do people think with infinite (moreso than most mainstream contemporaries) that the dichotomy between shoot-bang gameplay mechanics and the setting, story themes and subtext side of it has finally grown large enough to acknowledge as a real problem?
I really don't think that's the case in Infinite, in fact I think it's pretty ludicrous to say it's a more jarring in infinite than in a game like Uncharted.
I think it seemed poorly handled at first with the fair scene instantly turning into a blood bath. However once you learnt more about the characters and their history with violence, Booker being the most disgusting soldier at the Wounded Knee massacre and relishing the experience at the time. The setting, story themes and subtext paint Booker as a character capable of those terrible things and Columbia a boiling pot for that kind of scenario. Where as in a game like Uncharted you're a happy go lucky adventurer who just happens to have a body count in the thousands.
I wish the PS3 version DIDN'T have move support so I wouldn't have to sit through those freaking "dont' throw the controller at your tv" messages for like 30 seconds when booting it up
I dove back into this and started making some progress. I'm taking it slow -- six hours in, and I'm now at
Soldier's Field
. I absolutely loved the combat in BioShock 1 and 2, but this... Meh. It's just not as fun for some reason. I'm all about "getting out what you put in" with these kinds of games, so I mix it up, setting fire traps, scattering crows, possessing enemies, detonating fireworks at choke points and lighting oil spills, etc. But it's just not as fun as BioShock 1 and 2, not yet at least. I do love the skyhook melee kills, but something just seems... Off. Maybe it's the fact I'm playing with KMB on the PC version (which runs beautifully, btw), and not a controller like I did with BioShock 1 and 2. I do have a 360 plug-and-play controller for PC, but when I tried it the movement seemed surprisingly sluggish, not just the aiming (which can be dialed up for nausea-inducing speed) but the walking speed, which best as I can tell can't be adjusted, but seems more laborious with a stick than with WASD.
I'm sure the combat will get more interesting when Elizabeth starts opening tears and tossing me weapons and ammo and such, and when I take the fights to the skylines, and as my powers and weapons continue to grow. But it's a slow burn so far. An interesting world, but the game has been somewhat disappointing since the, well, actual "game" portion kicked in after the amazing Dear Esther-style opening act.
A question about vigors: I know I can cycle between two at a time, and holding Q brings up a display that allows me to reassign vigors, but... Is there any way to make it so I can simply tap a button repeatedly to cycle through all of the vigors I have? This worked so well in BioShock 1 and 2 and I don't know why they would limit it here. It really discourages use of vigors when, in the heat of battle, I have to pause the game and switch one vigor out for another. I'd rather cycle to it like with weapons.
This might be part of why the combat isn't so fun so far, alongside the fact you have to waste precious salt "hacking" sentry robots. And they're only hacked temporarily, at that -- no satisfying moments where you realize it's still killing roaming enemies on the other side of the level... Or any roaming enemies, for that matter. So far, at least. There have been some guards on patrol, but it's not the same as the Splicers in BioShock 1 and 2, who would be wandering entire levels at length and going about various routines until you attracted their attention.
And now some plot speculation, at the start of Soldier's Field:
I suspect the "AD" on Booker's hand probably stands for "Anna DeWitt." I imagine that's the "Anna" Booker calls out to in a flashback to his P.I. office, a flashback which featured a solemn-looking Liz. He then calls Liz "Anna" when he comes to in Battleship Bay after the escape from Monument Island. (Speaking of which, no one on the beach seems phased by what appears to have been not only Booker falling into the bay, but Songbird plunging in after him.) At any rate, according to Lutence, the scientist (I think that's her name), it appears that Liz is some sort of time-space anomaly, and a "part of her stayed where she came." Seems to me Liz in Columbia is some sort of manifestation of what I presume was Booker's lost love, Anna DeWitt, back on Earth. This would explain why one of the assassins in the arcade scene passes Liz and mistakes her for "Anna."
But of course, this whole line of speculation only creates more questions. A private audio tape by Comstock indicates he really is religious, so I don't think he's deceiving his "flock" in that respect. He really seems to believe Liz is some divine miracle. Since Liz is being studied for her time-space powers, including experiments on Monument Island where she alters the state of various objects, I imagine he derives his prophetic powers from her ability to glimpse across time... But if she was conceived after Columbia, how would he have gained the insight to create the islands? Pure mechanical ingenuity, or are they kept aloft in part by tech deduced by Liz, and maybe even power siphoned from her?
