JetBlackPanda
Member
I had a friend beat it in 7 hours but he missed a lot and just plowed into each objective. I took my time and tried to explore everything and it took me about 17 hours.
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Bioshock Infinite |OT| No Gods, Kings, or Irrational Games
- Thread starter Cystm
- Start date
I had a friend beat it in 7 hours but he missed a lot and just plowed into each objective. I took my time and tried to explore everything and it took me about 17 hours.
Squall ASF
Member
Where does it tell you how long you've played? Must be the save points, I always just select "Continue" so have never looked at them.
ArisenDragon
Member
I don't know if it does. I just kept track of how long I played for.
JetBlackPanda
Member
I checked Steam.
Haha you missed out. Nothing quite like (end game spoilers)
landing Songbird on the ship and having him cream Patriots like they're tin soldiers.
Sanctuary
Member
YMMV, but I took my time and explored everywhere as well. Took me 12 hours.
That's pretty odd. Your earlier posts, talking up the gameplay made it seem like you actually had finished the game at least once already.
Hand cannon felt like one of those "no matter what" weapons that you always want filling up at least one slot. I waffled back and forth between the machine gun and carbine for a while (machine gun after upgrades was decent, and the ammo was plentiful, especially if you went for headhosts). After getting Ram + upgrades though, I just decided to play like a Vanguard with a shotgun. The game actually started becoming fun for me, and then it ended about an hour and a half later.
bobs...onGaf
Member
One thing that annoys me is the fact that I cant just load up an older save and explore. Am I right in thinking that if I loaded a older save and made the mistake of going so far as to hit the next checkpoint that all of my progress would be lost past that point?
Canis lupus
Member
Goddammit my ps3 froze at the credits! Is there an extra scene after credits?
BackwardsSuggestions
Member
Yes.
I'm pretty sure it just makes a new autosave. It doesn't overwrite any of your older saves, but let me check.
edit: I'm seeing two separate saves for the same checkpoint.
Yeah, might wanna look it up on YT in that case. There's also a cool thing during the credits.
That's what I mean. Columbia ceases to be a "character" with its own story. Instead, the game becomes increasingly about Booker and his history. The city and its history get tossed aside.
And I really don't see
the reflection of Booker in the city
Not to mention that Booker just isn't as interesting a character as Columbia.
He's a cipher whose history, you discover in the end, doesn't exist. His entire life is a fiction
How would a New Game + work exactly? Sure, you could keep your weapon upgrades and Health/Shield/Salt upgrades, but you could not keep your Vigors, as it would mean
you could skip the entire Hall of Heroes segment.
I didn't even notice a sky-line led to them. I thought you HAD to have Songbird take them out.
I disagree. I think the game shouldve take a page from Dark/Demons Souls.
Whelp, I definitely played that encounter wrong then. I didn't use the fire spell much during the game
indeed, and actually, looking at the final game, that e3 demo looks totally feasible, and i wonder why it is not in the game
Dragon1893
Member
Wasn't having much trouble on hard but the fights with
gave me a hard time. I should be able to finish this tomorrow, can't wait to see how this story ends.
lady comstock
Hobbestetrician
Member
So you can go back, with Chapter Select, to find any missing Voxophones or Kinectoscopes but not Infusions, right? Because I am fairly sure I only missed one Infusion and am screwed. And I know you get a few Infusions if you buy the Season Pass and can get you the achievement early but you only get those Infusions in one spot, not just wherever you load a game, right?
I really hate collectibles in games like this. And I also hate my compulsion to get them all.
I really hate collectibles in games like this. And I also hate my compulsion to get them all.
Yeah, the Season Pass Infusions are given to you in the Blue Ribbon where you acquire your shield. Gonna have to start a new game. With the five given to you, if you collect every one after that you'll have the trophy/cheev by the time you find the one at the Emporia train station (which is how I got it). 24 total are required for the trophy.
Hellsing321
Member
Does anyone know if they're selling the OST anywhere or did you have to buy the premium edition to get it? I didn't see it on iTunes.
