Bioshock Infinite - Review Thread [UP: IGN exclusive split PC/Console review up]

Atomski said:
I dont see how this is true at all.. if you watch people play with a controller then a mouse the viewing of the mouse always seems so much more fluid and natural where as controller it always looks like the person is viewing in a straight line. Maybe Im crazy but it has a more organic viewing motion where as I can always tell someones using a controller cause its always so angular and unnatural.. like you are a robot.

But lets be honest here controllers will be pausing the game to select abilities while I will be enjoying the action and views.
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It all depends on the personality traits of a person when it comes to how they handle any control method. I have no beef with K+M and don't plan on going on about how controllers are a superior control method but instead offer an alternative to the unnatural statement. It seems a bit more unnatural observing a scenario with a control method that is halted by a finite user input radius. A left hold on a thumb stick creates a continuous speed without any variability unless given the proper instruction. Mouse controls are great for focusing and following onto a focal point but offers little in the way of a wider focus without what could possibly create mouse stutter. Having something that is pixel accurate to a limb doesn't support a natural view of an environment that a human eye develops. Then again neither does a controller, as stated with your "Robotic" argument.

What this game truly needs is Oculus Rift support to strike a balance between both.
 
Balb said:
Watched the video review. If the FPS genre is stale as Ryan says, IGN's (or any other review sites really) reviews certainly don't reflect that for any of the recent big FPS games.
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Sadly, no title has yet managed to capture the revolutionary fervour of Halo 4.
 
The perfect solution to the mouse vs controller is the playstation move dongle controller plus the mouse. The catch is a bunch of games will only let you use one and if you can use both it takes ages to setup and you have to mentally remember how it's setup. When you do get it working you can get just as smooth a movement of the camera as with dual analogue plus you get the accuracy.

Digital movement is awful, as much as I prefer the mouse to look, I end up back at the controller if I can't use the move dongle.
 
I can't think of any game in which having more than 2 walking speeds was useful. Not even Splinter Cell, which did have incremental speed adjustment via the mouse wheel, really only needed walk/run.

If it's really important to you to walk there's almost always a key binding for that.
 
richiek said:
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is this review real? holyshit if yes.
 
Myansie said:
The perfect solution to the mouse vs controller is the playstation move dongle controller plus the mouse. The catch is a bunch of games will only let you use one and if you can use both it takes ages to setup and you have to mentally remember how it's setup. When you do get it working you can get just as smooth a movement of the camera as with dual analogue plus you get the accuracy.

Digital movement is awful, as much as I prefer the mouse to look, I end up back at the controller if I can't use the move dongle.
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That wouldn't be the perfect solution either. The perfect solution would have the precision/smoothness of the mouse, incremental movement of the analogue stick and the broad functionality of a keyboard (enough keys so you don't have to pause the action or remove/limit functions (see the Arma franchise)).

You could use something like those Belkin devices, but I don't know how ergonomic that is.
 
doctorstrange said:
I'm gonna just leave this here:

http://i.imgur.com/RQX8Y05.jpg
Q: So how many times have you played [BioShock Infinite] so far?
Ryan McCaffrey: 1 and then a chunk of it in 1999 Mode.
(Not a) Q: But you reviewed it for 3 platforms.
https://twitter.com/DMC_Ryan/status/314968729576431616
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Is it so hard to believe that he played through the entire game on one system and then played perhaps an hour or two of the other versions to get a general impression on the differences?

I think it's laughably fucking absurd that he should be expected to finish the game 3 times on 3 different platforms to qualify that he "played it on 3 different platforms".
 
antitrop said:
Is it so hard to believe that he played through the entire game on one system and then played perhaps an hour or two of the other versions to get a general impression on the differences?

I think it's laughably fucking absurd that he should be expected to finish the game 3 times on 3 different platforms to qualify that he "played it on 3 different platforms".
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I dislike IGN but we are going to kill the industry with cynicism.
Seriously..
Though after the polygon Sim City bull it's hard for me to keep that stance sometimes.
 
I always assumed they have uncredited interns play through the secondary versions of a game to check for glaring differences, but then I don't know how that would work with an exclusive.
 
antitrop said:
Is it so hard to believe that he played through the entire game on one system and then played perhaps an hour or two of the other versions to get a general impression on the differences?

I think it's laughably fucking absurd that he should be expected to finish the game 3 times on 3 different platforms to qualify that he "played it on 3 different platforms".
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Yup. That post is pretty dumb.
 
antitrop said:
Is it so hard to believe that he played through the entire game on one system and then played perhaps an hour or two of the other versions to get a general impression on the differences?

