Review - BioShock Infinite (PS3)

The beginning of a console generation brings forth games that are always a little rough around the edges but also show what designers & developers are willing to do to push games forward to a higher quality of entertainment. For the industry, it’s a time when they come to grips with each systems capabilities and how to execute bigger & better things. A multitude of ‘good’ games were released at the beginning of this generation but only one set the bar so high that only a handful of other games could reach it. That game was BioShock. Players assume the persona of a plane crash survivor who must escape the underwater utopia of Rapture & it’s insane inhabitants, BioShock was critically acclaimed for it’s story, atmosphere & gameplay which can only be described today as one of the best experiences in gaming.

Led by Ken Levine, the team at Irrational Games is once again attempting to raise the bar even higher with BioShock Infinite. Casting players in the role of Booker DeWitt, a private investigator & war veteran. After getting on the wrong side of some rather bad people, Booker’s offered a deal that would wipe his debt clean. That deal: To travel to Columbia, rescue a girl called Elizabeth who’s been imprisoned there & deliver her to New York. This is the set-up for a deep & rich story that deals with subject matter that very few games have taken on before. Throw in two warring factions and players will experience a game that has all the twists & turns they could poke a stick at.

The world of Columbia, much like Rapture, is rich in atmosphere & architecture with a use of bright & vibrant colors that might remind some people of an animated Disney film. Players are bought into the floating city through the one of many breath-taking vista moments, allowing them to stop & stare at the beauty of the world. I did, however, notice some muddy textures on the console versions but it’s nothing players will notice if they aren’t actively looking for it. Irrational Games have done an unbelievable job at creating a city that feels alive. Players are welcomed to Columbia by its friendly townsfolk who can be seen doing an array of different activities. Some may be on a family picnic; others may be working at a cart selling food. I found it slightly disappointing though that Booker was unable strike up a conversation with the citizens. Occasionally Booker may have a line or two to say to someone walking by but that’s all. Nonetheless, Columbia is a beautiful city among the clouds.

The world around the player is incredibly immersive, wide shots of the whole city draw attention to just how big it actually is. This obviously lends itself well to huge ‘explosive’ set pieces that highlight exactly what Irrational are capable of given the right situation. The original BioShock placed players in a city that had already torn itself apart whereas BioShock Infinite puts players in a city just before a civil war erupts which allows for more noticeable destruction of the world. These set pieces are exhilarating not only because they look amazing but also because the player is often put in the thick of the situation.

When it comes down to genres, first-person shooters are more often than not, the most accessible. BioShock Infinite realizes this and runs with it, adding mechanics on top of the already established formula. Elizabeth acts as the players AI companion for the majority of the game, throwing Booker useful items such as health, ammo & salts when needed as well as money when players explore the world. This is an incredibly useful mechanic that changes the pace of combat for the better. On top of this, Elizabeth possess the ability to open ‘tears’ in reality, in other words, players can tell Elizabeth where to spawn helpful items into the heat of battle. Things like cover, automated turrets, medkits, salts & guns can be placed at allocated points in a fight. Granted, not all of the items mentioned would be in every fight, which keeps players from becoming an unstoppable badass in every situation.

As well as a standard selection of guns, BioShock Infinite has a decent combat system that mixes up the tradition. The only problem is that there’s a little too much combat. I found myself wanting more story-centric moments rather than having a handful of goons tossed at me in a large area to ‘pad’ out that section. This could be because I found myself not using the vigor’s as much as I used plasmids in the original game but at the end of the day, the combat starts to feel boring because there’s so much of it. Yes, the variety in weapons & vigor’s are there but the focus is on gunplay rather than secondary attacks such as vigor’s or environmental hazards which add a layer of strategy to battles. Among these problems, it’s worth mentioning that on the harder difficulties in some sections, the difficulty spikes to an unfair degree, which makes the game feel somewhat ‘cheap’ at times. This is more noticeable when players encounter a larger group of enemies, notably the ‘graveyard’ section. These are only small issues that aren’t in any way, a deal breaker.

Since Columbia a floating city in the sky, there would need to be something holding each district together, right? That’s where the sky-rails come into play. Instead of using them as a means to travel to different areas of Columbia, they’re used in combat as a means to escape a tight situation, which comes in handy on, especially on the harder difficulties. Many were skeptical about their implementation, thinking that they’d only be used in heavily scripted moments but thankfully the developers applied them almost perfectly. The only issue is that they can be slightly fiddly at times when the camera swings & jolts around as they hook themselves onto a rail.

Irrational Games have done a remarkable job at creating a strong relationship between the player/Booker & Elizabeth. As I progressed through the story, I found out more about Elizabeth & her personality and discovered myself genuinely caring for her, especially towards the end of the game. Telltale’s The Walking Dead is the only other game were I found myself caring for characters in a way that I would care for other people. There’s a scene about half way through the game that helps players really connect with the two main characters. I noticed that some players didn't come across this because in order to find it, they needed to explore the area so I've included it below. (Don’t worry, no spoilers)

BioShock Infinite provokes emotions & thoughts through superb story telling in a way that few games have done in the past. I chuckled, I cried & ultimately, I felt the relationship between the characters. This is an extremely hard thing for developers to do given that they can’t make a tailored experience for every person who plays their game. Irrational Games have done an incredibly good job at what they’ve tried to achieve. BioShock Infinite is a masterful game that, at times, has some issues but isn’t held back by them. It’s a game that will be talked about for years to come. If you haven’t played it yet then I strongly recommend you do so because it’s an experience you will never forget.

