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

[taxalot]

Anyone saying this game is completely shit is lacking the ability to think in shades, or more probably a brain.

 

[aris]

Anyone saying this game is completely shit is lacking the ability to think in shades, or more probably a brain.

Or more likely: They are butthurt neo-cons.

 

[potatojohn]

Anyone saying this game is completely shit is lacking the ability to think in shades, or more probably a brain.

It's a polished 200 million turd.

 

[Metro]

Anyone saying this game is completely shit is lacking the ability to think in shades, or more probably a brain.

No I've just read more books and seen more movies that deliver more interesting stories than the average putz who rates Bioshock Infinite highly.

 

[AngryDude]

BSI sold 1.3 million on first week, only 167k copies on PC though.

 

[taxalot]

I thought this was a game, sorry.

 

[Zewp]

And the gameplay parts of it suck complete ass.

 

[Tommy Wiseau]

It seems like an above average shooter, at the very least. Intro and art were kewl, but slogging through waves of cops and fighting off sentries at every corner got pretty old, fast.

May pick it up later, haven't played it for very long.

Edit: Going out on a limb I'd say it's a case of gameplay not supporting the overall game itself. Something other than a plain shooter model might have worked better for this game.

 

[Diablo169]

Brian Fargo ‏@BrianFargo 6h
I wasn't truly confused until I finished Bioshock Infinite. Now I must ponder for awhile.

 

[Zewp]

It really isn't an above average shooter. That's my biggest gripe with it. I'm too lazy to rewrite everything, but here's what I said about combat on another forum.

I also want to add that none of the weapons in the game are exactly interesting. You've got your pistol, your machine gun, your shotgun, your revolver, your sniper and your RPG. Then the upgrades are absolutely boring as well. You've got damage, capacity, rate of fire and reload rate. Woohoo! Bioshock 1 and 2 not only had a much better selection of weapons, but the upgrades for those weapons were pretty interesting as well, not to even mention that multiple types of ammo allowed you to approach different situations in different ways.

Then there's the fact that you can only carry two weapons. Erm, that limits your creativity in a firefight. Some people might say that forces you to think strategically because you need to choose weapons based on what enemies you think you might be facing, but that's simply not true. During the game if you encountered a situation where you needed a certain weapon, the game would always make that weapon available via a tear or enemy drops, so the two weapon limit was entirely useless.

Even the Vigors are boring. None of them, save maybe the possession one, was in the least bit interesting. I ended up using one and used it pretty much throughout the whole game.

Let's not forget that in Bioshock 1 and 2 your interaction with the environment could help in combat situations. You could hack a camera to set sentry bots on enemies, or hack a health dispenser to harm enemies going for health, or lure a big daddy into attacking a group of splicers. B:I is a much more straightforward shooter and in pretty much every situation 90% of the damage being done to enemies is going to be coming from your weapons. It doesn't have nearly the diversity that B1/2 had.

I guess the biggest problem with B:I is just that its gameplay is completely and utterly bland and uninspired. Everything it does has either been done before (and likely been done better) or is really nothing more than an old gameplay mechanic that's been convoluted. The entire tear thing is nothing more than a gimmick. It's like Irrational focused so much on the story that they just simply didn't bother about gameplay, which I don't quite get because the gameplay in B1/2 was done a lot better, even if it was a bit shallow compared to something like SS2. The gameplay in B:I is a definite step back for the entire series.

 

[DeepOcean]

Bioshock Infinite isn't the worst FPS in the world, but what bothers me isn't the game itself but the design ideas behind it, if this was successful as 2K wanted, there is no way the next FPS from Irrational Games be different than a 6 hours long game where half of it is watching pretty graphics and the other half is a mediocre FPS. Bioshock 1 and 2 had many problems but they still were games not a tunnel were someone tell a story for you, it was one of the few alternatives to someone that can't stand the CoD retardness. I'm happy that those cinematic games that only have pretty graphics aren't performing as the publishers want, maybe they are forced to abandon this bullshit of cinematic gaming like they had to abandon the FMV mania.

 

[DeepOcean]

BSI sold 1.3 million on first week, only 167k copies on PC though.

There is no way to know how many copies were sold on Steam so the 167k don't take in consideration Steam sales that are the majority of sales on PC, still is weak numbers for an AAA+ game with a massive budget.

