BioShock Infinite (2013)

This BioShock entry is a FPS that combines fast-paced combat with one of the most ambitious narratives in gaming. Set in the breathtaking floating city of Columbia, the game immediately captivates with its colorful, a façade that slowly reveals a darker underbelly of class division, nationalism, and religious fanaticism. The MC this called Booker DeWitt as he attempts to rescue Elizabeth, a mysterious young woman with reality-bending powers, and their evolving relationship is the emotional core of the journey.

The gameplay blends traditional gunplay with “Vigors,” supernatural abilities that let players creatively approach combat, whether by hurling fireballs or summoning murderous crows. This works identical to the Plasmoids of the previous titles, they just changed the name and called it a day. The addition of sky-lines, Columbia’s rail transport system, gives firefights a sense of verticality and momentum that feels fresh. And it is not like the old shooter formula was getting old by this point, but this addition was amazing, this really made this game standout at the time, and subsequent shooters tried to follow this by implementing more movement mechanics into their games.

Elizabeth herself also plays a unique role in combat, tossing ammo, health, and money to you, while never becoming a burden. Where BioShock Infinite truly shines is in its narrative ambition. Themes of American exceptionalism, racism, religion, and the illusion of choice run throughout, culminating in a bold and divisive ending that sparked extensive debate. I highly recommend this title is absolutely not skipped if you like experiences which goes beyond what you watched on-screen.

Even today you can find people that likes to discuss this game's ending, similar to how revolutionary the story from the first title was (would you kindly), it is truly one of the best aspects of the Bioshock frachise in my opinion, even though the gameplay is also amazing. Though the combat can at times feel repetitive and overshadowed by the weight of its story, the overall experience remains unforgettable. A mix of artistry, atmosphere, and philosophical depth, BioShock Infinite is still regarded as one of the most memorable games of its era, and really on of the best shooters you can experience.

There HAD to have been a better way to do that. I love Bioshock 1 and 2 and I liked the setup of Infinite but I can’t really get behind the shitty writing, and I’m sorry but it IS shitty.

The setup? Fucking cool. Getting blasted into columbia, the cultish religious vibes, the beautiful art direction and interesting setting- it was really well done. The tone shift when the player realizes that, hey this utopia is built on racism, was really well done. And I was like ‘oh ok if they’re going to be blatant enough to use slurs, caricatures, and actually depict enslaved or at least subservient people- then they BETTER handle this really well right?

Nnnnooo um no. Like yes I do get the satirization of the glorification of America but without the actual condemnation how is it a criticism? We actually end up fighting the revolutionaries in the final boss fight ish thing and they’re the bad guys for the last half of the game. They were like ‘they’re actually just as bad as they(the oppressors) were’ and im like ok man this doesn’t feel good. I’m really curious as to how people of color, specifically Black, Chinese , and Native American people feel when they play this game. As someone with a Chinese best friend i felt literally guilty when I played through some of the game.

Ok and beyond that the story still isn’t good. Like multiverses have to be executed REALLY well for it to hit and it just didn’t make sense and the moment we started using that shit the game got bad. I felt nothing for Elizabeth after a while, and when Booker was like ‘im not afraid of god im afraid of you’ i literally laughed out loud bc that is some wattpad bullshit.

When she was like ‘i cant let comstock happen’ and drowns us i was like well he wouldn’t have, right? Like why would it happen in this universe? You can stay in this one? We don’t need to account for every universe. Booker was literally like ‘lets go to paris now’ and she was like ‘actually time to die’. With a game having a whole theme of choice and freedom it really takes away your agency. Maybe that was the point? But it kinda sucks ass

Aside from that, combat got hella stale and at some points it felt like i was playing fucking overwatch or league of legends instead of bioshock and that was not fun <3 worst bioshock <3 maybe buried at sea will be better <3

Bioshock: Infinite isn't a good game. It's a middle experience for someone who wants to try and experience the same thematic depths of the first two games, the same politically charged statement and ending up huffing a handful of dust because the game itself doesn't know what it wants to be.

Everyone will praise the storytelling but for me it's one of the most unforgivable points of this entire cataclysm of a sequel/prequel/beginning/conclusion to the trilogy.

Let's start, shall we?

