Bioshock Infinite - the $200 million 6 hour literally on rails interactive movie with guns thread

[MadMaxHellfire]

1) retardedness overload:
"i'm the designer and i masturbater for days on my creations, here's an invisible wall which forces you to suffer the object of my masturbation to myself. oh, i'm so the best!"
"let's have balloons lift buildings, totally believable! oh, i'm so the best!"
"i'm going deep into this crazy community of racist murderers who are actively looking for someone with my same sign on the hand. why the hell would i wear a glove?"
"poverty is rampant. i loot money from waste bins"
"poverty is rampant. i get this power to kill people from a distance for free"
"i can open portals to anywhere and anytime. i think i'll keep being a captive here"
"there's a literal infinite amount of possibilities. I'll change seven of them, this will teach them!"
"we just slaughtered an army for little or no reason. but then you shot this man in self defense and i hate you [10 seconds later] please let's keep slaughtering, i'll help you"
i couldn't take this shit anymore, i had to quit

2) popamole overload:
stupid guns
stupid maps
stupid ai
stupid nonsensical hook

3) booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker booker

 

[Ghulgothas]

Remind me again why Bioshock: Infinite is shit?

Edit: thank you very much, Infinitron, I was dreaming of reading this 125p thread instead of having a simple answer.

It's a shallow and mediocre first-person shooter that squanders what good ideas it has, never delivered on what it was advertised to be, and was propped up as yet another Sacred Cow of Perfect Narrative in Bideogames despite being nothing but utterly throwaway and pretentious.

 

[Kalin]

Before Bioshit release when people actually read this thread:

Oy vey! Remove attacks on Ken Levine, hide them where people won't see and then retardo!

After Bioshit release when the fact Ken Levine is a hack re-surfaced:

Oy veeey! Merge that thread with this one so no one will ever see it!

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Basically he's awful.

 

[Zombra]

Remind me again why Bioshock: Infinite is shit?

Honestly? The setting/story and gameplay are almost antithetical. It's supposed to be a story about a down-to-earth, everyman Joe Detective, yet he kicks off the first chapter by committing a gruesome (cutscene) murder in broad daylight with no motive, then instead of submitting to arrest goes on to kill hundreds if not thousands of police officers, SWAT teams, and giant robots. It's supposed to be in a well-to-do wonderland of plenty, yet the protag digs in the trash for half-eaten hot dogs, which cure bullet wounds without the slightest effort at handwaving, they just do. Officially, the protag is able to slaughter well-trained teams of peace officers because of horrendously destructive super powers ... which he acquires from drinking literal potions that are available everywhere and any 8-year-old can pick up on a street corner ... yet no one else has the powers.

Throwing out the setting and story entirely, you're left with only gameplay, that of a mediocre and poorly balanced shooter; most of the set piece fights are dull and unmemorable, with the few that show some inspiration buried under mountains of senseless exposition. If you instead throw out the gameplay and concentrate just on the setting/story, there's not much to sink your teeth into - just a sophomoric introduction to the concept of the Everett, Wheeler, Graham "parallel universes" reality model, presented as if the very idea of parallel universes is supposed to be completely new and mind-blowing to you, the player. I guess it's expected that this game is the very first time you have heard of science fiction. Since the whole game world is based on a totally wacky social ruleset, the characters and situations are unrelatable and the few (one?) story twist lacks gravitas.

The only good part of Infinite is the Clash in the Clouds DLC, which does straight up throw out the story and gives you a series of combat arenas which showcase all the weapons, powers, and enemies and succeeds in providing a well-balanced, escalating challenge. Not being ironic - it's fun.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

I've been playing this. I played it at release, and my memory was that I stopped about halfway through due to sheer boredom, but it turns out that I got very near the end of the game and then gave a massive shrug and stopped playing. I'm currently on Comstock's airship, and I am having an... aggresively fine time.

The game is very often very pretty. That's the nicest thing I can say about it. I enjoy looking at the environments and derping around in Columbia. There's a weird disconnect between how good the environments look and how Prosperlicious the character models look, but what are you gonna do? UE gonna UE.

