• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Bioshock Infinite |OT| No Gods, Kings, or Irrational Games

Riposte

Member
Games can train players to look at them in a certain way (in other words: play in a certain way). By putting so much looting in the game, they basically made it so that you would look into every nook and cranny. This is not only not a very good idea of fun (though it no doubt provides some warped form of gratification), but it makes you much more critical of those nooks and crannies. It is like we were trained to squeeze blood from a stone.
 
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.

Well it's kinda hard not to, considering all the damn scavenging in this game. Something like HL2 is a very similar scripted FPS with great art direction and environmental storytelling/world building, but it doesn't have you looking through every nook and cranny for upgrades and shit, so you don't notice the strings in that game like you do in Bioshock Infinite.

But they're such lovely strings!

edit: beaten, screw u riposte
 

Andrew.

Banned
Games can train players to look at them in a certain way (in other words: play in a certain way). By putting so much looting in the game, they basically made it so that you would look into every nook and cranny. This is not only not a very good idea of fun (though it no doubt provides some warped form of gratification), but it makes you much more critical of those nooks and crannies. It is like we were trained to squeeze blood from a stone.

I only tap into my ultra nook n cranniness in Bioshock games though. I dont take it to the extreme like that in something like Dead Space, which has a pretty tight focus on exploring Thomas English Muffin style. It's weird.
 
Okay, I've enjoyed the living hell out of this game, but the fights with (I assume pretty close to the end spoilers)
Lady Comstock are not fun in the slightest, and I'm fighting her for the third fucking time for some reason. Any tips (playing on hard)?
 
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.

Well, it's easy to pack a shit-ton of content into a short amount of time. It's a lot harder to keep up the ratio over a 12-hour game (on average).
 
Games can train players to look at them in a certain way (in other words: play in a certain way). By putting so much looting in the game, they basically made it so that you would look into every nook and cranny. This is not only not a very good idea of fun (though it no doubt provides some warped form of gratification), but it makes you much more critical of those nooks and crannies. It is like we were trained to squeeze blood from a stone.

I thought this was a good thing. The level of tension in the game is crazy, having the payoff between tempting fate and scavenging but potentially allowing for enemies to sneak up on you or moving on through but not getting rations is a decision the player has to make. For me the Voxaphones and ancillary story details from the art made me want to look everywhere.

It worked better in Bioshock 1 which felt like much more of a horror game
 
Im only a few hours in but I'm enjoying the game so far. Columbia is cool but doesn't get anywhere close to matching Rapture as a location. I really like the theme so far, though.
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Well it's kinda hard not to, considering all the damn scavenging in this game. Something like HL2 is a very similar scripted FPS with great art direction and environmental storytelling/world building, but it doesn't have you looking through every nook and cranny for upgrades and shit, so you don't notice the strings in that game like you do in Bioshock Infinite.

But they're such lovely strings!

edit: beaten, screw u riposte

Games can train players to look at them in a certain way (in other words: play in a certain way). By putting so much looting in the game, they basically made it so that you would look into every nook and cranny. This is not only not a very good idea of fun (though it no doubt provides some warped form of gratification), but it makes you much more critical of those nooks and crannies. It is like we were trained to squeeze blood from a stone.

Good points. Playing the game and finding certain spots that are points of interest but can't be interacted with until you progress and are forced to go back there is pretty much impossible to avoid given the focus on scavenging, but nontheless still come off as odd when the game is basically going "oops, you weren't supposed to go there yet".

Well, it's easy to pack a shit-ton of content into a short amount of time. It's a lot harder to keep up the ratio over a 12-hour game (on average).

True enough. I just dislike over produced promo shit in general so it's a point of contention with me.
 

Amir0x

Banned
<Shantytown/Police Spoilers>
There was something supremely haunting about that poor lady singing a soul, freedom song version of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son." The song took on a completely different context when played here and in this form. And as the sounds of battle pounded all around here, it was just unsettling and mesmerizing.
 

Zeliard

Member
<Shantytown/Police Spoilers>
There was something supremely haunting about that poor lady singing a soul, freedom song version of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son." The song took on a completely different context when played here and in this form. And as the sounds of battle pounded all around here, it was just unsettling and mesmerizing.

Yeah that was a great scene. I stood there for a while listening. :p
 
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.

Exactly, while the plot is great, ascending how games usually are told, the way you move from A to B still feels like a very generic shooter, with some very tedious sequences.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Yeah that was a great scene. I stood there for a while listening. :p

It was weird also seeing the scene (in Shantytown also) where
Elizabeth starts singing the Will the Circle be Unbroken song when you play the guitar and then sheepishly hands the boy an orange. THAT was a little too snow white for me lol
 

conman

Member
It needed more exploring and less shooting. :/
I don't think it's as simple as that.

