BioShock Infinite review. Bioshock Infinite - Review Game bioshock infinite opinion gambling addiction

An “ideal” city floating in the sky, almost “Utopia” by Thomas More, and a young sweet girl locked in a tower by a dictator, or a king - whatever you call it, everything is one - these are scenery from different fairy tales and stories that we have met repeatedly, but it is here and now they are harmoniously woven into a single whole, called , a new work by Ken Levine and Irrational Games studio.

« Subject's mind is desperately trying
create memories where none exist...»
— Rosalind Lutes, 1889.

1912 in an alternate reality, the city of Columbia, which not everyone knows about, soars high in the sky and lives its own utopian life. In this game, he personifies not only the idealism of a sort of "American dream", but also touches on very fragile topics of our very real world, such as religion and racism, and presenting them from a side that not everyone dares to show now. Beneath the beauty of the heavenly city, its high technology, patriotism and lifestyle, lies the thoughtless fanaticism of its inhabitants - religious fanatics who piously believe in every word of the prophet Zachary Comstock, who created this city, sent it to heaven with the help of two brilliant scientists - Lutes, - as well as ensured its prosperity and independence. It is in this city that there is its own tower, with its own imprisoned princess - Elizabeth, with whom we, a gambler and a drunkard, a veteran of the battle at Wounded Knee, Booker DeWitt, will have to meet. And save, leading out of an impromptu Paradise. "Bring us a girl, you'll pay off the debt," the mysterious couple told him - there's nothing to do, you have to go, embark on a bright, colorful and eventful adventure called BioShock Infinite. Once at the mysterious lighthouse, Booker sits in a strange chair and ... very soon finds himself on the streets of the floating city of Columbia, where the religious population praises the "Prophet" and beware of the "False Shepherd" who wants to take the "Lamb" away. I think that it will be superfluous to say who is who, so everything is clear. Telling the story of this game without spoilers is difficult, and not necessary, just to say that this is one of the best stories told in games over the past few years, and the climax of the plot can be long deposited in the memory of the players.

The gameplay of BioShock Infinite is an absolute classic and the standard of a first-person shooter, but a significant variety is brought to it by unique features, such as Skyrails, Hooks and Elizabeth. At the very beginning of the game, by the will of circumstances, our hero receives his first weapon - the Skyhook, which can effectively and effectively (chopping off heads, breaking necks and doing other hand-to-hand charms with a rating of "18+", often accompanied by liters of blood) incapacitate hand-to-hand, and sometimes enemy soldiers armed with firearms, on any difficulty. That's just with "1999" it is worth being more careful, but about it later. In addition, Sky Hook gives us the ability to cling to the sky rails that connect the floating islands of the city, and all sorts of hooks attached to buildings. This ability is not only useful for moving around locations and finding secrets, but also for combat needs. Hanging on a hook, or moving along the rails, Booker can deliver a lightning strike in a jump to a gaping opponent. Something like "death from heaven." Speaking of combat, we can't lose sight of Elizabeth, who is the gem of the game as a whole and fits in very well with the game. game process. During the battle, the girl hides from bullets and stays close to us, in difficult moments providing assistance of various kinds - from throwing food, salt and cartridges, to summoning objects from an alternate reality. This is precisely her main ability - to create "tears" between worlds, moving an object from one to another. For example, if we see that there is a turret, a mechanized patriot, a mosquito or a box with first-aid kits in the gap, then we can safely “open” it. Opening "breaks" and summoning objects add a special strategic element to the game BioShock Infinite, because the summoned turrets, patriots and mosquitoes fight on our side, which often makes them simply irreplaceable allies, because the enemy forces in this game are always superior.

What undoubtedly captivates and draws in BioShock Infinite is its game world, the very city of Columbia, all its locations and interpretations. All the places that we are destined to visit are made very vividly and in detail, moreover, none of the places evokes a feeling of "déjà vu" ... almost. But this is not a reproach to the game, you will understand when you go through its storyline. The people of Columbia walk the streets, dance, sing, have fun, relax and work, birds fly around, and something is constantly happening. The fact that the game world lives its own life is felt from the first minutes of arrival in the city, and this feeling does not leave until the very credits. The very pearl, the sweet and funny girl Elizabeth, with whom we are gradually beginning to fall in love, seems just as lively and original, and it is simply impossible to get rid of this feeling even after the credits. The developers behind BioShock Infinite did an excellent job with the creation of Elizabeth, not only on the design and animation, but also on the artificial intelligence girls. She not only behaves as the situation requires, but does not need guardianship at all, but rather, on the contrary, takes care of us. Throughout the game, we do not meet moments when you need to monitor the girl's health scale, her behavior, actions and condition. Given the dynamics of the battles and the many strategic opportunities for their conduct, which pour out a cold shower on our heads, the absence of the need to be distracted by a companion is only good.

The abilities acquired by our hero, called in the game “Forces”, “Energies” or, in the old fashioned way, “Plasmids”, contribute to the gameplay and, especially, to its combat part. Unlike the classic "Plasmids" we've seen and tested in past BioShock games, the "Forces" in BioShock Infinite are not "written" into the hero's DNA and do not force each other out. There are eight "Powers" in total, each of them has several features, and some can be combined into deadly combinations:

• Bucking Bronco- a force that allows us to lift opponents and objects above the ground, forcing them to levitate for a certain amount of time. Being in the air, our enemies become completely defenseless, and if we leave them with little health, twenty percent, then at the end of the force they will break on the ground. The second effect of this power is to create a trap that will do the same as the main one - lift the enemy into the air.
• Devil's Kiss- a very useful combat power, the second, one of the first we acquire, allows Booker to throw fireballs at opponents. A sort of local substitute for grenades, since the balls explode on contact and can hook several opponents. You can also set an explosive trap woven from this power.
• charge- the force at which Booker is "charged" with magical power and can make a lightning dash in the specified direction. This is an incredibly useful skill when you need to quickly close the distance between the player and the enemy, or vice versa - increase it by fleeing from the environment.
• Murder of Crows- a power that gives our hero the power of a flock of deadly crows, causing damage to enemy groups and forcing them to hesitate. In addition, you can set a trap in the form of a crow's nest, and all opponents who fall into it and will be nearby will become extremely easy targets for our firearms or hand-to-hand weapons.
• Possession- the name of this power speaks for itself - "Possession" - it allows you to subordinate mechanisms and, with improvement, people to your will. forcing them, for a short time, to become our allies. And if you use Possession on local vending machines, they will generously give us coins from their bins.
• Return to Sender- A very useful, especially on high difficulties, defensive power that creates a field around the Booker, stopping enemy projectiles, and then sending them to the shooter. When upgraded, this power gets an absorbing effect and some of the "caught" bullets can replenish our hero's bandolier.
• shock jockey- an electric force that can not only hit multiple targets in a "chain", after upgrading, but also set in motion mechanisms powered by electricity - for example, open locked doors, behind which lie useful items.
• undertow- the power that appeals to the water element, in addition to attacking properties, gives Booker the ability to attract opponents to himself, including through the abyss, for example, from the side of an aircraft, to the “firmament” of the streets of a floating city.

