Bioshock Infinite Review

Bioshock Infinite is one of those games that was super hyped. Though, I usually try to abstain from the hype surrounding most big name titles such as this one, it tends to ruin the game for me. All the same, I was still absolutely looking forward to this game. I even went to the midnight launch at the local Gamestop. It was pretty exciting, as it had been a long while since I've waited until midnight to pick up a video game. Midnight finally arrives and I pick up my game, and get in my car to go home and tear into the game. Only to find that my roommate is sleeping on the couch. Damn. So, I go to bed and decide to play it after a nights rest.

Finally I awoke, skipping breakfast to go straight for Bioshock Infinite. I had been waiting for this for a long time...

Bioshock Infinite is a fantastic, immersive, well rounded experience that is completely different from its predecessors, yet remains that certain indescribable feel to it that makes it a Bioshock game.

The new impossible city that players are transported to is Columbia, a city in the sky that has formed a religion based on the founding fathers of America and the citizens relentlessly follow their leader and their prophet Comstock. Players take on the role of the not so silent protagonist of Booker Dewitt, as he is sent to this mysterious, and absolutely gorgeous, place to retrieve a girl named Elizabeth in an effort to wipe away the sins of his dark past. Upon arriving in Columbia, Booker immediately finds himself in a mess as all signs point to him being the so called "False-Prophet" this then leads the population of Columbus to immediately attack Booker, and cause the game to erupt into a fit of violence, quite gorily at that, as the game starts to get going. The first act of violence is having Dewitt smash an officers face into a rapidly spinning skyhook, which he then yanks out of the body and uses it as a melee weapon. However, players grab a gun Bioshock Infinite the violence is from more of a distance. Though, the skyhook is still a useful tool as it allows players to get from one place to another, and allows for amazing firefights by allowing players to leap on to skylines and race around the area, with a sort of birds eye view.

Aside from the gore, Bioshock Infinite works a lot like the previous Bioshock games. Gunplay, atmosphere, and RPG elements are all par for the course here and allow the player to go about the world in their own particular fancy. Instead of Plasmids, players are now endowed with Vigors, but they still work the same. As with previous Bioshock games, these super powers are a major element to the gameplay and at a lot to the mix, as in players can mix the Vigor powers together to create devastating combinations. For example, throw a murder of crows at an enemy, and add in some flare by throwing a ball of Devils Kiss, a fire based Vigor, to light the crows, and the enemy, on fire. Bioshock has a sort of, two and two system. Unfortunately this means that the player can only have two weapons equipped at a time. This also means that players can only have two Vigors equipped at a time,but this does allow for the Vigor combos. Though, this doesn't mean that players can't access all of the Vigors that they've picked up along the way, in fact they still have access to them and can even purchase upgrades for them that drastically improves these powers.

Where as Bioshock had Adam to purchase and upgrade buffs and Plasmids, Infinite has gear and money. To make the game more simplistic and streamlined for a more casual audience, Bioshock Infinite has gear that can be mixed and matched to change up play styles according to the players preferences. Also, instead of having a special kind of currency for upgrading Vigors, like the Adam of the first game, everything can be purchased with money that is found everywhere in the game.

Once players finally meet up with Elizabeth and break her out of her imprisonment, the game really starts to flow. Elizabeth has the distinct ability to open up what are referred to as tears, doorways to different dimensions where things are that aren't in this dimension. Elizabeth describes it as a form of wish fulfillment, as she opens up tears that have cover, guns, or health that can really change how the battle flows. Elizabeth is also extremely good at keeping Booker well stocked on health, ammo, and Salts to keep the player alive and well. Elizabeth also finds conveniently finds money lying around when you're doing some looting yourself. The game is still a good challenge despite having a magical girl that can supply you with anything that you need.

The fire fights and combat elements of Bioshock Infinite are a real blast. With tough enemies, and Elizabeth using here abilities to change the shape of the battlefield, Bioshock Infinite is an experience unlike any other. The enemies in the game provide enough variety to keep things interesting enough as well. There is a host of bad guys that bombard Booker and Elizabeth. Rifleman, chargers, snipers, grenadiers, turrets, enemies that use Vigors, automated patriots, and the terrifying Handyman. With the sort of minimalist approach to Bioshock Infinite's loadout, the game keeps on moving, and forcing the player to quickly think on their feet and not pause the game to select the next weapon in their arsenal to keep the fight going. Because of the limitation in the amount of weapons that the player can hold, and having Elizabeth along to open up tears, there is a lot of room for improvisation.

