Having completed an S rank run through the extremely challenging Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, I stopped by my favorite video game shop and picked up Bioshock: Infinite. I have beaten it (almost twice) already - it's kind of short.
Infinite is a great game, though it is debatable whether it measures up to the original Bioshock. Set in the floating (in the air!) city of Columbia, Infinite guides the player through a convoluted plot so full of twists that only get weirder and weirder it seems the game is designed purely to blow gamers' minds.
Seriously though, the story is compelling and interesting - at least until the ending. I've seen quite enough existential nonsense in literature during my brief time on this planet, so Bioshock Infinite's plot comes across as trite to me. Still, it's far above the usual video game tripe. Infinite manages to keep the player's attention but ultimately its philosophy, while thought-provoking, is emotional and irrational at best.
The gameplay is what I characterize as "fast and loose" which means it is quick in pace but the controls are not particularly sharp. Aiming is muddy and enemy characters are difficult to hit. They're small and they have tiny, tiny heads. Think Timesplitters. The vigors (basically plasmids) interact well with one another and combine very neatly with the game's available weapons. Most of all, I kept missing the different ammo types that made firefights so dynamic in the original Bioshock. Overall the combat is fun, but as a pure shooter it's not up to par with the likes of the Call of Duty or Halo series. Luckily there's more to Infinite than straight combat.
The most fun to be had in Infinite is through exploration. It's tons of fun to set the difficulty on 1999 Mode and attempt to earn the Scavenger Hunt achievement. This forces you to explore every nook and cranny of the game world to scavenge for gear since you cannot purchase any from the vending machines that frequent Columbia.
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