The Librarian
Banned
I think she's comparing it to the ones on her door in the tower.
Beat this last night and have given it some time to let it sink in. Overall, this is absolutely a much better playing game than the other Bioshock games, and that's good. However, many aspects within the game rubbed me the wrong way, even if some of it ended up as minor niggles that add up to detract from the world they built here. I ended up beating it on Hard with 74 of 80 voxophones, and 33/37 sights, though I have no clue what my playtime is.
Positives:
-Columbia. The world itself is interesting and right up my alley, and has stunning art direction. Some areas specifically stand out to me, like Hall of Heroes which was one of the more memorable places in the game. The intro in general was very slow and I loved soaking it all in, and in some ways Columbia itself is a large negative that I will touch on later.
-Atmosphere. Ties into Columbia a lot, but really...looking at most shooters, they should be embarassed at the detail there is in the surroundings here. Lots of stuff to soak in.
-Most of the combat. At its best, the combat can be a hell of a lot of fun. Jumping on a skyrail to get to higher ground, summoning cover, laying down effective Vigors all combine to a good time. The shooting itself feels good when you go for headshots, and the sound effects for specific things like electricity chaining are impactful. Vigors in general are much better than plasmids were to me. They all felt more useful and interesting.
-Story. They clearly had a vision that the ending wrapped up, and I am generally very happy with how it worked out.
-Elizabeth and the Lucetes were well done characters. Elizabeth was a good ally and I liked having her tossing stuff to you, and the tear mechanic is a great concept that was pulled off decently.
-The late game area
Mixed:
-Some of the UI design. I didn't like the big red ribbon that popped up for objectives, and the gear screen shouldn't go hat - shirt - shoes - pants, shoes should be last. Being super nitpicky there, obviously.
-Vitachambers renewed. I fucking despise this mechanic, though there is atleast more of a punishment compared to before. It is possible to basically get fucked over within a fight to the point where outright dying and retrying the fight from 100% would be much preferred, though due to the garbage autosaving this is pretty much not happening. I also don't get
Negatives:
-Columbia. Yup, the good and the bad tie into how they did this. Many of these are personal things in the game that rubbed me the wrong way, ESPECIALLY compared to the E3 video which even while watching after completing the game blows me away with how good it is. Nothing in the game even comes remotely close to the mixture of exploring that chunk of city, the more layered way the skyrails are designed, and the fact that there is a fairly significant time spent not in combat despite enemies being around booker in the video. Hell, even booker/elizabeth in that video are 100x better regarding unique interactions with enviroments(liz with abe head, joking about the statue, fairly common chatter while moving) with booker remarking more often as well.
Compare this to the actual game, and it all feels compartmentalized. I understand the sheer difficulty making a whole game like that would take, but it still let me down due to seeing the possibilities. Elizabeth feels absolutely robotic in comparison, and despite having a few times where she remarks on what is happening(like booker going into the female bathroom and refusing to go in the male one), she spends most of it going "Oh." while doing a canned animation looking around random points of zero interest. The skyrails took a much bigger hit, as every instance of them(which is already not nearly as high as expected) Are literal small ovals that loop, usually with 2 to 3 potential loops to take around an area. Considering they are for freight, the implementations of them don't make much sense compared again to the E3 video where they really do go around a significant amount of the city, with actual freight boxes being an actual obstacle to avoid while moving on the rail. Again, something interesting the actual game completely lacks.
Going further, there are the noncombat explorative zones. I was annoyed at how easy it is to 'blow' this state and have everyone after your head immediately. Possessing a machine? Immediately loaded with bullets. Accidentally walk slightly beyond a police border? You are fucking scum and will die. This is even present in the E3 video, and it kinda ties into the whole large scale shooting in this game specifically feeling like a really awkward fit at times. It shatters the illusion of the city when this gamey stuff crop up, even if it's very hard to avoid. I also mentioned this way earlier about
I personally thought the setting itself was underused as well. A large portion of the game is spent indoors, where the high flying city aspect can be completely forgotten about. A little after the halfway point the areas themselves didn't look all that good to me either, the color pallete mixed with the bloom was harsh on the eyes. I was anxious for more pure blue skies which never came.