Bioshock: Infinite was released in 2013 to critical acclaim across the board, scoring a 94 on Metacritic and maintaining a 8.6 on User Review score. The gimmick of the game largely goes over the same tenets of the first two games of the trilogy, introducing a player character named Booker, a girl to find and save, loads of gunplay aided by tonics (or vigors).

The gunplay is the weakest of the three games, adding the novelty of maneuvering two guns but not allowing you to effectively choose between them: you find one, you pick one and you continue until you find another one, you pick one and continue. This would be an okay development if the weapons didn't have upgrades of their own, forcing you to choose between them and potentially ending up with not receiving the weapon you upgraded the most for a long while.

The enemies are plenty, all of them humans, some are cops, some are rebels (the Vox) and some are just dudes. It doesn't really matter, you'll kill to many of them for any of them to matter of even be visible in your mind for a lasting impact.

Healing regenerates while not being damaged, salts regenerate while not being in combat. Out of ammo? Deus Ex Elizabeth is right there to toss ammo at you. Low on Health? Deus Ex Elizabeth is right there to toss health items at you. There's no challenge, only shooting in a straight line, zip-zagging through the skies of Columbia.

Arguably, the only thing to like about the game is the artistic direction: Columbia, in its own right and without taking it as a direct paragon to Rapture, feels vibrant and very American. It feels vibrant and alive and I wish it had a better story than what it got and a better gameplay because the game is boring. You either are invested in the storyline or you will just find it the easiest run&gun of your life laid bare in front of you.

The game also takes you to Rapture in the two DLCs that accompany the game and there the gameplay goes from forgiving at any turn to stealth haphazard gameplay with limited resources. It could be challenging if it wasn't annoying to the degree of making you grit your teeth.

I don't want to get into the story. It's upsetting and writes away a pivotal role (Daisy Fitzroy) in the story to make Elizabeth more important than she already was in the whole story by making her death instrumental to turning Elizabeth into "a woman". It makes Columbia's existence just a meaningless parallel to Rapture by connecting them through parallel parking via means of dumping the car right in front of you enough times to make space for yourself (time travel). It doesn't understand whether it wants to fully commit to being a piece about fascism, religious fanaticism and racism or a story about how everything is just so very bad and even the people leading the rebellion are so very bad (circling back to the Lutece making Daisy the 'final sacrifice' to make Elizabeth even more important than what she is and making sure the rebellion succeeded... only it was never Daisy's effort, it was simply Daisy's death and Elizabeth's success and, seen by Booker's eyes, it's Daisy being just as bad as Comstock?).

It doesn't know where it wants to be, inventing gravity defying quantum propellers strong enough to lift a literal city off the ground in 1893 only to then allow Rapture to use aluminum beams to build a city underwater in the 1940s. The Lutece twins are a deus-ex-machina that doesn't work. Virgors are plasmid but not truly as they are used without any side effect from ADAM poisoning besides when you initially consume them. Timeline wise, it makes no sense for people to feel 'okay' in Columbia - as ADAM was still particularly harmful even if ingested in the form of a oral tonic, requiring x10 more ADAM than a standard injection and thus causing more malady - as people started consuming them in 1894 throughout 1916 (start of Bioshock: Infinite) when we've seen the rapid decay and disfigurement in Rapture from ADAM malady in two years from the bombing in 1958 and Jack's arrival in 1960. I could suspend my disbelief that 'organized consumpion' of ADAM could be non-degenerative but we have seen evidence of the opposite in Bioshock and Bioshock 2 not to mention it being extremely addictive and seen as a form of cancer.

Elizabeth is your deus-ex-machina for anything, if it happened, there's a 99% chance she caused it. If it hasn't happened yet, there's a 99% chance she's the answer to that particular question and she will cause it. She's the beginning and the end. She didn't exist in Rapture? Syke, she now does because she needs to hunt down Booker in Rapture to kill him. So she now exists also in Rapture. What does that mean, specifically? Who knows. She needs to find Sally, a very specific Little One that Booker had in his care and was kidnapped by Sander Cohen to fund his lavish lifestyle. Why? Who knows. It was implied in Bioshock that Sander Cohen was one of the few lackeys of Ryan's that had a particular privilege, even when his art wasn't selling well not to mention being one of the few people that Ryan trusted until his death. Why work for Fontaine? Who knows. Nobody does.

