BioShock Infinite Review
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The Good
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BioShock Infinite is a stupendous game, portraying a beautiful and broken city that will absorb your every waking thought.
The Good
- Columbia is an amazing place to be and explore
- Depicts uncomfortable, relevant themes in an effective way
- Vigors and skyline rails make for fluid, exciting action
- Upgrades make you feel increasingly powerful
- Mind-blowing ending that you won't soon forget.
The Bad
- Occasional quirks and contrivances disrupt the immersion.
What drives a man of God to wash away the sins of his past, only to blacken his heart with a multitude more? How far can a freedom fighter be pushed before virtue and righteousness are replaced by a lust for vengeance? What does a privileged society do when the foundation of its prosperity is shaken? BioShock Infinite dares to explore these heady themes and many more, giving you glimpses at just how the seemingly smallest of decisions can forever alter our realities, and our hearts. As an agent provocateur in the fantastical floating city of Columbia, your actions bring turmoil and strife to an ostensibly idyllic landscape. It's immensely fun to stir up trouble, and even more engaging to see how boldly BioShock Infinite portrays a society torn asunder. You'll be haunted by this thematically devastating adventure, and indeed, its phenomenal final minutes, which are bound to be discussed and dissected for some time to come.
It starts with a lighthouse. As former private investigator Booker DeWitt, you enter this lighthouse knowing that you have been hired to retrieve "the girl"--but who this girl is, and who hired Booker, remain a mystery, if not to Booker, than at least to you. At the top of that lighthouse is a chair, and once strapped into it, Booker is fired into the stratosphere, toward the city in the sky called Columbia. And what a fitting name for this hyper-American domain of 1912, which incorporates the classical architecture of the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The red, white, and blue Columbian flag flies from spires across the city, and statuaries and bas-relief panels immediately evoke the sense of old America.
The buildings of that 1893 exposition were part of an area known as The White City, and here, too, Columbia lives up to the name of its inspiration--not just in the whiteness of its buildings, but in the whiteness of its racial structure. At a key early moment, you confront the festering illness corrupting this porcelain-white culture, where anyone whose skin is not the ideal color is ostracized and enslaved. You also confront one of BioShock Infinite's many core mysteries: What is the nature of the brand on Booker's hand? In Columbia, the brand is a mark of the false shepherd, this culture's version of the Christian Antichrist and the 666 that marks him. Identified as a prophesied fiend, Booker has no choice but to run.
Columbia is a tremendous place to be, the all-American dream-turned-nightmare crossed with steampunk sensibilities. Nationalist propaganda is mixed with airships and mechanical combatants, and the moving picture machines you occasionally use elaborate on the history of Columbia, which seceded from an America that just wasn't American enough. The leader of this city is Father Comstock, a self-proclaimed prophet and religious zealot whose likeness and influence pervade the game. What Andrew Ryan was to Rapture, Comstock is to Columbia; he is a frightfully well-meaning man who believes so strongly in his own damaged philosophies that you can only fear him. His worshipers are just as fearsome in their blind willingness to follow their leader, even when the costs are high. In BioShock Infinite, religious and political fervor intertwine, much as they do in real life, and these similarities could fill you with dread and unease.
You eventually find "the girl." She is the supernaturally talented Elizabeth, locked in a floating tower and protected by a monstrous clockwork creature called Songbird. Your first confrontation with Songbird is one of many eye-opening scenes, and Elizabeth's relationship with her protector is a complicated one. So is her relationship with Booker, for that matter, though he is key to Elizabeth's escape from her solitary life, and to the city of her dreams: Paris.
And so the two go on the run, alternately exploring Columbia's private nooks and allying with a resistance force called the Vox Populi, not out of politics, but out of necessity. Columbia isn't as hushed and mysterious as Rapture, but exploring it is no less tense. You are a witness to (and a participant in) an imploding social order, and as the story darkens, so too do the places you investigate. Sunny blue skies and perfect manmade beaches give way to burning streets and ghostly memorials. When the narrative has you questioning the nature of reality, the surreality of the environments reflects your confusion. So, too, does the soundscape metamorphose. The concordant harmonies of a hymn of praise take a sour and ominous turn as the more disturbing qualities of Columbia's unerring faith emerge.