BioShock Infinite gets 10 ‘Muted Microphones’/10.
+ Superb Story Telling
+ Beautiful Atmosphere
+ Adds New Ideas to the Formula
- Combat Becomes Slightly Repetitive
- Unfair Difficulty Spikes

Review - Dead Space 3 (Xbox 360)

With Silent Hill franchise down the toilet & the Resident Evil series following close behind, the only modern survival horror franchise that seems worthy of the genre is Visceral Games Dead Space series and with the third and possibly final installment being released last month, does it stand up as the best entry in the series or does the edition of co-op & a more action orientated gameplay style leave the game in pieces?

Dead Space 3 sees players reprise the role of the space engineer, Isaac Clarke, as he stomps, fixes and cuts his way to the ice planet of Tau Volantis in search of his ex-girlfriend, Ellie, as well as the source of the infamous markers, the structures that caused the necromorph out break years ago. But this time, Isaac is very much NOT alone on his journey, he is joined by the new co-op character, John Carver, who disappears when playing single player to keep the solo experience & atmosphere apposed to spending it with a mindless AI companion, along with some other minor characters that slowly but surely get brutally killed off as the player progresses through the story. This time, the extremists of the Unitology cult are hell-bent on harnessing the power of the markers to ‘make us whole again’. This means that occasionally, the player will encounter human enemies at points throughout the campaign. But these moments are staggered throughout the experience so as to not become a third person space marine shooter… in space.

Missions in Dead Space 3 involve Isaac venturing from one end of a necromorph-infested area to the other to retrieve a part used in a machine that needs to be started in order to progress or fix something that will inevitably break as soon as it’s needed. This is one of the main problems with Dead Space 3; there isn’t a great deal of variety in its missions and this is partly responsible to the lack luster & somewhat confusing story. Previous entries in the series, especially the original Dead Space, that used the claustrophobic setting of the Ishimura & other derelict locations, forced players to constantly be on their toes, where danger could be around every corner. Those sorts of setting lent themselves well to the story & pacing of the game. Dead Space 3, on the other hand, is a little more action orientated. Being set on Tau Volantis, an ice planet believed to be where the markers originated, you’d imagine it would all be harsh outdoor environments that would allow nothing but third person cover based shooting (yes there IS a cover system introduced but it’s not really worth talking about because it’s not really worth using).

For the most part though, players surgically slice & dice their enemies inside the quiet research stations scattered around the planets surface and occasionally pop their heads outside for some epic set piece or beautiful vistas. The upside is the monstrous variety of weapons that can be used to dismember enemies, most of which will be constructed by the player themselves. That’s the most interesting feature to hit the Dead Space formula. Weapon crafting sees players place small scavenger robots in set loot points around the levels to gather resources like scrap metal along with other bits & pieces to then take to a work bench which they can use to either augment their current weapon or make a completely new one from scratch. Crafting allows players to choose from a compact (pistol/plasma cutter size) or a standard (two-handed/assault rifle size) frame. From there, it’s the choice of which upper tool & lower tool that suits your play style. I, personally, preferred a compact frame with a plasma cutter upper tool for mid to long range combat & a ripper blade lower tool incase the beasties got a little too close for comfort.

On top of that, upgrades & modifications can used to further improve the effectiveness of your weapons of choice. Circuits act as upgrades to the upper & lower tools; an example of an upgrade circuit could be anything from ‘+1 damage’ to ‘+3 reload speed & +3 clip size’. With each tool holding a number of these at once & players able to hold two crafted weapons at a time, it’s easy to say that players will become brick powerhouses towards the end of the game. Hours can be spent at a bench looking through different weapon combinations that suit your play style and these combinations can be tested in a separate ‘testing mode’, where the player is able to test their weapons on necromorphs. In this mode the player doesn’t take any sort of damage from enemies, it’s purely available to test out weapon combinations.

Ok so now it’s time to bring forward the ‘elephant in the room’. Dead Space 2 introduced direct PvP in the form of engineer’s vs. necromorphs though it wasn’t very well received; Visceral Games realized this & scrapped it entirely. In its place is a fully co-operative campaign that subtracts some of the games well-known tension & atmosphere but adds some optional co-op specific missions that reveal more of John Carver’s back-story. These missions are delightfully creepy in the sense that the players will experience two completely different points of view.

One of the most memorable moments in these optional missions was a section where Carver would become crippled by visions & transported to a dream state in which player 2 progresses through while at the same time player 1 is fending of necromorphs in reality. Each mission builds towards the resolution of Carver’s story, which ends up being a little anti-climactic for the player who is experiencing it as Isaac because other than dialogue between Carver & Isaac, there isn’t really much feedback for what happens to player 2. Other than that, the game scales difficulty depending on chosen difficulty & whether there are two players or not by adding or subtracting enemies to parts of the game.

When most gamers think ‘survival horror’, elements that may come to mind are limited supplies, tough enemies & a scary atmosphere. Dead Space 3 throws these to the side & replaces them with other features that mix up the formula and paves the way for the next generation of survival horror games. Unfortunately, one of the features that was put to the side was the story, arguably one of the most important parts of survival horror next to the scares but it’s just so much fun to play. I wouldn’t go as far to say that the story ruins the game but if a little more time & effort were spent on it, then this game would have gone from being a great game to an amazing game.

Dead Space 3 refines the elements of its predecessors & introduces some fresh ones that make the experience even more enjoyable.

Dead Space 3 gets 8.5 ‘Muted Microphones’/10

Remember, if you enjoyed reading my review, follow me on Twitter @DylanPerrett or on My IGN under ‘bobert9497’.