Dying is very hard for both the Lutece and Elizabeth as they lose their "powers" (uh, I thought Elizabeth was just a very convenient time anomaly due to two parts of her existing in two different universes) if they return to a reality they died in... but Elizabeth never existed in Rapture. She evidently had to come to Rapture from another dimension. The Lutece died in Columbia, their home dimension, so it makes sense, but for Elizabeth who never existed in Rapture prior to her magicking herself into it and basically not being a part of that specific dimension why would she lose her powers? She doesn't exist in Rapture besides what has happened in the two DLCs.

In poor words, nothing happened, everything has happened everywhere all at once and this game exhausts me even to think about whatever Ken Levin must have huffed before sitting down and trying to write this mess of a storyline.

Irredeemable in my eyes and I just finished it after a marathon of the three games.

been putting this off for a while .. I was lukewarm on the first two Bioshock games. they had things in it i liked and disliked. (I love System Shock 2, and Deus Ex and Thief: The Dark Project and other Looking Glass/Ion Storm like titles) I knew I'd have to play this one someday. I went in knowing not too much about the game. (The way I like it)

First off, I was kinda aghast at just how different the game was from those two. Both the setting (You aren't underwater) and the political contexts struck me as imaginative and salient. I was also surprised that the gunplay was actually pretty good and fast and visceral, and seemed on par with that of Dishonored. (This came out six months later, probably just a coincidence but they do have a similar feel at times)

The game has a really interesting storyline, with a lot of elements that really go well together IMO. This seems to be a polarizing game due to its overtly racist content full of slurs, stereotypes and attitudes that are typically not approached in media. However, this game isn't glorifying any of it. You're literally blasting away these secessionist crackers and religious kooks who worship the founding fathers as Angels of The prophets divinity.... Frankly, I couldn't be more sold on a game that explores and unifies such concepts, and couldn't wait to get a chance to blast away the cult's head honcho myself.

The game is gritty, violent and gratifying. you have this most ridiculous melee 'saw' that makes quite the mess. You can also kill people with the same kind of mutagenic powers similar to what you got in the earlier BioShock games. The game reminds me a bit of the fast paced kind of gunplay you had in the Soldier of Fortune series, capitalizing on the action while still having interesting levels to explore and loot through. I feel it gets the balance between FPS and exploration/adventure/secrets perfect. Your arm claw doubles as a kind of magnetic grappling hook, letting you access some out of reach places that might have a secondary path or a secret. You also get other things later in the game that make the game more dynamic (such as a pretty helpful NPC that can unlock doors and help you loot) All in all this is a solid FPS even with its age showing at times.

The game is at times also pretty cool looking due to the Cloud City setting. Lots of weird statues, old timey-posters, propaganda and more to look at and sight see through (I loved the Nickelodeons and penny arcade type stuff, or those mechanical marionette propaganda pieces) its a unique look and gives it an iconic appearance that I found satisfying.

It's faults are minor ones but the game isn't perfect. are some kinda clunky default controls, and some lighting issues that sometimes 'flare' up. it's also a bit dated and can be disorienting if you are fighting enemies from multiple directions and you don't know which direction you are getting shot from (UI improvements since then would have been nice). The journal and upgrades system is locked into tiny resolution and is mostly useless. Subtitles are also locked into tiny resolution and the audio logs don't have subtitles at all. There's no map. enemy AI is dumb as rocks. Exploration is satisfying but not really rewarding outside of itself. The lack of quick saves is annoying but it's not a terribly hard game on normal default difficulty.

An easy recommendation to anyone looking to shoot stuff up unless you specifically are so turned off by the racist subject matter that depicts abuse of power and a general lack of justice in this dystopian society that you single-handedly help dismantle. It's easily my favorite Bioshock, and to those that are wondering, no you definitely don't have to play the first two, as the storylines are not connected at all (you have the same kind of mutagenic powers that you have in other games like this such as Deathloop, or the Prey reboot) and its got a similar steampunk type aesthetic. Thats about it.

A nice beefy FPS. with a mix of some light upgrades and adventure, as well as light stealth/immersive sim elements. Plus it comes with a decent story and a unique look and feel. Great stuff. This game might age especially well considering it takes place in some alternate history early 1900s, it would be very interesting experience to play such a thing for the first time in the late 21st century, assuming there are humans left to play games.