 

[Jaesun]

Those are not sales numbers. They are completely meaningless (VGChartz).

 

[Major_Blackhart]

What do you mean, Jaesun?

 

[Jaesun]

What do you mean, Jaesun?

VGCharts DO NOT use any actual sales data. NPD however does (as do Publishers as well). The only actual sales data you will ever hear are from NPD or from a Publishers press statement (but Publishers *usually* do not give specific sales numbers. They typically do the "Game X sold over 2 Million copies!" etc..).

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I would think that for publicly traded companies like EA, that information would be readily available.

 

[Jaesun]

I would think that for publicly traded companies like EA, that information would be readily available.

Typically yes, but not always.

 

[sea]

EDIT: This post has been superseded by this article: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Eric...ock_Infinites_Combat_Mechanics_Regression.php

It really isn't an above average shooter. That's my biggest gripe with it. I'm too lazy to rewrite everything, but here's what I said about combat on another forum.

Let's talk about what's going on mechanically with the game's combat. I was going to write a big article on the mechanical weaknesses in Infinite so I might as well start here.

Weapon Diversity

Weapon diversity in Infinite is not terrible, but not great either. You have, to my count, 10 guns in the game. There are duplicates of them, but they are basically identical except for the skins, slightly different stats (like higher damage but lower rate of fire), and they have to be upgraded separately for no conceivable reason.

1. Pistol
2. Hand Cannon
3. Shotgun/Heater
4. Carbine/Burstgun
5. Machine Gun/Repeater
6. Crank Gun
7. RPG
8. Volley Gun/Hail Fire
9. Sniper Rifle

This is about as generic as it gets, folks. You have two kinds of pistol, two machine guns, one shotgun, and then specialty weapons in the form of a grenade launcher, rocket launcher and sniper rifle. Forget the alternate fire modes and ammo types in BioShock, these guns are exactly what they say on the tin, no more, no less.

The problem with these guns, too, is that certain guns are more effective than others most of the time. The pistol becomes obsolete almost immediately and is not worth using past Memorial Island or so, once you get access to both the Machine Gun and the Shotgun. Once you get access to the RPG and Sniper Rifle, you should drop the Shotgun because there is no need for a close-quarters gun when you have a powerful melee attack and Vigors available to you. The Volley Gun is kind of useful for crowd control, however, you have plenty of Vigors for that too. The Machine Gun wins over all standard weapons by virtue of being effective at all but extreme ranges, for its almost complete lack of recoil, high clip size when upgraded, constant sources of easy-to-find ammo, and high, consistent damage output.

The game nearly forces you to then use a "heavy" weapon like the RPG, Volley Gun or Sniper Rifle to take down the powerful enemies. The problem is that these weapons are all outdone in damage, accuracy and versatility by the Sniper Rifle. Say what? Yes, the Sniper Rifle, though it has a limited clip size, is the most powerful gun in the game: it can instantly kill any standard enemy in the game with a headshot (not hard to get because most enemies stay stationary), it is effective at all ranges (even up close if you are good at hip firing), and most hard enemies like Patriots can be easily zapped and sniped to deal extreme damage and take them out in 3-4 shots. Compare this to the Rocket Launcher which actually has less damage output, less accuracy, less ammo available and less versatility.

In other words there are only two guns in the game worth using if you are reasonably skilled: the Machine Gun and the Sniper Rifle. Oh, that's not to say that the other weapons are not effective and that you can't do well with them; but, because you are limited to only 2 weapons at once, you have to pick and choose what will cover the most ground. And these two guns do exactly that, and better than any others.

Vigors

Vigors are a major step back from BioShock. In BioShock, Plasmids had their functionality split across multiple types: you had burst damage, stun, damage over time, traps, telekinesis, and mind control. There was additionally some nuance in how these Plasmids were used. For example, freezing an enemy would render him/her "immune" to damage, but would allow you to shatter him/her for an instant kill if enough damage was inflicted before he/she thawed. Meanwhile, electricity could be used to zap all enemies in a pool of water, giving it specific functional use depending on the environment.

What's more, Plasmids could be used to solve puzzles. Many optional areas could only be accessed if you had the correct Plasmid equipped. Though eventually you would get all of them, this small amount of puzzle solving (using Telekinesis to grab a key to a door through a broken window, using Inferno to melt ice freezing a door) gave a nice bit of variety to the game and more importantly gave you a small trade-off in which Plasmids you equipped and took with you; it was impossible to bring everything so you had to pick and choose.