-The rest of the combat. Gear being randomized is stupid, considering how powerful it can be. The roadblock segment people hit can be cheesed so easily, and a lot of it depends if you have the right setup for it which is impossible to prepare for ahead of time.
Enemy variety in general is fairly lacking. They constantly throw patriots at you, and while I liked them at first, it got old. Again, I eventually pulled handyman level tactics after upgrading my shock duration and just stood behind them shooting their gears restunning them a handful of times until they died.
-Pacing. Both combat and storywise, is all over the place. It takes forever to finally get introduced to anything. Another case of me seeing what they were going for to not overwhelm players, but to me personally I didn't need to be slowly shown everything. It starts out with a creative and effective tutorial integrated with the fair games, but then there is a long stretch before elizabeth, then elizabeth herself slowly introduces tears and throwing you stuff in battle, etc. etc. By the time you finally have everything set, you are basically halfway through the game. And that's still while missing some other vigors, which come even later and don't give you all that many times to use them in conjunction with everything else.
Storywise ties into this a lot, too. Again, it takes awhile to get elizabeth which is what moves the gears for the plot. Then some stuff finally happens, and comes to a screeching halt
So little really happens in the first half, it is mostly front loaded and then backloaded.
-The save system is a complete disaster. This has been harped on a lot and really deserves every bit of it. At times I wanted to stop playing but would have lost significant progress and had to keep on going. If a fight messed me up and I wanted to retry it, the few times I attempted to reload back sent me WAY farther than intended and made me recollect all the bullshit I picked up.
All in all, I seem more negative than positive but a lot of the negativity stems from the positivity towards certain aspects. As someone who didn't like the first bioshock, Infinite is atleast a much better game and I can certainly see why it's winning so many over. It's a game I would certainly still consider good and recommend people check out. The game still came together much better than I expected it to overall, and the ending is a big part why. I am glad to get a good conclusion for once after so many others drop the ball on that important part. I might attempt a 1999 run, but I am not sure I have it in me to finish given all the searching I'll have to go through again.
Positives:
-Columbia. The world itself is interesting and right up my alley, and has stunning art direction. Some areas specifically stand out to me, like Hall of Heroes which was one of the more memorable places in the game. The intro in general was very slow and I loved soaking it all in, and in some ways Columbia itself is a large negative that I will touch on later.
-Atmosphere. Ties into Columbia a lot, but really...looking at most shooters, they should be embarassed at the detail there is in the surroundings here. Lots of stuff to soak in.
-Most of the combat. At its best, the combat can be a hell of a lot of fun. Jumping on a skyrail to get to higher ground, summoning cover, laying down effective Vigors all combine to a good time. The shooting itself feels good when you go for headshots, and the sound effects for specific things like electricity chaining are impactful. Vigors in general are much better than plasmids were to me. They all felt more useful and interesting.
-Story. They clearly had a vision that the ending wrapped up, and I am generally very happy with how it worked out.
I did not think it was some OMGWTF?!?!? twist, but the internet is good for overblowing most things like this. To be fair, if I hadn't played 999/VLR which has elements of the story here(though, IMO, taking it much further) I may have been much more surprised. Usually games that deal with dimensions, time, etc. end up as a fucking mess but Infinite does a good job of it making a good amount of sense. Oh, and the name Infinite is damn perfect for the game and I smiled when the logo showed up.
-Elizabeth and the Lucetes were well done characters. Elizabeth was a good ally and I liked having her tossing stuff to you, and the tear mechanic is a great concept that was pulled off decently.
-The late game area
Comstock House. I love the atmosphere throughout here, but mainly that asshole that made me jump COMPLETELY took me off guard.
Mixed:
-Some of the UI design. I didn't like the big red ribbon that popped up for objectives, and the gear screen shouldn't go hat - shirt - shoes - pants, shoes should be last. Being super nitpicky there, obviously.