And then, of greater interest, are the curious couple who appear to be stalking Booker. They allude to this being a thought experiment at the start... So does the quote from the alleged "Barriers to Trans-Dimensional Travel" (or something like that), which says that when crossing time-space, the mind will try to create memories where none exists. So is any of this really happening? Is this all some flight of fancy in Booker's head, brought about by some effort to, I don't know, subvert time-space to be reunited with a lost love or change the past or future? And then what is the "debt," if there is really a debt at all?
So many questions. Can't wait to play more and get answers! I just hope the combat becomes as infectiously fun as BioShock 1 and 2.
Ha. Undertow, much like every other encounter in the game, can be used to cheese your way through if you need it.
If you have any sense, you'll have long since already maxed out your salts.
On the upgrades topic, who would level up their health rather than their shields? Why would you choose to increase the non-renewable part of your health meter? It made no sense to me.
Ha. Undertow, much like every other encounter in the game, can be used to cheese your way through if you need it.
If you have any sense, you'll have long since already maxed out your salts.
On the upgrades topic, who would level up their health rather than their shields? Why would you choose to increase the non-renewable part of your health meter? It made no sense to me.
People who hate the combat in this game must have some incredible standards as to what constitutes good gameplay, because for me it's been wonderful, aside from Handymans being too hard.
^I also maxed salts and use Undertow and Devil's Kiss (with some Charge thrown in for fun).
I'm getting Dark Tower vibes from this story... many parallels already, but I might just be seeing what I want to see if that makes sense. I can't wait to finish it to find out if I'm right about how things will wind up. But I also want to take my time because I don't want the game to end. Although I am still very early into the game. It takes a LOT for me to give a shit about the story in a game these days, Bioshock 1 is one of the only other games I can think of that I cared about the story. The fact that the gameplay is excellent on top of that really makes this series special. Especially considering it's an FPS, where the stories tend to be pretty embarrassing/consist wholly of people yelling at you to get to the next objective.
Does the game allow you to go anywhere in Columbia at one point, or is it as linear as it seems? Not really a complaint, just wondering.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't really upgrade health. Cuts down on all the tedious scavenging for health upgrades when my big-ass shield just regenerates after every battle.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't really upgrade health. Cuts down on all the tedious scavenging for health upgrades when my big-ass shield just regenerates after every battle.
She said "it'd be nice to hear some music." He plays the guitar, she sings along and gives a waif an apple. A small moment of quiet in a hectic setting.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't really upgrade health. Cuts down on all the tedious scavenging for health upgrades when my big-ass shield just regenerates after every battle.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't really upgrade health. Cuts down on all the tedious scavenging for health upgrades when my big-ass shield just regenerates after every battle.
I was just about to say "Well that was sill..." and then suddenly thought "Nope Dogg, it's you who have been the moron". Oh well dead handy to know for 1999 mode.
- Intro before you get to Elizabeth feels a little too long. Having people fight in a really pared down version of the game (no tears, less vigors) doesn't give a great initial impression of the gameplay. It felt padded, and I was just ready to get to Elizabeth after a certain point.
- People talking through megaphones all the time is a little weird in this game. It made sense in Bioshock because everyone had literally become psychopathic and full of themselves, but seeing highly elaborate schemes concocted by villains to trap Booker while they wax poetic (
It's really jarring with Fink
) just seems a tad out of place. It makes sense with Comstock given his "prophetic and godly" nature, but with other people, it's odd.
- The AI's tendency to all run at me is still weird. Once again, this felt ok in Bioshock, where splicers were psychopaths, but in a world of (generally) sane people, it's jarring. This is kind of similar to my second complaint, I guess it's just that a lot of the concepts they took from bioshock don't make as much sense in Columbia as they did in Rapture.
Extremely tiny nitpicks though. I love the game. Once combat does open up, it can be a heck of a lot of fun. I'm also really excited to see where the story's going.
People who hate the combat in this game must have some incredible standards as to what constitutes good gameplay, because for me it's been wonderful, aside from Handymans being too hard.