Last, Telekinesis was a pretty interesting power that opened up doors in combat. Sure, it was mostly useful for picking up and throwing explosive barrels at enemies, but this gave a good reason to use the physics engine in BioShock. Though not as developed as Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun, it still justified all those objects lying around as more than just scenery.

There are two main problems with Vigors in BioShock Infinite. The first and most obvious is that functionality has been mapped to all Vigors with only superficial cosmetic differences between them. In BioShock, Plasmids were split into a handful of categories and each was only really good at one thing, requiring you to pay some attention to your load-out. Infinite, by contrast, maps "stun", "trap" and "direct damage" functionality to almost every Vigor. In other words, almost all Vigors are equally good at everything.

Let's break it down.

1. Devil's Kiss. Primary use is as a grenade. This grenade does burst damage, damage over time, and stuns enemies. Secondary is a stationary land mine which inflicts stun, burst damage and damage over time.
2. Murder of Crows. Primary use is crowd control. The crows stun enemies and do damage over time. Secondary is a stationary land mine that releases crows, dealing damage over time and stunning enemies.
3. Shock Jockey. Primary use is a single-target stun and burst damage; can be upgraded to chain between multiple enemies, turning it into a crowd control ability. Secondary is a group of three stationary land mines which stun and deal burst damage.
4. Bucking Bronco. Primary use is a stun, and enemies can take damage when falling after the stun wears off. Secondary is a stationary land mine that inflicts a longer stun.
5. Undertow. Primary use is a stun with a knockback effect, also deals burst damage based on how far enemies are knocked back. Secondary disables a single enemy.
6. Return to Sender. Primary use is a shield that blocks gunfire. Secondary allows the player to absorb incoming fire and deploy it as a stationary land mine trap.
7. Charge. Primary charges at an enemy, closing distance quickly and dealing burst damage. Secondary allows the charge to be built up to inflict more damage.
8. Possession. Primary causes an enemy robot to fight for the player temporarily; can be upgraded to work on living targets. This is effectively a stun/crowd control ability, as one enemy is disabled and the others turn their attention towards it instead of the player. Secondary is a land mine that possesses the enemy that steps on it.

Notice a trend in all of these? Only Charge, Return to Sender and Possession are even remotely unique in their function; even so, they have a lot of mechanical overlap with the other powers. Some of them do require upgrades to gain that functionality, but effectively this reduces the uniqueness of these powers even more.

It is worth noting that there is no way to freeze enemies in Infinite to inflict a special "freeze" status stun. Furthermore, the stun effect applied by Vigors in Infinite is much more generic in that all stunned enemies, no matter what Vigor applied the effect to them, take double damage from weapons. This means that the key differentiating factor between most Vigors is whether they do damage over time or allow you to deal bonus damage via stun.

Vigors do have special environmental use. However, compared to the first BioShock, it is very limited. The two most common environmental uses for Vigors are Devil's Kiss, which allows the player to set fire to oil slicks (fairly rare) and Undertow, which lets the player fling enemies to their deaths (common, but only in the final 10% of the game). All other environmental effects, like Shock Jockey's ability to instantly kill enemies standing in water, are nearly non-existent; I don't think I saw a single place to use this effect in the entire game except for immediately after I gained Shock Jockey and a tutorial prompt instructed me to try this on some enemies.

What's more, the non-combat trade-offs to Vigors are completely absent. There are no places in the game where you can use Vigors to gain access to optional areas, except two: one which requires Shock Jockey and appears only once immediately after obtaining it as part of the plot, and another which requires Devil's Kiss (required) that appears late in the game. That's all. Even the number of times Vigors are used to open mandatory plot doors is very low, while in BioShock it was common to have to do this many times per level.

Furthermore, since the player can carry all Vigors at once and does not have to pick a specific load-out, there is no risk/reward, no trade-off in taking them, etc. Not that there is ever much of a reason to even switch, due to the extreme amount of overlap.

There is one thing about Vigors in BioShock Infinite that is better, and that is the fact that upgrades add additional functionality and also reduce the costs associated with them. This way you can get more out of a specific Vigor, effectively trading money for more salts, or more effectiveness, instead of needing to rely on Infusions to upgrade your Salt (mana) meter. But as mentioned, this also reduces the uniqueness of the Vigors and thus is still somewhat of a double-edged sword.

