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.
While many of your foes are of the gun-wielding human variety, the most notable of them have thematic ties to the world they inhabit. Plodding George Washington automatons threaten you with their chainguns, and the best way to bring them down is to aim at the gears that protrude from their backs. The way Columbian flags are draped behind these grotesqueries makes them look like dead-eyed angels of death, a perfect metaphor for the city's faith-driven nationalism. Surprisingly agile mechanical heavies may not be such obvious metaphors, but are more subtle reminders of the the men bound by these skeletons of metal and the factory owner unmoved by his slaves' pleas for a better life. You often face these enemies in outdoor arenas that have you on the move in ways the first two BioShock games never required.
Such battlegrounds are given life by the Skyline railway system that winds through and around them. With the press of a button, you can latch onto a rail with an implement that functions as both a melee weapon and a Skyline hook. Enemies come at you from above and below, and sometimes even from airships that float into range, forcing you to grind the rails to get to higher ground, make a quick escape, or close the distance between you and a pesky sniper. You can leap from a rail and onto one of Comstock's faithful, skewering him before leaping back onto the Skyline and landing on the deck of an airship crowded with soldiers. It's rewarding to fling fire and blast enemies with shotguns as you zip about the hovering platforms, as if you are a vicious circus acrobat performing a murderous trapeze act.
Elizabeth is usually at your side throughout such acrobatics, staying out of combat proper while offering you support. She occasionally tosses a health pack your way, or some salts, which power your vigors in the way EVE powered BioShock's plasmids. As far as AI companions go, she's a fine one, rarely getting in the way, running ahead to indicate the proper direction, and unlocking doors and safes with the lockpicks you find scattered about. Things can still go a bit awry: Elizabeth might not make it into an elevator with you, for instance, leaving you to have a scripted, one-sided conversation. But such discrepancies are rare, and little touches, such as how Elizabeth exhibits curiosity in the world around her, tend to overshadow them.
Elizabeth has one other important role to play: by accessing tears in spacetime, she can pull helpful objects into the battlefield, such as hovering security turrets, boxes of health packs, ledges with hooks to leap onto, and so forth. Such objects appear in the environment as if covered with television static, and you bring them into being by holding a button. This system is a contrived handling of one of the game's important narrative conceits, an intriguing element awkwardly translated into gameplay. Yet these tears also give battles an extra sense of unpredictability, or provide important defensive elements when you most need them. That isn't to say that BioShock Infinite is punishing: when you die, Elizabeth revives you, remaining enemies gain a little health back, and you lose a little coin from your pocket.
The combat does exhibit a wonderful sense of growth, however. You find various clothing items that grant you additional passive buffs, such as turning enemies you leap on into human torches. You spend the coins you pilfer from corpses and cash registers on vigor and weapon upgrades, though you ultimately must pick and choose the direction you prefer, since you can't afford every possibility. Should you run out of ammo and use a weapon you haven't upgraded, the difference is notable: suddenly you're facing a challenge you may not have expected. The final combat sequence gets frustrating should you be pushed into using weaker weaponry; it's the only battle in which BioShock Infinite's stellar gameplay doesn't come together. Fortunately, the astounding narrative payoff is more than a proper reward for triumphing over this visually remarkable assault.
BioShock Infinite's combat is more freewheeling and fun than in the other games in the series, but its world is no less intriguing to explore. Secret codes yearn to be broken, and exquisitely crafted gardens and museums cry out for greater scrutiny. This is a game just as much about "place" as it is about "play," and audiovisual touches invoke nostalgia for the original BioShock in effective ways. There's that telltale mechanical tinkling of the vending machines that sell ammo and upgrades. There's the lure of loot, inspiring you to plunder every trash can and every lifeless body. Then there are the old-timey videos introducing each vigor, the sound scratching as if played on an ancient phonograph. Each element draws you further into Columbia--this place that so horrifyingly mirrors parts of our own reality that you could never call BioShock Infinite escapist entertainment. Some annoying texture pop-in and screen tearing are the culprits mostly likely to disturb the captivation.