DLC was interesting. I liked them overall... they were more like the old BioShock games but merged the new story with the old, and played more stealthy. Story was difficult to understand.

After Bioshock 2, I was kind of done with the Rapture theme. Although I can play the first two Bioshock games over and over again without it ever boring me, if there was ever to be a new game, I wanted some fresh new ideas. My wish had been granted when Bioshock Infinite hit the shelves.

Instead of playing on the bottom of the world, you are now playing high in the sky, almost touching space. Bioshock Infinite takes places in a new city Columbia. It floats high in the air by massive fans and, just like Rapture, keeps hidden from existence. You play as Booker DeWitt, a new character and a good one I might add. Just like Jack from the first Bioshock, you immediately feel some sort of connection with him because of his excellent dialogue, expression and overall interaction.

Irrational studios has done it again. They produced another excellent game with another excellent story. It is what the Bioshock games are known for and they did not disappoint with this game. Because of this reason, I will not review any part of the story in this review, this is something that you need to experience for yourself, especially in combination with the two DLC episodes “Burial at Sea”.

The mechanics of the game work very similar to the first games. You got a selection of new different weapons and instead of using Plasmids, like the previous games, you use Vigors and Salts. The Vigors have the same idea as the Plasmids but are still completely unique. You can shoot a horde of murderous crows at your enemies, posses them so they attack other enemies and then shoot a bullet trough their brains or splash them away with water and tentacles.

For money, you collect the national currency of Columbia, the Silver Dollar.

The new enemies in the game are also very well created and a lot of thought did go into them. You got your standard police officers and other human enemies, but then, out of the blue, you got attacked by a big, mechanical patriot doll, complete in the style of George Washington. And if that is not enough, you got the Handymans, humans in a big exoskeletons with their hearts outside of their bodies, encased in the middle of their suits. The only thing they do is Hulk Smash so they are predictable, but when they hit you, you just bought yourself a one way ticket back to earth.

I like the combat, besides shooting and bewitch enemies, you can also knock them off Columbia. If there is a ledge and you have your trusty Broncho Vigor selected, let them fly!

Speaking of flying, the new rail mechanic, in which you can use kilometers of metal railing to quickly travel to other places, or giving you the advantage in a fight, is really cool. You collect some sort of grappling hook early in the game and can attach it to the railing whenever you want. You even got a nice attack when disengaging from the rail and jumping towards an enemy.

The controls in the game work flawless and the new mechanics, Vigors and rail sliding is easy to understand and master. You just feel like you are in control. The graphics in Bioshock Infinite are beautiful and the environments and attention to detail is just stunning. The lighting is also very well done and gives objects, enemies and scenery a nice finishing touch.

I must say that the ambient music and fight tracks when sh!t hits the fan, are a little disappointing from what I was used to from the previous games. They are just generic and “all right”. However, this did not impact my positive experience with the game.

I really don’t have any complaints or minor issues with Bioshock Infinite, it is just another game in the series that impressed me just as much as the previous installments.

If you cannot tell, I really liked the game and would recommend it to everyone. Even for the players that did not particularly liked the first games, because the action and combat is this game, is spot on.

When the Burial at Sea DLC’s came out for Bioshock Infinite, I thought it would be the same idea as Minerva’s Den for Bioshock 2. A nice little piece of extra story, played trough the eyes of an previously unknown character, to view another point of perspective.

Man was I positively surprised when playing Burial at Sea Episode one and two. This is a prequel to the events of the first Bioshock game and takes place in an era that Rapture was prosperous and alive, instead of the dead, rotten city it has become.

You play as Elizabeth in Episode Two. Her play style is a fresh new perspective for the game because you don’t go full Rambo and guns blazing like Jack or Big Daddy, but rather do things the quiet and careful way. You use stealth, darts and traps to take care of your enemies and rather get away safely than engaging in combat. I really liked this way of playing.

The added story in Burial at Sea episode one and two is excellent. I played many games and watched many movies in which the creators try to add some unknown uncle or nemesis, that always was there, in their prequels, but in this game, the added story and the way that it all fits in with the first Bioshock game and Bioshock Infinite just blew my mind. It is flawless and perfect. I literally applauded when finishing the two episodes. For this reason, again, I will not spoil or mention any of it in this review.