Other than that I don't have anything new or insightful to say about it. The gunplay and gunfeel is poor, the difficulty is non-existent, the enemy variety and AI are severely lacking,, and the story is so self-serious and wrapped up in its own delusions of philosophical depth that there is no joy or fun to be found there. It's especially bizarre how the game doubled down on being a shooter over an RPG or immsim, and then got pretty much everything wrong about being a shooter. The nail in the coffin is the two gun limit. It's a bafflingly stupid constraint -one that actively makes the game less fun. I have no idea why anyone would ever carry around the Sniper Rifle or Rocket Launcher considering their ammo limitations, and general lack of utility. It's also clear that the game was Frankensteined together in the last year of development: there is a ton of contradictory shit in the script, the skyrails are a completely useless feature, there are large swaths of the game that feel like no one playtested them (Comstock House being the worst offender thus far), vigors are an iwin button, and frequently the most optimal tactic is just hanging out in a corner and letting the mooks run up to you and put their heads in your targeting reticule.

BUT... all that said, again, the game is very often very pretty. I don't play a lot of AAA games, and I don't generally seek out games with perdy perdy graphics, so perhaps I'm just easily impressed by shiny shinies, but it's been enough to keep me engaged this time around. I'm holding out some small vestige of hope that the Burial at Sea content improves on at least some of my issues with the base game, but I realize that is probably a fool's hope.

 

[Tacgnol]

I always felt Bioshock was a fairly mediocre (and streamlined) clone of System Shock 2, but at least it was based off of a good game.

I've honestly no idea what they were going for with Infinite, they almost completely dropped the wider hub based areas in favour of arenas. They dumbed down the upgrades and the powers.

It even got the stupid two weapon system that you see in most console FPS, despite the previous games allowing you to carry the entire arsenal.

Felt like COD with health and weapon upgrades.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Remind me again why Bioshock: Infinite is shit?

Honestly? The setting/story and gameplay are almost antithetical. It's supposed to be a story about a down-to-earth, everyman Joe Detective, yet he kicks off the first chapter by committing a gruesome (cutscene) murder in broad daylight with no motive, then instead of submitting to arrest goes on to kill hundreds if not thousands of police officers, SWAT teams, and giant robots. It's supposed to be in a well-to-do wonderland of plenty, yet the protag digs in the trash for half-eaten hot dogs, which cure bullet wounds without the slightest effort at handwaving, they just do. Officially, the protag is able to slaughter well-trained teams of peace officers because of horrendously destructive super powers ... which he acquires from drinking literal potions that are available everywhere and any 8-year-old can pick up on a street corner ... yet no one else has the powers.

Throwing out the setting and story entirely, you're left with only gameplay, that of a mediocre and poorly balanced shooter; most of the set piece fights are dull and unmemorable, with the few that show some inspiration buried under mountains of senseless exposition. If you instead throw out the gameplay and concentrate just on the setting/story, there's not much to sink your teeth into - just a sophomoric introduction to the concept of the Everett, Wheeler, Graham "parallel universes" reality model, presented as if the very idea of parallel universes is supposed to be completely new and mind-blowing to you, the player. I guess it's expected that this game is the very first time you have heard of science fiction. Since the whole game world is based on a totally wacky social ruleset, the characters and situations are unrelatable and the few (one?) story twist lacks gravitas.

The only good part of Infinite is the Clash in the Clouds DLC, which does straight up throw out the story and gives you a series of combat arenas which showcase all the weapons, powers, and enemies and succeeds in providing a well-balanced, escalating challenge. Not being ironic - it's fun.

Hmm, I've played it 8 years ago and really liked the game. Maybe I was stupid back then. Thank you for opening my eyes!

 

[gerey]

I've honestly no idea what they were going for with Infinite, they almost completely dropped the wider hub based areas in favour of arenas. They dumbed down the upgrades and the powers.

Levine happened.

The project was horribly mismanaged by him, he kept changing things midway through, reinventing the story on a whim, removing areas, requesting new areas to be made etc.

People that worked on the project said that the dev team made enough content for three separate games, and most of it was scrapped because Levine had no fucking idea what he wanted.

Hell, just compare the various trailers to see how radically the game changed, even within a year before release. It's obvious that at one point the game was hub based, or at the very least had non-linear levels ala Bioshock 1 and 2, and that the story was drastically different (Elizabeth was a love interest and the game took place during the uprising, with government forces and rebels duking it out on the streets).

 

[Zombra]

Hmm, I've played it 8 years ago and really liked the game. Maybe I was stupid back then. Thank you for opening my eyes!