Enemy AI

Enemy AI in BioShock Infinite is extremely simplistic. Standard enemies appear to have two states. One is an idle state in which the player is not detected, and enemies simply stand in place or patrol. This happens until the enemies are alerted to the player (usually by the player stepping into their field of view or making a loud noise, or attacking them), in which case all enemies in an area will instantly be alerted to the player's exact presence and intent.

Alert (combat) state has enemies do one of two things. They either stand at a distance and periodically fire at the player while ducking in and out of cover, or they "wander" between cover points while periodically firing at the player. Enemies do not appear to use any sort of group tactics such as flanking, however, given that the player fights many enemies at once and they have a variety of weapons, this is often enough to keep the player occupied. The same can be said of suppressing fire. For example, an enemy who carries an RPG will fire it at the player incessantly, stopping only to reload, regardless of whether the player is; this creates a suppression-like effect, but it is not used intelligently. It appears, upon further observation, that enemies do not actually attempt to hunt down the player. Many enemies will stand in place doing nothing during combat, and many also do not take the opportunity to fire on the player when he/she is distracted.

Enemies only appear to use Sky Rails in scripted sequences. They will hook on to the Sky Rails, ride them to a destination, and then jump down to fight any nearby enemies. These enemies do not appear to ever get back on the Sky Rails, likely because their AI is incapable of actually doing this, and they only jump onto them as an entrance animation into a level (or possibly are spawned out of nowhere).

There are four unique "heavy" enemies in BioShock Infinite which appear to have some more interesting AI. However, their behaviors are still very simplistic and predictable, and they are only defined by their special properties and not so much any intelligent behaviors. Incidentally these are also the only enemies in the entire game who ever use Vigors, and even then they only use a very small number of them and in limited ways.

1. Fireman. The Fireman is a basic heavy enemy that is encountered frequently. Its main defining trait is a higher health pool and its ability to throw Devil's Kiss grenades at the player. When in melee range, it will perform melee attacks, and sometimes charge the player as well. When at low health it will attempt a "suicide run" and blow itself up as close to the player as possible.
2. Crow. The Crow is weaker than the Fireman. Its primary attack involves using the Murder of Crows ability, causing damage over time to the player. The Crow will turn invisible and hop from place to place, only betrayed by the moving swarm of crows which follow it as it moves.
3. Motorized Patriot. This large enemy is effectively a tank, as it has moderate to high damage output and a very large health bar. It is equipped with a Crank Gun. The Motorized Patriot has no significant AI behaviors. It simply walks towards the player in an attempt to establish line of sight, and then opens fire with its weapon. It repeats this until destroyed.
4. Handyman. The Handyman is a melee brute with the largest health pool in the entire game. It is very fast and attacks in melee using a number of strikes, some of which can cause a knockback effect to the player. The Handyman's most distinctive characteristic is its ability to jump long distances and follow the player almost anywhere. The Handyman holds the distinction among enemies as possibly being the only one capable of losing track of the player, requiring some time to re-acquire the target before pursuit. This is the player's only real advantage against the Handyman, as otherwise he would be too fast and too powerful to outrun or out-damage.

Aside from the Handyman, none of these enemies have any behaviors that could be described as remotely complex. Their biggest threat collectively is their high amount of health compared to other enemies and the limited effectiveness of Vigors on them, requiring the player to devote more time to kill them. Otherwise they do not present much challenge, especially if encountered alone.

BioShock, though it had significantly more limited enemy variety, actually had more interesting enemy abilities and behaviors. The standard Splicer enemies were numerous, but they would attack the player based on equipment and Plasmids they had equipped. For instance, some Splicers would only attack in melee using lead pipes, while those with guns would intentionally keep their distance and hang back. Some Splicers commanded Sentry Bots against the player, which could be hacked and turned against their owners; others had the Electro Bolt power, rendering them immune to electricity damage and allowing htem to use Electro Bolt in combat against the player; yet others had the Inferno power, making them immune to fire and allowing them to torch the player.

Of course, BioShock also had Big Daddies. Big Daddies were far more sophisticated creatures than others with more varied behaviors. For example, they could lose acquisition of the player. They could fire at range or they could charge in for melee attacks. They could use their powerful drills to deal immense damage close-up. They could throw grenades and proximity mines at the player at a distance to deny areas of the level to him/her.