I think it's laughably fucking absurd that he should be expected to finish the game 3 times on 3 different platforms to qualify that he "played it on 3 different platforms".
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You'd think that with a major world exclusive review, that yes, yes he would play the game 3 times... or at least to a degree worthy of mentioning in his tweet. Framerates, draw distances, glitches, tearing... these aren't things that can be discovered by simply checking out one quick level. You need to play areas with large landscapes, cramped conditions, tons of explosions etc. [Edit: And controls, which he goes into detail on, are again something that need to be experienced over a long period, and in different scenarios.]

Considering this is the only (double) review, that 0.1 point, which would otherwise seem trivial, is very important.
 
doctorstrange said:
You'd think that with a major world exclusive review, that yes, yes he would play the game 3 times...
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You realize that's basically ~40 hours of time invested before he even hits pen to paper and that there are such things as deadlines? Perhaps his editor wouldn't even allow him to play it 3 times because it's on the companies time and he has other shit to do. Do you know when the IGN offices received their review copies from 2K? I don't, probably wasn't all that long ago.

Considering how eager the guy sounds to get back into the game and explore its mysteries further, I think he would have done so to benefit his review if at all possible.

IGN isn't Digital Foundry, either. Their acknowledgement that there is a noticeable difference in playing experience between the consoles and the PS3 is sufficient. Nitpicky texture and frame rate analysis will be on Eurogamer next week.
 
Captain Bluey said:
The IGN review just got reviewed.

http://kotaku.com/5991840/bioshock-infinite-the-ign-review-the-kotaku-review

I wonder what a "yes" is on Metacritc? 10? :-)
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Wait, so after calling exclusive reviews "the grossest thing, period", Jason links to the IGN review and says people should read it because it's the only review out right now? Why are you encouraging them Jason?

Edit: Don't get me wrong, I found the toungue-in-cheekness of the article quite amusing. But I still feel like telling your audience to read this review is only contributing to the problem.
 
SparkTR said:
That wouldn't be the perfect solution either. The perfect solution would have the precision/smoothness of the mouse, incremental movement of the analogue stick and the broad functionality of a keyboard (enough keys so you don't have to pause the action or remove/limit functions (see the Arma franchise)).

You could use something like those Belkin devices, but I don't know how ergonomic that is.
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It's a bitch to setup, but the movement is awesome. The only times I am running at full speed is during action scenes. just walking around I like to view the world in a very smooth style. It makes the graphics look so much better.
 
antitrop said:
You realize that's basically ~40 hours of time invested before he even hits pen to paper and that there are such things as deadlines? Perhaps his editor wouldn't even allow him to play it 3 times because it's on the companies time and he has other shit to do.
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Of course, but then the answer is simple - do one review, not 2. Mention which platform you really played on, and then go into additional detail on the platforms you just fiddled with. Don't say, in an infuriatingly ambiguous way, "Having played BioShock Infinite on all three platforms", because you're essentially concealing the truth.

If they didn't have enough time, they didn't have to meet the embargo. Readers shouldn't suffer due to a writer's rush.
 
mickcenary said:
Ugh. Really? See, for me, that's enough a reason to not play a game like this on PC. Think of all the times Booker will enter an amazing new locale and stare/gaze around in cinematic wonderment! Not on pc he won't, yo.
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I'll happily take good controls over that.
 
Nice score, but I loathe Ryan Mc.

I think when all is said and done, a solid 88-91 metacritic score will be had.
 
doctorstrange said:
Of course, but then the answer is simple - do one review, not 2. Mention which platform you really played on, and then go into additional detail on the platforms you just fiddled with. Don't say, in an infuriatingly ambiguous way, "Having played BioShock Infinite on all three platforms", because you're essentially concealing the truth.
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Well, that I'll agree with. I don't think it's the biggest deal in the world, but being as specific as possible is always a good thing.

I just don't think it's necessarily IGN's responsibility to be Digital Foundry.
 
antitrop said:
Well, that I'll agree with. I don't think it's the biggest deal in the world, but being as specific as possible is always a good thing.
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I don't think it would be the biggest of deals (still very frownable and annoying) if it was a normal review. However, as a timed exclusive, the score differences will sadly have an impact on platform sales and consumer choices. And that impact may have been made from flawed assumptions based on a review of one platform and a glance at two others.
 
antitrop said:
Is it so hard to believe that he played through the entire game on one system and then played perhaps an hour or two of the other versions to get a general impression on the differences?

I think it's laughably fucking absurd that he should be expected to finish the game 3 times on 3 different platforms to qualify that he "played it on 3 different platforms".
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PS3 Skyrim. If that's not enough reason to play through a game on said machines, then I don't know what is.
 
Just went to play a little of the original on PC...why don't they map the various powers to the D-Pad? I don't like weapon wheels either, but I'll still be using a controller for Infinite. There seemed to be literally nothing mapped to the D-Pad for the original Bioshock. That is 4 wasted inputs, unless I'm missing something here.

