drake in a bad mood in a town full of pirates
  • combat was repetitive and new concepts came across more as gimmicks
But it had a nice end nonetheless, some very cool moments, looked lovely and if you actually experiments with the options combat could be more fun. Also some terrific narrative moments too.
 
SomTervo said:
Bioshock Infinite had a Mature rating, too, right?
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Truant said:
Uh. Is this for real? Bioshock Infinite is an M-rated game, why on earth would you play that with your 8-year old?
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antitrop said:
What did you think the guy on the box was going to do with that shotgun? Plant flowers?
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SpaceWolf said:
You didn't know what to "expect" from a game that was clearly rated MATURE, which lists it's Content Descriptors as: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Language and Mild Sexual Themes?

What the hell is wrong with you, dude?
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Triggerhappytel said:
I mean, I agree that the violence felt very extreme (stabbing the policeman's face into the skyhook blade at the very beginning), but did you not get a clue from the rating on the box? Or the fact that the original BioShock dealt with a lot of messed up shit like widespread drug dependency, self-mutilation, murder for the sake of art, harvesting drugs from people's brains, etc etc. Even if you hadn't played the original, if you're on Neogaf I'm going to assume you're informed enough about games to get an idea of what kind of content and tone you could expect from the series.
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Geez, guys, I guess it didn't come through completely clear - I DID know it was a violent game and I obviously DIDN'T want to play it with my 8 year old, I just expected to be able to start it up, play a few minutes, look around the city, soak in the atmosphere and decide when I would like to go on with story. Like any normal game... What got me really annoyed was the way they took control away to push that over-the-top violence in my face without any prior sign leading up to it.
 
Hzoltan69 said:
Geez, guys, I guess it didn't come through completely clear - I DID know it was a violent game and I obviously DIDN'T want to play it with my 8 year old, I just expected to be able to start it up, play a few minutes, look around the city, soak in the atmosphere and decide when I would like to go on with story. Like any normal game... What got me really annoyed was the way they took control away to push that over-the-top violence in my face without any prior sign leading up to it.
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I mean I think that was the point.
 
Hzoltan69 said:
Geez, guys, I guess it didn't come through completely clear - I DID know it was a violent game and I obviously DIDN'T want to play it with my 8 year old, I just expected to be able to start it up, play a few minutes, look around the city, soak in the atmosphere and decide when I would like to go on with story. Like any normal game... What got me really annoyed was the way they took control away to push that over-the-top violence in my face without any prior sign leading up to it.
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I mean, if you've played prior Bioshock games you should have known that stuff goes bad REAL FAST and gets really ugly. In fact Infinite has the slowest start I think. You do get to walk around the city for quite a while. Also, "like any normal game" doesn't make sense here, these games are intensely linear and linear games don't generally let you "decide when you want to go on with the story".

I think gameplay wise 2 was the best and narrative wise 1 was the best, and Infinite just tried to recreate the storm in a bottle of 1 and ignored all the improvements brought by 2 and overall was a failure. Whatever good will it got was mostly due to its marketing, brand name and its visual design.
 
Good. It was worst of the series. Bioshock had some amazing performances, Bioshock 2 refined the combat while Infinite simply crumbled under development.
 
The original Bioshock was certainly a lot more memorable.

Fun game with beautiful sites to see, but it wasn't all that special to me.
 
Lol it seems like there is a monthly thread talking about how we've forgotten Infinite, indicating that we clearly haven't.

It's an awesome game with simple gameplay that got a backlash because people expected a messianic experience.
 
It's one of the past generation game I haven't forgotten because I wanted to play but i never did. I own a digital version of the game but have sold my 360; fortunately I will play it on my one via BC.
 
Hektor said:
Gamings Spirited away got beaten by gamings Citizen Kane, only gamings Oldboy can save us now.
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More like gamings "cars 3".

I didn't get to play infinite until it was on plus. I didn't really enjoy it after the first part and it became a chore around half way through. The gameplay just wasn't as good compared to previous bioshocks.
 
I surely have not forgotten Bioshock Infinite. I absolutely loved it. The Bioshock trilogy is so strong. All 3 games are masterpieces. Once you get the hang of the rails, the game is simply sublime.
 
I loved Infinite, cool story, even if it is a tad confusing and loses itself at times, great VA, fantastic soundtrack. It has some rough parts, like Lady Comstock, but overall, it was a fantastic game. Shame it didn't come out as they originally envisioned though, but at someone who barely noticed it at those E3s and forgot about it, I wasn't disappointed in it.

nynt9 said:
The development hell aspect of the game often gets overlooked when criticizing its flaws, but I think it's crucial to understanding why the game is the way it is. Compare early trailers to the final product, and read mission statements from Levine and compare those to the final product. There's a clear distinction between what they went for and what they ended up being able to whip together to ship a product before crashing and burning.
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It's kinda funny. In a way, Bioshock Infinite shared a similar fate to Dark Souls 2. Both had amazing looking E3 showings. Both projects went to shit at some point during the development. Both games turned out fine, but the fans were too focused on what was removed to see the good things. All we needed to make them a 1:1 match is Ken Levine not being the producer of Infinite.
 
nynt9 said:
The development hell aspect of the game often gets overlooked when criticizing its flaws, but I think it's crucial to understanding why the game is the way it is. Compare early trailers to the final product, and read mission statements from Levine and compare those to the final product. There's a clear distinction between what they went for and what they ended up being able to whip together to ship a product before crashing and burning.
Click to expand...