What is especially lacking in BioShock Infinite is the "AI ecosystem" from the first game. Although dramatically stripped down from its initial intent, this "AI ecosystem" allowed the players to manipulate enemies into interesting behaviors. For example, the player could set traps near a Big Daddy, and when it triggered them, it would often assume that some nearby Splicers were responsible and not the player. If the player hacked Security Cameras or Turrets, these mechanized allies would acquire the Big Daddy's focus instead of the player, allowing indirect ways to take it out. It was even possible to use Possession on a Big Daddy and then bring it into battle so that enemy Splicers would kill it for the player. Though not necessarily complex, this allowed for a great deal of experimentation in combat which is completely lacking from Infinite's "guns and grenades" model.

Gear

In BioShock Infinite, Gear are modifiers that the player can equip in order to customize his or her play-style. Gear slots are fixed and finite, with only a set number of slots and only certain Gear able to fit into specific slots. For example, you can only wear one hat at one time, or one shirt, or one pair of pants.

Almost all Gear effects in Infinite are some variety of dealing additional damage to enemies. For example, one piece of Gear lets the player do fire damage when using a melee attack; another might give a chance of inflicting electric damage when shooting at an enemy. Other Gear has more subtle effects, like powering up critical hit damage or making enemies drop more ammunition. There are a few pieces of Gear which are interesting, like Ghost Posse, which has a chance of "reanimating" dropped weapons into temporary allies, but even so these are really nothing more than damage output modifiers.

By contrast, the original BioShock gave the player passive upgrades using items called Gene Tonics. Like Plasmids, Gene Tonics could only be equipped in limited numbers, and the player would have to choose which ones to take with him/her. Gene Tonics were effectively modifiers on play-style, allowing the player to open up new possibilities in combat (and non-combat situations), or make existing abilities and weapons more effective. Gene Tonics were different than Gear in that the number of Gene Tonic slots had to be upgraded, and there was no limit on which Gene Tonics could go in which slots, which inevitably did lead to a few overpowered builds due to the difficult in balancing such a thing.

However, Gene Tonics had overall far more interesting effects and required more thought in how you equipped them than Gear does. No more obvious is this in the Wrench Jockey line of Gene Tonics. The Wrench is the weakest weapon in the game, dealing less damage than anything else and having no functional range to it. However, with the correct Gene Tonics the player could actually be free of ammo management, by allowing the Wrench to do more damage, and perform special effects like freezing enemies. It was possible to, with the right selection of upgrades, defeat a Big Daddy entirely using the Wrench.

One other equally interesting example was the Natural Camouflage upgrade. This Gene Tonic effectively turned the player invisible while standing still. This Gene Tonic almost single-handedly made stealth a more viable option in BioShock and also allowed the player to spring ambushes, or direct attention towards hacked Turrets and Sentry Bots. When combined with the Wrench Lurker type powers it made the player a veritable assassin.

While arguably from a design perspective it might not have been the best idea to make the Wrench one of the more effective weapons in the game, or let the player bypass so much combat so easily, the trade-off is that the player at least had to create a character build that enabled that play-style, both through smart selection of Gene Tonics as well as purchasing the correct upgrades over time. Again, none of this is present at all in Infinite.

Health Mechanics

In BioShock, the player had a finite, upgradeable health bar which would only be replenished using health kits, using medical stations, or by eating food scattered around the environment. The player could carry up to 9 health kits at once, and use them at leisure to heal, either in combat or out of combat. Health kits were relatively rare compared to other items and often had to be purchased. Medical stations were somewhat rare devices placed on walls that allowed the player to pay money for healing, or alternately they could be destroyed to loot a portable health kit or two. Food only had limited healing properties, however, the abundance of food in the environment made it a viable alternative to other healing options when not in combat.

In BioShock Infinite, this system has remained somewhat the same. There are, however, a number of key departures:

1. The player cannot carry any portable health kits. All healing items are instant-use.
2. Medical stations have been removed, but the player can purchase instant-use health kits from Dollar Bill vending machines in combat.
3. Food items heal less than they did in BioShock, and are about half as effective.
4. Elizabeth will throw the player health kits when he/she gets low on health, provided Elizabeth's "cooldown" on item sharing has expired.
5. The player possesses a shield bar which, unlike the health bar, regenerates. The shield is at 50% of the health bar's size, but can be upgraded to reach 100% of its size. However, if health is fully upgraded then the shield still only maxes out at 50% of the health bar. Shields have a recharge period of about 3 seconds provided no further damage is inflicted on the player.

