You must have a hell of a lot more free time than I do. Fallout and Elder Scrolls titles are hundred or more hour games each and you play them all to completion more than once? Honest question.

[Edited on March 31, 2013 at 7:10 PM. Reason : ]

3/31/2013 7:08:43 PM

You play just the main quest, and try out different builds. And you play that character off an on and before you know it you beat the game. I have beaten that game fully about 3 times. In fact I am doing a Skyrim playthough now, though have not play with my character in a few weeks, but I am sure I'll get back around to it sooner or later.

3/31/2013 7:24:58 PM

Different strokes. I have two characters in all the aforementioned games but only ever completed the game on one. Still hundreds of hours invested, just focused more on a single character.

3/31/2013 7:40:41 PM

for $60 the game shoulda taken twice as long to beat, or offered more than it did outside of the campaign. only reason to replay it would be to get the few remaining voxophones i didn't find but that would mean suffering through the tedious fights again. i'd rather read articles on game sites or posts on reddit speculating about the story than to actually load it up again. saddest part is that i bought a season pass at the same time as my pre-order, here's to hoping that they put out some good DLC.

3/31/2013 8:41:25 PM

Plot was good enough. Not as strong as Bioshock (but Bioshock was unexpected), but definitely better then 2 and all the hideous Blizzard games that I keep buying for some reason.

I liked the gameplay a bit more then Bioshock. The two weapons thing was annoying, but kind of liked that it forced me to switch off as I ran out of ammo, passively stocked up on others, and hoarded money.

Difficulty didn't taper off as you became godlike - in Bioshock after Ryan it was just splicers with 4x hp but not dangerous at all with your 10 guns and fountains of money and health. The last chunk of the game was nowhere as scary/dangerous/fun as the first half when I thought stuff would get scarce. I did hate that you had to fight one boss three fucking times.

Not too interested in a replay - I can see some draw to it but eh.

Overall think the game was worth the money. I don't say that about many games. Not blow your socks off fantastic but solid enough.

3/31/2013 10:45:38 PM

I can see why other people wouldn't be happy paying $60 for an 8-12 hour game, but I feel I got my money's worth.

3/31/2013 11:18:44 PM

I just got to Emporia...really enjoying the game so far. I am kinda surprised at how you're basically fighting the same enemies over and over in basically the same settings between major plot points. Really wish there were more rail battles, or utilization of the rails to get between places.

3/31/2013 11:24:00 PM

Quote :

"Actually it doesn't matter that this city floats - there are no game mechanics that make any use of it."

That's sad to hear. I played this a bit over the weekend and it felt like the rails system was limited to:
1) Taking you some distance away from the city just so you could get a good look at it... like the rails were nothing more than a system that cycles through a gallery of matte paintings.
2) Something to fill time while the next area loaded.

I was hoping that those feelings were the result of my limited exposure to the game.

4/1/2013 7:36:25 AM

Yeah. It's an artistic/technical achievement but as a game, pretty bland.

As I think about it more I believe a big part of the reason certain games provide a personal, meaningful experience is because of the silent protagonist - Half-Life, System Shock 2, Elder Scrolls, etc.

For this game, they chose to regress to a defined, speaking main character. In all seven hours of the game, I actually didn't do a single thing - Booker did, and I was watching. I think this was a big part of why I did not connect with Infinite.

Quote :

"Tell me a triple A title in recent memory where the campaign wasn't repetitive. Every game is repetitive...that basically defines our gaming culture. Run here, kill that, rinse repeat."

Yep, thank you for helping me to make my point. Depth is increasingly hard to come by in today's gaming. And Bioshock Infinite proves that no amount of epic modeling or scenery can make up for it.

Quote :

"I do agree that an open world would have been cool, but Bioshock as a series has never been about that and I did not expect that and I do not expect it from every game that comes out."

To be clear, by "open world" we do not mean physically open, but we mean that a key gameplay mechanic is the re-visiting of areas at the player's discretion, and usually with multiple mission objectives active at the same time.

You are correct, Bioshock was not as open as its spiritual predecessors. But still felt far less guided than Infinite. Once again, I do not hold this against the game - it is simply not what I was expecting.

Quote :

"Also, If you underused the skylines then that is your own fault."

