Bioshock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite (PS3)

It's a game - and it's a story. Having said that, there might be some spoilers here, so be cautious.

My two youngest gave me the game for Father's Day (thanks, kids!). As an aside, I might add that I think they should move Father's Day to Saturday morning or Friday night, so we Dads can play with our cool presents all weekend. As it stands I actually took Monday off work and indulged myself in an entire day of playing Bioshock Infinite. Darling was sweet about it, but doesn't see the attraction. What can I say? I am a gamer. It is too bad that I tied up the 52" television all day. It is fantastic that I played on such a large screen, though.

I played the game all the way through to the final battle, or what my Dear Daughter read was the final battle, and I failed. At that point I had played over eleven hours on Monday and it was time for bed. I was tired from so much gaming (and had taken a mere 740 steps all day!).

I played the game in "sissy" mode, though, so it would take longer at a harder setting. I usually like playing the games on easy mode the first time through.

I will only give my impressions of the game and the story.

As a game, it is a first person shooter (FPS), not my normal genre. I'm more of a role-playing (RPG), 3^rd person perspective player. Once I mastered the controls, I was okay. When I first rented the game a month ago it took me some time to realize the top PS3 controller button was melee attack. Fighting hand-to-hand is not only advantageous, it became necessary later in the game when I ran out of ammo. With some of the gear I found and equipped (hat, gloves, pants, shirt, boots), fist fighting can be quite satisfying.

Other than that, I am a shotgun guy. Let's face it, I was forged by Doom and the combat shotgun in that game rocked. It rocks in this one, too, but ammo can become a problem, though you can buy it at any Dollar Bill machine. Those aren't everywhere, so be cautious.

Some of the mini-bosses were hard. Ouch on those. The banshee woman was horrible, because she kept raising the corpses to fight for her. In hindsight I should have somehow destroyed the corpses; that would have helped.

My problem with FPS games (and other games such as WoW) is that I tend to stand and fight toe-to-toe and that doesn't really work on bosses so well.

The story behind the game drove me to continue playing Bioshock Infinite. The biggest problem with making a game that tells a story is that it forces the game to be linear. I am sure there were spots I could backtrack and discover missed items in previous locations, but I didn't find an easy way to do that in this game. I certainly didn't uncover all the gear and voxaphones (you can find lists of those an almost any walk-through on the web).

I also got lost a lot. Travelling by the sky rail made me lose track of where I'd been and where I was going. Later in the game I noticed maps on some of the larger signs; those might have been helpful earlier. Still, no heads-up display? What's with that?

The story is good, and compels you to play just a little longer (just one more thing) so that you get a bit more of the plot. That was pretty slick.

How would I rate the game, though? It was not as open-ended as Skyrim (which also had a plot, though less compelling), but the graphics and playability were top-notch. Skyrim scores higher than Bioshock Infinite for me. There is a high degree of replay to the game, also, I suspect. And I'll play it again, but not in one sitting (though that was quite fun). Besides, my right thumb hurts from playing so long!

My brother and nephew played the game (I'm sure they played on the hardest setting, though). They told me the game was a classic, one that every gamer should own.

I agree. Now I do own it.