Immediately, it becomes obvious that these mechanics have been lifted largely from Halo, just like the "multiple grade types and two weapons" models seen above. The idea of a regenerating shield and a non-regenerating health bar is actually a fairly good one because it does not significantly punish the player for small mistakes, only for larger ones which actually break through the shield. This is especially suited to games intended to be played using a gamepad, as the more sluggish and imprecise controls available mean mistakes are easier to make, and the limited turning speed caused by analogue stick controls means the player requires more time to assess and evade threats.

The problem with Infinite is its implementation and the way the shield interacts with the way enemies cause damage, particularly in the interplay with the heavy enemies. Normally, the dual health and shield system works fairly well. Most of the time enemies aren't going to break through the player's shield, but if they do, it's not the end of the world and the player can usually recover thanks to health items placed in the environment and Elizabeth's frequent assistance. Enemies have hitscan weapons which makes avoiding damage extremely difficult overall, but most of the time the player will only die when surrounded and attacked in melee, or when an enemy with a powerful weapon like a Sniper Rifle or RPG appears, which is capable of breaking through the shield and thus exposing the player to enemy fire.

Unfortunately, heavy enemies upset this balance significantly. The most obvious example of this is the Handyman. The Handyman is capable of following the player everywhere, and he only attacks in melee range. The Handyman's melee strikes are so powerful that they are capable of almost instantly breaking through the player's shields. Furhtermore, the Handyman is very fast, requiring that the player sprint to avoid him and, hopefully, cause him to lose acquisition of the player.

However, Handymen are also always encountered with a battalion of other enemies at the ready. This presents a significant problem: when the player is constantly running from the Handyman, he/she cannot take the time to shoot at the regular enemies.However, the regular enemies can shoot back at the player. This means the player's shields are probably going to be constantly very low when fighting the Handyman, removing the "error buffer" that the shields provide. Because the Handyman moves so quickly and hits so hard, and is immune to most Vigor effects, actually trying to shoot back at the Handyman will almost always result in the player taking very significant damage. On the harder difficulty modes, this means that the player becomes almost entirely dependent on Elizabeth to provide health kits, as well as the Dollar Bill vending machines. Even so, these fights take an exceptionally long time to complete (easily 5-10 minutes or even more) and, since the Handyman will regain health when the player dies and respawns, this means the player will be constantly losing resources (money) for dying and on health kits and ammo, while making no progress.

In other words, these fights take a very long time, and the longer they go on for, the harder they get. On hard mode and "1999 mode" the Handyman fights reveal the distinct mechanical contradictions in combining unreliable healing, non-regenerating health, unavoidable hitscan weapons and enemies which have huge health bars and near-unavoidable attacks, as well as the player's inability to both spring and shoot at the same time. While standard combat is unchallenging enough for these to rarely be a problem, it becomes a serious concern when the game throws its toughest enemies at the player, sometimes many at once.

Summary

BioShock Infinite's combat mechanics are a strange amalgam of the original System Shock 2 and BioShock ideas with comparatively newer Halo-style ideas. However, these new ideas reduce the overall number of options the player has in combat, it makes the weapons and powers available to the player less interesting, it makes character builds far more generic and less interesting through limited Gear options, and it makes the player dependent on an unreliable health system in the form of Elizabeth and vending machines which cannot be directly managed much of the time.

What's worse, combat in BioShock Infinite is far removed from semi-tactical model employed in the first two BioShock games. The idea of preparing for combat encounters (such as Big Daddy fights) no longer exists. There is no room for experimentaiton in dealing with enemies, and the different enemies themselves do not require different tactics to take out; everything is some combination of stun/crowd control and direct damage. There is no way to sow chaos in the ranks, fight indirectly or use the environment against enemies. And unlike BioShock, combat abilities do not spill over, even in a limited way, into non-combat gameplay (of which there is almost none to begin with).

 

[ohWOW]

tl;dr it's shit and you basically can't die

 

[abija]

There is no way to sow chaos in the ranks, fight indirectly or use the environment against enemies.