In the end, all I can say is that these two DLC’s for Bioshock Infinite are the best DLC’s I ever played in a game and have yet to be matched in the future.

Clash in the Clouds is another fun DLC for Bioshock Infinite. It adds four arena’s with fifteen waves each. Each wave contains a special challenge that you can complete to earn a Blue Ribbon as proof of completion. Wen you collect all sixty ribbons by completing the challenges, you earn an achievement.

Although the arenas are fun to play and adds some variaton to the game, my personal problem with Clash in the Clouds is that it is just too damn hard. I completed the main game on 1998 mode, something that I am quite proud of, but this DLC is just impossible for me.

The biggest problem is that you cannot start waves over. When failing your Blue Ribbon challenge on wave thirteen, you don’t get another shot. You need to complete all the other waves again to reach Wave thirteen again, in which you can try again. This can make it atrocious to attempt the Blue Ribbon challenges and for me, it killed most of the fun I had with it. The Blue Ribbon achievement is the only one that I still miss for Bioshock infinite.

Maybe I just need to git gut, but this is just a feat that I cannot complete. Maybe I will try it again someday, but for now, I am too scared to try.

Before playing this I played BioShock 1 and that game is amazing, the setting the social structure and the story is really well done. In most games, I have some video in the background and normally bathe in the gameplay side of aspects in well gaming, but this wasn't the case. I bought the collection on steam and I decided to play the games in the order to break up the setting of rapture. BioShock 1 then BioShock infinite then BioShock 2. When I started my play through I can't help but notice just how different it is, not even in terms of setting but mostly gameplay. You see while the fallout series all takes place in different settings they still hold the same game philosophy, this game however just feels way too different to really be part of the series in my opinion. If you removed BioShock from the game title, would it warrant being part of the series? The story again in my opinion comes a little smothering, now while I do like cinematic parts of a game I couldn't help like I was playing a Google Slides document, and even with the vigor I can't help but feel like there's not much point in using them. BioShock 1 was great in its combat because each encounter could play differently from the last. Using plasmids were useful because of how sandbox-y the gameplay is, but bioshock infinite is a game in which it really is just shoot in the head then shoot again. Lacking any variety in gameplay. It is a decent shooter, but in terms of fast-paced, number based shooting, why not prefer a game like borderlands? Now, I do want to say I don't want to complete the game. I understand the game looks nice, but I couldn't help but shake the feeling it was using racism as a plot point for the entire reason of why the enemies are…well, enemies. BioShock immersed me because it was a guy selling people on the dream of living under the sea, the enemies were Toy Story 1 Sid creations and the dark atmosphere but also the dark and troubling story of why it was the way it was, was capturing. The story played in the logs built up to a huge picture of why rapture didn't work out. Infinite just tells me that racism is bad, and instead of using I guess an original idea in why a society didn't work out, I feel they took the cheap route of using an issue that has been spoken about a lot. It's going from killing these almost these man made humans to just killing, well, regular humans (in terms of the actual game here).

But in the midst of all of this in voice conversation, I still don't believe it's part of the series. Obviously, only playing BioShock 1, once probably doesn't give me much weight behind what I say, but in terms of gameplay it just offers less of a reason to reply. BioShock had 3 different obvious builds, a hacker, offense, or a withdrawn wizard. BioShock infinite hardly highlights these different approaches. To go back to the story again, BioShock 1 brought depth, in more than one way. Bioshock infinite spelled out who the bad guy is, but everyone in rapture was flawed, in terms of story I like the latter, everyone is flawed gives the game a sense of Groundedness, one that is night and day. Another comparison of this Groundedness is the difference of GTA 4 and GTA 5, in GTA 5 you're playing a movie, everything looks good, huge explosions and an overall basic simple movie story plot, 4 has none of that, 4 is gritty, more realistic and takes a more subtle, slow and for me a more effective approach leaving a longer lasting impression. I'd say it's the same with BioShock 1 and infinite. Now, this is where I believe personal taste comes in. And for me again the slow, flawed world of rapture is much more capturing narratively but also gameplay wise then Columbia. Rapture had a reason for oil leakage, electric and overall faults to take place within, Columbia doesn't.