Sorry, I am not sure what to do with that...I mean, I used them constantly during the combat set pieces. But I never used them to traverse sections of the city, or solve switch puzzles to re-route where I want to go, or solve puzzles to manipulate/block paths......because none of that was present......because railways were under-utilized. I guess you misunderstood what I was getting at before.

4/1/2013 9:14:45 AM

I have a problem ever finishing most "Open World" games (Skyrim, GTA). I actually prefer the more directed experience and I enjoyed the story sequences in Infinite. But I definitely felt the world inbetween the story moments lacking. I felt like I did a lot of exploring and I don't think it actually enriched my experience all that much.

The voxophones and viewers helped some but they didn't seem to have the same the same impact as the recordings from the original. Also as far as actual characters, pretty much every NPC only had a single line of dialog and just kinda stopped doing anything after that. The "plot" characters were extremely few as well and we don't get to see a ton of their motivations. Elizabeth had a couple of conversations per area but after that there was a lot of dead silence in between things.

I actually think I might have prefered playing through faster and not doing as much exploration to keep things going brisk. As it stands my impression was that there were pretty large portions of emptiness in my gameplay. Maybe I was being too meticulous in my searching. I like the plot in general and its obviously very well made. But it did "feel" short even if my playtime was probably comparable to other shooters. Truth be told I'm a little surprised it took so long and cost so much when it actually feels a bit light on content.

That said, the story and dialogue had excellent flow. If I look at something like Mass Effect, theres a lot of conversation and story packed in there that I really enjoyed but the interactive nature of it made the conversations a bit stilted at times versus something more heavily scripted.

ibt tl;dr

4/1/2013 5:48:08 PM

Just finished it, great game. I still feel like the combat could have been more varied and the rails should have been utilized more. I really enjoyed the final fight and wished there were more like it throughout the game.

4/2/2013 12:56:38 AM

Played on Hard and I had to use the rails to kill Handymen. Otherwise leaping off the rails only killed weak enemies and strong ones hit back didn't die, barely moved, and hit back really, really hard :/

4/2/2013 1:47:19 PM

I'm playing on hard as well. I think I've died about 5 times. Normal would have been far too easy.

This game really hasn't grabbed me yet. The only good thing I can say about it for sure is that it is pretty to look at. I appreciate all the detail in the environment especially after playing the ultra bland stages of Metal Gear Rising.

4/2/2013 2:26:11 PM

Just finished the game. I really liked the story and artwork, and the gameplay was pretty good. I'm generally okay with ambiguity in moves, but I was kind of let down by how short it was and how little they explained. Still, I'd recommend it.

4/6/2013 2:43:34 PM

OK so Elizabeth is totally Zoeey Deschanel right? I love how they gave her cleavage midway through.

4/6/2013 3:10:19 PM

4/6/2013 6:09:31 PM

I def the think the ending is getting praised just because it is psuedo-complex. To me, it kind of devolved into nonsensical anime or Inception territory. The way they kept trying to obscure the plot annoyed me. Graphics were good, sound was good, gameplay was average. The last battle was pretty sweet though. I guess I'll try 1999 mode or pick up Tomb Raider.

4/7/2013 6:42:39 PM

From the other thread:

Quote :

"For Bioshock Infinite haters, was there anything specific or should I sift through the Infinite thread?"

I don't go so far as to hate the game but I am surprised by all the continued hype. Not just wow, that was a good game hype but WOW, MY LIFE HAS CHANGED, GOTY, GOTY, GOTY, GOTY!1!!!1 hype. My voice of criticism is probably stronger as a result, trying to bring the universal praise back down to earth, anyway: At its core it's a below average FPS. Sure it has some eye candy and a story that will blow a 12 year old's mind but it doesn't offer anything refreshing as far as game play is concerned.

Also, I'm nearly 100% jaded on FPSs titles and BS:I didn't help, so that's where I'm coming from.

The weapons are unimaginative, they all boil down to the same scant choices of every FPS ever - pistols, rifles, machine guns, and RPGs. No original weapon offerings that are centered on the new tech that you'd expect to find in a city suspended in air., Half-Life 2 had the gravity gun as an example. The weapons were disappointing, even after full upgrades.

I think the plasmids were meant to bridge the where's a cool weapon based on this world's tech? gap but the plasmids in BS:I are just a small subset of ones we've seen before (lightning, fire, possess, crows/bees) nothing truly new or interesting.