Your confusion is appeased by audio recordings you discover called voxophones, which serve as personal diaries to past events. There are clues here to the nature of Elizabeth's gift: her ability to open tears in spacetime and peer into…the future? The past? Other dimensions? Voxophones also elaborate on Columbia's most important citizens, such as Comstock's troubled, martyred wife, whose story illuminates the desperate lengths to which her husband stooped to ensure that his message might be heard in perpetuum. They even provide a few touches of humor, as do other atmospheric audio audio details; alternate versions of well-known tunes could have you grinning once you pick your jaw up off the floor.
BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter, but you aren't armed just with machine guns, pistols, shotguns, and the like; you also have vigors. Vigors, like the original BioShock's plasmids, are seemingly magical powers that you can fling at your enemies. Thus, you can weaken your enemies by zapping them with a bolt of electricity or by charging into them at impossible speed. Try distracting them with a murder of crows before gunning them down with your carbine, or flinging them over the edge of a walkway with a shock wave and watching them plummet to their deaths. You may even combine these powers, perhaps setting a foe on fire and then charging into him for an explosive finish.
By
Kevin VanOrd, Senior Editor
Kevin VanOrd is a lifelong RPG lover and violin player. When he isn't busy building PCs and composing symphonies, he watches American Dad reruns with his fat cat, Ollie.
395 comments
1 Like this made my day this site just gave me a free Microsoft points card code and it was valid! Check this site out freemspointsforever? com
1 Like I advice everyone to watch this, really good and in depth critic of the game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ2cSKBFBDQ
I will Advice to avoid this game because it's really high high level game .. a kind of game when you finish it you will need a lot of time to enjoy any other game
5 Like Why didn't this game get a 10, does Gamespot think there's going to be a better Bioshock on 360?
1 Like @AM2_Raxel You think this interactive movie deserves a 9/10 even? Haha wow, you're a pathetic scrub. This game gets a 3/10 from me, most hyped piece of trash I've ever seen. I wouldn't even waste my bandwidth to steal this turd.
@SKaREO @AM2_Raxel
"I've ever seen. I wouldn't even waste my bandwidth to steal this turd."
And I wouldn't piss down your throat if your heart was on fire.
@SKaREO So, in short, you haven't played it. Oh man SK, just looked at your ratings in your profile. Your taste in gaming is mostly horrible. Also, ironic comment given that you gave MGS games 9s.
1 Like @SKaREO @AM2_Raxel Whilst I think 3 is a bit of an overreaction, I do agree that its certainly no 9 or 10. The story is cheap and the game play gets tired fast. Its not a terrible game but I reckon 7 or 7.5 would be a more reasonable score.
@AM2_Raxel There are a number of arguments to make where this game shouldn't receive a 10.
When you look at the games that did receive a 10 on Gamespot though, I'd say Infinite is more than worthy to receive it also. Actually, it's kind off strange to me that it did not get it. Those games are older than this one of course, but even when you take that into account, it seems rather low in comparison.
I don't think this is a bad score and I can see it justified. I just think it feels out of place when you look at other games' scores.
2 Like @AM2_Raxel Lol I was just about to say the same thing! A game doesn't get much closer to perfection than this.
5 Like This IS the best game of 2013. Anyone who disagrees with me is a d****bag. No explanations necessary.
3 Like I just finished this game today. I'm a pretty jaded gamer and as I was playing it, I kept thinking that I should be annoyed that the game's gameplay was even more watered down than the first Bioshock when compared to System Shock II (one of my all time favorite games), but I gotta say...this game was absolutely amazing. Seriously. Amazing.
The ending to this game is amazing... Beyond amazing!!! It shows other game developers that you can actually end a game well, which I have come to lose faith in... Some examples being ME3 and AC3, both of which have such terrible endings. If you compare BioShock Infinite's ending to those, it truly shows how pathetic they are... Ya' know, puts it in perspective...