BioShock Infinite could make you feel uncomfortable. If you adhere to religious faith, or celebrate American idealism, this game may invite introspection or even anger. BioShock Infinite isn't afraid to magnify the way religious and racial extremism inform our culture and change lives. It isn't afraid to depict a less-than-holy trinity diseased by power, deception, and manipulation. As the story circles back on itself, you're left wondering whether redemption cleanses us of our atrocities, or simply invites us to commit greater ones. Once the finale comes, you will want to play again, watching each event and image through the lens of information you can never un-know. BioShock Infinite is more than just a quality game: it's an important one.
Discussion
great now i cannot know when a game has a superb original score or great boss fights want emblems back
I don't think it was the 10/10 flawless 'jesus game' everyone was touting it to be (that title goes to Dwarf Fortress), but it really was entertaining.
Creds to Kevin V for delivering yet another fantastic review. Bioshock Infinite easily one of the best games of the generation. I would personally give it a 9.5/10
GameSpot, why did you remove the metacritic score from your reviews? One of the main reasons I started using GS was because I could get three "opinions" on games, from you, other users and the internet! Bring it back, pwease!
Tom's review was just awful in every regard. I would be fine if he gave the game a 6 or a 7, because I understand that not everybody will enjoy the game. HOWEVER, a 4 is just unacceptable and unheard of for a game like Infinite that received endless praise from the critics and fans. Irrational put a lot of hard work into this game and Tom just bashed it for unimportant reasons.
Thank God. It was totally unnecessary for Tom's review to be put up at all. Gamespot has never in the history of it's site that I've been reading put up a revisted review. It was absolutely an opinion piece but wasn't displayed as such. Oh, plus he tries to compare the trauma of massacring hundreds of innocent civilians at Wounded Knee to fighting off an onslaught of antagonistic attackers bent on killing him and the woman he's charged to protect. Points lost for once again not having any insight at all towards a character (He made an ignorant distinction towards Joel from the Last of Us after his review).
Thank god they fixed it.. it was 4 when i last saw the rating LOL
okay I cant take it ever video same add over and over and over and over... bye gamespot
This game is better than part 2, more bosses, helpful companion and excellent graphics. A must have
Just completed the game, I personally would give it a 10\10, the only critique that i could made is that the difficulty is not great (but i corrected that by playing on Hard) and sometimes you feel like the games forces you to use certain weapons ( it could have something like ammo boxes to give you more options), other than that an occasional quirk... this game is just amazing, the story is great and the ending makes sense because there are subtil signs that point to the big revelation! Just a wonderfull game and a wonderfull experience...
Similar concept was explored in the movie Mr. Nobody
Story - mindfuck
Gameplay - been there, done that.
Apart from visuals this game is nothing special.
7/10
The current generation of gamers has no idea what a good game is because their attention spans are too short. FPS games have hyped them up into an action attitude. A good game has good and fun mechanics, great visuals, superior audio, exceptional voice acting, and a divine storyline. A great game should make you feel as if you are the protagonist and you are living in that universe. This is what movies and music cannot give us, and this is why video gaming is the most beautiful art-form. It allows us to live in another world and make choices in it; it's an art-form with an action-reaction relationship to the user. I believe Bioshock: Infinite has all of these qualities. Anything negative found within this game is far overcompensated by the positives, which are extraordinary in every regard. If you did not enjoy this game, you were not playing it the way it was meant to be played, as an adventure in another universe.
Oddly this game just couldn't capture my attention. Loved 1-2 but this one felt like I had to force myself to play any further. Combat is very bland and repetitive. Gorgeous landscapes and a decent story were the best part of this game. Everything else seemed water-downed and felt like a chore to continue on. A 7.0 game imho.
"BioShock Infinite is a stupendous game, portraying a beautiful and broken city that will absorb your every waking thought." I so wish this was true. I waited until I got a half price copy for PS3 to play it. Spent last weekend in it and all I can say is "meh"... its ok, its about as good as Dishonored I guess. I mean ok I havnt seen the apparently "amazing" ending, but if the game doesnt get more exciting, then I dont think I will. The world is good, but sooo linear, the graphics are ok. Im not blown away by the story, I mean "father comstock" not exactly imagination plus on the names etc... All in all... overated for me.
This game is fun.. I played through the trial for PS+ members and liked it it.. though they should have had a mini-map on screen pointing in the general direction of where your suppose to go.. i kept getting lost and didn't know where to go..only what to do. a mini map pointing where to go would have fixed this.. or some kind of arrow pointing in the general direction would have been nice. so that way you can explore the city but know where to go when you wanna get back to the story.