All powers require salt, local mana, which is located in the lower left corner of the screen, right next to the two equipped powers. The game has a very convenient "division" system, which divides the scale into segments, depending on the equipped power, thus showing us how much salt is consumed by one use of the selected power. Unlike the "Plasmids" from BioShock, as I wrote above, the powers in BioShock Infinite do not crowd out each other, and are available to the player at any time after they are acquired, of course. But only two can be active.

The visual and technical aspects of BioShock Infinite are made at a very high level, already familiar to this series. The beautiful design of the city and locations, the beautiful sun, the skies, the entourage of the beginning of the last century, with all its propaganda posters, slogans, communication style, clothing, people's attitude, in a word - the player, as if in an instant, takes away to a real utopia of 1912, and it is in front of his eyes and with his forces, she begins to gradually fade away and reveal her dirty sides. The details of the environment are very well drawn in the game, although there are minor flaws, such as a transparent texture lying around under a sofa or closet. Several times in one and a half passages, on normal and 1999 difficulty levels, my Booker got stuck in the texture, completely refusing to move, and only once invisible hands released him, and he, by some miracle, began to move again. In other cases, I had to reload the game from a checkpoint. The presence of control points and their location, I would not attribute to the special disadvantages of the game, but they do not cease to irritate. Sometimes, we can be thrown back 15-20 minutes ago, and we will have to go through everything again, collecting items and cracking down on enemies. It's time for developers to move away from the "checkpoint" system, and the further, the better, as for me. The music in BioShock Infinite is chosen very harmoniously, it always suits what is happening on the screen, does not stand out and does not break out of the overall picture, but, on the contrary, saturates it with special colors. Such music does not want to be quieter, as is often the case in other games. Very well in BioShock Infinite, sliding along the "heavenly rails" with the help of a swivel hook is worked out, and, undoubtedly, one of the pearls of the battle is shooting - all the weapons here look, sound and "listen" just amazing, and each of its improvements is felt in practice . Since there is money lying on the road here, but not in very large quantities, I definitely recommend thinking carefully about which weapon or power to improve first. This is especially true of the completely rebalanced 1999 mode.

Separately, for the PC version, I would like to say that in addition to the presence of Russian subtitles, which I personally did not include, from the console, namely the PlayStation 3 version (alas, I did not manage to play the Xbox 360 version) of the game, it, as usual, differs more high quality pictures - textures high resolution, the ability to adjust FOV, lighting, shadows, detailing and other parameters that make the game just sweet, if the hardware of the machine pulls. The control is very convenient and intuitive in all its manifestations, but, as always, the movement is much smoother and more convenient on the PlayStation 3 gamepad, while aiming and shooting is much more convenient and faster with the mouse. The duration of the game is also very pleasing - one unhurried, in the sense that I was looking for secrets and collecting items, although I didn’t find everything, the passage on the normal difficulty level took me three days, 17 hours, and the half-passage of the PlayStation 3 version provided another two days of pure pleasure.

Speaking of difficulty, this very mode, 1999, cannot be ignored. If on three standard difficulties the game is played more or less calmly, without much effort and the mandatory use of strategic and insidious tricks, since in 1999 this will not work at all. Unlike standard difficulties, which increase the damage dealt by enemies, their health, as well as the player's mana consumption, new mode, unlocked by beating the game or by entering the Konami Code, does a complete rebalancing of the game, making it much more difficult and making us play much more accurately. There can be no talk of any runs under bullets, which are carried out without problems at a normal level of difficulty - they will throw hats, shoot them, hang them and wind them on a hook. Jokes aside. The 1999 mode got its name for a reason, because the developers wanted to give nostalgic players a breath of fresh hardcore, that kind of thing. what it was then, in the late 90s. What can I say, they succeeded in full.

For the trophies presented in this game, I want to separately, excuse me, “love” the developers, in the good sense of the word - because they are all tied to a single-player game, because the multiplayer component of BioShock Infinite is completely devoid of. Remembering what a useless outgrowth the multiplayer mode in BioShock 2 was, the developers decided that when creating their new game, they would throw all their forces into the single-player part - and this is a damn right decision, as it turned out in practice. BioShock Infinite trophies, for the most part, are classic and moderately interesting: a lot of cumulative ones, like searching through so many containers, killing so many enemies with such and such weapons, using different combinations of powers, and so on, but there are also classic old-school prizes , in the manner of collecting all the collectibles, or beating the game on 1999 difficulty without ever buying anything from a vending machine full of such healthy food, salt, and ammo. If for passing the game at a normal level I have never used these machines for purposes other than squeezing money out of them, then with the 1999 mode I definitely want to drink salt water and eat pineapple to correct my eternally suffering health and manna.

I've been waiting for BioShock Infinite since the first days of the announcement, I'm captivated by its entourage and location, design and, of course, cutie Elizabeth. Of course, there were doubts in the project, but when I launched it and played 8 hours in a row at once, an unknown force lifted them into the air, then grabbed a flock of crows, set it on fire with a devilish kiss, doused it with ice water, threw it against the wall, which they crawled down, absorbing the whitewash, and below they were met by an electric jockey, who subdued them to his will with the power of a magical current, explaining that they had obviously wandered in the wrong place. This game rightfully belongs to the category of amazing projects, and with an absolutely pure heart I recommend it to everyone and everyone, but please take into account a small and unpleasant nuance: the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game are not accompanied by Russian subtitles, and if you are not very good understand English, it is better to keep a dictionary nearby. Believe me, the plot of this game is worth spending extra time looking for new words in the dictionary for its full understanding. Yes, and such an activity will not be superfluous, it is never too late to learn, and life is a wonderful thing, because every day we learn and meet something new!