That's really REALLY wrong or you have some weird notion for those terms. Hell even in the first combat sequence you can mind control enemies and use explosive props from the environment that kill enemies with wood shrapnel.
What exactly do you call having possessed enemies running around with shock on them, or undertowing targets in front of handymen or throwing enemies to their death. Not to mention all the really obvious environment traps that usually are created with tears.

And there's plenty of room for experimentation and quite varied ways to handle the enemies, you just didn't even try. Subsequently everything you write about handymen + other enemies fights is also wrong.

Question is, if you think a game is shit why do you feel the need to write a wall of text like that. And if you argue it's worth analyzing failures to see what goes wrong why the fuck don't you do it properly? Reload some levels, try to do some fights in a different way.
You get some first impressions (plenty of them wrong too) and then you start discussing like they're actual facts. Even more laughable when you talk balance with just your superficial understanding of the game, like in the weapon paragraph.

 

[sea]

That's really REALLY wrong or you have some weird notion for those terms. Hell even in the first combat sequence you can mind control enemies and use explosive props from the environment that kill enemies with wood shrapnel.
What exactly do you call having possessed enemies running around with shock on them, or undertowing targets in front of handymen or throwing enemies to their death. Not to mention all the really obvious environment traps that usually are created with tears.

The difference is that in BioShock Infinite, almost every power is simply a means of doing direct damage and stunning, only in slightly different ways. Possession is cool but it's the only option that you have available and it still mostly falls into the category of disable/crowd control. Furthermore you can't really use possession as a means of bypassing combat because it breaks the "stealth" state that you are in, and the effectiveness of possessed targets is artificially limited (just try possessing a Patriot and watch it do almost nothing but stand around and fire inaccurately at them).

You say like being able to shoot explosive barrels and set oil slicks on fire is some sort of amazing innovation even though Infinite features far less of this stuff than BioShock ever did. Did you even read what I wrote? I addressed this same point above.

And there's plenty of room for experimentation and quite varied ways to handle the enemies, you just didn't even try.

Please, list them all in more detail than I did. I expect you to cover all significant examples throughout the game, as I did.

Subsequently everything you write about handymen + other enemies fights is also wrong.

Logical fallacy; you have not demonstrated how one flaw in my argument (which you have not proven in the least) is linked to the other. You didn't even attempt to. Please, do so in detail.

Question is, if you think a game is shit why do you feel the need to write a wall of text like that. And if you argue it's worth analyzing failures to see what goes wrong why the fuck don't you do it properly? Reload some levels, try to do some fights in a different way.

I experimented extensively while playing. The above analysis is the result of my experimentation. Perhaps it is possible for different people to reach different conclusions, or for different people to have different standards for what constitutes depth in gameplay and extensiveness of available tactics and options?

You get some first impressions (plenty of them wrong too) and then you start discussing like they're actual facts. Even more laughable when you talk balance with just your superficial understanding of the game, like in the weapon paragraph.

As I said above, please go into detail on this. Tell me where I'm wrong, such as the details on the weapons. For example, are the Machine Gun and Repeater not basically just reskins with slightly different fire rate/damage ratios? Or do you mean that my conclusions about the Sniper Rifle being more powerful than everything else are off? Or that the "specialized" weapons like the Volley Gun aren't actually redundant with the crowd control Vigors? If so, why or why not?

You criticize me for not understanding the game and the mechanics and then you provide absolutely no examples whatsoever. How can I take anything you say seriously if you make no effort to do anything other than make shallow ad hominem attacks?

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Anyone saying this game is completely shit is lacking the ability to think in shades, or more probably a brain.

No I've just read more books and seen more movies that deliver more interesting stories than the average putz who rates Bioshock Infinite highly.

Even Star trek the next generation used the theme a lot of times, in 45 minute episodes, and they were more fleshed out the infinite.

 

[abija]

You say like being able to shoot explosive barrels and set oil slicks on fire is some sort of amazing innovation even though Infinite features far less of this stuff than BioShock ever did. Did you even read what I wrote? I addressed this same point above.

Did you read what you wrote? I even quoted it. Let me try again:

There is no room for experimentaiton in dealing with enemies, and the different enemies themselves do not require different tactics to take out; everything is some combination of stun/crowd control and direct damage. There is no way to sow chaos in the ranks, fight indirectly or use the environment against enemies.

Why are you suddenly talking about innovation or how much Bioshock used them or even stealth? You can dispose of majority of enemies using ONLY chaos in the ranks, indirect fighting and the environment.

