Bioshock Infinite
Time To Beat: 10 hours
Difficulties: Easy, Medium, Hard (Played on Medium)
Available On: PC, Xbox 360, PS3 (Played on PC)
I picked up Bioshock Infinite on the Steam Summer Sale and plunged right in after Metro: Last Light. Two single player FPS games with a focus on crafting a great story. While Bioshock had a great story, it failed to meet Metro on crafting a living, breathing world. Metro also beat it when it came to the default PC key bindings, as basically every other PC game does. Irrational clearly did not think out how to lay out actions on a keyboard and mouse. which has to be my biggest gripe with the game. You win this one console gamers!
In Bioshock Infinite you play as Booker Dewitt, an ex Pinkerton Detective who takes a job to wipe his gambling debt to rescue Elizabeth from the floating city of Columbia and bring her to New York. Columbia is run by The Prophet, who calls you the False Shepard, and needless to say, he’s not a big fan of yours.
Graphics: It’s a pretty decent looking game, with beautiful vistas, and so so character models. It’s not going to push your system in the way that Battlefield and Crysis will, but it won’t distract you from the game either. The lighting really sets off the environment, and is used to great effect.
Gameplay: Like I said earlier, the way they laid out the controls on the keyboard and mouse make you want to “where they even trying?” Other than fighting with the controls, the game is a lot of fun. Like in previous Bioshock games, you get Virgors, which are special abilities that you can use given you have enough Salt, which functions as mana. You have the ability to upgarde your vigors and weapons through vending machines, as well as increase you salt, health, and shield through the finding of potions throughout the world. You can only carry two weapons at the same time, and I found the best weapon/vigor combination to be the carbine, hand cannon, and Murder of Crows. Upgrade the Murder of Crows to turn people into traps after their death, and wreak havoc on waves of enemies. The Murder of Crows sends crows out to attack people, stunning them, damaging them slightly, and making them take more damage. This makes them easy targets to pick off with your carbine. Elizabeth can also aide in battle, by finding ammo, health packs, salt packs, and opening up tears to bring in useful items into the world, like cover and turrets. The ability to ride the sky hooks is a neat addition to transverse the map, but all in all doesn’t really add much to game.
Story: The main focus of the game, the story. There are a lot of questions brought up in this game that are slowly revealed later on. Like what’s the AD inscribed on your hand, who is paying to retrieve Elizabeth, what exactly is she, what have they been doing to her, who is Anna, and so on. It also gets a bit strange, with these tears that lead to alternate dimensions and times. If you need someone but they are dead in this world, just open up a tear to one where they aren’t. It’s all very strange, but it all combines to a very interesting ending. It’s one of those endings that make you go wait what? What just happened…I uh…wow. Yeah, it’s a pretty good ending. Throughout the game you repeatedly almost complete your mission, but then something happens and you got all this other shit to do.
Sound: Sound is well, it’s there. The voice acting is spot on, bringing you into the story. I do like the little bit of Creedence Clearwater Revival we got through a tear. All in all, the sound isn’t anything to write home about. Nothing jumps out as WOW, this sound is AMAZING, but it also doesn’t jump out in a bad way either.
Other than the crappy controls, Bioshock is 10 hours well spent. I personally give the edge to Metro: Last Light if you are debating between the two, even if it was 2 hours shorter. Bioshock did have the more shocking ending though, if you are in to that sort of thing. That and tons of alternate dimensions and what have you. Just know that…
I BEAT IT FIRST.
The Xbox/PS3 Difference: While the gameplay does remain the same, the console version of Bioshock Infinite looks as if you are playing the game with a layer of Vaseline coated on your screen. It was painfully obvious that they had to cut a lot of detail down to scale the game to consoles. If you want to play a game that painfully shows how dated the current gen systems are (especially in comparison to the screen shots above) give Bioshock Infinite a play and be glad the PS4/XB1 comes out soon.
-Jason