I'm one hour in the game, it looks amazing, but I miss Big Daddy and the Girls:)
Don't buy this game, save your money... it's absolute shit. You wander around boring maps shooting boring dudes with boring guns, taking down airships gets old after the first time you do it, and killing the big hings that charge at you is more tedious then fun, I got bored half way through, could care less about the story, I just found it to stagnate half way through, and I really didn't care what might happen next.
I'll post this here, I already posted it on the PS3 version for those looking to buy the game but don't know which version to get if you have both consoles and aren't getting it on PC.
"Here's some news that I just figured out, some unfortunate news. If you have a home theater system, but not one that goes above simply Dolby Digital (look on the back of the case for this sign http://worldofphones.net/microsoft-will-include-dolby-digital-plus-tech-in-windows-8-after-all/) such as DTS Dolby Surround, but want the full effect of immersion from a sound perspective, do not buy the PS3 version.
I went to go buy it earlier on 360, and they didn't have it other than some used copies (which I refuse to get), so I opted for the PS3 version instead. The game, as far as I've been playing just didn't sound all that great, but I brushed it off as just how the game sounds; underwhelming, but just now, after a few hours of play, I figured out the game doesn't support Dolby Digital by checking my home theater system, and the case out of instinct, but the 360 version does.
I am so disappointed now. Every game this generation should support Dolby Digital, not lower (Dolby Pro Logic II), or higher without Dolby Digital. This really ruins the immersion for me, and once I found this out, I was so frustrated I turned the game off, and now I'm here. Some may see that as kind of petty, but it really ruins it for me."
http://cheezburger.com/7172848384
Looks great. great review
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
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
@Lacarus Scroll to the top of the page... you are in the review section, you must choose the tab "Bioshock Infinite", the three scores including metacritic are in the upper right corner.
@XboxGuy1537 If I were to freely express what I think about Tom I'd probably be banned from this site, so I'll restrain myself. Simply put I think he's a useless member of the staff here. He can't review a game objectively if it could save his life. I would visit this site more often if he weren't employed here.
@XboxGuy1537 Why? It's his opinion. You can agree with it or disagree with it, but he is entitled to it, and if he's asked to post a review on the game, would you rather he pander to the opinions of the masses or give his own view of the game? I mean, not everyone like Bioshock Infinite. Wanna know someone else besides Tom who didn't like it? Total Biscuit. He likes the story of the game, but he finds the gameplay dull and boring, and thought it was an extremely overhyped game. So no, not everyone believes the game is a masterpiece, and some people won't like the game, for whatever reasons they may not like it. But they're still entitled to their opinions, and you can agree or disagree with them.
@WaximusMTPD GameSpot has on occasion revisited a review. League of Legends was recently redone and for good reason. The game is immensely popular and the old rating did not properly reflect the current state of the game. This has happened once or twice or (more commonly) a game has been re-reviewed when the actual factual content has been called into question.
Tom's piece was never meant to replace the original review (and I don't think it did, it just may have appeared that way). I like Tom generally but he has a habit of disliking things intensely for rather trivial reasons. He's spoken at great lengths about what he doesn't like about Infinite and they basically amount to petty grievances that all together disrupt the game. But sometimes I think that his disconnect with a game comes more from his personality than from the actual experience much in the way that a perfectionist might view a near perfect item with exceptional dislike because of a nagging in their mind rather than the actual failing of the item.
That doesn't invalidate his opinion because his opinion is still valid. It's just that I don't entirely trust his scoring.
@Saikat1313 This is the official review. Tom did a second opinion type review and gave it a 4. It's still up and his criticism is severely flawed. It's pretty ridiculous.
@Gamer3344 Nothing special? I don't recall a more complex story, like, ever.
@Gamer3344 The story is better than most films these days, thats enough to make it a special game.
@Yokuz1166 surely we just need to fucken screw our brains into the right direction to start seeing the chimerical beauty of this crappy piece of code. Don't you dare referring to the old generation and use words "good game" you have no idea what they mean. If you cannot see how stretched, bloated, inconsisted and mindfucking this game is - you need to strart from DOOM and walk your way up, toddler.
@GetafixOz Dishonored was a great disaster for me after genious Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. But still it was better than this shit.