Bioshock Infinite is amazing, in that, it is something completely different from its predecessors, yet maintains that certain, inexplicable feel that it remains to be of that certain pedigree that we've all come to know and love from these developers. This is an amazing game, and one that belongs in your library for sure. Go out and get it.

I am not the 100%

Achievements and Trophies. Trophies and Achievements. What does it all mean, and what does it all come to?

Nothing, I say.

To me there is no real point in acquiring all of the achievements/trophies in a video game. They don't add anything to the experience, nor do they reward the player in any way within the confines of the game. The numbers of the achievements and trophies are completely irrelevant, and only seem to serve as a quantifiable measure of how many games you own, and to whatever extent that you have played them.

Achievements and Trophies, only seem to benchmark certain, rather mundane things that eventually are "earned" over time. Something along the lines of "get 50 headshots" isn't really an achievement, or an award that is something worth striving towards. I know that Achievements and Trophies are not the main focus of any game, yet they still seem to serve no amount of purpose for when the player has completed the game.

Achievements to not motivate me to explore anything different that I wouldn't already try in a video game. Some do, and some don't, yet the reward is underwhelming. A chime, and a small graphic displaying the milestone that I have reached. I've only earned every achievement for one game in my entire library, but that was because I couldn't get enough of it, and I was looking for an excuse to play more of it.

So, is that the appeal of Achievements and Trophies? To get the "most" out of your game?

Well, let's take a look at games from a financial standpoint. They are expensive. If games are not something that you purchase all too often, achievement hunting can be a great way to get the most out of your game. However, this is all at the cost of being rather pointless. I'm not a huge fan of Achievement hunting, as there's nothing to gain from it within the game. Earning all of the Achievements or Trophies in a game gains nothing for the player. Amongst true gamers, people who truly appreciate games for what they are, gamerscore is never a topic of conversation that is discussed.

I don't know the purpose of this arbitrary number. Perhaps it is simply a device so that players can get the most out of the game so that they can continue playing until every single achievement is unlocked. Or maybe it's a sort of Pavlov thing. A way to make us salivate at the sound of earning an Achievement or Trophy, for something useless. I guess, it's not for everyone, and I suppose that I fall into that category of people who don't need it.

Play the game how you will, and just enjoy it. Some folks play for the experience, some for the challenge, others for the gamerscore.

I don't like sandbox games

All too often I find myself getting really bored in sandbox games.

the thing is, these games are cool in that they give you the free will to go off and do whatever you want to do within the realm of that game world. However, whenever I'm given that choice to do whatever I want to in the real world, I play video games.

I mean, I guess it's my introverted tendencies that get in the way of having me experience the game to it's full potential.

Let's take, for example, Skyrim. I really do like Skyrim. It does everything right for an RPG of it's kind. you can specialize in whatever you so choose, and there are no class restrictions, race restrictions, etc. that keep you from doing certain things. the whole world is completely open to you. But for you to do.... anything, really, you have to go and talk to people. I don't want to talk to everyone. I just want to play the game and experience it for it's story. I know that there is a lot of work in creating a character, with it's model, it's script, it's voice acting, where it goes, what it does, what it has on its person. there's a lot to it. And not everyone will be able to experience these characters because, like me, they just don't have the time, or see the point in interacting with this character in particular.

That's one problem I have with sandbox games, is that there is so much that i won't experience because I just don't want to explore every nook and cranny for the sake of 100% completion. I'll probably talk about my issue with 100% completion on some other post, but back to the topic at hand.

Sandbox games also give their players the ability to do whatever they want, in most cases, this means creating a save, killing everyone and reloading said save file. I've never quite understood this. I don't find senseless violence to be all that entertaining. there needs to be some kind of objective for me, otherwise i lose interest in wasting time, energy, and resources on innocent civilians, only to have the fuzz show up and blow me away.

there are some games that do the whole sandbox thing right in my opinion. Like Red Dead Redemption, which I talked about in my last post. Red Dead Redemption has a world that I feel is rich with character and many different things to do. Stuff like hunting, poker, horse shoes, bounties, and random instances that keep things fresh. Skyrim has the occasional slew of bandits that dress up as imperials and ask for a road toll, or a thief, or a freaking dragon. But these things just seem to happen too few and far between that most times you'll end up walking somewhere with just a few wolves attacking you. However, I believe that I'm comparing apples and oranges here. The reason that Red Dead Redemption has so much going on all the time is because the world is literally a desert. Skyrim has lots to do, but you have to take the time to find it.

In Skyrim there is another dungeon or something every fifteen feet.