I don't think there's anything stupid or wrong about enjoying something uncritically, and there are things I liked about BI, or at least wanted to like about it. I keep wondering what this could have been if they'd thrown away all the guns and made a walking simulator instead, really focusing on the setting and story ideas. This is really two (+) games that don't belong together at all.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

And I finished it. And it has one of the worst endings I've ever seen in a videogame. Just everything about it sucks. Gameplay, plot resolution, visuals, it's all just complete garbage, and it made me actively hate a game that I had been generally apathetic about up until then. Jesus Fucking Christ Ken.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

you've been warned.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I don't know. I bailed out well before: halfway through the first Bioshock due to being a boring mediocre shooter. Never reached bioshock infinite.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

So wait, MCA finished this one and enjoyed the plot and ending enough to do a shitty stick figure drawing of an excited man, but couldn't finish Arcanum?

That cock sucker deserved what he got.

 

[passerby]

Arcanum is boring as fuck though, I couldn't finish it either despite three attempts.

 

[Curratum]

You fuckwads realize that your precious System Shock was the first relatively big game that started one of the shittiest trends in modern gaming - narration through horrible dull audiologs, right?

 

[Morgoth]

Audio logs are great.

 

[passerby]

Audiologs are just glorified sf themed notes to read, neither they are bad, nor the concept was new.

The best way to have some narration in a game about being a lonely survivor.
Also playing them in the background is a good way to make scavenging for resources and searching for secrets a bit less boring.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

You fuckwads realize that your precious System Shock was the first relatively big game that started one of the shittiest trends in modern gaming - narration through horrible dull audiologs, right?

It is great if it is done in the proper context, because it contributes to environmental storytelling. For how it is commonly done now (and also in bioshock), it just make no sense, and, you are alright, it's one of the shittiest and more asinine trends in modern games.

 

[Tacgnol]

You fuckwads realize that your precious System Shock was the first relatively big game that started one of the shittiest trends in modern gaming - narration through horrible dull audiologs, right?

Not the fault of the originator if the imitators decide to copy something badly.

It made sense in System Shock 1 and 2, as most of the audiologs were emails between crew members. In Bioshock it makes zero sense because people are leaving actual recordings everywhere.

 

[Alphons]

I've honestly no idea what they were going for with Infinite, they almost completely dropped the wider hub based areas in favour of arenas. They dumbed down the upgrades and the powers.

Levine happened.

The project was horribly mismanaged by him, he kept changing things midway through, reinventing the story on a whim, removing areas, requesting new areas to be made etc.

People that worked on the project said that the dev team made enough content for three separate games, and most of it was scrapped because Levine had no fucking idea what he wanted.

Hell, just compare the various trailers to see how radically the game changed, even within a year before release. It's obvious that at one point the game was hub based, or at the very least had non-linear levels ala Bioshock 1 and 2, and that the story was drastically different (Elizabeth was a love interest and the game took place during the uprising, with government forces and rebels duking it out on the streets).

To add onto the above comment, here's a pre-release interview with Bill Gardner

When asked about what content was trimmed during development Gardner said that to get something right the process involves trying a lot of things. This inevitably means culling content such as specific time tear mechanics, weapons, characters and levels.

"We cut off enough things to make five or six full games," he said. "It is alarming."

Gardner says that it was "kind of gross" how much they cut but ultimately all that matters is the final product.

https://www.polygon.com/2013/2/18/3...d-enough-cut-from-it-to-make-five-or-six-full

Here's also an article on the wiki
https://bioshock.fandom.com/wiki/BioShock_Infinite_Removed_Content

Entirely different concepts and settings, areas and entire levels scrapped at different levels of completion (some are only seen as concept art, but others were partially made), unused enemies, shops, weapons and powers, entire class and experience system like in SS2 (in the 1999 mode), hubs accesed with the sky rail, more advanced AI system (Founders and Vox using all the weapons and powers available to the player in unscripted battles between themselves and player if he provokes them), different events with choices that would affect Elizabeth's personality, ending and your enemies (postman lynch and a dying horse shown in one of the demos).

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

making unreasonable promises is not something to praise. on the contrary actually.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Having just completed Infinite I can say for sure that the game would have been much more enjoyable if it were utterly broken from ambitious design than the empty polished turd that was delivered.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

plot would have still been retarded.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

plot would have still been retarded.

I can forgive a retarded plot if it’s coupled with good gameplay and design, and vice versa. Infinite though is just retarded plot stapled on abysmal gameplay and design. It’s unforgivable.