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

[cvv]

Good, Angry Joe didn't disappoint this time, this guy is hillarious AND spot on most of the times. Now and then he tends to wax lyrical about stupid shit like DmC or Revengeance but generally has a good taste.

I frankly expected he'd join the herd here and slap Infinite with 11/10 but I'm mostly happy with what he has to say.

http://youtu.be/g15hfTHNdTg

 

[Shadenuat]

Installing
I know I should be fair and unbiased, and it's a good thing to just take a game for what it is, but even looking at setup window I can't shake that aftertaste from all the pointless and sugary reviews I have been influenced by... I already has that ball of hate growing inside me. Why, gaming journalism? Why do you make us so bitter?

 

[ohWOW]

Seriously guys, could someone who actually finished the game post more detailed impressions, about the combat, difficulty, level design?

It's shit. Game is easy as fuck on hard, 1999 mode adds only hp-bloats, levels are banal-shit-boring. They're a tourist trips where they force you to look at "2deep4u" landscapes with "loads of commentary", listen to radio broadcasts (that give you texts on the botton of the screen, even after you turn radio off Environments are artifical and unresponsive. World is filled by statists called "MALE CITIZEN 1" "FEMALE CITIZEN 2" "FOUNDER SOLDIER 2" "POLICEMAN 1" with shit animations and lazy execution (mentioned copy-pasted workers with disorted arms). Sometimes you get to a closed combat area, where you sit behind the cover and do headshots from carbine, eventually RPG-rape hp-bloats. You don't have to use vigors, but they're overpowered as fuck. Your bottom bitch can call you a free turret or 5 med-packs quantum theory space magic. Sometimes you find an overpowered as fuck fancy uniform, that gives you +25% bonus damage or sets enemy in fire from melee attacks
90% shitty and pretentious sightseeing and cutsenes, 9% shit combat, 1% "witty" space magic dialogues.

 

[DalekFlay]

Had a slight desire to replay the game knowing ending revelations. Figured I would try 1999 mode. The HP bloat was immediately annoying... not more difficult, just more annoying. Fuck that shit, will save a replay for years down the road. Uninstalled.

 

[chestburster]

Seriously guys, could someone who actually finished the game post more detailed impressions, about the combat, difficulty, level design? I don't give a fuck about the story, I wanna know if it's got fun mechanics and shootan'.

It's a popamole shooter. I got bored after 2 hours. And I even like popamole shooting to an extent.

You want to play a pure shooter with fun mechanics, go play Crysis 3.

 

[abija]

I seriously don't understand the hp bloat complaints about 1999 mode. Enemies at the start of Borderlands 2 eat more bullets than most enemies in 1999.
Are you going spray and pray or what? Weapons are precise as fuck and it's super easy to hit critical parts or abuse spells.

90% shitty and pretentious sightseeing and cutsenes, 9% shit combat, 1% "witty" space magic dialogues.

Gz, you're just as bad as the journalists giving 10/10 in an orgasmic consensus.

 

[pocahaunted]

Biorails: Infinite is mediocre at best. It fails as a game, but succeeds fairly well as an interactive story due to its somewhat decent artistry (for the medium's status quo, that is) and imagery.

I'd rather play Doom, beyond the first playthrough.

 

[DalekFlay]

I seriously don't understand the hp bloat complaints about 1999 mode. Enemies at the start of Borderlands 2 eat more bullets than most enemies in 1999.
Are you going spray and pray or what? Weapons are precise as fuck and it's super easy to hit critical parts or abuse spells.

Why do you assume I like Borderlands?

One of my biggest pet peeves in shooters (or any action game really) is hard modes that just make you hit the enemy more. It's not harder to me, just more annoying. I'm not saying it's worthless, if you enjoy it good for you, but I would rather just play on normal as they intended and avoid the bloat.

Real hard modes for me are things like Thief's extra missions or New Vegas' added survival aspects, not "enemy HP doubled, your damage halved."

 

[abija]

But if you aim properly enemies in 1999 drop like flies. Only armored humanoids (which you can 1 shot basically with possess anyway) and automatons take longer to kill.
I don't understand what people expect, to swing the mouse with the machinegun and everything touched by a bullet to drop dead?

 

[cvv]

I don't remember anymore, was there even such a thing as difficulty options in the old shooters? Like Doom, Half-Life and such? Seem to recall the last level in Doom was hard as fuck and no way to tone it down. But I may be wrong.

 

[skacky]

Uh yeah, there were. Doom on Nightmare is, as the title says, a real nightmare.

