An ambitious sequel to an awesome series
Where to begin... This game could be judged by two different standards:
-How it stands on its own
-How it stands in relation to the series as a whole
Truth be told, you could say the same thing about it regardless: It's amazing.
However, it is important to realize and recognize where this series has been, and where it tried to go in this game to get some contextual understanding of what I'll be saying, so I dearly hope you've gifted yourself with the experience of its predecessors, because they're well worth playing.
First, the game's graphics can't be overstated in their depth of character or quality. I couldn't quite put my finger on a great description of them, but suffice to say they're one step away from realistic (this is no Battlefield 3), but this really seemed like an artistic choice rather than a lack of skill, and I appreciated it all the way through. Not only did they firmly find a style of their own (which is a hallmark of the series in general), they managed to completely lead you through the different stages of the game.
The game starts, somewhat peacefully in a Victorian/turn-of-the-century setting... minus the part where the city you're in is floating. As the city becomes embroiled in a conflict (thanks to your actions) they really sell you on the destruction and carnage going on all around you. And as the game descends into the science-fiction led madness later on... they do a great job of that as well.
But from start to finish, the sights and sounds definitely draw you in, and set a great foundation to immerse you in their world.
Next, I'd like to pay a huge compliment to the developers on their adaptation of the actual combat in the game. In my opinion, they REALLY spent some time, and paid deep thought to how this game's combat needed to work, and I'd say for the most part they came up with all the right answers and implemented them well.
The game features far more guns than its predecessors', though some of them are clearly just reiterations of each other, and not all of them are clear on what they do (A Heater? What's that?). Some are also pretty underpowered, and not worth using for the most part. Suffice to say though, that the actual feel of combat is very visceral, and satisfying. This was a marked improvement in my mind, as guns felt rather weak in the previous games, and very relevant in this one.
I also want to mention just how fluid the game plays. I heard the developers express quite a few concerns about how Elizabeth fit into gameplay, etc. and I have to say, they did just fine. Realistic or not, i LOVE that enemies don't even target her in combat, and just completely remove that stress factor from the gameplay. Thumbs up. I love that getting killed and revived happens in about 10 seconds, and almost always right where you died, or close by, instead of getting revived at the nearest Vita chamber, for which the word "near" might be a bit of a stretch. These are small things, but they can add up to a big positive feeling towards the game, just like a collection of nit-picky negative things can really wear on the user over time.
However, as well as the game looks and plays, there are some aspects of it that left me scratching my head. You could easily divide the mechanics of the game into three categories:
-Great mechanics that were well implemented.
-Mechanics that featured a good idea or two, but weren't fully fleshed out or thought out.
-Mechanics that were just plain missing or forgotten about at some point.
The great mechanics we've already covered, let's move on.
One feature that I was pretty dubious of throughout the game was the item/powers/gun upgrades systems. Unfortunately, Bioshock: Infinite replaces all the more passive character upgrade plasmids from the first two games with an extremely dumbed-down and restrictive item system. You have four slots-pants, shirt, boots, hat- and you can find and equip various items throughout the game. First off, this doesn't even compare to the sheer amount of upgrades you got in Bioshock 1 & 2, as both had at least 3-4 categories of upgrades, with 5-6 slots each. That's whittling down 20+ slots... to 4. This might not have been a huge deal, MIGHT not, if the items made up for the lack of volume with robust stats/features... Unfortunately, I found that the average item was less compelling than an average single plasmid in Bioshock 1 & 2. That kind of depressed me as soon as I saw the pattern of general uselessness, because I really liked how well defined you could make your character in the first two games, just with passive plasmid selection towards a certain "spec". Most of the Bioshock:Infinite items, an annoying amount to be truthful, gave you silly bonuses for attack from the flight lines, which didn't account for all THAT many battles in the game.