Bioshock: Infinite is a well-disguised Japanese RPG.

There is a lighthouse ahead, and it is quite clear that it will not work to swim somewhere in a storm, but you can go into this mooring shed to find one dollar there. And maybe an apple. Well, then - 20 minutes of contemplation of the background.

Even at the very, very beginning, along with photographs of Elizabeth, her gingerbread house and some kind of cipher (you don’t have to remember), they give us a gun, but then they quickly take it away, because I want to start firing from the very arrival in Colombia.

Ahh, clone cultists!

But the grenade has already been taken away from the monkey, which makes you peer into things. And it seems not, in fact, we are not met by sectarian clones, but simply sectarians. After some time, it becomes obvious that the town, among other things, is also openly racist, but this is already later, but for now we are being led through the pipe to the fair.

Along the way, returning the old grenade to the monkey and issuing new ones.

What the intro is about:

There lived at the beginning of the last century a war veteran of the furry year, Booker DeWitt, who owed money to people whom, in his own words, it was not worth getting into debt. It was these very creditors who sent Booker deep into enemy territory to kidnap Elizabeth.

And, in fact, here. Lighthouse ahead.

If you're interested in figuring out a plot before it's been chewed on, by all means pay special attention to everything that happens before you pull out a lucky lottery baseball. Walk around the dead ends, eat on the food scattered everywhere (trash cans, don't forget to check the trash cans!), listen to what they say around - and almost all the historical nodes of Bioshock: Infinite will become very clearly visible.

Or so all the time it will seem, and because a couple of times the game will be able to surprise you quite well. Once it will happen at the very end, of course.

A shooter is true, B:I has it and it's not bad at all, but our game is about a girl-heroine and about a city. This, no words, is beautiful, especially until they start rolling us around the slums, which are obligatory in every video game urban excursion. Clouds get bored, however, quickly, but actually the feeling that you are running around the “city on balloons And it's crazy how cool it never leaves.

Even when the movement begins on racial-class-religious grounds. Everyone was stuffed into the plot; Here it is, the advantage of video games over movies! You will never - hear - never be able to cram so much nonsense into one big project, even if it's Lost.

Translation, however, in some places interferes with immersion and strives to confuse. Telegram for you! Don't hit the pianist. STOP He plays the best he can. STOP. Well, this is a dot, a dot, a period, well, how can you not notice it without even looking, what is this piece of text clinging to?

And yet, Bioshock: Infinite is a first-person shooter, and no matter how much we want to enjoy the beauties and all sorts of views for 10 hours of passage, we will have to shoot a lot. That is, by the third part, the series has taken shape in a more or less real FPS, where there are really a lot of enemies and guns, where you need to rush across the battlefield in search of ammunition and bring down ordinary soldiers in batches.

Magic has remained in place, but now it is optional as never before. Even on Hard difficulty without tricks, you can feed almost everyone with lead, with the exception of rare cyborgs with a fiery engine in place of the heart.

Plus, Elizabeth, among other things, will regularly plant ammo on Booker. Oh yes, Elizabeth. You must have heard about her. And they saw it, saw it many times in videos, in pictures, reports from cosplay events (and just sets), wherever it was possible.

And here the focus of the B: I overtaken by release and therefore taking the palm begins to work to the fullest tomb raider. If you don’t already know, it turns out that in order for gamers to have their jaws drop and a rainbow pour out of their eyes at the sight of a girl in a video game, you need to stop sculpting her a bust of the tenth, dress her more or less humanly - without armor plates on her naked body - and remove the most obvious hints of this very thing.

That's it, the breakthrough of character building in 2013 is done, the revolution is done, everyone is happy.

So, Elizabeth is young, beautiful, most likely smart and has spent her whole life in a high tower, where evil uncles and aunts secretly took photos of dubious content from her. She loves dancing, Paris, doesn't get hysterical too quickly, feeds bullets, heals bad wounds, and picks locks.

No, she really turned out to be lovely, but, to be honest, I can’t squeeze out the usual level of adoration towards Lara and now Elizabeth. It's strange, to be touched by the fact that sometimes we can not have fun with rubber dolls, but also create relatively believable female characters. Achievement-go crazy.

With everything else, it's exactly the same. The game is wonderful, but in response to the request of the leadership of the party “Put ten”, you have to honestly answer “More than eight ladies”.

Bioshock: Infinite is an excellent FPS, without reservations, even though it's a Japanese role-playing game. The gameplay is correct, the Pipe is well hidden, there are more or less fresh moments such as trips on a hook on a monorail, there are monotonous shootings, but when you get bored, you can always start throwing fireballs. There are no sensible bosses, however, but here it doesn’t matter, because here we are looking not so much through the sight as in the corners in search of some entertaining part of the world, an Easter egg or another semi-secret room in the castle.

30.03.2013 00:36

1912 Colombia city in America. The civil war and the confrontation between black and white citizens continue. Narodniks and Founders (that's what the northern and southern opposing sides are called in the game) wage irreconcilable battles, shedding liters of blood.

Something like this can describe the historical component of the released game BioShock Infinite. But this is only the background against which the main and rather dynamic events of the new creation from Irrational Games unfold. From the depths of the world's oceans, the actions of this amazing universe are transferred to a heavenly city. Fiction is again very closely intertwined with the historical context, it is worth recognizing that both trends are perfectly combined and complement each other.

The main character named Booker has a fairly large number of sins behind him. He was not an enemy of the bottle, as well as gambling, as a result of which this whole story takes place. Having once again lost completely, our character finds himself in a situation in which the heroes of the movie "Cards, Money, Two Smoking Barrels" found themselves, that is, in an almost hopeless situation.

In order to get even with his debtors, Booker is forced to agree to the only condition - to go up to the mysterious city of Columbia and lower a girl named Elizabeth into the gray and dirty world of New York reality. As in the previous parts of the series, the game starts with a boat, a boundless ocean and a lighthouse. Of course, it was not without the evil genius, which this time is the Prophet.

Literally from the first seconds, BioShock Infinite puts what is called all the cards on the table, dipping the player into the world of fantasy, intrigue and the atmosphere of a mysterious journey. It should be noted that all key features the BioShock series has been preserved in this part, meaning the characteristic design and interface, continuous gameplay (that is, without cinematic inserts), in every second of which you take part, the magical atmosphere of a fairy tale and mystery, even the game engine in the third part of the saga has remained the same - unreal engine. Having talked about the technical component, I propose to cover it completely and leave this topic.