 

[Heresiarch]

Seriously, I hate the combat. In 1999, even the lowest goons are way too lethal for me to stay in the open even for 2 seconds. In 90% of the combat the only way to win without getting myself killed for 2+ times is to run to a room or corridor with a bottleneck and shoot anything that pops into eyesight, or snipe enemies behind weird places like the gaps between furnitures. Despite most of the times the arena is quite big, you can't really use the environment and go guerrilla warfare because running out in the open with 8+ guns on you is suicide.

What annoy me most is those elite enemies. They're all fucking bullet sponges. Most of the times it's just shock -> run down a whole clip -> shock again -> another whole clip again to kill one of the elites.

Now I know what REALLY annoyed me. It's that the combat variety is too little. I'm only around 50% in the game (btw, the game isn't THAT short) yet all the 4 spells I got are some tiny (sometimes no) damage + vulnerable status + crowd control. All the elites I've seen so far are just bullet sponges that the only way to win is to kill it before it kills me. Combined together, it makes all the fights just crowd control -> unloading clips -> crowd control -> repeat.

The only thing that makes me like the game is the storytelling. Sure, it's not unlike watching a cliched Disney movie for adults, but the way you interact with the world and sweeeet Elizabeth is nice.

 

[DalekFlay]

But if you aim properly enemies in 1999 drop like flies. Only armored humanoids (which you can 1 shot basically with possess anyway) and automatons take longer to kill.
I don't understand what people expect, to swing the mouse with the machinegun and everything touched by a bullet to drop dead?

Well cool for you Mr. Constant Headshot, I'm happy you enjoy modes that double enemy HP. It's just not what I am looking for in a "hard mode." What I expected was actually just what I got, but what I wanted was a hard mode more about added restrictions or requirements to succeed, not bloated HP bars that require constant headshots or endless rounds to circumvent.

 

[DalekFlay]

Seriously, I hate the combat. In 1999, even the lowest goons are way too lethal for me to stay in the open even for 2 seconds. In 90% of the combat the only way to win without getting myself killed for 2+ times is to run to a room or corridor with a bottleneck and shoot anything that pops into eyesight, or snipe enemies behind weird places like the gaps between furnitures. Despite most of the times the arena is quite big, you can't really use the environment and go guerrilla warfare because running out in the open with 8+ guns on you is suicide.

You need to switch to normal, bro. Combat is much more fun, you don't have to hide and wait for your shield to pop back up, you can run around using plasmids and jumping from skyline to skyline killing fools. It's actually a good experience.

What annoy me most is those elite enemies. They're all fucking bullet sponges. Most of the times it's just shock -> run down a whole clip -> shock again -> another whole clip again to kill one of the elites.

Even on normal the rocket launcher dudes toward the end took 3-4 headshots with my sniper rifle to kill, which was stupid. The robots took a ton of shotgun shells too, even right to the gears which are their weak points. Don't even get me started on the faux big daddies... endless rounds, even to their weak points, and this is again in normal mode.

 

[abija]

Well cool for you Mr. Constant Headshot, I'm happy you enjoy modes that double enemy HP. It's just not what I am looking for in a "hard mode." What I expected was actually just what I got, but what I wanted was a hard mode more about added restrictions or requirements to succeed, not bloated HP bars that require constant headshots or endless rounds to circumvent.

First of all, it's a shooter, aiming better is the most natural requirement.
And secondly you're given an alternative. My aim is seriously tilting towards bad, but the spells (and even item bonuses) makes headshoting just a matter of aiming carefully.

If the game was properly hard like 1999 was advertised, it would have required both good aim and spell usage and some proper abuse of the locations on top.

 

[DalekFlay]

First of all, it's a shooter, aiming better is the most natural requirement.
And secondly you're given an alternative. My aim is seriously tilting towards bad, but the spells (and even item bonuses) makes headshoting just a matter of aiming carefully.

If the game was properly hard like 1999 was advertised, it would have required both and some proper abuse of the locations on top.

I'm not sure what you want me to say here. Yes I can headshot, I was doing it constantly with the sniper and carbine in normal mode. No I cannot always headshot, sometimes they move too fast, are too close, I miss, whatever. There are also a ton of enemies who on normal mode are bullet sponges, even to the head or other weakpoint, and I can't imagine them in 1999 mode.

I just don't want to deal with it. Having to shoot the enemies more is never something I enjoy, it's not about tactics or being more difficult, it is solely about the added annoyance of having to shoot the enemy more times and hide more often from damage.

The hard modes I enjoy are ones that add objectives, add extra requirements or remove assistance. In Bioshock I turned off vita chambers, item glow and the arrow guide... yay! Enemies take five headshots to kill rather than three? Boo! Pretty simple.