Red Dead Redemption, there is some random fellow being attacked by wolves, or some bandits escaping from their law enforcing captors, or stuff like that.

Red Dead Redemption is also more cinematic than Skyrim. In that there are cut scenes, and character.

Not to say that Skyrim doesn't have character.

Red Dead Redemption has cut scenes that take the camera away from the control of the player that show dramatic angles and give composition and tone and setting to the events that are transpiring around the characters. In Skyrim, the camera is constantly mounted on the players face. The gravitas of the situation doesn't seem to have the same effect when characters around the player go about their regular routines and even sometimes walk around and in front of the player, breaking the sense of drama that's going on.

But like I said, apples and oranges.

but yeah, I kinda don't like sandbox games.

Escape artist...

I want to talk about why I personally play video games. I do not wish to speak for the entirety of gamers, or game developers... It's just a disclosure that I'd like to get out of the way.

I really like video games. I've played them all of my life. They've always captivated me. They've always been a way to do things, and explore in ways that I can't in real life. I suppose it's because I find reality to be a drag, and nothing interesting ever happens. In video games, everything interesting happens, all the time.

I love a good video game, especially one that is incredibly immersive. One game that I always find myself going back to is Mass Effect 2. I really can't explain why I find this game to be so great. Is it the gameplay, the graphics, the characters, the environments, the cool guns, or the really good story? Yes. It's everything about that game that I can just spend hours and hours in, and just get lost. The only time that I put down the controller, is because I am a human being and I need to eat food to continue to exist, and keep playing Mass Effect 2. The universe that Bioware created for that game is simply amazing. I adore everything about it. I always find myself in awe of it's depth and glory. I love games that make me wish that I could go to wherever the hero is.

Have you ever played Red Dead Redemption? Man, that's a great game. I love the characters. John Marston is my hero. He's so cool, because he's tough and mean, but he's also a gentleman. He's respectful to the McFarlines and others that are helpful and friendly to him, but he doesn't suffer fools that get in his way and slow him down. He's such a great character, I want to be him. And because of video games, I can be. I get to walk in the shoes of John Marston and live in his world. Which is totally badass by the by. New Austin, the setting for Red Dead Redemption, is a huge sprawling wild west landscape filled to the brim with things to do. Despite it's desolate setting, the game can still make you stop in your tracks just to admire it. I remember one time I stopped to watch the sun rise, and it was gorgeous. If you can manage to distract me from my mission just to watch the sun come up, you've won. Another thing that just wows me about Red Dead, is the fact that you can say "Howdy" to NPCs in the game that walk past you. This is one of those nuances that can really immerse you in a game. It was fun walking from my apartment in Blackwater to the general store saying hello to strangers in the street.

Video games can take you many places, and do pretty much the impossible with it's level design. One of my favorite games, simply because of it's overworld and level design, is Brutal Legend. Sure, the game had its shortcomings, but it was different, and I commend it wholeheartedly for that. The most amazing thing about Brutal Legend was the environment. Double Fine looked at an old heavy metal album cover and said, "let's make a game there", and so they did. The heavy metal world is so crazy and awesome that I am awestruck every vista that I can find. Like the giant guitar stones, or Blade Henge, or the wall of pain, a giant wall of amplifiers that let out a powerful wave of feed back that the waves of the blood sea crash upon.

I am fascinated by video games ability to transport me to different places. I'm not saying this world is boring, I'm just saying this world doesn't have dragons.

It's Valentines Day?!?!?

