It’s difficult to critique a game that receives a lot of
critical acclaim across the boards, especially from one of the few people in
gaming journalism I still respect. Adam Sessler of G4 and TechTV fame had
nothing but good things to say about Bioshock: Infinite and his love is
understandable. The game has an engaging story, interesting characters and
level design detail that made me want to explore and find more and more history
of the floating city of Columbia. It’s a fantastic mixture of science fiction
and fantasy set in the early 1900s that doesn't rely on gimmicky steampunk to
drive the science behind it.
However, I have run into an issue where a game’s variety is
truly what I look for. I have ten hours logged in Bioshock: Infinite and 86
hours in Borderlands 2. I've played hours and hours of Skyrim, the Fallout
series and Just Cause 2 because they give me new and interesting ways to play a
game each time I create a character. One of the greatest parts of Fallout 3 is
deciding who you want to be from the start, based on various skills chosen by
the player in the beginning. You can roll anything from a thief to a tank.
Hell, you can even set up your role as someone who only uses high tech weapons
and armor, or a guy who goes around and punches the crap out of everyone.
Also present in these games is an open world element that
allows the player to step away from the main story line and go exploring. This
is a gaming double edged sword though. You can run around the island in Just
Cause 2 and see plenty of sights, enemies and towns, but that variety means you
aren’t going to have the detail and beauty of Bioshock: Infinite. Columbia is a
floating city rendered beautifully. In the distance you can see fantastic architecture
filling the screen with slow moving, yet impressive airships. However, that’s
all it is. An impressive background you can watch from afar and never interact
with unless the story is headed that way.
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| Things every statue of a prophet needs: Sword and Kraken-like beard |
Interestingly enough, my wife watched me play for a bit and
one of her biggest pet peeves of gaming was mostly erased. Namely, the
animations of on screen characters. Elizabeth has the look, feel and movements
that are only rivaled by Disney animations, but it’s because much of her
interactions are scripted. You mostly see her when there is some story to drive,
but if you watch her movements during combat or while running from one place to
another, she looks like every other on screen character. Basic running movements with little fluidity, hitting doors and walls at full tilt and not bouncing off with a broken nose and awkward looking head movements and steps while walking.
Of course, this is very nitpicky of me. There are some great
combat mechanics added to this game, mainly what you can do with the skyhook,
and Vigor powers range from very useful to downright confusing, but you can pay
to advance your favorites while ignoring the rest. The same goes for firearms,
of which there are numerous choices. You can only hold two at a time, but I
generally rotated between four unless Elizabeth wasn't so great on finding
ammunition for me during a fire fight.
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| Why yes, there are several racist, machine gun wielding George Washington robots peppered throughout the game |
I suppose I've been spoiled by open world games these days.
I may or may not do another playthrough of Bioshock: Infinite in a year or so. I figured the game would be mostly story
driven based on the two games that came before it, which makes writing a review
difficult. It’s easily one of my recent favorites, and the great story and atmosphere
makes up quite a bit for the linear driven storyline. I may have been a bit
happier had I gotten it on a Steam sale, but I don’t regret buying and playing
something that will easily be a contender for game of the year.
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