The graphics have not changed much since the release of the previous part of BioShock, of course, numerous effects related to lighting, shadows and physics have been added, but the picture looks the same as before. However, that doesn't mean the game is great. stir on systems three or five years old, which is rather strange in theory. A quad-core processor with a clock frequency of 2500 MHz, coupled with a video card of the Radeon HD 6770 class, is not able to produce playable fps at a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and a high level of graphics, you have to be content with only medium settings (30-60 fps).

The plot of the whole story is revealed evenly and in portions, leaving numerous options for its development. We get to know better not only the main characters, their characters, but also the history of the city of Colombia itself.

So, the city of Colombia, in which we find ourselves after going through the process of communion in the Catholic Church, is, of course, incomparable. Describing it in words will not work with all desire. It is bright, sunny, airy, it is simply beautiful. The main character, as well as the player, cannot fully believe that all this is not a dream. The developers especially tried to captivate the player in the first 40-50 minutes of travel. They did it really well. There are no shootings, there is only a living world around you, in which thousands of mechanisms and gears rotate. This acquaintance is fleeting, and it would seem that the whole game would go like this, walking through the wonderful parks, bridges and houses of this excellent heavenly Colombia.

But rather quickly, strange things begin to happen in your journey, as well as numerous coincidences that make you descend, if not to the ground, but to one of the various islands of Colombia, for sure, picking up a gun and pouring the first energy drink into yourself (an analogue of plasmids from previous parts). In the first few hours of the game, a very remarkable discovery was made - the world around you seems to be absolutely non-linear, and bursting through the door and seemingly performing one action, it eventually turns out to be the only true one.

One gets the feeling that the game itself adjusts to you, allowing you to command what is happening, and magically opening even those doors that, at the script level, are supposed to be tightly locked. Such a stormy and impressive gaming beginning has not been seen for a long time in any project of recent years.

However, this does not mean that the further course of the game becomes boring and monotonous. Due to the constant plot twists and turns, as well as more and more improvements, changes of locations, as well as energy drinks, the gameplay does not bother, but rather makes you travel to BioShock Infinite again and again. Another feature that, like a good book, is also inherent in BioShock Infinite is a gradual response to questions that concern the player.

The plot of the whole story is revealed evenly and in portions, leaving numerous options for its development. We get to know better not only the main characters, their characters, but also the history of the city of Colombia itself and the events that put the universe in such a difficult situation. I would like to say special thanks for the dialogues, sometimes very relevant and interesting topics of today are raised in them.

It is impossible not to mention the wonderful localization, which left the opportunity to enjoy the original voice acting of the characters with their voices, but at the same time make high-quality translations in the form of subtitles.

There are not too many weapons in the game. These are classic pistols, rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers.

Before proceeding to the description of the gameplay and innovations related to this process, I want to talk about the beautiful Elizabeth. We fall in love with her as quickly and suddenly as we find. Having met, it is no longer possible to part, because she is not only the main character, around whom all the numerous events take place, but also a real decoration of the whole game. This seventeen-year-old girl grows, changes and evolves before Booker and my eyes, through her lips we learn about the difficult fate of Elizabeth, about the ups and downs in Colombia and who we really are.

At some point, we realize that something more is going on between the main characters of the game than just joint trip looking for the only way out. After all, Booker needs Elizabeth to fulfill the dream of a lifetime - to fly to Paris, and for Booker, Elizabeth is salvation and the opportunity to stay alive, even if he has absolutely nothing to lose. But rather quickly we realize that these needs turn out to be only a background for real and great feelings, and now we are already interested and joyful in associating ourselves with this character. Never seen such a touching and captivating story in modern games for a very long time, it's just fiction, whose name is BioShock Infinite.

In the game, Elizabeth plays not only an aesthetic (although this would be more than enough) and an informative role. This is also a real assistant, as well as a sorceress, who is subject to other worlds (rifts), through which we have to travel with her. During fierce battles, the girl is happy to help with friendly advice, ammunition and first-aid kits. And in quiet times, it opens locked doors, picks up what we didn’t pick up and opens up more and more new horizons.

Game mechanics by and large has not changed since the release of the last part. It's still an action game with elements role play. There are now no mini-games with lockpicking and mechanical devices, Elizabeth does an excellent job with them, as well as energy, which has become much less than in previous games in the series.

Someone is constantly knocking on your door, demanding to open it immediately. The moment you finally do this, the magical moment of awakening occurs, and all the events that happened seconds before turn into a dream.

Each ability found is also accompanied by beautiful animation, as well as instructions for use, made in the style of old films of the 20-30s. Energy, also known as "mana", is now called salt, its reserves can be restored by picking up bottles with a blue mixture.

Numerous vending machines for the sale of cartridges, tools, improvements for superpowers and weapons have not gone away. But added such an item as clothing. It consists of four things: hat, jacket, pants and boots. Each item found, and most importantly, dressed on yourself, gives a bonus to your abilities or arsenal, it is noteworthy that neither salt, nor energy, nor anything else is spent on this, a thing worn once will always and endlessly be useful.

There are not too many weapons in the game. These are classic pistols, rifles, machine guns and grenade launchers. The main problem, as in the previous parts, is the lack of sufficient ammo for every shooter. Despite the fact that you can carry only two types of weapons at a time.

One of the key intrigues that the developers managed to keep is the so-called air route, in the common people - "roller coaster". As it might seem at first glance, this is the main and key element of the new project, but this is not entirely true, the game can generally be completed without using this type of transport, but without a hook, the game will lose most of its charm and novelty.

With the help of the skyway, you can endlessly diversify the methods of combat. A sudden jump on an adversary, a chase or, vice versa, an escape from a stronger opponent, a change of location or position for an attack - there can be very, very many options for using rails. Don't deprive yourself of the pleasure of trying something out of the ordinary.

And what happened to the "big daddy" - you ask. There was a kind of reincarnation of him in Mechanics. The last is called the most severe opponent encountered on the battlefields in BioShock Infinite. Each such meeting will be remembered by you for a long time, because this battle has to be replayed again and again if you have chosen a difficult level of difficulty.

It's nice that BioShock Infinite is not a stupid shooter in which you need to pack mountains of opponents.

