Going into BioShock Infinite, the only thing I really knew about it was how it was very different from the first two games and also much more polarizing. I had a general attitude of "How bad could it be?" when I first booted this game up, and I had no idea that I was going to play a complete mess of a game that falls flat on its face with almost everything it sets out to accomplish. Before I get into all of that, though, I will give credit where credit is due and talk about how great and detailed the setting is. Not only is Columbia gorgeous to look at, but the floating city's steampunk elements mesh pretty well with the 1912 setting. That was the only thing about BioShock Infinite that I actually liked, though, as I found the rest of the game to be dull in terms of gameplay and frustrating in terms of plot.
In BioShock, the player pretty much had to use weapons and plasmids together in order to stand a chance against Rapture's Splicers and Big Daddies, and this was expanded on in BioShock 2 by placing a greater emphasis on mixing and matching genes in order to let the player experiment to see what worked and what didn't. Pretty much all of that was thrown out here in BioShock Infinite, because even with the occasional puddle of water or oil showing up in some of the game’s levels, the best strategy in every encounter is to just shoot the enemies. The guns do feel slightly better than they did in the other two games, but rendering plasmids (or vigors, as this game calls them) useless through the effectiveness of standing in one place and gunning everyone down made the gameplay loop of BioShock Infinite feel easier and more boring as it went along. The only vigor that I got any use out of was Return to Sender, and that was unlocked at the very end of the game, so you might as well never bother to upgrade or even use your vigors up to that point.
On top of the gameplay feeling much less engaging than the first two BioShock games, BioShock Infinite was a complete disaster from a storytelling perspective. The most egregiously stupid point that this game tries to make would be its attempts at making slavery and segregation seem double-sided, and that concept should be self-explanatory in how ignorant and irresponsible it is. Everything that the story tried to do involving timelines and "tears" just ends up making it feel even more bloated and incompetently told than it already was, and that especially includes the moronic ending that essentially exists to make Ken Levine feel really smart. I had zero fun with BioShock Infinite, and I find it really funny how the only real legacy that this game has would be how its fanmade porn apparently caused breakthroughs in 3D animation.
In BioShock, the player pretty much had to use weapons and plasmids together in order to stand a chance against Rapture's Splicers and Big Daddies, and this was expanded on in BioShock 2 by placing a greater emphasis on mixing and matching genes in order to let the player experiment to see what worked and what didn't. Pretty much all of that was thrown out here in BioShock Infinite, because even with the occasional puddle of water or oil showing up in some of the game’s levels, the best strategy in every encounter is to just shoot the enemies. The guns do feel slightly better than they did in the other two games, but rendering plasmids (or vigors, as this game calls them) useless through the effectiveness of standing in one place and gunning everyone down made the gameplay loop of BioShock Infinite feel easier and more boring as it went along. The only vigor that I got any use out of was Return to Sender, and that was unlocked at the very end of the game, so you might as well never bother to upgrade or even use your vigors up to that point.
On top of the gameplay feeling much less engaging than the first two BioShock games, BioShock Infinite was a complete disaster from a storytelling perspective. The most egregiously stupid point that this game tries to make would be its attempts at making slavery and segregation seem double-sided, and that concept should be self-explanatory in how ignorant and irresponsible it is. Everything that the story tried to do involving timelines and "tears" just ends up making it feel even more bloated and incompetently told than it already was, and that especially includes the moronic ending that essentially exists to make Ken Levine feel really smart. I had zero fun with BioShock Infinite, and I find it really funny how the only real legacy that this game has would be how its fanmade porn apparently caused breakthroughs in 3D animation.