 

[DeepOcean]

HP bloat only makes you waste more time on a fight, if I can hide behind cover and the enemy is too dumb to try to flank me , there is no difference between get out of cover and hit the enemy 2 times or get out of the cover and hit the enemy 4 times. It is just a lazy way to add difficulty, most developers don't want the work necessary to balance a truly hard mode. The impossible mode on System Shock 2 was a complete different experience in comparison with the other difficulty modes, most enemies were still easy to kill, 2 grenades from the granade launcher and a few shots from the assault rifle could easily do the job, the problem was finding the ammunition for them. They had to carefully calculate how much ammunition, health hypos, maintenance tools to add, too much and the game is too easy, too little and it is impossible. Ken Lavine wasted most of the development time thinking in ways to make the Elizabeth waifu more compeling than thinking in the game mechanics, he is just ashamed of making video games and want to prove that video games are art and have a deeper meaning.

The only thing that matters on system shock 2 is to survive, the only thing that matters on Bioshock Infinity is to watch the work of a whole team of artists that animated and modeled Elizabeth. System Shock 2 was about your experience, Bioshock Infinite can be a fun popamole shooter but it is about Irrational Games ego massage, you are there to watch them circle jerking and nothing more.

 

[Kaspar Hauser]

It feels like whoever was in charge of game design said "fuck it!" and left.

I mean why distribute items randomly that can totally break your game balance?
Why have a checkpoint system and not show the damned checkpoints ingame?

On a different note: Am I the only one who thinks Elizabeth looks a bit like Lisa Cuddy? ahem...

 

[DalekFlay]

Why have a checkpoint system and not show the damned checkpoints ingame?

What do you mean? It says "saving" in the top right corner when it checkpoints.

 

[abija]

The enemies can flank you, still pretty irrelevant to the point.
Yes, 1999 is not SS2 impossible mode, not even close. But complaining about hp bloat I just don't understand. What now, Quake 1 had hp bloat because you had to shoot an enemy more than once?

 

[DeepOcean]

The enemies can flank you, still pretty irrelevant to the point.
Yes, 1999 is not SS2 impossible mode, not even close. But complaining about hp bloat I just don't understand. What now, Quake 1 had hp bloat because you had to shoot an enemy more than once?

HP Bloat:
Normal mode:The enemy has no real chance of killing you and you kill them with 2 shots.
Hard mode: The enemy still has no real chance of killing you and you kill them with 4 shots.

 

[Kaspar Hauser]

What do you mean? It says "saving" in the top right corner when it checkpoints.

Sure, the game tells me when I reach a checkpoint. But it doesn't show me before where those checkpoints are. Makes progression feel arbitrary.

 

[abija]

The enemies can flank you, still pretty irrelevant to the point.
Yes, 1999 is not SS2 impossible mode, not even close. But complaining about hp bloat I just don't understand. What now, Quake 1 had hp bloat because you had to shoot an enemy more than once?

HP Bloat:
Normal mode:The enemy has no real chance of killing you and you kill them with 2 shots.
Hard mode: The enemy still has no real chance of killing you and you kill them with 4 shots.

That would make sense if 90% of the enemies wouldn't die in a headshot. Pretty sure their accuracy and damage scales a lot more than their hp. The biggest impact is your survivability going down.
Have you finished 1999 without dying to say they have no real chance to kill you?

 

[DalekFlay]

That would make sense if 90% of the enemies wouldn't die in a headshot. Pretty sure their accuracy and damage scales a lot more than their hp. The biggest impact is your survivability going down.
Have you finished 1999 without dying to say they have no real chance to kill you?

Okay 1999 mode has no HP bloat, is amazing and just like playing a game in 1999, and I suck at shooters. Happy?

 

[garren]

Ok, installed the game because of all the praise it got.

Let's see, press any key to start.. why? Just put me into the damn main menu. Fiddling with settings a bit. Bringing up a different submenu screen plays a lengthy cutscene, sigh. Fov slider to the max. Time to test out the game a bit.

Ok fov still to low, time to quit, open google to show me where the .ini files are and fiddle with them, at least they give you the chance to do that. Removing all the lengthy intro movies at the start of the game while I'm at it. Reboot the game, start new game and get off the boat, ok fov much better now, fine-tune it to my liking.

Can't jump off the pier, invisible wall. If you crouch or sprint, the game locks you to those states instead of stopping that when you don't press the key anymore, can't find a way to change that, ah well. Mouse sensitivity changes when you sprint, who the hell thought that was a good idea? Play a bit more, get to the skycity. Kinda annoying how the game takes control of your camera and forces you to look at shit, when I can control my mouse myself thank you very much.

Holy shit this game is BRIGHT. Lower the gamma and disable sun rays or whatever they're called, better but still kinda bright. I dunno, the game has some sorta hazy whiteness permeating it when walking around the skycity. Dunno how to disable the bloom. Annoying. Aaand that's how far I've gotten so far.

Initial impressions: not good.