BioShock Infinite Review

After having two adventures through the destroyed city of Rapture, Irrational Games has decided to give gamers another look at the world of BioShock, but this time we take to the skies in BioShock Infinite. With promises of a brand new gameplay experience, an entirely original storyline, a new companionship system, plus some unique powers, the game quickly caught the interest of fans and newcomers alike. While the first two BioShock titles were critically successful, can BioShock Infinite live up to the hype or did it fly too close to the sun?

Let’s take a look on what’s HOT and what’s NOT in our review of Bioshock Infinite.

HOT

Stunning Environments
Over the past two BioShock games, players are accustomed to the under-the-sea environments of Rapture where at times it gets monotonous. To give fans a new environment to explore, the floating city of Columbia is introduced in Bioshock Infinite. Instead of having an environment like Rapture where everything appears dull, Columbia feels livelier and a nice change of pace. Fans can expect to see a robust amount of people talking where they can eavesdrop, propaganda posters scattered throughout the city, and that chance to go through houses where they can loot items from. Overall, the experience is pretty captivating. The whole feel of the city of Columbia will give fans the impression that it’s like heaven as it’s peaceful and a lot of harmony can be felt through its people. Every step that fans go through the city will be a memorable one and there will always be something of interest whenever you explore the city as you will want to see more of it.

Fascinating Storyline
BioShock Infinite takes place in 1912 where you, Booker Dewitt, an ex-Pinkerton agent, is assigned on a mission to extract a woman from the floating city of Columbia. ‘Bring Us the Girl, Wipe Away the Debt’ is the line that you will hear all of the time. A simple extracting mission will put DeWitt into something far more bigger as he unravels the mystery of an unknown religion in Columbia. Similar to Andrew Ryan’s ideal of a perfect utopia for Rapture, a new leader named Father Comstock is leading Columbia to his ‘perfect utopia’ and DeWiit must find the connection between the girl named Elizabeth he’s rescuing and the twisted ideology of the floating city. As always, the initial storyline might be slow but it gets better as you progress through the game. Expect an unexpected plot twist to unravel, especially with the real identity of Elizabeth.

Elizabeth
Often times in games where there are companions, they are criticized as the AI is usually terrible. In Infinite, it all changes as Elizabeth, being your companion, will be your greatest asset. Instead of doing all the protecting since she’s the girl and will give you the impression of being weak, Elizabeth can manage herself well especially during combat. What she does when she follows you around varies as she can give you items like med packs that you can use or toss you a few coins. When simply exploring, she will randomly stop and talk to give you more information of the area you’re at or toss her opinion on things. Also, she has an ability that will be useful and that’s picking locks on doors, although you will need to find lockpicks to give her to do the job. From the time you finish the game, you will have the sense of attachment to her as the journey through the game will make you fall for her and will be remembered as one of the most useful companions introduced in a game. Not only does she have her own story to tell, she has this sense of usefulness that is rare to find in other games.

Same Combat System with a Few Twists
Those who enjoyed the combat system of the first two BioShock games, they will not feel uncomfortable with Infinite as they are more of the same thing with a few slight new additions. Instead of having Plasmids where it gives you powers, Vigors are introduced. Similar to Plasmids, the Vigors that you get will give DeWiit powers like allowing to control enemies or turrets for a brief period of time, release crows to attack enemies, and throwing fire bombs. All of these powers rely on the ‘Salt’ that you will have to gather throughout the game. Pretty much, Plasmids and Vigor are more of the same thing except the new powers that DeWitt gets are much cooler and useful to use compared to the Plasmids in the first two BioShock games.