I think there was a lot of untapped room for "exploration" within the combat mechanics. I appreciate that they honed the combat down to a tight central duo of guns and vigor, but they also pruned away a lot of the fun of combat experimentation. The guns are all standard fare, and the vigors are all some variation of stun.

And while the world invites you to look at all of its small details and expansive vistas, the level design doesn't encourage you to explore much. Lots of invisible walls, arbitrary piles of rubble/trash/furniture blocking off paths, etc. Good shooter level design should feel expansive despite being linear. The trick to that is to make the walls not feel like walls. But in BI, the seams show and I felt arbitrarily restrained too often. The first Bioshock felt a lot like Metroid Prime, even though it wasn't nearly as open. The level design in BI feels a bit more like a standard shooter--with a couple of notable exceptions (like the Emporia and Fort Frolic).
 
a lot of good music in here but I think the best one for me was that quartet singing "god only knows" by beach boys.

it helps that it was during the introduction period of the game, when the city just seemed so beautiful and idyllic.

also holy fuck at that ending
 
Finished. What a fucking ride. Not the greatest game of all time, but, goddamn probably one of the best this gen. We haven't had many good FPS games, specially ones with good story-modes this gen. I think that ending as one of the most memorable in FPS history, one of the most, not the most, but, goddamn.
 
I killed
Lady Comstock (x3)
earlier and now I'm at the part where
Songbird took Elizabeth
god those fights were annoying as hell! How long more?
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
I killed
Lady Comstock (x3)
earlier and now I'm at the part where
Songbird took Elizabeth
god those fights were annoying as hell! How long more?

Not much. About an hour to an hour and a half, I'd say, depending on how long the last few fights take you.
 

beastmode

Member
Between Elizabeth's unfitting dialogue, her leaning on a vendor preventing me from possessing it, a skyline arena ruined by stuttering, and a crash after scrounging for everything in Emporia, that was one hell of a bad session.
 

Andrew.

Banned
Handyman at Fink Private Docks on 1999 is as far away from fun as something can possibly be.

From what I posted earlier today:

The first Handyman battle can be exploited pretty easily. It's how I got through it on 99.

Lead him over to the back corner to the right of the Good Time Club (face the club and it is to the right). Hook up to the awning and then jump onto the log pile tucked in the corner. Crouch and wait there for him to arrive. He will either get stuck on the corner of the building and just look at you and not do shit or he will jump in front of the log pile, attack sometimes, but is still able to become an easy kill.

This is also the method I used to get the "Heartbreaker" trophy.
 

Katori

Member
I missed the Charge vigor in the
police station.
Is there anywhere else that I can get it or will I have to replace an existing vigor at the vigor machine? I am now far past this part and very bummed that I missed it.
 
From what I posted earlier today:

The first Handyman battle can be exploited pretty easily. It's how I got through it on 99.

Lead him over to the back corner to the right of the Good Time Club (face the club and it is to the right). Hook up to the awning and then jump onto the log pile tucked in the corner. Crouch and wait there for him to arrive. He will either get stuck on the corner of the building and just look at you and not do shit or he will jump in front of the log pile, attack sometimes, but is still able to become an easy kill.

This is also the method I used to get the "Heartbreaker" trophy.

Yeah that one is easy, this is the one after you get Undertow.
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Yeah that one is easy, this is the one after you get Undertow.

Open the tear for the Tesla Coil and keep it around that. Use Undertow to stun it nearby that.

This was the hardest one for me but staying around here and just running in circles worked pretty well. I was on Hard though.
 

Jigolo

Member
Just started playing the game today. I'm exploring and looking at everything. The game is designed so well that it looks like they've put work into every single spot of the game so far. The atmosphere is incredible. Also vigors rock.

I've only just rescued Elizabeth and then found her on the beach again. Not too far into the game yet
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
You can pretty much choose how you play. Some people go gun-heavy, but using mostly vigors with occasional gun-use is totally viable.

I want to defeat every enemy by only throwing the bodies of dead enemies at them. Which is how I liked to play Dead Space. But that ability went away. I fear it went away here too :(
 

SmithnCo

Member
I want to defeat every enemy by only throwing the bodies of dead enemies at them. Which is how I liked to play Dead Space. But that ability went away. I fear it went away here too :(

There's no telekinesis but there are definitely some cool new ones. You might like undertow or return to sender.
 
Open the tear for the Tesla Coil and keep it around that. Use Undertow to stun it nearby that.

This was the hardest one for me but staying around here and just running in circles worked pretty well. I was on Hard though.

Yeah I had that tear open but I'll give it another shot at luring him over there, cheers.
 
Top Bottom