I guess the thing I don't understand about infinite is why the series went from killing enemies with their limbs turnt into hooks, to regular bad henchmen with a bad leader.

To save my skin if this review takes flack for being 'too negative' I'm going to reiterate it's an okay game but not good… Maybe not even ok when compared to Bioshock 1. If it was ignored and not part of the series at all, my opinions would be completely different.

Of all the Bioshock games, I think Infinite is my personal favorite. Rapture has its uniquely forlorn beauty, but I prefer Columbia’s dynamic and volatile setting a little more. Its introduction parallels the bathysphere’s descent into Rapture, and is just as mysterious and breathtaking. When I broke through the clouds with the shuttle exclaiming “hallelujah,” and landed on this eerily deific steampunk paradise, I knew I was about to get into some mind-bending adventures.

At first I was completely charmed by Columbia, walking around the floating streets, eavesdropping on conversations, and just enjoying the immersion. I often wondered how Rapture would’ve been like before its fall, and it was great to see Columbia (and later Rapture as well) in its heyday. Even after everything went to hell and the city turned out to be a white supremacist theme park, I still enjoyed quietly exploring whenever I got a break from fights.

The protagonists in Infinite were more memorable too. I found it difficult to connect with the silent protagonists in Bioshock 1 and 2, so I appreciated Booker and Elizabeth’s lively interactions with each other and the world. Booker had a history outside of Columbia to be uncovered, and Elizabeth was a great companion with her own personality and perspective. I naturally became attached to them as the game progressed.

The combat was mostly the same formula taken from the previous games, and it was fun even though the 2-weapon limit did feel restrictive at times. The addition of the skylines were great. There was nothing quite satisfying like setting enemies ablaze by stomping on them from 10 meters high. The vigors, however, felt kind of out of place and had more balance issues than the Plasmids in Rapture. I think by the end I was only using 2-3 strongest vigors.

Now, the real issue that most people are likely to have with the game is the setting of early 1900’s racist America. The game is pretty direct about showing the cruelty inflicted on blacks and other minorities at the time. It’s uncommon to see an exploration of our disturbing history in games, and I was glad to see it here, though it certainly wasn’t a very ”fun” experience.

I’d like to talk about the revolution storyline although it's a bit of a spoiler: I’m glad it didn’t end with a conventional heroic victory. An idealist like Elizabeth may hate it, but I think it was a fitting end for a city that bred only resentment and division. When a peaceful revolution is impossible, a violent one is inevitable. However, the revolution needed more screen time to develop. Daisy Fitzroy’s choice of a volatile change over the status quo needed more in-depth examination. The attempted child murder scene felt rather ham-fisted. Unfortunately, this whole section of the story felt rushed in favor of propelling the multiverse plotline.

I had some misgivings about this multiverse concept too. It was a cool twist in the main game, but became pointlessly convoluted in Burial at Sea. They didn’t need to meddle with the perfectly packaged endings in Infinite and the original Bioshock. Hopefully the writers don’t try to rope all these disparate narratives into every future Bioshock game. I’m still excited about the stories within these infinite lighthouses and their dangerously enthralling cities, but I’d prefer to tone down all the timeline shenanigans.

Bioshock Infinite was one of those "white whales" in the games industry. And while it wasn't released that long after the previous game in the series (especially by today's standards), it felt like the wait was eternal. It ended up hurting the game considerably too because the initial concept trailers were only half-represented in the final game. This thing was to be the next step forward for gaming, and it ended up merely being... a pretty damn good Bioshock game.

From the awe inspiring long-form intro to the mind bending ending, Bioshock Infinite is certainly a compellingly cinematic experience. It features one of the best video game settings ever (a bright inverse of Rapture's dark, sunken metropolis) but also features a plot so complicated and self-referential that it may be a bit too ambitious for its own good. What begins as straight up steam-punk and philosophy gets somewhat muddled with reality-hopping that feels a bit out of place. And although the characters here are fully wrought, none of them are particularly relatable. Main protagonist Booker pops off the generic video game character lines like he's played them all his life. But it all comes together in the end to form an entertaining cap to a trilogy of games that had a huge influence on the industry and are still beloved to this day.

