No Spoilers
First, let's talk about some basic settings, like mouse sensitivity. The default mouse sensitivity for me felt like 3600 DPI, way too fast. And this was only one to the right of the lowest mouse sensitivity setting. I turned down Mouse Sensitivity all the way, and kept mouse acceleration off, then it was too slow. Mouse acceleration did just about nothing, on or off. So the whole game I played on awkward sensitivity.
As I walked onto the boardwalk and into the lighthouse, I was stunned at the detail in the game. It looked phenomenal. And when I summoned Columbia and took the rocket up to the sky, I was blown away as Booker was. I started exploring a city where the people were actually alive, not dead or crazies in BioShock 1 and 2. I expected some quests to involve the people of the city, which I will get to later. Towards the end of Chapter 1, I noticed something,
All the NPCs looked the same.
There are literally three models for the men, two models for the women, and I believe two models for the children. Originally, I believe that BioShock was going to be autocratic, fascist Americans vs. totalitarian, communist Americans, but instead it was
Gun-loving, Bible-thumping, Ku Klux Klan rednecks vs. anarchists
So following the redneck stereotype, if the citizens of Columbia all found their girlfriends at family reunions, then it makes sense that they all look the same! Inbreeding! Wincest! I'm glad that the revolutionaries eventually became the bad guys, because if, "Don't worry, I'm a progressive", was the staple response from most of the passive NPCs, I would have called this game an arm of the Democratic Party.
In comparing BioShock 1 and 2 with BioShock Infinite, it's interesting to note that radios existed in 1912 when the Marconi Company opened the world's first purpose-built radio, but pocket radios did not go into circulation until 1954 (Wikipedia), so Voxophones make sense.
The choice system was ripped out of the game midway through development.
They could have added a lot more choices like buying a bouquet from that girl, or using Devil's Kiss to help a maintenance man in one of the side rooms.
Autosaves are the most annoying part of that game. First, the indicator was not large enough, I never knew when I did or didn't autosave. Second, when you die right before the next autosave and it puts you back a couple dozen enemies, it causes nothing but rage. I can see where quick saving wouldn't be acceptable because it could get the player stuck, but I would have liked to revert to the previous, previous save.
That has been the one flaw of Halo and other games like it, is when you get to a bad checkpoint where you're low on health, ammunition, or it's just an impossible setup, and you can only revert to this same impossible checkpoint, or restart the chapter. At least when you choose your own saves, you can go back two or three, or more checkpoints.
Speaking of Halo, Irrational Games tried to make BioShock Infinite almost exactly like Halo CE, that or Borderlands 2. As I mentioned, the menus are very similar (revert/restart), you can only have two weapons (Halo CE), and you have both a shield and health (Halo CE). Borderlands 2 also has the shield and health dynamic, and being on the Unreal 3 engine, BioShock Infinite also had Floating Combat Text and Enemy Health Bars, that (when enabled) looked exactly like Borderlands 2.
At least Halo does multiplayer right, the only reason BioShock 2's multiplayer failed was because Feral Interactive left their multiplayer to Games for Windows Live. Big. Mistake. I have my issues with Valve, but they excel in supporting multiplayer for Source and non-Source games, old and new multiplayer, etc. If BS2 was Steam Powered, it would still be alive today, and at least BioShock 2 tried. BioShock Infinite made no attempt at multiplayer (to my knowledge).
There's no hacking in BioShock Infinite, the replacement is possession, which does not give you a discount on vending machines, only 10 silver eagles. There are telescopes that can be used for an achievement, but they cannot zoom, so they are useless. You can see all the scenery in an area just as good without a telescope.
Weapon upgrades, were actually done the right way: you bought them. In BioShock 1, you had to find Power to the People stations, and even then there weren't enough to unlock everything in the game.
But, one of the many things BioShock 1 did right was that it had an open world. There were several locked chests and one Fraternal Order of the Raven that I could have gone back for, but why would I want to? Instead of going directly back to the area, I would have to traverse several areas. Also, there were several points of no return, where I could never go back to those points in the game.
An open world would have also opened the possibility for more NPC quests, whereas most quests were based on items that you found, such as keys or codebooks.
I have to throw out an apology to my English friends, but the skyrails were wrong. You rode the skyrails on the left-hand side, not the American right-hand side.
The Vending Machines looked too similar, it took until near the end of the game to tell them apart from each other. Also, you can't jump and then attach to the skyrails in midjump.
The death animations, are one thing that I will give to BioShock Infinite, they were extremely detailed, such as electrocuting someone down to their very bones.
If I had to pick out three elements of the game that just killed it for me, it would be these:
1) The game depicted in the trailers was nothing like the final product.
Including the two videos above, this trailer had nothing to do with the final product, neither did this gameplay. In the last year, they completely changed the models and gameplay of BioShock Infinite, the gameplay that I bought the game for. Instead they made the models more cartoony and they killed a lot of the gameplay, such as Elizabeth attacking with you, instead of simply giving you resources.