Next the guns... Fortunately, the developers intelligently circumvented most of what I'm talking about by the sheer amount of ammunition found in the. I played through all three Bioshock games on the hardest difficulty level and I have to say that the constant scrounging for ammo in the first two games really wasn't repeated in the third. I appreciated that a lot. However... While you had a great plethora of guns, it almost became too many because of the upgrades system, and how many you were (weren't) allowed to hold. Each gun in the game has 4 upgrade slots that can be utilized and upgrades (for money, of course) at various crafting stations throughout the game. Most of these upgrades are fairly pricey, and if you were to try get every upgrade for every gun in the game, you'd fail, just by merit of there not being enough money in the game. And that's not even taking into account the powers upgrades, which were almost unbelievably expensive.
The other downside of guns is that, while every enemy in the game dropped ammo on death (and usually a good amount of it), they didn't necessarily drop the ammo you needed for your gun selection. Some guns were pretty steady throughout the game (shotgun and machinegun are great examples), but others were kind of rare. Unfortunately, on a first playthrough you'd have no way of knowing this, and could potentially spend a large amount of cash upgrading guns you didn't get to use a whole lot. In fact, based on my experience, unless you stick with the shotgun/machinegun for at least one of your slots on a permanent basis, I'd say you would never get to keep two identical guns for any huge length of time. Regardless, It was very difficult to decide which guns to use and upgrade, because it felt impossible to predict when they were going to be giving you ammo. On the other hand, while inefficient, they did make buying ammo from vending machines very reasonably priced, so that did alleviate this problem a lot.
My other big complaint about the game was the lack of character customization options. This was due mainly to the lack of items, as previously discussed, and the kind of lame nature of the powers in the game. The powers your character finds as he progresses are very similar to those in Bioshock 1 & 2 (not identical, and there are some new ones, but you can can see a lot of similarities), but they felt very unfinished to me. So much that I pretty much used 1 or 2 of them, and stuck with guns for the rest of combat. It also didn't help that the upgrades for these powers were so exorbitantly expensive that you could scarcely afford to buy them, much less afford to buy them and have any money left over for gun upgrades. I specifically remember the first powers upgrade vendor I found, and that I had $500, and they were asking for $1700 for the upgrade. I couldn't believe that deficit, given how thoroughly I usually explore game areas to find all the items. Powers also tend to drain your power bar (aka Salt in Bioshock: Infinite) VERY quickly, and with no portable means to replenish your bar (i.e. EVE hypos), relying on finding things with salt in them in the middle of a battle was far less appealing than just shooting enemies in the face with the hundreds of bullets in your pocket.
The game did try to provide a little boost to character building by providing you with the choice of upgrading your health, shield (a la Halo), or Salt bars every time you found a special flask. You could only find about a full upgrade and a half's worth throughout the game, so you did have some choices to make, however minor.
Now the story... I'm not quite sure what to think. I was definitely drawn in and interested in it, but it's hard to decipher what they were trying to get across. The moral, religious, social, etc. implications were beyond heavy handed throughout the game. In fact they pretty much went with a "slap you in the face" approach to their presentation. And to be honest, none of what they did bothered me as much as the fact that the game only had one ending. I wont' spoil what that is for you if you haven't gotten there yet, but I will say that I think this was a horrible decision for several reasons.
First of all, if you know anything about the Bioshock series, then you know that the moral decisions you make in them decide your ending. It's strange to me that in the franchise's most morally based installment, the root of which is the choice of mankind to make their own decisions and ergo their own destiny, that you have no CHOICE about your ending. That makes no sense.
Secondly, I feel that it's just a tradition that shouldn't have been broken. I loved knowing that the things I did in the first two games were GOING to have an impact on what happened in the end, and I knew I was going to get to play through it twice, and experience it through two different playstyles because of that.
Choice is good, Bioware, in case you haven't heard. I heard that the game director didn't want multiple endings and I have to say: huge mistake.
I'm not even saying the ending was bad. A little ambiguous, but not bad at all.
Overall, my experience with the game was an amazing one, and I'm sure I'll play it again at some point. A lengthy, compelling, beautifully rendered first person shooter with gunplay mechanics that are actually well done? In 2013? Who knew? Bioware did.