By the way, the “comeback” process is implemented quite cool in this part, that is, returning to the game after your defeat. There are two options: if you are currently traveling in a pair with Elizabeth, she will inject you with a magical injection, thanks to which you will return to the white world; if you are alone, in black and white twilight you need to get to the door, into which someone is constantly breaking, and it will open the way for you to the location abandoned to death. Speaking about the office door, it is worth noting that this is a kind of leitmotif of the whole game - each time losing consciousness during the journey (in plot inserts), you find yourself in your office, which remained in New York.

Someone is constantly knocking on your door, demanding to open it immediately. The moment you finally do this, the magical moment of awakening occurs, and all the events that happened seconds before turn into a dream. Thus, your pursuers turn out to be unknown characters every time.

It's nice that BioShock Infinite is not a stupid shooter in which you need to pack mountains of opponents. Professionals from Irrational Games managed to avoid this punishment for the user, which is inherent in many modern, and most importantly high-profile projects. The main taste of this game is a strong plot, atmosphere and originality of the whole journey. One can definitely talk about the absolute and unprecedented innovation that BioShock Infinite brings to the modern concept of games in general. After all, everything that you see on the screen is absolutely alive, especially the beautiful Elizabeth. Perhaps so close to betray reality through computer game only Valve succeeded in its legendary Half-Life 2.

The musical component deserves special attention, which is a kind of highlight in BioShock Infinite. The composers of the project have not only a great sense of humor, but also excellent taste. How else to explain the appearance of compositions by such musicians as Cyndi Lauper, Michael Joseph Jackson and others in 1912. Find time rifts in the game more carefully, and you will not miss this spectacle.

There is no point in summing up some usual results and grading, advising to focus on certain features of the game or something like that. BioShock Infinite is a timeless project that will tell future generations about the games played in 2013. This is something that has already become a classic. good book or a novel that does not need to be reviewed or critically evaluated. This is something that everyone should enjoy, even if he does not consider himself an amateur computer entertainment. BioShock Infinite is that forgotten beauty, which today is sometimes lacking in our difficult and heartless time. This is a ray of light in the dark realm of despondency and negativity.

Treat yourself to this charge of the sun, pure and bright. And the intrigue that lurks in the questions: what is the future of Elizabeth and Booker, where will they eventually go - to New York or Paris, are you ready to fall in love with a wonderful, albeit virtual, creature on your monitor screen; I will not destroy with your permission, in the interests of your own imagination and curiosity.

Review dedicated to Bioshock Infinite

BioShock Infinite numerous players and journalists prophesied the title of "very good game" a couple of years ago. Indeed, proven developers from Irrational Games have long developed a credibility among the players by releasing a superhero freedom force, tactical shooter SWAT 4, which deserved a lot of positive ratings, and, of course, bioshock. Released in 2007, the game developed the ideas of an already old one by today's standards. System Shock, demonstrating, in addition to the sophisticated RPG-like gameplay with numerous abilities and game freedoms, a detailed style inspired by the pompous art deco and philosophical views of the writer Ayn Rand. The game received numerous positive reviews, collected "Game of the Year" lava from critics and was called by many the first "smart shooter" in the history of modern game development. Sequel, released in 2010 and is the fruit of a joint development 2K Marin And 2K China, only confirmed the talent of the Ken Levine team, since in fact it was nothing more than the exploitation of old developments with a new plot and a "trick" in the form big daddy as the main character.

And now, 5 years after the release of the first part, the developers are preparing to release a sequel that has nothing to do with the original dilogy. Why are they "preparing"? Yes, because the game has not yet been released - its release is planned only on March 26th. But, as one would expect, it had already "leaked" to the network before the release, and a week before it. Patch 1.01 is even available on PSN, which is not known what fixes it, since no bugs were noticed during the passage.

The plot throws us back from the late fifties further into the past, to the very beginning of the 20th century. In 1900, the United States built a huge flying city of Columbia, which was supposed to demonstrate to the world the power of the technical might of the States. But after some time, the city rebelled and declared its cultural and political independence, proclaiming itself "paradise" and "the last stronghold of the true States", and the rest of the world - "Sodom". At the head of the city stood the Prophet, preaching some form of Baptism, very strongly associated with the cult of the Prophet himself and the cult of the Founding Fathers of the United States. To our protagonist, an unlucky New York detective named Booker DeWitt some people offer to deliver a girl by name for a big reward Elizabeth, from a mysterious air city already lost to the rest of the world. And, what is most interesting, once in the city, the hero realizes that they have been waiting for his appearance there for a very long time...

It makes no sense to retell the further plot, since it is so twisted (practically, in the spirit of a movie "Start") that the evaluation and analysis of it is best left to your conscience. I will only note that there will be a place in it for the social revolution, and for the problem of fathers and children, and even for quantum physics and the theory of the multiverse. Actually, most of the questions about the game arise precisely because of the plot, while the ending may even seem crumpled and very ambiguous. And I promise that while traveling through the world of the game you will have time to visit a wide variety of places. Including, and in the "good old" Rapchure. True, this will happen only at the very end of the game.

Celestial Columbia is the exact opposite of Rapture. It has a lot of light, a lot of colors and very, very many details. Underwater Rapture, of course, was also under the scrutiny of artists and designers, but in Colombia, the level of this attention moved to a new level. I guarantee you: when you get to Colombia for the first time, you will look at the world around you with an open mouth, with slow steps, afraid to miss any detail, you will wander among all this magnificence of posters, signs and small scenes between the still peaceful inhabitants of this wonderful city .

Attention to the world of the game is given simply colossal, not every RPG can boast of such a well-developed universe within the framework of one game. Blues are crackling from the radios, a lady in a hat is having a picnic on the grass, confetti is flying from the sky; the city is celebrating. Fireworks blare somewhere in the distance. You turn around, walk twenty steps, and from under the island hanging in the air rises a flying gondola with a quartet that will perform for you a cappella "God Only Know" from The Beach Boys. In the hall of the local society "For Racial Purity" there is a picture in which the "saint" John Booth with a halo over his head kills "Satan" in the theater box Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves and ended the Civil War. And the first serious opponent you will meet will be a two-meter mechanical robot (!) of the first US President George Washington(!!) with a Gatling gun (!!!).