2) I didn't form an emotional attachment to Booker or Elizabeth, at all.
Whenever Booker and Elizabeth had a chance for an emotional moment, the script botched it. Whenever they had a chance for physical contact that would lead to an emotional moment, it was skipped. When they did have physical contact, there was no emotion or facial expression on Elizabeth.
3) Choices were removed from the game.
You can tell from the beginning of the game that they planned on having separate endings based on choices, such as the raffle, the keys, and the ticket master, but about a third of the way into the game, the choices stop. Part way through development they just decided to cut choices from the game. This was inherently anti-BioShock and an insult to the series.
Miscellaneous
1912 was actually a mirror of 2012 (apocalypse, etc.), and Comstock sounded a bit like Cave Johnson. The plants looked pixelated on Ultra. The roof of the library on Monument Island was done terribly. There are many times during use of the skyrail and executions that I went through buildings or the head went through the clothing. There was another bug where I completed the last Vox code side quest and it still appeared on the objectives list.
Apparently you could be ousted for talking about Darwin, even though scientific racism would support the claims proposed by The Founders. There's a strange scene while Booker tries to reach the First Lady's Aerodrome, where a man asks a hot dog vendor if there's any sauerkraut. Are Germans above or below blacks and Irish, according to BSI? The mainstream culture of BSI also believes in killing children born out of wedlock, so at least in that regard they are no mirror to social conservatives.
There was an interesting reference to gendarme, and I have nothing but a positive opinion on Elizabeth's reference to Les Misérables. When you opened boxes of chocolates, you never received chocolates, it was always bananas and oranges.
Spoilers
I thought the Fortunate Son (Creedence Clearwater Revival) and Girls Just Want To Have Fun (Cyndi Lauper) cameos were pretty cool.
The sound made every time you looked at a tear was the most annoying sound in-game.
I found several glitched/stuck spots in the game that the testers so poorly missed. First, remember when Elizabeth is captured on the elevator? If you jump from the blue transport to where you chase Elizabeth on the skyrail later, before she spawns the rail, you're stuck there and you need to revert to last checkpoint. While I was jumping down to Chen Lin's cell I got stuck and had to revert to the last checkpoint. On the way to Comstock House before the bar with loyalists, I got stuck on luggage and had to go all the way back across the gondola that has the Luteces talking. When targeting dropships with the songbird, about 25% of the time they would glitch out and be impervious to targeting.
The way I've worked it out, Booker is from Universe A (no baptism), and Comstock is from Universe B (baptism). Eventually, the story makes it to Universe Z (or what is technically 123 universe later based on the coin flips (there's actually a bug where the 123rd tally disappears and Lutece rewrites it)). From Universe Z, Booker and Elizabeth travel to Universe Y, where Chen Lin is alive. In this world, you also find out that there is another Booker who made it to Monument Island too late, and Comstock moved Elizabeth into Comstock House. You then travel to Universe X, where Chen Lin kept his tools and helped start the revolution. When Booker and Elizabeth reach Comstock House in Universe X, Booker is warped back into Universe Y where he meets Old Elizabeth, who in turn warps him back to Universe Z where Elizabeth is being held by Comstock (I assume that somehow the Songbird went through a tear from Universe X to Universe Z).
Final Boss?
Other articles have equated the songbird to all the big daddies combined, when you don't even fight it! It is an antagonist, sure, but one of the first questions I get from people who don't own the game is how the songbird fight is.
Another annoyance I found in the game is the lack of explanation on critical issues, for instance
What is Salt?
I can assume that salt is the solid energy harvested from Elizabeth in Monument Island, but it is never explained what Salt is. Adam was the high mutagenic material in the sea slugs that allowed humans to splice DNA. What is Salt, hard light? (And to anyone who says Salts and Vigor are the same as Eve and Adam, slugs can't eat salt, fact.)
Another issue for contention,
What is the Songbird?
There must be a songbird in every universe except A, but can the songbird travel through rifts? Also, is the songbird beast or machine? Why did Elizabeth have to kill the songbird once it was allied with her and Booker?
Similar to Fringe
Another reason I didn't find the ending that satisfying was because it was similar to Fringe (I've ridden this train before). Consider the following:
- Comstock is Walter.
- Booker is Walternate.
- Elizabeth is Peter.
- Comstock traveled to another universe to steal his copy's child, just as Walter stole Peter from Walternate.
- Walter and Peter form a bond, which is temporarily broken, and mended again, just as Booker and Elizabeth do.
- Walternate sends shapeshifters after Walter, as Comstock sends Patriots and Handymen after Booker.
- Walter sacrifices himself and the child to fix the spacetime corruption he caused, just as Booker sacrifices himself and Anna to fix the universes harmed by his choices.
