Game Review: Bioshock Infinite

Whaddup my little cupcakes? It's the Awesomecake here, FINALLY bringing you another review.

I've been waiting to review Bioshock Infinite ever since it came out, but there were complications that meant I only got hold of it recently. Crying shames and sleepless nights aside, I can finally give my review for quite possibly my most anticipated game of 2013.

This review WILL contain spoilers. Not too major ones, but there are spoilers. You've been warned.

The First Hour

The first hour is somewhat slow, but it sets the scene perfectly. You are taken to the floating city of Columbia in search of a certain girl. The city's inhabitants have a strong religious following towards their leader, a man known as the Prophet, and they all seem to worship the “Lamb of the prophet”, who just so happens to be that girl you're after. Immediately it's clear that this game is nothing like the older two games. Instead of a dark, dingy underwater setting, you're on a bright, vibrant city. Instead of the only people there being crazy murderers who want to eat you, there are perfectly normal citizens living perfectly normal lives. At least as normal as living on a flying city gets.
You also see something I haven't seen for a long time in a video game. Political accuracy. You see black people, and Irish immigrants being treated like dirt. Right at the start of the game, you win a raffle of some sort, are handed a baseball, and get to choose between throwing that ball at a couple in shackles, one white and one white, who are there for being an interracial couple, or the guy who hands you the ball. Naturally I threw it at the guy who gave me the ball. Or tried to at least. This is very accurate to how people were treated in that time period. Most games avoid any kind of racism, but it's a crucial plot point in Infinite. I love how they dared to do, and it payed off in spades. Many people criticize the game for being overtly racist, but I just see it as being incredibly accurate, and very well placed.
You get to grips with using weapons and Vigors (This games version of Plasmids) pretty quickly, but the Vigor you start out with is pretty useless in combat. You also get to play with the Skyhook, and new tool used to glide around Columbia's plentiful sky rails. My only real qualm at the early stage was that there is slightly different sensitivities for the X and Y axis (On the Xbox at least), and you can't change it. Took me a whole to get used to that, but it becomes tolerable.

The Story

The game has a pretty good story. For some mostly unknown reason, you have to find a girl, Elizabeth, and she happens to have these strange powers, involving “Tears” in space-time. As soon as you arrive in Columbia, it's like they expected you, and you are thrown into a battle against just about everyone. You are named as the “False Sheppard”, and for some reason, just about every living thing except Elizabeth wants you gone. It builds up to the finale quickly, and always keeps you guessing. The locations you visit, characters you meet and history you find out about is great, and it works very well. The story behind Elizabeth is well presented, and works well with the game.
Now then. The ending... (Because that's where the good stuff is)
I never thought any game could beat the ending of the first Bioshock. But then again, when you look back, the actual end was pretty silly. Fighting some bulky Red Hulk-like dude jacked on seaweed steroids showed that they almost didn't know what to do with the end, and just thought “screw it”. The gold lays in the “Would you kindly” twist. It was a work of pure genius, and almost made me facepalm at how glaringly obvious it was when you looked back.
It would be only normal for you to assume Infinite has a twist like the first game. Does it? Kind of. Is it as good? I didn't think so. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a good ending. In fact, It's possibly the best ending to a game I've ever seen. The thought that went into it was incredible, and everything falls neatly into place. But at the same time, questions are left open, and at one point, it even had me raising questions about the past Bioshock games. I couldn't even begin to describe the ending either, so don't worry about any spoilers there, just know that it's well worth it. I also recommend playing the first two games before Infinite. They have nothing to do with Infinite in any way, but when you watch the ending, if you have a good understanding of the events in 1 and 2, you can appreciate it just that little bit more.

The Gameplay

For what it is, the gameplay is pretty solid. It doesn't excel at much when you separate the individual parts of the game on their own. The shooting is kind of clunky, and there aren't many guns. Getting upgrades for said guns is a pain, and the enemies scale to a point where it doesn't feel like it was even worth the money. The Vigors aren't really too interesting, and the graphics, or more specifically, the rather low-res textures, aren't the best around. Even the story telling isn't as good as it could have been.
The Skyhook is a great toy to play with, but can get annoying sometimes as it does travel quite quickly. There are quite a few guns in reality, but they all felt similar, and some of them you didn't even need to use, so they seemed for the most part, useless. The upgrade system was expensive, and it didn't feel like it was much help upgrading them in the late part of the game. The Vigors are unique when compared to the Plasmids from the first two games, but lacking and limited. Perhaps if they had have added more in, or allowed for more upgrades, I would have used them more. Although, that being said, I did love using the one that makes you fly at an enemy with the Skyhook and bat them off the edge of Columbia.
That doesn't mean it isn't good though. Everything melds together wonderfully. Yes, there are some improvements to be made, but that almost adds to the charm of the game. Somehow, the developers have managed to make it not look like a Bioshock game, not make it feel like a Bioshock game, but yet, it's unmistakably a Bioshock game. It's hard to explain, but you'll understand if you play it.