They tried to sneak in some variety in allowing you to wear 4 pieces of gear. You could swap them out for other gear hidden here and there and each piece of gear came with different bonuses... except all the gear sucked. I equipped the gear I found in the beginning of the game and didn't come across a single piece of gear better than that throughout the entire course of the game.

Parting shots: As mentioned, the sky hook was underused. I don't think it would have made much a difference at all had it not even been included in the game. No puzzles in the game whatsoever. Elizabeth was nothing more than an ammo dispenser that would occasionally let you summon a turret or cover area, she didn't add any new dimension to the game play.

4/11/2013 11:11:20 AM

I was in one twitchtv channel and the kids were like OMG THE ENDING WAS LIKE 20 MINS OF MIND-FUCK!!111! I was saying to myself, is praising the ending the only way you can justify paying full price for a game that like average on every front that matters in an FPS?

4/11/2013 11:31:46 AM

I guess game plots have been pretty lacking recently.

The ending was super draw out, but eh, at best 5 minutes of mind fuck. It did seem like that was the only possible ending with the shenanigans they pulled.

Praising the "ending" (where the game should've ended) made Bioshock worth it imo. Exactly half that game was solid horror funtimes. The second half was fairly uninteresting.

I did wish they used the skyhook more though that thing was a pain in the ass. On hard it was the only way to not get destroyed by Handymen, and I couldn't leap attack any of the tougher bad guys (flame guys, rocket guys), or I'd bounce off then they melee me for 80% of my life.

4/12/2013 2:36:51 PM

Quote :

"I think the plasmids were meant to bridge the where's a cool weapon based on this world's tech? gap but the plasmids in BS:I are just a small subset of ones we've seen before (lightning, fire, possess, crows/bees) nothing truly new or interesting."

Yeah, I'll admit the plasmids were a bit lacking. I liked that there was a charged attack for the plasmids, but most were just the dull trap variety. I didn't really see any environmental use for them either. Occasionally there were puddles of oil or water, but I tended not to see them because one hard I learned to stay at a distance since enemy melee attacks wrecked far more than their bullets.

On that topic, the newer plasmids that let you charge or pull enemies to you made me wary so I never used them. Maybe they were more viable on non-hard? I kind of want to play another play-through and try to use weapons I didn't use often, namely the hook, shotgun, and heater. Pull enemies to you and blast them with that perhaps?

In the end, I basically stuck with crows (upgrade where crow traps appears on enemy death = OP) and lightning.

Quote :

"They tried to sneak in some variety in allowing you to wear 4 pieces of gear. You could swap them out for other gear hidden here and there and each piece of gear came with different bonuses... except all the gear sucked. I equipped the gear I found in the beginning of the game and didn't come across a single piece of gear better than that throughout the entire course of the game."

There was so much gear oriented towards melee and skyhooks that I was hoping that would make those more viable. I really want to try that.

Otherwise, the only one I can remember was the bonus that let your shield recharge sooner and faster. Almost seemed mandatory to me.

4/12/2013 4:06:02 PM

I have not played any bioshock games

will i enjoy this one?

4/12/2013 4:07:58 PM

yes, but dont read any more of this thread. just a bunch of turdburglars nitpicking

you should play the first two in order, though, because they are a single storyline. infinite has its own story

[Edited on April 12, 2013 at 5:11 PM. Reason : .]

4/12/2013 5:09:20 PM

Quote :

"On that topic, the newer plasmids that let you charge or pull enemies to you made me wary so I never used them. Maybe they were more viable on non-hard? I kind of want to play another play-through and try to use weapons I didn't use often, namely the hook, shotgun, and heater. Pull enemies to you and blast them with that perhaps?"

You were missing out. Two of the most entertaining vigors in my opinion. Undertow is great for pulling multiple (with the upgrade) enemies to you, shooting them in the head with the hand cannon, and watching the lightning critical hit (ASSUMING everyone has this head gear piece) chain between them. Really effective for killing tough enemies from across the level three at a time.

Charge is just fucking fun. Regular enemies die from the max'd out charge and it doesn't eat up that much salts. It's also good for crossing large open areas without cover.

4/13/2013 10:28:26 PM

Yeah, I will probably play another go through in a week or so just to try out that stuff.