Has undergone processing and level design. Perhaps the biggest complaint about the original Bioshock was the monotony in the passage of intricate play spaces. It already took a lot of time to visit every room, every corner of the map, so the player was also forced to return to the same places from time to time. Coupled with constant battles, the passage of the game was unnecessarily delayed. Of course, it was still interesting to play: because of the atmospheric world, abilities, plot - a lot of things. But over time, all this diversity began to cause banal physical fatigue. What is at least the location of the head of the "Penthouse Olympus".

So, from now on, there is none of that. Or rather, almost none. Getting rid of underwater claustrophobia, the game has become more straightforward, but, at the same time, much more "free" than its predecessors. In the vast majority of cases, by raising the camera sharply up relative to the floor, you will see not a gray ceiling, but clouds and sky. The "air rails" are also perfectly inscribed in such an environment, making it easier to move around the level and access hard-to-reach places (where, of course, the player is waiting for a sniper rifle and a first-aid kit).

By the way, about the weapons and powers that the developers endowed our hero with. For starters, there are more "trunks" in the game. In addition to the winch hook, with which our protagonist moves along the rails and cheerfully crushes enemy skulls, there are: a pistol, a revolver, a carbine, a sniper rifle, several types of automatic rifles, a couple of grenade launchers... All this wealth can be improved for money in special machines , except, perhaps, the Gatling gun, which "falls out" of the mechanical robots of the Founding Fathers.

Gentonics that improve the passive characteristics of the hero have been completely removed. Their place was taken (this is not a joke) by elements of clothing. There can be four items of clothing in total: hat, vest, trousers and shoes. Each item of clothing adds the ability to, for example, carry 50% more ammo or set fire to surrounding enemies when attacking with melee weapons. During the game, there are more than enough such "clothes" to meet, and the player is free to choose whether to replace the current boots with something more useful or leave everything as it is. Among other things, a new one has been added to the usual indicators of health and "strength" - a shield. During attacks on our hero by enemy armadas, a strip of shield is first removed and only then - health. All three indicators can be improved by choice by finding special flasks in the game.

Plasmids (which are now simply referred to as "strength") as a whole are a fairly typical set for the series, although, of course, there are some changes. From now on, it is impossible to freeze the enemy or throw an ownerless barrel at him, but you can pull him towards you or even sacrifice him to the crows. The last "strength" replaced the rather useless one in the original bioshock swarm of bees. Each plasmid (I will call a spade a spade) can be pumped twice, and, of course, no "ADAM" is needed for this. A ringing silver dollar will allow you, for example, to make a trivial explosive fireball disintegrate into many parts, hitting a whole group of opponents. The traps, to the great joy of the tacticians, remained in place and are activated by holding down the fire key.

Overall, the game feels and plays twice as fast as the original Bioshock, as does its sequel. Player death now knocks them back to a quiet spot on the map, allowing them to immediately rush back into combat. Absolutely the whole routine with machine guns, hacking these machines and collecting from the game was mercilessly thrown out. There is no longer a choice of the type of ammunition for weapons. To some, this may seem like a big drawback and simplification, but to me, these changes seemed reasonable. Fumbling with items and abilities would significantly reduce the pace of fights. It is enough to get into a fight a couple of times in order to understand HOW the shootings have become more spectacular and more energetic. You are forced to actively move around the large spacious levels and take advantage of them in every possible way.

Our companion Elizabeth helps us with this. A non-trivial girl (in every sense) knows how to materialize from another world either a box with first-aid kits, or a turret, or a hook that you can cling to and gain a tactical advantage. In addition to this (as well as a key role in the plot of the game), she knows how to break open locked doors with the help of master keys scattered on the levels, help our hero in difficult times by throwing him a weapon or a vial of "mana" in time and bring Mr. DeWitt back to life. However, Booker himself can now carry first-aid kits and vials with "mana" - if you please, find it under your feet. It's funny, but often - even too much - Elizabeth provides the hero with the money she found, which is accompanied by a spectacular coin toss animation.

You can talk about the game for an incredibly long time. But, of course, it is better to play it yourself. Moreover, it seems to me that you obliged play this game. BioShock Infinite is the perfect example of what a true sequel is. Almost everything has been reworked in it: a new universe, new heroes, new gameplay have been developed. And all this is brought to mind. However, once you see her, you will immediately understand what is in front of you. bioshock. This game, which is already the third part of the popular series, is so different from what we have seen before that one wants to endlessly criticize such series as call of duty or Need For Speed, offering almost the same game year after year with minimal changes. Because, in a good way, what we see in these series should be called "map-packs" and be sold for $14.95. Like in the 90s, in the good old days. So far this is the first contender for the game of the year, in my humble opinion. But, as you know, this year the competition for the title will be very, very strong.

In conclusion, I will note especially for fans of the series. Play only on hard difficulty. Of course, you will be killed more often than on average (and there will be less money, because a little cash is withdrawn from your account for death), but it will also be more interesting to play. Only at a high level of difficulty can you understand how useful your partner is in general, and it’s not to say that there are moments in the game where you can get stuck.

In 2007, shooter developers set off to the heights of Olympus by different roads. One, in the form of Infinity Ward, turned the genre into a solid attraction, where directing and staging supplanted thoughtful gameplay. Others did not leave attempts to revive old concepts, supplementing them with something really new. The BioShock of Ken Levine and his studio became a model for the second path.

Thanks to the increased interactivity of the environment, the game was nicknamed “shooter 2.0”, and for good reason: the enemies in BioShock were not mindless kamikazes, they knew how to heal and retreat in a timely manner, the fire allowed the frozen door to melt, and the water honestly conducted the current. But for some reason, imitators went the way of attractions, and not "smart" shooters. Did Ken Levine break under the pressure of bad fashion? Neither one nor the other.

- I see two possible scenarios. First, when she comes face to face with herself thirty years older, she will simply pass out. Or the second: a temporal paradox is created, the space-time continuum is broken, a chain reaction begins. Time and space are swept into a loop, causing the universe to collapse. But that's the worst case. IN best case only our galaxy will collapse...
film "Back to the Future II" (1989).

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From the depths to heaven

Ken Levine is a big fan of city building games. But if we usually associate this with the arrangement of megacities in simulators like SimCity, then the head of Irrational Games, inspired by books about utopias and dystopias of the 20th century, pleases us with wonderful, sometimes frightening worlds, allowing us to look at their prosperity and slow decline.