1 Like @L3X18999 It was crap. I'm probably going to sound like an arrogant liar when I say this but there were literally no big surprises in the ending, just a sequence of confirmations of suspicions I had based on clues throughout the game. The concept was okay but it had to be profound to work. Instead you felt like you'd been slapped in the face by a deus ex machina. In fact the whole game felt like that.... almost like it was Bioshock fan fiction written by an autistic child.
Check out my user review of Bioshock Infinite. Was it a godly success or a satanic failure?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfB5i4F5W6Q
1 Like I can't remember the last time I finished a game and couldn't sleep that night for thinking about it, and for that Bioshock Infinite is excellent. The combat is only serviceable at best and there are some minor distracting quirks, though overall this game is definitely one of the best I've played in a long while. FPS junkies probably won't be impressed with Bioshock Infinite, but if you want an immersive set and story then this game is for you.
I gotta say, while i liked this game, the original bioshock series was better. I really think the crude science behind the premise of the original 2 served better in cultivating the dark, disturbing atmosphere that a bioshock game aims to create. The, for a lack of a better world, "intellectual" science in infinite made the game more psychologically challenging than crudely disturbing like i would expect from a bioshock game. But that's just me... what do you guys think?
1 Like @SpaceGhozt I'd go more for pseudo-intellectual. As you played through it almost felt as though the writers were screaming 'I bet you didn't see that coming!' and to be honest, I did. And its odd that I did because it seemed that they were trying to trick people with their infinitely flexible plot device. Over all it wasn't terrible but certainly not the masterpiece everyone seems to think it is.
@SpaceGhozt You are right in that point. It is less crude or 'horrific' (at least in the literal sense).
But Infinite isn't trying to go for that same vibe though. It's more about (blind) faith, inevitable and crossing paths.
It very much succeeds in what it tries to do.
btw, the breakdown in sanity you see in the people in the original 2 from listening to audio logs and dealing with the other characters was just so much more depressing, creepy, and all around believable, which i think made for a much greater experience.
So are Single player games relevant? this is a good question as I look at my friends list and see nothing but multiplayer titles on my friends screen and no single player gam es. COD which I hate and Defiance which is not doing good in the ratings department. and I played the beta for about 6 hrs it is a fun game and addicting but it looks like it was made in 2005 with alot of bugs and server problems. but yet we have a critically acclaimed game like bioshock Infinate which is tearing up in reviews might even get GOTY other than Last of US and GTA 5. but yet I see no one on my list playing it. So I say again is Singleplayer games relevant anymore pls post your responses below.
@ravenkiller You just have shitty friends. Infinite sold really well so far. I don't know any gamer personally who hasn't played it.
Note: that shitty part was jokingly said so. But I do think it's the kind of people you have on your friends list. The people getting two games a year of which one is the updated version to Call of Duty aren't the crowd this game is interesting to.
Any serious hardcore gamer will play this at some point if they haven't already.
To more answer your question: singleplayer is insanely relevant. Developers are actually backing off from tacking on multiplayer to their games. They did that for a while because they thought it's what people wanted. It resulted in less sales. The people who want multiplayer will get the best: the Call of Duties, the Borderlands, the StarCrafts, the FIFA's etc. Other serious games need a strong singleplayer nowadays.
Take a look at FarCry 3. It sold insanely well, far better than they expected. That's all singleplayer. Nobody got that for the multiplayer and had they focused on that, people would have rather played COD anyway and the singleplayer would have suffered resulting in fewer sales.
Short answer: yes.
2 Like @ravenkiller
Unfortunately, you maybe right but personally, I only really ever play single player games.
I play games when i want to get away from people, if i want to mix with others, i go out.
5 Like I thought the game should get a 7.5 or 8 after playing it. 9 is too high. Here's why:
1) Graphics aren't that great. I played Tomb Raider the week before and felt like everything outside of Elizabeth was much worse in Bioshock Infinite. I know why Elizabeth was fawned over by reviewers because she is the only thing that was truly interesting or different about the game.
2) The story isn't sharp. They try to throw so much nationalistic and religious theme into the story that you can never quite figure out what is going on or why any of the side characters are relevant.
3) There are old timey movies that you can watch to get achievements. These are usually horrible. One was just hummingbirds flying for 30 seconds.