Most video games now a days have the option to romance one of your companions in your party. Ok, so just Bioware games. But, those only seem to consist of talking and talking to characters that you don't even like, but only find them to be physically attractive. It's just a means to get to an unsatisfying and confusing "sex" scene at some point near the end of the game. Video game character relationships have been done right before, strangely enough one of the ones that I'll be talking about will be from a Bioware game. So, I want to take a look at some of the video game relationships that have stuck out in my mind. 1. Mario and Peach / Link and Zelda Aaah, the classics. You can't beat 'em. We've Grown up with these two games. Both of these two faithful heroes will travel the world to save the one they love, and they'll do it all over again in the next game. We don't really play these games for their plot, but we still invest ourselves in them because we just love these games. By our current incarnations of these games, we really couldn't care less about any of the story, at least in Mario's case. Sure it's all the same, but these guys put in the dedication to always, always, always be there for their ladies. They are some true romantics. 2. Agro and Wander Shadow of the Colossus is a great game. A lot of people refer to it as an artistic game, I'm right there with them. Though, I think it's just because people don't quite understand it. But, one thing that really stands out to me is the relationship in that game between two characters. No, not the main character and the dead girl! I'm talking about the main character and his horse. First, get your mind out of the gutter, and second, these two are total bros! Through thick and thin, which is a theme in this game, these two have each others back, or at least the horse does. After every single battle with a colossus, the player character is transported back to the shrine, while the horse is left to trot all the way back across the desolate world. Every. Single. Time. This horse is as faithful as they come. 3. Bastilla / Carth Well, Love isn't all about being faithful. It's also about trust. Both of these relationship options are actually very well written, and there is a human connection. Now, it's probably just because I'm just a huge Star Wars fan that I love this game so much, but these characters are just so deep. In KOTOR, your character, whether it be male or female, just happens to show up out of nowhere. Both of these characters, when you finally meet them are wary to trust you. Throughout the adventure the characters grow, and change their opinion of you based on your actions. Yes, I know that in the second game, the supporting characters actually changed their alliance based on your actions, but that seems more like Stockholm syndrome than a relationship. Anyhow, Bastilla and Carth stood out to me as video game relationships because you had to earn their trust. Carth didn't know who you were, or why you were even with the resistance in the first place. Though he was forced to trust you because you were his only ally. I've never engaged in a relationship with Carth, because I've never done a female run of KOTOR, but even as a male character, earning Carth's trust was some kind of achievement to me. I felt a friendship with him, and that was special. Bastilla on the other hand was hesitant about trusting you because she knew of your past and what had happened. I enjoyed the conversation that I had with this character because I was engaged in what she had to say. Her role was that of my superior and mentor. I would look to her for guidance, and ask her what to do with these new responsibilities as a Jedi. That's another thing that I feel that game captured well. The foreign feeling of being thrust into a new world of being a Jedi. It was something completely different, but you had your guide there to help you along the way. Then the ultimate test came. Bastilla was captured and turned to the dark side of the force by the evil Darth Malek. On your way to the final confrontation with him, he sends his new pupil to stop you. Bastilla. She fights you to stop you from preventing her new master of his plan. During the fight there are pauses for Bastilla to try and convince you that your cause is pointless and that you should just give up. Before you're allowed to strike the final blow, there is one last pause for conversation. At this point, you tell her that you love her (this is all completely optional by the way). And she returns that love, with one of the greatest lines in Star Wars and video game history "May the force be with you my love" and she lets you pass to defeat her former captor. This was so amazing to me. I felt as though I had earned her trust, I had fought for her, and even against her to win her over. I actually felt a connection to this character. That is how a video game relationship should work. Or at least it's a damn good way to go about it. 4. Nozomi and Ryo Shenmue was Yu Suzuki's magnum opus for the Sega Dreamcast. It was something completely new to me. I never played that many adventure games as a kid, and figuring out who exactly killed my father was a rather different concept to me. In Shenmue, there was a girl by the name of Nozomi. She is quiet, well mannered, and she cares for Ryo deeply. Throughout the game she always shows up at the right time to tell you that she misses and cares for you. She tells you that it's dangerous what you're doing. Yet, everytime Ryo is blinded by revenge and is missing the point of his fathers last words. "Keep friends, those you love, close to you." That's the moral of the story. It really is a great romance that the team over at Sega wrote for these two characters. So, yes. There are my favorite, or at least a few of my favorite, video game romances/relationships. I'm sure I've forgotten, or dismissed quite a few, but from all of the different video games that I've played, these are the ones that have stood out to me. I hope you all enjoyed reading about my lack of experience with actual relationships. See you next time!

State of the Gaming Union February 13th, 2013

My fellow gamers This is a great time of year for our people. Though, some of us may be distraught that we do not have a significant other with which so spend this so called holiday with, we have our systems. Gamers, I am talking about the new titles that this new year has brought us. First, there was DMC, a reimagining of a classic franchise. Some of you were upset. Others weren't. Few didn't care. But, it was a symbol. That we can all look to, for the coming year. DMC was a reboot. A changing of the guard. A passing of the torch. to a new steward. This, my fellow gamers, is happening all around us. Tomb Raider, is being reborn under a new team. Bioshock, while being developed by the same good people, now waves a different banner. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is nothing to be upset about. These developers, these gamers, love these franchises that both you and them have grown up with. They too have played the originals. They too have overcome the same challenges that you have. They too, have felt the same heartache, that you have. My fellow gamers,do not look upon these upcoming games with fear, or with hesitation. Instead, look upon them as something new. As something to be accepted. As something to be embraced. The "gamer" stereotype is not one that paints us in a pleasant light. They say that, "We are too close minded". That, we don't accept the others from the outside. Gamers, this is true. They are right. But we can make them wrong. We need to be open to other games, to other developers, to other systems, to other genres. Gamers, it is not the controller that we use, or the power of our processors that make us great. It is our games. By our games, we have come together. By our games, have we discovered. By our games, have we adventured. By our games, have we grown together. By our games, have we grown. Gamers, we must be accepting of what is new. Yet, we must also be discerning. We mustn't let games like Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, and Halo, define us as a nation. We must grow more. We must be mature. My fellow gamers, I am of the opinion that this is a new art. And as these artists' audience, we must tell them, what we want. We must show the rest of the world of this wonderful new medium, that this is the way to play. That video games, are the best medium, and that they are just as good as any other art. No! They are the best! Let us rise above the box office, and tear down the Top 40! Let us break the stereotype, and buy games that challenge us, that make us think, and feel. Let us not consume, but partake of the game industry. Let's show the world what it means to be a gamer!