I know Bioshock Infinite is a sacred cow for many. After the onlaught of positive reviews it got when it came out, I got the game and was really dissapointed by it. I didn't understood why there was a clear positive consensus about such a (in my eyes) mediocre game.

Well... I then started to see how, just weeks after launch, came a lot of negative criticism of it, sometime by the same sites that gave it glowing reviews.

What happened? Well, I wrote an article in spanish about Bioshock Infinite critical reevaluation. I used a lot of examples of critical writing (in english, thanks, Critical-Distance!) that re-analized the game in a not so shining light.

Daisy Fitzroy deserved better

This makes me think a lot about how review scores are so... useless for me? Most of the critics I agree about this game don't put a number on their writing so it would never reflect on Metacritic or OpenCritic.

Anyway, I don't like Bioshock Infinite and I'm happy to write about that again. he he he.

I do like Burial at Sea, tho

Huh. Bonkers of not somewhat satisfying ending. My main issue is that the ending is basically just a massive exposition dump so I wasn't that impressed with it. However, there is one thing....

All throughout the game I felt kind of disappointed that there were so many obvious parallels to Bioshock 1. The vigors are just plasmids, the handymen are just Big Daddies and the whole faction dynamics are almost carbon copies of each other. It felt as if I was playing the same game but with a slightly different skin. Are the developers so lacking in imagination that they just couldn't do anything else? Well, that might be true (a Doylist explanation) but I the in world explanation for all those parallelisms was very smart and if fitted perfectly with the rest of the narrative.

As my first experience within the Bioshock universe, the game really had me hooked and looking for more after finishing the campaign. This game is gorgeous, has an amazing story, and the gameplay is tons of fun.

This game made me interested in both finding out more about the Bioshock universe, and to learn more of the multiverse theory.

I just wish there were more games in this series!

Played on PC, PS3

Finished main game on normal. Almost didn’t complete. I’m not sure what happened. Maybe it’s because of the years of hype, or maybe it’s because I liked nearby games (Bioshock 1, Dishonored) so well that I was expecting too much, but the game really dragged for me—especially the second act. I pressed on just to see what happens story-wise, and I’m so glad that I did. The third and final act is outstanding.

Now trying 1999 (hardcore) mode with traditional FPS controller layout. Hopefully these things together with my improved grasp of the story and mechanics make the overall game a more fun experience.

Props for its exquisite use of music.

The only thing good to come out of a game that tried it's hardest to be a contemporary cinematic masterpiece without actually doing the work, still lauded by the masses, is it's interesting treatment about heroes and oppression. Ken Levine offered an interesting anectode about this in the recent RollingStone interview about the BioShock remasters...

RS: I know there are people – and in some ways, you addressed this in Burial at Sea – who are bothered by what happens to Daisy Fitzroy, the African-American Vox Populi leader, in BioShock Infinite. They basically think, if I can use a 2016 metaphor, that you created a game in which Donald Trump founded a xenophobic colony in the sky, only to learn that the Mexicans really are rapists.

KL: Here's what I'd say. BioShock 1 is about Jews. I'm a Jew. If you think about it, Andrew Ryan, Sander Cohen, Tenenbaum, they're all Jews. Suchong is Korean. During World War II, Korea was brutally occupied by Japan. He's a guy who survived. They're all survivors of oppression. And they don't come out of it heroes. Oppression turns them into oppressors. And that's the cruelest aspect of oppression. If you look at Andrew Ryan and Daisy Fitzroy, they're not that far apart. Maybe people wanted me to write about a hero who rose above that. Elizabeth is the character I invented who does sacrifice herself to break the cycle. But I think most people are destroyed by oppression. I could tell a fairy tale about people who are ennobled by it. But in my experience, as a student of history, that's rare. If you pretend there are a lot of happy endings for those stories, in some ways it elevates the oppression to something it's not.

This was a very enjoyable game. Although the gameplay is mediocre at best, it make up for it with one of the best video game storylines out there with constant twist and turns. Along with this, there is are some of my favorite characters. I never felt so empathetic for anyone in a game like I did for Elizabeth and Booker.

It's also worth noting that this game is goregous with its magnificent cyberpunk atmsophere.

PS: If you enjoy the base game, buying the DLC is a must for it adds a truly great new story.