4) The combat isn't sharp either. Shooting is not up to par with games like Halo, Uncharted or any of the other great FPS of this generation. You can just soup up your vigors and possess all the enemies to fight each other so you don't have to do anything.
5) The rails are a nuisance more than being fun. It is cumbersome to shoot anybody while riding them and half the time you're not sure if they're leading you forward or backward along to where you want to go.
I probably would have put the game down and stopped playing after a few hours but the ending was so hyped up that I trudged along to the finish (it took me longer to beat Tomb Raider so I wouldn't trust the people who claim the long playtime for Infinite). Not a bad game but not nearly the masterpiece that it is being portrayed as. There is really no reason to play this game through again once it's been completed so just go to redbox and rent it for the weekend and save some cash.
While I agree with this game not being as great as it is hyped up to be, your points are really really weak, considering there are far more glaring flaws within this game.
PS: To everyone, stop comparing a game to other games just to make a point, it is just a stupid way of criticizing a game. If you think Halo is "sharp", than stick to Halo only and don't play anything else.
PPS: You think uncharted`s shooting mechanics are "sharp"?! Now I know you have really bad taste!
1 Like 1. Your taste is... different from that of other people. The artistic design is amazing. Pretty much everyone agrees on this. Your opinion, just saying general consensus is different.
2. Story is the best part of the game. They don't throw in anything. All that stuff is extremely relevant to the story. Have you actually finished it? I get it if you weren't able to put everything together immediately, most people had that problem. If you play through it again you will see it from a different perspective and everything will be largely clear.
3. I get where you are coming from. I didn't enjoy them that much, but some were pretty funny and they are good at portraying the perception of the people in the world, as well as convey how they are mind washed by blind faith.
4. Allot of people had problems with the combat. I personally didn't, but no, it's not on par with a Halo. I find it odd you list Uncharted as that series has never had great combat if you ask me. Certainly not competing with a Halo or other high profile shooter. Also, you should have played it on hard or 1999. It's challenging.
5. I get the problem you had with the rails about getting your bearings. But the shooting wasn't that difficult though? You click the stick and it auto aims to enemies. I never used it though. I found it allot of fun and handy to get around really fast and skyline strike enemies to death.
I personally think 9 is a bit low even for this game. But I get where you are coming from. I just think it may not be your type of game though. At least, I think it's more of that than the game not being good.
1 Like @USAPATRIOT21 I enjoyed the game but can see most of your points. I too played Tomb Raider just before this and enjoyed the gameplay more, but I like the story of Bioshock a lot. Sure, it was a bit too much like Fringe, but it's more sophisticated than most gamers get these days. Bioshock felt to me like an ambitious story that mostly succeeded layered on an average shooter.
@USAPATRIOT21 You have some good points there. I really did enjoy it and thought some of the art design was out of this world but I totally know what you mean. It wasn't as good as the first one.
3 Like I hated the first two Bioshocks....... but this is by far my favourite shooter played in 2012/13.
I just beat this 2 minutes ago very very good game. One of the best shooters I've played all year, nice twists in the story and lots of gun play. Now i just wanna know is wtf happens after this.....................
1 Like Defiance= all round fun MMOFPS with great gameplay and doesn't lie about the game it is.
Bioshock= Boring gameplay, generic corridor shooter with pretty visuals.
2 Like Hands down one of the best games I ever played, and it proves that games CAN be art. The story is just amazing and mindblowing. Kevin Levine is a genius. To me 10/10 no doubt. And I'm not even a big fan of shooters.
@solid_snake_CRO Ken Levine is a genius for incorporating this story into a video game. It has many similarities with the Sci-Fi tv series FRINGE
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@king_quaps The ending is very pretentious and because the character development was weak most of the characters feel plastic, forced and without life. They try too hard to make you feel pity for them, rendering the climax completely out of place.
@king_quaps Yes, you didn't like it, so the reviewer must therefore have been either under the influence of drugs or otherwise mentally challenged for having enjoyed it instead. Why did I not see this before?
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BioShock Infinite
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- Publisher(s): 2K Games
- Developer(s): Irrational Games
- Genre: Action
- Release:
- ESRB: M
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