Bioshock: Infinite Thoughts

With three years since the previous Bioshock game, the series has evolved from scuttling along the bottom of the ocean, to flying high and skimming the clouds. Despite this refreshing new lick of paint over the series, courtesy of Irrational Games, people began to worry that the token atmosphere that Bioshock is known for, would be washed away in the evolution. After watching some gameplay footage, faith has been vaguely restored and panic for the direction of the series has been replaced by cautious excitement.

With the release set for next month (March 26th), it’s never too late to suggest some game changing mechanics , just so we fans can be satisfied in full! So, without further delay, here’s my thoughts

Organic environments! In the previous games we’ve seen a few acts of organic living, but nothing really that impressive. When we think of organic, we want something that feels like a living breathing world, such as Hitman: Absolution. Despite Absolutions controversial approach to the new play style, the worlds felt teaming with life! Thankfully, the world of Columbia, looks like it is set to wow the players with vibrant characters, glorious sets and fantastic voice-acting. Fingers crossed that Irrational don’t drop the ball!

Our new protagonist, Elizabeth has a voice, unlike the previous protags. In Bioshock and Bioshock 2, both protags were ultimately voiceless, despite the occasional grunts of pain and/or aggression. Despite this, they were both given decent character development, but ultimately, I just didn’t feel much of a connection to either! So, what we would like to see is a more hands on approach, for the player, to character development. With a voice, another protagonist in the form of Elizabeth; who looks like a fantastic character and jumping off point for Booker and his story! And finally, no more mute that feels like you, as a character, have been drained of any input, besides the fate of a few people.

Which segues nicely into my next desire, which is, less repetition. As fun as the previous games were, there was a massive amount of repetition, the second one became extremely guilty of this, during the later part of the game especially! Please, no more hand-holding of little sisters while they drain ADAM (a raw form of the unstable stem cells harvest from a type of Sea Slug parasite)!  As a result of these repetitive quests, the game becames frustrating and rather boring, which is a shame, since the game has so much to show the players! Hopefully, a sense of freedom has been added and the protect quests have been cut down, or at least, the protectee, has been replaced with someone more capable; you better carry your own weight Elizabeth!

Talking about Elizabeth, the battle system comes to mind and how it’s going to function with her ability to manipulate rifts in the space time continuum, which sounds like something from Star Trek. Previously, the games have felt rather clunky, which could be due to the fact that they felt like PC games out of water! So hopefully, Irrational have taken a few steps towards improving the battle system, with some more responsive controls, easier plasmid usage and a few more interesting battle sequences besides typical FPS situations.

Now, my last point, or more so request, is something that could not be possible in the previous games. So Irrational if you’re are reading, (I know you are), a day and night cycle, something nice and smooth, to give you a sense of again is much needed, a more organic world that changes during the night time. I know it’s a little niggle point, but it’s something that could be very interesting to be implemented into the game,especially since you can imagine poor old Booker tumbling around in the dark, falling off of Columbia, best game ending ever!

But when all of this is said and done, Bioshock: Infinite looks and sounds fantastic and I simply cannot wait to get my hands on it and give all of you lovely folks a review on how great it is, or maybe if it turns into a blunder, how terrible it is! But we don’t have our fingers crossed on that one, do we?

Here’s the latest trailer for the game!

Google+