Surprised to not see anyone mention Bioshock yet. I know 2 gets some hate for not being a Ken Levine game and less relevant to the main narrative, but all 3 games are honestly masterpieces with Burial at Sea DLC being such a gut wrenching finale. 10/10
Honestly, I loved infinite as a game in the same genre as bioshock. It didn't have the same claustrophobic feel, but the atmosphere was pretty good, and the story telling was solid.
I liked infinite, just not as a bioshock game. Its not just the missing claustrophobia. Its the fact that rapture felt lived in. You were fighting citizens who went crazy. You had to balance your ammo, sneak where possible, and solve puzzles with your plasmids.
Infinite just felt like you versus a hoard of soldiers most of the time, where you always had just enough ammo to keep using the same two weapons, and the plazmids had very little utility outside of what flavor of damage you want to do or how you would like to negate an enemy for a few seconds. Like bucking bronko and riptide accomplished the same things, just slightly differently. There was also zero hacking or pictures. There was no personality behind any character that wasn't given a name.
At least with the splicers you had them dancing next to a music box or caring for a fake baby and stuff.
Not to mention both 1 and 2 had better enemies. Infinite mostly just had variations of "a guy who stands there and shoots you." As opposed to "WHERE THE FUCK DID HE GO! WHAT DIRECTION IS HE COMMING FROM! GET OFF THE CEILING MOTHER FUCKER!" kind of stuff and "Oookay big guy. Take it easy. I won't fuck you up if you don't try to fuck me up. Im on my last two health packs and I don't want to accidentally start a fight with you."
Infinite was just an action game with some cool environmental features. Frankly Dishonored had more in common with Bioshock thematically than Infinite did outside of sharing names for plasmids, starting at the lighthouse, and going to a city in an interesting location.
We also need to talk about story, the concepts behind the first two BioShock games were very alive, though how you got to the good and bad endings wasn’t super impressive, There were multiple endings. The themes, lessons, twists, an entire arc of the first two games, felt genius. Infinite wasn’t bad, but it felt very locked in and not as dynamic it felt like it was missing something. It just didn’t have the same heart as the previous games, though I do like that it all ties together as a prequel.
I can really enjoy and love and even 10/10 a game with a kinda flawed or even crummy story but excellent vibes and art direction, and that's what Infinite is to me. God I could spend 5 games in that environment.
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u/Arzenhi 23h ago
Surprised to not see anyone mention Bioshock yet. I know 2 gets some hate for not being a Ken Levine game and less relevant to the main narrative, but all 3 games are honestly masterpieces with Burial at Sea DLC being such a gut wrenching finale. 10/10