Quote :

"Undertow is great for pulling multiple (with the upgrade) enemies to you, shooting them in the head with the hand cannon, and watching the lightning critical hit (ASSUMING everyone has this head gear piece) chain between them. Really effective for killing tough enemies from across the level three at a time."

The problem with this is that Crows do the same thing but are much better at it IMO. The traps multiply as enemies run through the previous traps and die to your bullets. Any kill shot is essentially an overkill shot (crow-ed enemies take more damage) triggering the lightning to spread to all enemies which basically group up due to the crow wall. This was actually immensely amusing during the Vox revolution portion because the crows and lightning hit everything.

It was so effective I didn't do anything else, though pulling a single enemy right next to me might have made some rooms easier.

4/14/2013 11:51:08 PM

I just finished the game yesterday. I loved using lightning to chain damage and crows to spawn traps.

I've got mixed feelings about the game overall. I enjoyed it, but it felt somewhat generic at times. I didn't have the same feeling that I was exploring a world so much as moving from place to place. The final battle while exciting/challenging felt somewhat anticlimactic because there's no real boss. The ending was surprising, but I think not judging a game solely by its ending was a valid point. 8/10

Thought this was interesting: Bioshock Infinite Timeline spoilers

[Edited on April 19, 2013 at 9:28 AM. Reason : .]

4/19/2013 9:21:49 AM

Also: Post-Credits video, which I missed though I saw the one during the credits

4/19/2013 9:53:40 AM

just finished today. this game was fantastic. i don't know why people are complaining about the length. took me around 12 hours.

4/19/2013 10:08:09 PM

I don't like religious songs but this here is a good sounding song that is part of the credits for those that do not know:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kee_RRfyBfQ

4/20/2013 11:37:24 PM

It's also in the game, you just have to find it.

4/21/2013 12:08:14 AM

Yeah I know I picked up the guitar and played it.

4/21/2013 12:12:09 AM

Bought and finished this game last weekend. It wasn't that great to me.

As far as the ending, it wasn't mind blowing. I had a pretty good hunch about comstock and had figured out the anna/elizabeth shit long before.

also, like others have said, I basically never changed my gear or vigors. Hell I barely ever switched weapons since elizabeth just kept tossing me ammo.

4/21/2013 9:26:47 AM

^What difficulty did you plan on? On hard I had to switch weapons fairly often, Liz would only throw me one extra clip per big fight.

4/22/2013 12:01:48 PM

normal.

this was the first FPS i've played in a long, long time.

4/22/2013 2:46:00 PM

Just finished last night. I think this game is head and shoulders above Bioshock 1.

6/27/2013 1:25:44 AM

just started playing this a few days ago. i'm enjoying it. thanks for the spoiler justin

7/18/2013 4:06:48 PM

NP bro

7/18/2013 6:56:53 PM

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/07/30/bioshock-infinite-returns-to-rapture-in-burial-at-sea/

Quote :

" BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea will take players in a bathysphere back to the emerald city of Rapture for a noir-styled adventure. The second and third pieces of downloadable content (DL-Sea) for Infinite are a far more narrative experience than today's Clash in the Clouds. The first episode places Infinite protagonists Booker and Elizabeth in Rapture, the underwater city Andrew Ryan built so kindly in the original BioShock, around 1958, two year before the fall. Players will get to experience the city in a time before it became the leaky dream under the sea, with new weapons, new "Plasmids/Vigors," tears, Big Daddies and... apparently some sky-lines. The second episode will have players taking on the role of Elizabeth. She won't be the bullet-absorbing tank that Booker DeWitt is, as Irrational Studios head Ken Levine explained it'll be a different type of experience. The two packs have been priced at $14.99 apiece (included in the BioShock Infinite Season Pass) with more details and a release date coming soon. "

7/30/2013 9:20:28 AM

^don't think I'd want to drop 20 on it but that's more like the type of atmosphere/story I would have liked to have seen.

Will get it when it drops to $10

7/30/2013 6:58:09 PM

I was expecting something that would expand on the world of Columbia. It was rumored that they would delve into the story behind Songbird, who seemed kind of glossed over in the main story IMO.

Setting DLC in Rapture seems like a lazy way to generate excitement. Even so, it takes place the night before civil war breaks out in Rapture and everything goes to hell, so I'll pick them up.

7/31/2013 3:00:14 PM