Thus was born Rapture - a giant underwater city, secretly built in 1946 at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean by businessman-philanthropist Andrew Ryan. In an attempt to create an ideal society independent of government and religion, the creator of the underwater paradise invited the most worthy, in his opinion, people into his world, giving them complete freedom of expression.

Vending machines are one of the few things that have carried over from the original game almost unchanged.

But, as you know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and the greatness of the underwater kingdom is comparable only to its monumental collapse. The founding father did not take into account that there were not enough car service systems to support the functioning of the city, and the lack of organizations for the protection of human rights caused fraud, corruption and oppression of the common people.

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Utopia becomes dystopia, and democracy is replaced by dictatorship. In 1960, when the scene appears main character BioShock games, Rapture is already engulfed in civil war, most of the inhabitants under the influence of the miraculous substance ADAM turned into insane mutants, and the remnants of those who have not yet lost their minds hid in their homes and laboratories.

The princess, locked in the tower, has not yet learned how to receive guests, but she already knows that books can not only be read.

But Rapture was not the only attempt at the American Dream. In 1900, the United States government, in order to prove its superiority over the rest of the world, builds the flying city of Columbia (Columbia) - "the greatest miracle created by man."

It was planned that the project would become a symbol of technological progress and prosperity of the nation, but the designers did not take into account one thing, namely, the control system of the “top” of the soaring state. An uprising breaks out in the city and the newly-made rulers announce the withdrawal of Colombia from the United States, motivating the act with the words "We are already fine." Good intentions, yes...

After the disappearance of Columbia, twelve years pass, and we are introduced to the protagonist of BioShock Infinite - a former employee of the Pinkerton detective agency, Booker Devitt. Unlike the hero of the original game, Jack, our alter ego arrives in the utopian city voluntarily: he is hired by a young couple, ordered to find and take out a certain Elizabeth in exchange for paying off debts.

Booker, like Comstock, is often haunted by visions. Perhaps they have much more in common, besides the ability to see the future?

The link between the real world and the lighthouse will again be a miracle state, only this time we get to “paradise” not on a bathysphere, but on a rocket. Upon arrival, you will immediately feel the contrast with previous BioShock - the gloomy corridors and the atmosphere of decline are replaced by majestic monuments, colorful gardens, beaches and fairs, and the noisy streets are always full of people.

In this world, the revolution has not yet taken place, and the government is quite different: if freedom and democracy were preached in the universe of Andrew Ryan, then Columbia resembles a religious commune led by a self-proclaimed prophet - Zachary Comstock. Someone prays to him, others consider him a protector and patron, only the working people live hard, which means that this little world will sooner or later step on the same rake that ruined Rapture.

Nightingale is the jailer and Elizabeth's only "friend". It would make a worthy replacement for the Big Daddies if they let him fight for real.

The plot of BioShock Infinite is like a work of art. Not in terms of the fact that he is good, but because not everyone will understand him. This is a story about greedy power, space-time paradoxes and their consequences. The passage of the game is comparable to the first viewing of the trilogy "The Matrix" - the story touches on a bunch of philosophical questions, but does not give unambiguous answers to them.

Understatement Syndrome

Ken Levine has once again created a unique universe where magic and technology, religion and science coexist. Due to the brilliant work of artists and designers, this city at first glance seems to be the very paradise on earth, where thousands of people live in a world without troubles and simple everyday worries.

Columbia soaring behind the clouds is the key advantage of the game ... and its main drawback. Why did this hulk take off at all? By what principle does it move and what keeps the city in the air? People live at such a height where, in theory, it is impossible to be without oxygen masks - due to what then atmospheric pressure stabilizes? Some of the explanations will be revealed only to those who are closely engaged in gathering, but many questions will remain unanswered.

A rare game can boast an abundance of such unique locations. Although in a number of scenes with lighting they still overdid it.

Yes, the game is fantastic, but this is no reason to ignore the laws of physics and pretend that this is normal - the same Rapture was worked out so much that there were no questions about the improbability of what was happening. Dozens of golosophones and kinetoscopes with bits of information are scattered all over Colombia, but one cannot assemble a picture that can fit a thousand puzzles out of hundreds of pieces.

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The longer you wander the streets of the transcendental giant, the stronger the feeling that the whole city is just a stage set for a theatrical production, and the actors in it are puppets incapable of depicting emotions. There is no question of any simulation of life - the inhabitants of the city with cloned faces are tightly nailed to their positions and occasionally throw blank phrases when Booker passes by.

Interesting: Colombia is an extremely wealthy city. Even in poor neighborhoods, trash cans are crammed with money, even though scurrying beggars are willing to kill for food. Communism is also thriving here: no one will say a word to you if you rob the closet behind the store or crates of supplies to the skin. Looting will be mistaken for theft only in a couple of places.

You can dance around the policemen or play peepers for hours, but once you shoot at the other end of the map, a horde of law enforcement officers will crawl towards you from all around.

The puppetry of the NPCs can still be forgiven (all the same, only Rockstar and GSC managed to simulate a normal life before), but what happened to the vaunted intelligence of Booker's companion Elizabeth is a mystery. A pretty young lady runs after the main character, throws up cartridges, money or a healer, and pulls combat drones or weapons from other dimensions - that's the whole range of her "revolutionary" capabilities.

She's also not a very good interlocutor: most often she opens her mouth only in plot points and rare cut-scenes, otherwise you hear little "Hmm" and "Oh" from her when rummaging through the supply room. Even dialogues with satellites from Diablo III were much more entertaining, not to mention their number.

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It is all the more sad that in the commercials her bright image was shown in a completely different way. The girl has been locked up all her life and knows about the outside world only from books, but she is surprisingly little interested in her surroundings and is also not surprised at anything. What can we say, if a lot of fragments from the trailers fell under the knife - remember the scenes with a horse or a parody of the American president. They are not in the release.

Elizabeth only seems to be a decent girl - in fact, she is a skilled housekeeper, although she is powerless without master keys.

The same that remains, casts melancholy, and the low quality of the Russian release played an important role in this. Lack of dubbing and full translation of textures, unreadable screen size - all this puts an end to any attempts to get used to this wonderful world, to feel its atmosphere.

You won't envy English lovers either - the original voices are a B-minus. Elizabeth's speech is most terrifying: a young girl speaking in the voice of a mature woman is comparable to playing an untuned piano - in both cases you just want to turn off the speakers.