It's also probably why the story is such a mess. Most of the reason it fails in its use of alternate worlds as a device is because the game loses track of which world it is in and treats them as interchangeable. Ultimately it undermines its own narrative conceit by failing to close the loop which probably means that it was probably originally supposed to have a cleaner, better demarcated narrative but instead they had to bolt together what they had.
 
I found Bioshock Infinite to be a bit of a train wreck, personally.

Everything just felt off about it and 7 hours in I was wondering if the game was ever going to pick up.

The ideas in the game are great, but it's held back by technical limitations. I hate to say it, but Irrational wasn't a studio that could bring an AI character to life like Elizabeth. In cut scenes she was great, but during gameplay, there would be a lot of instances where her AI scripts would malfunction and quickly remind you that "oh yeah, this is a game".

The Last of Us did everything Bioshock Infinite tried, just better.
 
I loved Bioshock Infinite, but it did feel like The Last of Us took the wind out of it's sails. When I played Infinite, I thought I was playing my game of the year, then I then Last of Us came out and I realized I was playing one of my favorite games of all time.

I kinda had the same feeling when I played Metal Gear Solid 2, and then I played GTA3 right afterwards.
 
SpaceWolf said:
"Years and years" in this context meaning less than three?
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Yes?

Plenty of AAA games get released every year, hotly anticipated and much hyped before release only to be forgotten a couple months later.

At least Infinite still gets threads made about it. :lol
 
I like Infinite, some parts make me love it. But when you see what could have been and the scrapped content that still has links in the game you just know this could have been more and it taints my opinion.
 
Wasn't a fan. Interesting setting and setup that kinda got ruined by "shoot these waves of badguys" or "chase after scared girl" ad nauseum. The game could have been much more than a straightforward FPS campaign. Severely limited potential.
 
It was the weakest Bioshock in my opinion (Yes I liked 2 more than Infinite, sue me). It wasn't bad, but it's ultimately forgettable and the ending just feels badly written. I didn't like the ending at all. It felt convoluted for the sake of being convoluted. I also absolutely hated the lack of information on Songbird. I thought he was an interesting character that ends up being relegated to barely showing up and not really feeling like a threat at all, with little information given on him.

I'll give it this though, it is the best Bioshock gameplay wise, and the vigors were fairly interesting.

The Last of Us explored some similar themes better, and was overall the better written game I think. I've played through The Last of Us at least 4 times, I only played Bioshock Infinite once, and when I think about replaying through the Bioshock games(Which I'm planning to do relatively soon), Infinite is not the one I'm looking forward to replaying.
 
Not sure why Bioshock Infinite deserves any special place, since it didn't really push the genre forward in any direction other then the story.

  • The gunplay wasn't any special.
  • The weapons weren't any special.
  • The levels were tight corridors, and did nothing special.
  • The set pieces weren't that special.
  • It didn't have any vehicles. It's not neccesary in all FPS games, but it can make a game stand out.
  • It pretty much only had "clear this area" as level objectives.
  • Your interactions in the levels were extremely limited.
  • It repeated the different battles.
  • The enemies that could have stood out, were overused and pretty much just bullet sponges.
It had it's story, and the gameworld, and pretty much nothing else. And it the story didn't compensate for the lack of the rest, then what is there really to it?
 
Am I the only one that liked Infinite more than Last of Us? Both games had kind of shitty gameplay but Infinite's story definitely stuck with me longer than TLoU.
 
I loved Infinite when it came out, but unlike Bioshock 1 and Bioshock 2, it didn't have "legs" for me. Lord only knows how many times I replayed the original Bioshock, surely more than 10. I replayed the sequel at least five or six times. Infinite I replayed just one time and it was a slog.

Also, it's pretty much the poster child of "Don't show off your game until it's close to being finished." All of the coolest stuff from the early demos and trailers ended up on the cutting room floor. I really, really fucking hate that. I never want to see anything that isn't going to make it into my hands when the game comes out. That's a major pet peeve of mine, really chaps my hind.
 
Played and finished all 3 Bioshocks and loved them all.

Got a little bit into TLOU and got bored.

Sorry TLOU lovers, would you kindly not hurt me. :)
 
+ Great world concept
+ Great setpieces
+ Great central conflict/historical themes
+ Great main characters (better than BioShock 1&2 IMO)

- Nonsensical multiverse logic and ending
- Lackluster game systems, especially Vigors, Tonics, vending machines, and of course the arena shooter bullshit
- Gameplay scenarios never quite felt like a good expression of the game's themes
- Map layout and design wasn't anywhere near as interesting as the first two

Turns out the positives were all things that people gush about at first glance, and the negatives are all things that sour a game's reputation over time.
 
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