^I also maxed salts and use Undertow and Devil's Kiss (with some Charge thrown in for fun).
It's not bad and can indeed be fun, I just don't think it is anything special. I simply think a game with such a bold world and narrative could have been made even better by being something more than a shooter. Other than the Skyrails, it is not really doing anything extraordinary and even that is not holding my attention like the world and story.
Ok just finished it. I really like the game overall but I have a lot of crtisisms.
First of all the game is absolutely beautiful. Very rare to see such brilliant art and imagination on display. I need some time to digest the story a bit more before I come to a real conclusion on it but I will say that it is better than 99% of video game stories out there and it's great that we have writers like Ken Levine trying to raise the bar for the industry.
Unfortunately tough the game steps on my two biggest pet peeves with games over the last couple of years. The first one is adding rpg elements where they don't really belong, particually when they are not fleshed out as in this case. It is annoying to constantly be having to double tapping square to pick up the same 4 pickups from corpses and cabinets and a chore to make decisions about which equipment I upgrade (although I did enjoy the different gears). I think the problem is exhaserbated because story is so compelling that I just don't want to be having to think about other menial stuff. If I were directing the game I'd probably have made every combat encounter half as long. I don't necessarily dislike the combat and in a different game I would have enjoyed it a lot more but here I was just frustrated at having to fight wave after wave of enemies when all I really cared about was getting to the next bit of story and by the end I was just trying to run through the areas as fast as possible.
This sort of leads into my second pet peeve and biggest critisism of the game which is that the gameplay simply does not fit with the story. It bothers me most in game like Bioshock which have such strong emphasis on narrative but are unable to come up with gameplay systems to complement it and instead trot out the same old tried and true murder simulator. Bioshock isn't the worst offender in this category but until someone comes up with deep and interesting mechanics which aren't just about killing dudes in different ways it's a problem we're stuck with and it's games like Bioshock that are trying to tell more complex stories that suffer the most. With every title released that doesn't even try to pose a solution to this issue my impatience grows and unfortunately this feeling came to a head whist playing this game and severely hampered my enjoyment. I realise that the realities of the AAA business dictate the pretty much everything has to be a shooter of some variety but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
Like I said to begin with I like the game overall and I'm glad I bought it, but you won't catch me putting it on a pedestal as a major step forward for the industry or anything like that.
Interesting conversation. All of the shootouts and being swarmed by hordes of bumrushing enemies are about the only thing that has brought this game down a notch or two for me. While the abilities and pulling things in from tears has proven interesting, I simply don't find the shooting and combat in general to have enough weight to balance the scale of the outstanding narrative and world.
In fact, it has grown a bit tedious at times and I think the game would have been better served by being more of a mystery game where combat is mostly limited and you instead have to solve puzzles and find clues by using Elizabeth to manipulate the environment and by talking to people and exploring. This would have worked much better than being a shooter and would have made it stand out even more than it already does.
As much as I'm enjoying the game as is many times I've wanted simply to just explore and experience Columbia and the story.
Shenmue-type gameplay would work well. Perhaps with more puzzles as you say. The tear mechanic could have been very interesting for that.
Shenmue was always, for me, about experiencing the place. Talking to the people. Finding clues. Deciding where and when due to the time mechanic to go next. Waiting. Soaking in the atmostphere of Yokosuka. Playing the coin op machines. Buying food for the kitten.
Though I love point and click adventure games I found Shenmue gave more of sense of place than the vast majority of adventure games.
Imagine: a Bioshock mystery/adventure seeing and experiencing Columbia on an Oculus Rift. It'd be magical.
Ok just finished it. I really like the game overall but I have a lot of crtisisms.
First of all the game is absolutely beautiful. Very rare to see such brilliant art and imagination on display. I need some time to digest the story a bit more before I come to a real conclusion on it but I will say that it is better than 99% of video game stories out there and it's great that we have writers like Ken Levine trying to raise the bar for the industry.
