Booker Dewitt: Into the Spiderverse is a ~10 hour brain slog of an experience that dares to ask: how can we combine fetch quests, excessively rehashed enemy encounters, and a hamfisted possibly interesting meta-narrative all into the one game.

I wasn't a fan of the first or second Bioshock, but I had heard plenty of praise for Bioshock Infinite for bringing new and interesting life into the series. What I got from it was a horrendous "take" on socio-economic and racial inequality mixed with some of the worst FPS combat in the last ten years and a "your princess is in another castle" storyline.

I would rather play Doom 2016 while drinking sriracha from the bottle than re-experience Bioshock Infinite. The game was beautiful, but man by the end of it did I grow tired of how the gameplay was the same exact loop for hours and hours upon end. Seriously, if you cut out the entire middle portion of this game and just include the arrival in Columbia and the lore dump at the end, you probably have the same experience, except you don't have to fight the same exact fight over and over again. It's not hard to realize that throwing the same enemies at your player without any variation or explanation for an entire VIDEO GAME is NOT fun.

The guns were mildly rewarding, however you never have enough ammo. The powers were pointless, you can run through the game using only one. The characters were horrible: Booker is copy cutter chad-bro, Elizabeth goes from damsel in distress to omnipotent chad being, Comstock just sucks, and the abhorrent treatment of the African-American characters and their plight is downright disturbing. Other reviewers have done a good job pointing that last part out, and it's one thing that struck me as especially despicable.

Legitimately I do not understand what the hype of this game was about. The story sucks and could and should have been simplified, the narrative which could have been cool was completely mistreated and mistold, the combat is awful, and the conversation of racial and economic opression misses the mark as hard as it could.

I cannot recommend anyone play Bioshock Infinite.

The single most well-paced video game ever created. Valve have said that they only make these games when they feel as though they can push the industry forward with them, and while press at the time was focused on the physics (and more importantly, the sterling facial animations), HL2's real legacy is that pacing, how Valve prove themselves masters of every conceivable type of shooter.

The intro levels are the first game, reborn. Then we do survival horror in Ravenholm, post apocalyptic shooters on the Coast, sci-fi corridor shooters in Nova Prospekt, modern squad-based military games in the uprising levels, and then something entirely new in the Citadel itself. Each area full of little crescendos and climaxes, all perfectly spaced. It's a game I have played more than 10 times, a game I know as well as some books, and yet I'm still thoroughly excited by all the big setpieces, still thoroughly engaged by Kelly Bailey's terrific score, still thrilled and excited by every single second of this masterful experience.

After a 100% completion and a 45:45 total logged time in-game, my opinion on this game has fallen since I started. I want to love this game, I really do, but there are just so many grievances that prevent that.

I love the OST and the art style, and many battle chips are honestly very interesting to use. It also has a strong set of souls that I found myself using a bunch. I also unironically enjoy the botched localization.

But some bosses, viruses, and the whole structure of the game forcing at least 3 whole playthroughs to access all the content within the game bring the game down so much.