I played briefly with kb/m just for fun and I still don't quite like it. I think it's just because I've been gaming for so long with a controller, my brain is trained a certain way. I played about 300 hours of BC2 on PS3 (which led me to build a gaming pc) so it's hard to adjust. I'm used to reloading, jumping, interacting etc with my right hand, and now the left is responsible for all of that plus movement. The weird thing is I am a pretty proficient typist, it's not like I have to look down at the keyboard when I type.

With a controller, you only need one input to move the character, change speed, and crouch. On a keyboard it's 3 different fingers to move, and one to crouch, sprint, or walk. That's 6 different inputs to do what one joystick does minus either sprint or crouch depending on the setup.

But that's just my 2 cents, and I think even someone like Gabe agrees to some extent. I've seen him talk about the need for new ways to control games.
 
antitrop said:
I just don't think it's necessarily IGN's responsibility to be Digital Foundry.
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Then what's the point of even giving different scores to different platforms? People want to know what it plays best on, and that's what they rationally assume the score is telling them. They don't want to know what it looks best on after 5 minutes, they want a proper review, as the title, the body of the text and his other tweets comparing platforms would indicate.
 
doctorstrange said:
Then what's the point of even giving different scores to different platforms? People want to know what it plays best on, and that's what they rationally assume the score is telling them. They don't want to know what it looks best on after 5 minutes, they want a proper review, as the title, the body of the text and his other tweets comparing platforms would indicate.
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They already answered that.
 
Deified Data said:
Imagine playing a "bit" of Skyrim on PS3 before writing your review.
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Well that's the thing - I managed 5ish hours of Skyrim before anything happened. Obviously, a lot of people had it worse, but some had it better. [Edit: If I remember correctly, many of the problems were down to the save file ballooning over time, but that may be wrong]

If a reviewer is differentiating between platforms, you'd assume he knew enough to differentiate between platforms. Or at least have the decency to admit that he hadn't played them properly in the review.
 
doctorstrange said:
Well that's the thing - I managed 5ish hours of Skyrim before anything happened. Obviously, a lot of people had it worse, but some had it better. [Edit: If I remember correctly, many of the problems were down to the save file ballooning over time, but that may be wrong]

If a reviewer is differentiating between platforms, you'd assume he knew enough to differentiate between platforms. Or at least have the decency to admit that he hadn't played them properly in the review.
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Yeah, barring some minor framerate issues if you played PS3 Skyrim for just a few hours before wrapping up your review you'd come off it thinking it was just as good as the 360 version.

I'm not particularly bothered by the fact that he didn't do a full playthrough on every platform, but I think it's a conversation worth having.
 
Wooden NPC's on the console versions? I watched some of the leaked PS3 gameplay and didn't see that. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding that line.

Edit: mentions detailed faces for the PC version, so maybe that's what he meant. Thought he was talking about like wooden animations or something.
 
People are asking for a fair and thorough comparison between the different versions? I don't think that IGN had that in mind with their 4 day exclusive review.
 
Deified Data said:
Imagine playing a "bit" of Skyrim on PS3 before writing your review.
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Heh, that's a good point. My idea of a "bit" is to check that version out for a couple hours or so to see the differences.

I do think that reviewers should be completely transparent about which version was played to completion and how the comparison was done with the other versions if they're going to make one in their review.
 
mickcenary said:
Ugh. Really? See, for me, that's enough a reason to not play a game like this on PC. Think of all the times Booker will enter an amazing new locale and stare/gaze around in cinematic wonderment! Not on pc he won't, yo.
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So long as the game supports a controller (MOST do, but Bioshock 2 didn't for some reason and Bioware's absurdly anti-controller support) you have an absolute advantage over the 360 version at least for pure features, and Move and Mouse are roughly equal I'd expect.

EDIT: Though with Dennis's post either there ISN'T support, or he just lacked a wired one for some reason. I can't imagine why HE of all people would lack a wired one if he ever wanted to use one for any PC game though.

EDIT 2: Saw a new story on PC features mentioning controller support. PC has everything but move, so controller point's irrelevant.
 
RiccochetJ said:
Heh, that's a good point. My idea of a "bit" is to check that version out for a couple hours or so to see the differences.

I do think that reviewers should be completely transparent about which version was played to completion and how the comparison was done with the other versions if they're going to make one in their review.
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Yep. And really, PS3 Skyrim was just exceptionally bad. I wouldn't use it as a benchmark in console parity. It's all about honesty in the end. I don't care if they're spending 3 hours on a PS3 review so long as they admit it.
 
How spoiler-ish is the review / vid review ?

I really want to read and watch them, but I also do not want to be spoiled....at all...
 
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