Unfortunately tough the game steps on my two biggest pet peeves with games over the last couple of years. The first one is adding rpg elements where they don't really belong, particually when they are not fleshed out as in this case. It is annoying to constantly be having to double tapping square to pick up the same 4 pickups from corpses and cabinets and a chore to make decisions about which equipment I upgrade (although I did enjoy the different gears). I think the problem is exhaserbated because story is so compelling that I just don't want to be having to think about other menial stuff. If I were directing the game I'd probably have made every combat encounter half as long. I don't necessarily dislike the combat and in a different game I would have enjoyed it a lot more but here I was just frustrated at having to fight wave after wave of enemies when all I really cared about was getting to the next bit of story and by the end I was just trying to run through the areas as fast as possible.
This sort of leads into my second pet peeve and biggest critisism of the game which is that the gameplay simply does not fit with the story. It bothers me most in game like Bioshock which have such strong emphasis on narrative but are unable to come up with gameplay systems to complement it and instead trot out the same old tried and true murder simulator. Bioshock isn't the worst offender in this category but until someone comes up with deep and interesting mechanics which aren't just about killing dudes in different ways it's a problem we're stuck with and it's games like Bioshock that are trying to tell more complex stories that suffer the most. With every title released that doesn't even try to pose a solution to this issue my impatience grows and unfortunately this feeling came to a head whist playing this game and severely hampered my enjoyment. I realise that the realities of the AAA business dictate the pretty much everything has to be a shooter of some variety but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
Like I said to begin with I like the game overall and I'm glad I bought it, but you won't catch me putting it on a pedestal as a major step forward for the industry or anything like that.
Once I found the rail speed upgrade, lightning on overkill and ghostly gun, they stayed on the entire game. I'd always compare them against new finds, but they were so crucial to my base play-style that I couldn't give them up. That implies that I wasn't experimenting with the combat, but the opposite is true. It's like having a basic twelve-bar blues melody to improvise on top of. I didn't want to mess with that, it would have spoilt my groove.
I suspect the "AD" on Booker's hand probably stands for "Anna DeWitt." I imagine that's the "Anna" Booker calls out to in a flashback to his P.I. office, a flashback which featured a solemn-looking Liz. He then calls Liz "Anna" when he comes to in Battleship Bay after the escape from Monument Island. (Speaking of which, no one on the beach seems phased by what appears to have been not only Booker falling into the bay, but Songbird plunging in after him.) At any rate, according to Lutence, the scientist (I think that's her name), it appears that Liz is some sort of time-space anomaly, and a "part of her stayed where she came." Seems to me Liz in Columbia is some sort of manifestation of what I presume was Booker's lost love, Anna DeWitt, back on Earth. This would explain why one of the assassins in the arcade scene passes Liz and mistakes her for "Anna."
But of course, this whole line of speculation only creates more questions. A private audio tape by Comstock indicates he really is religious, so I don't think he's deceiving his "flock" in that respect. He really seems to believe Liz is some divine miracle. Since Liz is being studied for her time-space powers, including experiments on Monument Island where she alters the state of various objects, I imagine he derives his prophetic powers from her ability to glimpse across time... But if she was conceived after Columbia, how would he have gained the insight to create the islands? Pure mechanical ingenuity, or are they kept aloft in part by tech deduced by Liz, and maybe even power siphoned from her?
And then, of greater interest, are the curious couple who appear to be stalking Booker. They allude to this being a thought experiment at the start... So does the quote from the alleged "Barriers to Trans-Dimensional Travel" (or something like that), which says that when crossing time-space, the mind will try to create memories where none exists. So is any of this really happening? Is this all some flight of fancy in Booker's head, brought about by some effort to, I don't know, subvert time-space to be reunited with a lost love or change the past or future? And then what is the "debt," if there is really a debt at all?
So many questions. Can't wait to play more and get answers! I just hope the combat becomes as infectiously fun as BioShock 1 and 2.
The RPG lite elements have always been an odd fit for this series, little hanger-ons from the System Shock days. Just think, BS1 was tied down with even MORE superfluous systems and junk, like the camera you take pictures with to see their weaknesses, or all the fuckin' hacking minigames.
As much as I'm enjoying the game as is many times I've wanted simply to just explore and experience Columbia and the story.
Shenmue-type gameplay would work well. Perhaps with more puzzles as you say. The tear mechanic could have been very interesting for that.