The Graphics

The graphics aren't too great. The art style is something along the lines of an old cartoon that's been given an ultra-modern 3D HD remake. That being said, it works, because it fits with the retro-future style look of the game, which is something the first two Bioshocks were hailed for. The lighting engine is great, but it does feel at times – especially the start of the game – like they forced a lot of the lens flare effects and beams of light everywhere as if to make a statement of “Look! It's not underwater and dark and dingy anymore! Have some more light!”
There comes a problem with the textures at some points. There are quite a few things in game that look really low-res. I played on Console, so I don't know if the PC version has better textures. At some points I tried to look at something that seemed interesting, but it was impossible to read thanks to the low resolution of the textures. A shame really.
Other than that, it's a sound looking game, with pretty good graphics overall. The Vigor effects look cool and the city is downright beautiful. There isn't really much to complain about past the textures.

The Sound

One of the best parts about the older Bioshock games, was the retro music from the 1960s. In Infinite, you hear more retro music, but there's also a few little Easter Eggs that come with it. You see some strange red Tears sometimes, and if you get close, you can hear modern day music though them. The idea of hearing modern music though the Tears also plays  apart in the backstory, with one of the characters taking ideas from the music they hear, and creating retro songs based on their modern equivalents. These songs are well made, and sound great.
The music for the game is actually somewhat lacking. There isn't much that plays, and it only really plays at key moments. The sound effects, however, are great. You get a great feeling of ambience and immersion, and the little comments that the characters make all add to the effect. Even things like Elizabeth walking to a desk and making a quiet intrigued sound is great, because it gets your attention, and you usually find something in turn as a reward.

The Experience

I must say that I was incredibly disappointed. When we first saw the gameplay for Infinite, there was a lot more things going on. Massive scale battles against all kinds of things, including blimps that would come if you let enemies call for backup. There was a lot more interaction with Elizabeth. There were different Vigors to use, and you even had points where Elizabeth would combine her powers with yours, like make it rain and you shock it to kill enemies, or she would create a big flaming ball of pain and you would lob it at people. The environment was more destructible, or, at least, more prone to being destroyed in scripted events. I even think the HUD from the 15 minute gameplay from E3 looked better than it does in the final product. I absolutely loved the look of THAT game, but this one seems completely different. Almost like what we got to play was an early version, and that the game we saw at E3 was the final version. This backwards effect it took almost killed the whole game for me, because I was so excited to play through those parts of the game. I think the game would have been thousands of times better if they had have kept elements from those gameplay videos in. Especially the idea of Elizabeth using her powers in combination with yours. I recommend you give a quick search for the E3 10 and 15 minute gameplays shown in 2010 and 2011, and see what I mean.
With all that being said, the game is superb. I don't know how or why, but when everything comes together, it really feels like a Bioshock game. But at the same time, it doesn't feel anything like a Bioshock game. It's hard to explain, but the blend of everything just works flawlessly. The interaction between the characters never has a moment of silence, and you really feel like you're playing out a movie of some kind. The interaction between Booker and Elizabeth is great, and never feels like it's too much or overdone. I love the accuracy of the politics when it comes to the black and Irish people in the game. The developers braved to dance all over a very taboo subject, and it paid off for them. Perhaps in future games they will be a lot more daring to challenge taboo subjects from now on, following Infinites fine example.
Overall, the experience was brilliant. Everything blended together perfectly to make a near flawless game. Yes, it was lacking in a good number of things, but that hardly matters when you consider the bigger picture.

The Cake

A while ago I called Tomb Raider as being the best game I have played on the current generation, period. Bioshock Infinite is a game I've looked forward to ever since its announcement, and it lived far beyond my expectations. Does it beat Tomb Raider? Yes and no. Tomb Raider will hold the crown of best game on this generation indefinitely. At least for me. But it does win the crown for best FPS of this generation, knocking Portal 2 off of its very high pedestal.
The refined mechanics of a perfectly sound system let you walk through a new, vibrant world fans weren't expecting. On top of this, an incredibly well thought out story binds it all together in a neat package. While lacking in some respects, its masterful storytelling and fun gameplay give it a strong throne to sit upon.
I'm awarding Bioshock Infinite 6 slices of cake. The shortness and limitations, and lack of elements from the original gameplay shown at E3 were its reason for losing the 7th slice, but if I allowed myself, I'd give it another half in a heartbeat. No one cuts slices of cake in half though. Nobody. That'd just get weird.

The Future

Honestly, after the ending of the game, I don't see any sequels being anywhere near as good. A follow up story would be great, or one diving deeper into the idea of the Tears, but I don't see any of them being able to hold to the same standard. Then again, I didn't think they could beat the ending of Bioshock 1, and they did. Ideally, I'd like to see another story set in a completely different place. Perhaps some sort of underground city using lava as power sources. Perhaps some kind of moon base. Perhaps even a story set in the far future. I'm not sure how they would work in the “Retro Future” look into any other locations, but whatever they do I'm sure it'll be great.
Personally, if they want to use the same setting, I'd want to see them make a game where you play out the story from the original gameplay videos, and the story intertwines with the original Infinite at some points though the Tears. I just really wish they had taken the elements from those original videos, because the version we got to play feels like a stripped down version of those. Who knows, with the ending, that idea is more than possible. That's all I say on that.

Bioshock Infinite was well worth the wait. It's fast paced, great fun, and will remain a timeless classic in my heart.  I do want to stress though, that you can far better appreciate the game if you play the other two games first. Just sayin'.

Thanks for being patient for the long wait between my last review and this one. I do apologise. Anyways, I'm off. I hope my princess isn't in another castle again.