RAGE (by id Software)

RAGE review RAGE comes to us from id software, who brought us Doom, and Quake, like it says on the front of the cover of the game. Those are both great games by id, from way back when. It’s been quite a while since this old racehorse has been in the ring, and it shows. RAGE is about a guy who’s managed to survive years upon years of cryo sleep. When he suddenly wakes up, he’s immediately assaulted and then rescued by a character voiced by John Goodman, yes that John Goodman. After he is taken back to this mysterious characters hometown, he is immediately sent on a job to hunt down and kill a small pack of bandits. It hasn’t even been established if this guy can walk, or even speak the same language as these people, then he’s sent out on a dangerous mission? Anyhow, this is the flow of RAGE for the rest of the game. Go out, kill bandits, come back, get a new mission, go out, kill bandits. This repeats under the façade of what RAGE refers to as its storyline, which I’m not quite so sure I comprehend. There is, apparently, a looming presence which calls itself “The Authority”, and it’s got all the good bandits, I mean people, of the wasteland down. So, as the guy who just woke up from a millennium of sleeping, you have to be the guy who takes care of it. Why not? The gameplay of RAGE is very straightforward. In that you point the gun straight at the bandit, or mutant, or member of The Authority, shoot it, and move forward. There’s nothing more to it than that. The environments are mapped out so that players don’t have any real say in the matter. Cover is placed in obvious locations that clearly dictate where both the enemies and the player will go. Enemies don’t even seem to react toward the grenades that are hurled at them, they just stand there and wait for it to just go away. Then it explodes. It just goes like this, from room to room. RAGE is a very linear game, and it’s very simple and boring. After each mission, players will have most likely collected loot, that they can sell to the shops to get money to get very well stocked up on ammunition and instantaneous healing supplies. This makes missions tedious, and not exciting at all. There are also a few boss fights in the game, but they’re all just monotonous. Like the letter o in monotonous. The bosses are old school, in the sense that they have a pattern, which they repeat, over and over and over, until they are finally defeated and thy open the door that was previously blocked with their massive girth hitting the ground. This was disappointing to say the least. With dumber than rocks AI and boss fights that were uninspired and lazy, RAGE’s gameplay is severely lacking. I’ve never played Doom, and I’ve also never played Quake, though with all the praise that those two games have received, I would have expected more from RAGE. However, one thing that did blow me away were the graphics. The graphics of RAGE are simply magnificent. All the detailed environments and character models really shine with the new graphics engine that id software designed specifically for this game. The animation is clean and fluid, though almost too fluid. It’s kind of straining on the eyes and everything moves faster than my mind can comprehend. Though, the facial animation and movement of all the characters is very impressive, and something to be applauded. However, good graphics do not for a good game make. There is a multiplayer segment to RAGE, that even includes split screen cooperative, which I did not play. If the single player indicated anything about the multiplayer, it’s that it is better to be bored by yourself than with another person. All in all, RAGE did not leave me filled with it, so much as it left me filled with boredom, and a sense of longing after better games. The simplistic, and predictable AI don’t offer any exciting firefights that were worth remembering, nor did the story leave me with any sense of engagement to the world, or characters. RAGE is not an immersive experience, it does not satisfy any desire that would normally come with an id software game. Albeit, the only game that I’ve ever played that was developed by id software was Wolfenstein 3D on MS DOS, but still! I’ve had more fun with that game then I did with RAGE. Also, even on the PS3, which is what I played this on, the game still had to do an install. That’s understandable given how impressive the graphics are. However, during said install the game locked up. That gets an F. and! On top of all of that , the game wasn’t even that good! Double F