-Vitachambers renewed. I fucking despise this mechanic, though there is atleast more of a punishment compared to before. It is possible to basically get fucked over within a fight to the point where outright dying and retrying the fight from 100% would be much preferred, though due to the garbage autosaving this is pretty much not happening. I also don't get
how or what is really happening here to make it plot relevant. I mean, yeah, there are 'infinite' bookers doing this stuff but is him going through the door really supposed to be another one coming into this dimension? And how the hell is Elizabeth able to get him safely out in other scenarios safely?
Negatives:
-Columbia. Yup, the good and the bad tie into how they did this. Many of these are personal things in the game that rubbed me the wrong way, ESPECIALLY compared to the E3 video which even while watching after completing the game blows me away with how good it is. Nothing in the game even comes remotely close to the mixture of exploring that chunk of city, the more layered way the skyrails are designed, and the fact that there is a fairly significant time spent not in combat despite enemies being around booker in the video. Hell, even booker/elizabeth in that video are 100x better regarding unique interactions with enviroments(liz with abe head, joking about the statue, fairly common chatter while moving) with booker remarking more often as well.
Compare this to the actual game, and it all feels compartmentalized. I understand the sheer difficulty making a whole game like that would take, but it still let me down due to seeing the possibilities. Elizabeth feels absolutely robotic in comparison, and despite having a few times where she remarks on what is happening(like booker going into the female bathroom and refusing to go in the male one), she spends most of it going "Oh." while doing a canned animation looking around random points of zero interest. The skyrails took a much bigger hit, as every instance of them(which is already not nearly as high as expected) Are literal small ovals that loop, usually with 2 to 3 potential loops to take around an area. Considering they are for freight, the implementations of them don't make much sense compared again to the E3 video where they really do go around a significant amount of the city, with actual freight boxes being an actual obstacle to avoid while moving on the rail. Again, something interesting the actual game completely lacks.
Going further, there are the noncombat explorative zones. I was annoyed at how easy it is to 'blow' this state and have everyone after your head immediately. Possessing a machine? Immediately loaded with bullets. Accidentally walk slightly beyond a police border? You are fucking scum and will die. This is even present in the E3 video, and it kinda ties into the whole large scale shooting in this game specifically feeling like a really awkward fit at times. It shatters the illusion of the city when this gamey stuff crop up, even if it's very hard to avoid. I also mentioned this way earlier about
the pre-hall of heroes area with the ice cream store and various other places on the boardwalk to roam around at. This happens right after elizabeth freaks out that booker killed people plotting to get them. You can steal from the register and the cashier will attack you. Okay, that's fine. I cut his head off with the skyhook infront of everyone, and the wave of police that showed up. Elizabeth just casually mentions if there was a woman in booker's life after this all happened, showing a complete lack of attention to anything actually happening in the game. Again, a harsh mark I couldn't ignore even if it is hard to avoid. I also saw FartOfWar respond to me saying this, something about if she reacted to this she would either need some sort of time limit to get over it, and how long should that be? Should it branch off to other story possibilities? And while I agree and respect that point of view, it would have been pretty great to see some Spec Ops level stuff where Elizabeth was actually able to have different personas toward Booker while ultimately wrapping up the same way, as it ties in very well with the story having infinite strands, like every player is experiencing a slightly different strain which ultimately ends the same. It wouldn't be unprecedented and would have added a lot of story impact to me.
Somewhat tying into this is when you do get some of the more hub like areas, you can travel wherever and have to backtrack back, while booker/elizabeth are unreactive before that point. I went into the Club before I needed to, but when asked to go there booker questioned it. This comes off as nitpicking again, but it is another element of world building that clashes with the game itself. It was at its worst when it is possible to come to the grave of lady comstock and elizabeth says NOTHING, really? And then I progressed towards the house and had to then backtrack to the area I already was at to garner the scripted reactions. Attention to detail with stuff like this is prevalent throughout the game. Shantytown is full of people starving to death, but good food was all over the area for me to eat. The little things add up.