Shenmue was always, for me, about experiencing the place. Talking to the people. Finding clues. Deciding where and when due to the time mechanic to go next. Waiting. Soaking in the atmostphere of Yokosuka. Playing the coin op machines. Buying food for the kitten.
Though I love point and click adventure games I found Shenmue gave more of sense of place than the vast majority of adventure games.
Imagine: a Bioshock mystery/adventure seeing and experiencing Columbia on an Oculus Rift. It'd be magical.
Exactly, you get it. This game deserves to be more than a shooter when it comes to gameplay. While it can indeed be fun, the gameplay is the only thing holding Infinite back from reaching classic status for me. It stands out in nearly every other way.
The RPG lite elements have always been an odd fit for this series, little hanger-ons from the System Shock days. Just think, BS1 was tied down with even MORE superfluous systems and junk, like the camera you take pictures with to see their weaknesses, or all the fuckin' hacking minigames.
The RPG lite elements have always been an odd fit for this series, little hanger-ons from the System Shock days. Just think, BS1 was tied down with even MORE superfluous systems and junk, like the camera you take pictures with to see their weaknesses, or all the fuckin' hacking minigames.
It's weird using the skyhook to get around on those freight hooks after playing Dishonored. The feeling is similar enough to Blink that there were times in the game where unconsciously I went to cast that spell before remembering I don't have it in this game, just some vertical platforming giving me flashbacks.
Thanks for all the responses guys! I haven't even met Elizabeth yet (I think I'm really close) so I guess the game hasn't really started/opened up yet. Do I have to upgrade possession to max to get the ability to possess vending machines?
Thanks for all the responses guys! I haven't even met Elizabeth yet (I think I'm really close) so I guess the game hasn't really started/opened up yet. Do I have to upgrade possession to max to get the ability to possess vending machines?
quick question, was going to replay again on easy just so I could walk around like a tourist taking pics everywhere and getting some of the left over steam achievements, but, do steam achievements unlock on easy mode or not?
I can't help but feel that people really aren't using vigors to their full potential. Comments like "the plasmids were much more useful" and "the enemies are bullet-sponges" leads me to think that people are heavily using guns over plasmids.
Well, don't.
Vigors are enormously devastating in this game, and they combine with each other and with gear in ways that can fuck up an entire room.
Try this.
Undertow level 3, Storm gear, Shock Jockey chain. You pull three enemies with Undertow, you shock one, and if he dies, everybody else is shocked twice consecutively, and if they die, the lightning chains again.
Anyone else having a hard time getting into the game in the beginning? I just saved Elizabeth and we're heading to a blimp to take us away from Columbia, but up until that point fighting enemies has been really boring. There's no planning anything, and I'm playing on Hard, so it can't be the difficulty.
Such an amazing game. I honestly haven't been wowed by a game like this in a long time. Love everything about it so far, but the overall art direction is just in a class of its own.
The scene when you first see Elizabeth
opening the rift to Paris and hear the Tears for Fears song
was fucking wonderful. Gave me goosebumps, it was such a neat concept.
I'm sure I have a long way to go (at least I hope), but my hat's off to Ken Levine. This game is delivering big time.
Any tips against turrets early on? All my deaths seem to be related to those (clear room of baddies, get mowed down by turret). I can use the possess ability and get enemies to kill it or pop shots at it every now and then while waiting for shields to reload.
Am I missing anything?
I do find it hilarious that you can have borderlands style numbers popping off enemies. Do you level up or something in this?
I have to say I don't remember the last time I saw this much overwhelming praise for a game's ending. Seems every damn person who finishes it comes in with their mind completely blown.
I can't help but feel that people really aren't using vigors to their full potential. Comments like "the plasmids were much more useful" and "the enemies are bullet-sponges" leads me to think that people are heavily using guns over plasmids.
Well, don't.
Vigors are enormously devastating in this game, and they combine in ways that can fuck up an entire room.
Try this.
Undertow level 3, Storm gear, Shock Jockey chain. You pull three enemies with Undertow, you shock one, and if he dies, everybody else is shocked twice consecutively, and if they die, the lightning chains again.
Right, but someone said something about maxing it out to possess vending machines, which confused me. So I can just possess them adn they'll spit out money/discount stuff?