Please, list them all in more detail than I did. I expect you to cover all significant examples throughout the game, as I did.

Some ways to handle enemies:
- chicken with sniper/carabine
- chicken with traps
- chicken abusing skylines
- possess and use the props provided in the arenas
- crowd control with vigor and finish with weapons + item effects
- cc and damage with vigors only
- melee using invulnerabilities/bonus damage from items and charge/undertow
For example the fight with the snipers in emporia which is quite a limited arena. You can shield and shoot them, you can tear a decoy and shoot them, you can tear a hook and get close, you can undertow all of them from cover and finish them off.

That's actually one of the biggest flaws of the game: it's structured like a chain of arenas carefully designed to allow varied gameplay. Which just gives the feeling you are in a theme park with carefuly arranged props not in a game world.

Also, you didn't cover the signifcant examples through the game, you mentioned some and all made me think you rushed through the game, that's how deep you "explored" them.

Logical fallacy; you have not demonstrated how one flaw in my argument (which you have not proven in the least) is linked to the other. You didn't even attempt to. Please, do so in detail.

For example you can drag enemies in front of handymens (or kite the handymen to them and posses them) and run which makes the handymen switch targets to that enemy while you're free to do other stuff for a while. And the arguments are linked because you just said there's no way you can do that.
And all handymen + X fights are in carefully setup artificial arenas that allow lots of choices.

I experimented extensively while playing. The above analysis is the result of my experimentation.

Then you just suck at it.

Or do you mean that my conclusions about the Sniper Rifle being more powerful than everything else are off? Or that the "specialized" weapons like the Volley Gun aren't actually redundant with the crowd control Vigors? If so, why or why not?

The part where you said the game forces you to use RPG/VG/Sniper is wrong because with the exception of the first gun all the weapons are good (or useless) depending on playstyle. You can complement weapons with vigors/items and all of them work. And VG isn't made redundant by CC vigors, they make it better since you can setup the targets for it.
And you complained about balance issues comparing a single target weapon versus two aoe weapons in single target scenarios. It just doesn't make any sense.

 

[DalekFlay]

The difference is that in BioShock Infinite, almost every power is simply a means of doing direct damage and stunning, only in slightly different ways. Possession is cool but it's the only option that you have available and it still mostly falls into the category of disable/crowd control. Furthermore you can't really use possession as a means of bypassing combat because it breaks the "stealth" state that you are in, and the effectiveness of possessed targets is artificially limited (just try possessing a Patriot and watch it do almost nothing but stand around and fire inaccurately at them).

You say like being able to shoot explosive barrels and set oil slicks on fire is some sort of amazing innovation even though Infinite features far less of this stuff than BioShock ever did. Did you even read what I wrote? I addressed this same point above.

I don't think anyone is claiming Infinite is some unique and innovative masterpiece in combat design. The problem in this thread, as I and others have pointed out consistently, is that for most people in here the game can either be amazing or shit, nothing in-between. And that's silly. You can list a ton of flaws in Infinite's combat, and so can I, but it's still good and fun compared to most everything else today. If you want BAD combat check out a modern Call of Duty game, where you literally use the same exact feeling weapons the whole game to click on heads while walking slowly down a 5 foot wide corridor. THAT is a game that uses cinematic spectacle to mask how utterly shit the combat is.

And if your response is "well flawed = shit why would I bother?" that's fine, but I have multiple answers: 1) because the world exploration is the real reason to play the game, and combat being decent fun is a way to spice up that exploration, and 2) because I want to play new games, not just replay my favorite games, and this new game is better than most other new games in the pure shooter genre, and 3) every game is flawed, even your favorite classics. If your priorities are different on #1 that's fine, I'm an admitted explorefag and feel no shame in it. I doubt your priorities are different on #2 though, since you played the game extensively in the first place. #3 is common sense. "Deus Ex is shit because the sword kills everything in one hit lololol."

I expected the combat to be decent but not amazing. I expected the story to be decent but not amazing. What I was saddened by was the linearity compared to Bioshock. That was a bummer.

 

[ohWOW]

World exploration? What exploration? Forced cutscenes and opening a closed room to find one audio book and an overpowered fancy hat (that somehow has power to set an enemy on fire) is called exploration novadays?

oh wait, it's just dalekflay defending another shit he likes, nevermind