Somewhat tying into this is when you do get some of the more hub like areas, you can travel wherever and have to backtrack back, while booker/elizabeth are unreactive before that point. I went into the Club before I needed to, but when asked to go there booker questioned it. This comes off as nitpicking again, but it is another element of world building that clashes with the game itself. It was at its worst when it is possible to come to the grave of lady comstock and elizabeth says NOTHING, really? And then I progressed towards the house and had to then backtrack to the area I already was at to garner the scripted reactions. Attention to detail with stuff like this is prevalent throughout the game. Shantytown is full of people starving to death, but good food was all over the area for me to eat. The little things add up.
I personally thought the setting itself was underused as well. A large portion of the game is spent indoors, where the high flying city aspect can be completely forgotten about. A little after the halfway point the areas themselves didn't look all that good to me either, the color pallete mixed with the bloom was harsh on the eyes. I was anxious for more pure blue skies which never came.
-The rest of the combat. Gear being randomized is stupid, considering how powerful it can be. The roadblock segment people hit can be cheesed so easily, and a lot of it depends if you have the right setup for it which is impossible to prepare for ahead of time.
I only had issues on the third part, and it was more due to running out of ammo over the fight being hard itself. Charge invulnerability the regenerated my shield made it cake, but I kept running out of ammo which led to it being frustrating more than anything else. Handymen also are just a chore to fight. The third one I would just pull with undertow near the tesla coil and pump his heart, while the fourth I just stunlocked with crows constantly eating into his health. They take far too long to kill, and even if you can jump all over the place fighting them it instead is just far more efficient to lock them in place until their bar drains.
Enemy variety in general is fairly lacking. They constantly throw patriots at you, and while I liked them at first, it got old. Again, I eventually pulled handyman level tactics after upgrading my shock duration and just stood behind them shooting their gears restunning them a handful of times until they died.
-Pacing. Both combat and storywise, is all over the place. It takes forever to finally get introduced to anything. Another case of me seeing what they were going for to not overwhelm players, but to me personally I didn't need to be slowly shown everything. It starts out with a creative and effective tutorial integrated with the fair games, but then there is a long stretch before elizabeth, then elizabeth herself slowly introduces tears and throwing you stuff in battle, etc. etc. By the time you finally have everything set, you are basically halfway through the game. And that's still while missing some other vigors, which come even later and don't give you all that many times to use them in conjunction with everything else.
Storywise ties into this a lot, too. Again, it takes awhile to get elizabeth which is what moves the gears for the plot. Then some stuff finally happens, and comes to a screeching halt
when you get booted off the airship. The entire way they handle the gun collection stuff was fucking annoying. Roam around the hub, go to the destination and oops, the guy isn't here. Go through the club, oops he's dead. Luckily they had that story hook with the alternate tears to spice this up a little, but the gameplay was a chore here. Now you backtrack out of the club, go to shantytown. Go through here and oops, we can't carry these back. New tear, backtrack out of shantytown, oops they're dead. Let's move on. No payoff for that bullshit trail at all.
Also, the vox ally part...they kept setting off my crow traps that were already set from the bodies of people earlier, but turned on me. Annoying.
Also, the vox ally part...they kept setting off my crow traps that were already set from the bodies of people earlier, but turned on me. Annoying.
So little really happens in the first half, it is mostly front loaded and then backloaded.
-The save system is a complete disaster. This has been harped on a lot and really deserves every bit of it. At times I wanted to stop playing but would have lost significant progress and had to keep on going. If a fight messed me up and I wanted to retry it, the few times I attempted to reload back sent me WAY farther than intended and made me recollect all the bullshit I picked up.
