Bioshock Infinite: Not Bad But Considering The Previous Games, Disappointing.

[birdie1971]

I'm playing BI and although I haven't finished it yet (Elizabeth's mum has risen from the grave and I'm looking for the three tears) I am finding it a bit disappointing considering its heritage.

I loved the original and the sequel. The underwater city of Rapture was so convincing and menacing and the inhabitants equally so, yet the floating city of Columbia doesn't give you that sense of foreboding. In fact it seems to do everything it can to break your suspension of disbelief by incorporating ludicrous mid-air leaps on the rail system which are impossible to miss.

Everything about this game seems... unsatisfying.

Anyone agree / disagree?

[LazyGun]

I must admit to not being keen on the whole BioShock series - but I cannot really tell you why. I just do not even want to try it :)

Borderlands 2 and the Mass Effect MMO are keeping me entertained at the moment, with occasional forays back to Skyrim ...

[LazyGun]

Liked Tomb Raider - thought it a pretty good reboot :)

Skyrim - Yes, got the DLC- Dragonborn was worth it, Dawnguard probably worth it too, Hearthfire not so much, unless you are a completionist or like the idea of building your own homes in the Skyrim universe...

Bordelands 2 - i think more than anything its the humour that I like :)

Dishonoured, I really looked forward to that, but it just failed to grip me when i played it. Don't really know why - I think its stealth games - just not a fan.

[Mattk]

Loved Tomb Raider (played it through twice) but all my saves have corrupted so I can't 100%. :(

[LazyGun]

I only got 99% on my TR playthrough as well, all though as best as I can tell, I completed everything, so I am a little stumped as to why.

Have you got the TR DLC?

[Mattk]

No, as far as I am aware all the dlc is multiplayer and haven't played that at all.
I've heard its pants.

[LazyGun]

There is a DLC released for Tomb Raider called "Tomb of the Lost Adventurer" which is described as an add- on for the single player map, at least i thought it was single player.

Havent tried the multiplayer, but like you have heard its not very good..

[birdie1971]

I completely gave up on Borderlands 2. I really liked it but the checkpoint game save system killed it for me. They were placed so far apart that you had to play it solidly for at least an hour otherwise you found yourself having to replay entire missions from the start. Not good in my opinion. At least in BI the checkpoints are every ten minutes or so, as they should be in a game that uses such a system.

For a bit of nostalgia, I recently replayed Portal 2. Wow. What a game. That has to be my all time favourite. The humour in that game is just the best I have ever seen or heard.

[birdie1971]

Triggerhippy - “... I would wait until you finish the game before you judge it...”

I think you may be right. The story has just become very interesting again after watching a future (or is it a past?) New York under attack from Columbia...

[LazyGun]

@Birdie - I would agree with you on the checkpoints thing in Borderlands 2 - they could do with making them closer together

[AB Editor]

"Everything about this game seems... unsatisfying"

I've heard that a lot - like the way the story becomes weightless because it kind of means nothing in the end ruins any sense of danger.

In fairness though, it's not a horror-themed games like the first was. I may have to pop back and play the first hour again - it was mind-blowing if I remember correctly.

[Mattk]

Not really a Bioshock fan but after all the hype this game received I'm surprised to see people are disappointed by it. It seems to me you can really tell the quality of a game by its release date with only the AAAA titles coming late in the year.

This is my next 'must have'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dofacvjRkc

[birdie1971]

Mattk -

I spotted that one just last night. Looks very good. I enjoyed Far Cry 3 too. In fact, I enjoyed all the Far Cry games – even the second one which quite a lot of people didn't for some reason.

[Wharton]

Are you all on something?

[birdie1971]

As an aside – who uses a PC for games? I do and just for a test, I ran the BI benchmarking utility. I ran it three times and got these FPS results:

Very Low Mode – 145 (average), 42 (low), 397 (high)
Medium Mode - 129 (average), 45 (low), 234(high)
Ultra Mode - 75 (average), 32 (low), 140 (high)

But for the life of me I couldn't see any visible difference between any of the different modes! They looked exactly the same to me. Maybe a frame by frame analysis would show the difference but when playing a fast moving game, I doubt most people would be able to tell which 'mode' the game was being played in.

I don't know about anyone else but I find that games played in 'low graphics mode' look almost identical to their 'high graphics mode' counterparts these days yet the difference in frame rates can be vast.

[birdie1971]

Wharton -

Yes. It would appear that we're all 'on' computer games.