by Reid DeJongh 10/20/2023
I was scrolling on Steam, when I saw a game called Bioshock Infinite, which I had heard of but never played. I bought it and was surprised at how good it was for a 10 year old game.
Bioshock Infinite was released on March 16, 2013. It was developed by Irrational Games and published by 2k. Bioshock Infinite (BSI) is the third game in the Bioshock franchise, and is set in a different atmosphere than other Bioshock games. The other Bioshock games were set in an underwater city that looked similar to New York, but BSI is set in a floating, steampunk-like city called Columbia.
The overall gameplay of BSI is pretty simple. You have abilities called “Vigors” and different weapons. Your goal is to bring a girl named Elizabeth back to the person who hired you, but there are people who are trying to stop you from doing that, so you must eliminate them using your abilities and weapons.
The weapons all feel great to use. They don’t deal too much damage or too little, and feel and sound like you're really shooting them. The abilities on the other hand aren’t balanced whatsoever. Some abilities feel useless, while others turn the game into a cake walk. For example, the Shock Jockey Vigor stuns an enemy for a while (multiple enemies when upgraded), making that enemy much easier to eliminate.
Another ability called Return to Sender Vigor that in theory, blocks all incoming attacks/damage and if you keep using the ability, sends the attacks back at the enemy, but it takes way too long to activate the ability to block most attacks. Since you have to wait a little over a second for the ability to activate, the damage from the attacks has already been dealt. However, the abilities are all fun to use so them being unbalanced isn’t that big of a deal.
(SPOILERS AHEAD. TALKING ABOUT THE GAMES STORY)
The story of Bioshock Infinite is very basic until the end of the game. You enter Columbia and realize that the city is run by a psycho racist who thinks he is a prophet of god. After a while of playing, you enter the tower where they are keeping Elizabth captive. You make your way into the tower, find Elizabeth and try to leave but are stopped by a giant robot bird. You wake up on the beach and have to go find Elizabeth. Going a little farther into the story, something happens, Elizabeth runs away, hides, gets lost, or something else happens to her. Then you have to find her or chase her. That’s what most of the game is like until the very end where you get a very vague explanation as to what’s actually going on. The story isn’t bad, but the loop of having to find Elizabeth and fight the same couple of enemies over and over again gets very repetative. The characters are great though. You can see how each one of them grows as a person the more the story goes on.
In conclusion, Bioshock Infinite is a great game that only has a couple of flaws. I would recommend the game to anyone, but only if it’s on sale. I say this because it’s a pretty old game and the flaws are something to consider when buying the game. Overall, I give Bioshock Infinite a 8/10.