All in all, I seem more negative than positive but a lot of the negativity stems from the positivity towards certain aspects. As someone who didn't like the first bioshock, Infinite is atleast a much better game and I can certainly see why it's winning so many over. It's a game I would certainly still consider good and recommend people check out. The game still came together much better than I expected it to overall, and the ending is a big part why. I am glad to get a good conclusion for once after so many others drop the ball on that important part. I might attempt a 1999 run, but I am not sure I have it in me to finish given all the searching I'll have to go through again.
Well I'm replaying the game in
1999 mode
Canis lupus
Member
Whats that cool thing during credits? This comes after the credits right? Glad my console didn't freeze minutes earlier.
The Librarian
Banned
"Columbia. Yup, the good and the bad tie into how they did this. Many of these are personal things in the game that rubbed me the wrong way, ESPECIALLY compared to the E3 video which even while watching after completing the game blows me away with how good it is. Nothing in the game even comes remotely close to the mixture of exploring that chunk of city, the more layered way the skyrails are designed, and the fact that there is a fairly significant time spent not in combat despite enemies being around booker in the video. Hell, even booker/elizabeth in that video are 100x better regarding unique interactions with enviroments(liz with abe head, joking about the statue, fairly common chatter while moving) with booker remarking more often as well."
Because it's a demo. If Booker and Elizabeth talked that much throughout the entire game it'd be annoying as all get out.
Because it's a demo. If Booker and Elizabeth talked that much throughout the entire game it'd be annoying as all get out.
Canis lupus
Member
It needed more exploring and less shooting. :/
It may, but it worked well in that segment they showed considering it was a slower paced scavenge and the game has plenty of those with little input from either of them. A huge portion of the game is spent shooting and they obviously wouldn't chatter much during that.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
This actually happen to me and I also thought that was pretty disappointing. Fantastic art direction, but it's pretty easy to run your hand across it and feel all the seams holding together the world's prettiest scripted linear FPS.
The Librarian
Banned
Depends on your play style. I'm willing to bet my time spent in the game will be close to 50/50 between combat and exploration by time I'm done with it.
You have to make it work by people who go at a fast pace and a slow pace.
And a Voxaphone.
The Xtortionist
Member
You can purchase the season pass at any Gamestop. They'll give you a code to redeem on PSN.
And as a slow pace player, I don't feel it worked.
Also it's dangerous as fuck for you to be reading parts of that post, man!
I really wish I was able to not notice the seams everywhere. I am also holding out hope for DLC expanding more on Columbia, but I have no idea how they would work that in.
The extra Infusions really help, as do the golden skins for the mg and pistol (+35% damage immediately)
Yeah, I wanted to do my first play through fresh and didn't want to buy the pass before being sure I wanted more.
EDIT: Looks like Amazon is sending codes again.
The Librarian
Banned
Fixed. And my point was that you couldn't write enough dialogue because the pace of a game like this is up to the player.And as a slow pace player, I don't feel it worked.
Also it's dangerous as fuck for you to be reading parts of that post, girl!
It's a demo. It was intended to show what they were aiming for, and it's very, very scripted.
20 bucks for all that, plus gears and the 3 DLCs is a fucking deal and a half.
It's a great deal, especially if each piece of DLC is about 3-4 hours long.
I'm not really using the demo as a be-all end-all, just that I was still impressed/disappointed while watching it after beating the game due to the complexity it all seemed to ooze.
I feel it's a fair critique to have even if it seems fairly unrealistic, because you really would need absurd amounts of dialogue. That's the issue with a near permanent AI companion that is trying to be brought to life.
Yeah, after playing the game just knowing that I'll be getting more is a wonderful thing. Besides, I managed to get the Premium for the price of the standard so I figure I can throw them some season pass money.
EDIT: Got my code redeemed and PSN is now down for maintenance. Fuuuuu
ColonelColon
Member
The level design is the biggest problem I have with this game so far. In some ways, it feels a whole lot like almost every other FPS/TPS I've played in the last several years. Unlike Bioshock, which gave you fairly open areas to explore at your own pace, you're constantly moving from one "combat arena" to the next in a linear sequence.
ArisenDragon
Member
I don't know how far I would get in 1999 mode. Might try it eventually.