@thekazumalord did you miss a fucken button that turned the huge fucken arrow that showed where your shortisgted arse should go? Because of imbeciles like you games degenerate so much these days. Finish kindergarten before playing games!
@Abdulrahman1981 first of the the only things (and quite solid things indeed) that made bs1 mechanics unique and the game a worthy title. The story was the second.
@Gankstar_VX84 I wouldnt go that far, but Im not blown away by it either... and no Im not a COD head, I just think its a bit overated. I stopped playing it after about 6 hours and went back to trying to finish Red Dead Undead Nightmare... its just more fun and a better game.
@Gankstar_VX84 Why don't you go play your Call of duty?
@mohabnoto yeah a REALLY long time, like EXACTLY the time a human being needs to reach puberty.
@mohabnoto LOL
@ExtremePhobia @WaximusMTPD These aren't just revisited games. In case you guys forgot, the staff said that from now on, multiple reviewers will be putting up reviews for games. It looks more like they decided to start doing multiple reviews with these games. So I'd expect to see a LOT more reviews done on both past and upcoming games in the near future.
@Zevvion @Saikat1313 It's not flawed he is completely right. I beat it in the first day and I hated every second of it. I was so excited for 2 years that it was coming out and it went away from everything bioschock and pathetically tried to mess with your mind in the ending but MOST of the ending was obvious with Booker being the dad, obviously not the other part with the parallel type universe with multiple lighthouses. It's overrated plain and simple.
@Sardinar I doubt you ever played a decent game in your whole life. Buy a PC and taste the rainbow newbie.
@cubrman @thekazumalord That's so unfortunately true. Games have to fit the lowest common denominator and be practically fit for the retarded to try and please everyone. Which is still doesn't so I don't know why the developers even try unless they are themselves mostly retarded gamers who have to game while eating Pudding at the same time and drinking their Latte's. If they have to set it down a minute to complete something. IT"S TOO HARD and needs "streamlining" further. Ugh.. luckily we have european devs who still make games with some idea of challenge to them.
@GetafixOz @Gankstar_VX84 No your just stupid
@FuzailAhmed56 @Gankstar_VX84 why don't you go play Skyrim, I bet you liked it!
@d-man @faceless-mask @ExtremePhobia @WaximusMTPD What's wrong with letting people get multiple points of views? There's always gonna be 1 main review and 1 main score, but with multiple reviews, people will be able to see different points of views, and they can decide whose point of view they agree with. With 1 review, you either agree with the reviewers opinion or you disagree. With this system, not only are their multiple opinions, it also let's you get more information on the game itself, so that people can make more well informed decisions about whether or not to buy the game. Plus, with regards to revisiting old games, some games have changed immensely since they first released. By being allowed to revisit games, reviewers can also post what changes have been made, whether the game has improved or become worse, and provide a more up to date opinion on the game itself, as opposed to a game being marked down with a score which is possibly lower or higher than it deserves currently.
@faceless-mask @ExtremePhobia @WaximusMTPD Seems like a cop-out. Stand your ground as an organization and go by a single score; if one member disagrees heartily, too bad for them. Let them go tweet about it. I also don't get this "well his opinion is valid I just don't trust his scoring" attitude, lol what's the difference. Seems like pandering to those people who think only certain persons who like a certain genre should review a game from that genre (which is wrong.)
@ExtremePhobia @WaximusMTPD My bad, it seems like they ARE going to be revisiting games as well. But they're also going to be making multiple reviews for games. So Tom's review is just another take (ie, his) on the game. You can choose either his review or Kevin's review to agree with, it's up to you.
@strikeTact @Zevvion @Saikat1313 And yet, you can't give one reason why you hated it. ::sniff sniff:: I smell a braindead troll who didn't enjoy being asked to think outside the box. Okay, you suspected Booker was daddy, congratulations on reading the game's intentional foreshadowing, how about the other 99% of it? Oh that's right-- making fun of racism, fascism and science-gone-wrong is just too stinkin' lib'ral for you, ain't it?
@strikeTact @Zevvion @Saikat1313 I'd argue that Bioshock was actually the one that deviated from the Shock series. But I digress.
@strikeTact @Zevvion @Saikat1313 I'm with you.
It's also obvious that this game has really divided its players.
@strikeTact @Zevvion @Saikat1313 This comment tree shows the very definition of opinions (the actual one, not the stinky one =P ).