The game world itself has remained at the level of the previous parts, with the only difference being that freedom is not limited by narrow corridors, but by abysses and invisible walls. Yes, the locations are vast, and often allow you to return to where you wandered an hour or two ago, but as soon as you step behind an invisible trigger, the path to underexplored areas will close.

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These are not wall curses, but the mark of the “populists” cache. Without a book-key, you cannot enter the cache.

There is still something to learn. Most often, the levels are not straight corridors, but small “sandboxes” with a couple of “optional” rooms or establishments. In such places there are caches with ciphers, audio recordings, weapons and a bunch of useful junk. For those who care about storylines, the magic arrow will not let you get lost, illuminating the way to the goal like stardust from Fable III.

The most noticeable novelty of the game was the monorail movement system. In the very first skirmish with the enemy, Booker will receive a tool that allows him to cling to the rail and “drive” it to the next location. The local “metro” will also help in combat: what is the opportunity to land on the enemy or shoot during the trip. But the opponents are not foolish either: often this is how reinforcements arrive to them.

The lack of a map is disappointing, which makes it impossible not only to determine which areas of the location have already been surveyed, but also to find out which part of Colombia you are currently in. You should not overestimate the transport system either: one branch connects hardly a couple of locations, and your tour of the flying city is somehow limited by the plot.

The only version of the map of the game world. It's hard to navigate, but it's better than nothing.

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If you don't break records for the speed of passing, BioShock Infinite will take fifteen hours of your life. The journey is also stretched by a strange save system: the developers refused to record the game anywhere - now only checkpoints, and they are found either in story places or when entering a location, which means that it is easy to lose the progress of even a two-hour session if you inaccurately exit the menu or system failure.

Interesting: full walkthrough The game opens the 1999 difficulty mode, where the cost of resurrection increases to one hundred coins, weapon damage is reduced, and enemies hit even harder. The impatient will be able to unlock it using the Konami code in the game menu: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, cancel button (Backspace) and confirmation button (Enter).

“When it hits 88 mph, you will see something amazing!”

The game does not overwrite saves, but creates new ones each time, so it's easy to roll back a few checkpoints if you want. There is only one ending in BioShock Infinite, and all non-linearity ends with a choice between heads or tails, bird or cage (and this is not a joke).

And again, one feels how much the developers cut out of the game. Even in the browser-based flash game Industrial Revolution, they showed the beginning of the conflict between the "founders" and the "populists". In Infinite itself, the dialogues set us up for the fact that a revolution is coming and we have to choose which side to take. But this fork does not occur. Not in this game...

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Shooter 1.15

Let's ask Elizabeth to create a temporal rift and take us to 2007, when BioShock discs just hit the shelves. Remember how Jack's journey into the unknown world on hard difficulty began: searching for weapons, killing the first enemy with a wrench, healing with a first-aid kit, pure joy if you managed to kick a mutant without losing health.

When a revolver was in the hands, the question often arose: spend the precious cartridge now or save it “for later” - you never know what kind of creature is waiting in the next corridor. The first skirmishes with the Big Daddies seemed an overwhelming test: firepower was not enough, success depended on interaction with the environment, skillful use of plasmids and hacked turrets.

The same choice. Do you know what it affects? Nothing.

The combat in BioShock Infinite is bewildering. You cut out frail cops in close combat with one swing, and with the very first pistol you get a hundred rounds of ammunition - even with Kerzhakov's genes, you are unlikely to shoot all the ammunition before the enemies run out.

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The principles of the combat system have not changed: bots have their own margin of “strength”, each gun has its own damage indicators: don’t be surprised if an enemy sniper, seemingly a simple fighter, can withstand several hits in the head, and larger enemies absorb a couple of automatic horns.

So that the game does not seem easy, the creators have added a number of restrictions: in BioShock Infinite you carry only two barrels with you - if you have shot all the ammunition, if you please, look for another weapon in the midst of the battle. It comes to the point of absurdity when you are locked in the arena to fight the "boss" and there is nowhere to get a new gun. There were no places for storing weapons: if you want to always be with your favorite grenade launcher, carry it with you or fight with whatever comes to hand.

We pulled this mechanical patriot out of a parallel universe - a good help in a fierce battle.

The structure of the fights has changed, and again not for the better. A disproportionate amount of "meat" appeared at the levels: enemies do not shine with intelligence and with a club run to the firearms in a frontal attack - this is how a "smart" shooter becomes ordinary. Bots no longer use medical devices, since there are simply no “injury centers” in Colombia, just as there are no portable first-aid kits: health is at zero - run away from battle and look for a panacea every time.

The size of the cut content is shocking: there are no different types of ammunition, there are no lockpicking mini-games, there are no cameras and turrets (as well as the cameras themselves!), There is no intelligible analogue of the Big Daddies either, and although the ability to improve weapons has remained, it appearance modifiers no longer have an effect.

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They cut out plasmids and tonics, but this time they found a replacement. As the game progresses, you find energy drinks: some will allow you to take temporary control of an enemy or combat robot, others will teach Booker to hit enemies with electricity or throw natural fire ball. Each ability has an alternate mode that allows you to set a ground trap.

Steam will not only report the rewards earned in a timely manner, but also remind you of the balance until the next achievement is unlocked.

Power engineers cheerfully eat salts (an analogue of mana), so you won’t gain much with “magic”, and now there’s not much room for tactics: there are only eight abilities, some of them are useless, but such a thing as telekinesis was not invented in Colombia.

Clothing is a substitute for tonics. These are the same passive improvements, but now they are rigidly tied to their cell: if before it was possible to combine strong bonuses in any way, now you definitely won’t wear three shirts or two hats, which means that the scope for tactics is greatly limited.

The lack of portable first-aid kits was compensated by a regenerating shield, so now the gameplay differs from Borderlands only in a meager set of weapons. Due to the restriction on two slots, rocket launchers, grenade launchers and shotguns have become completely useless - it is reasonable to walk either with a couple of machine guns, or take one machine gun and a sniper rifle.

Yellow cracks are a sign that your shield has been knocked down... or it has begun to recover.

Among the enemies it is difficult to single out someone - most of the game we fight with cops of varying degrees of vitality. Firefighters who throw bombs and explode on death, snipers, rocket launchers and stealths who can turn into a flock of crows can be an unpleasant surprise, although their strength lies not in damage, but in an unimaginable amount of health.

If anyone will spoil the nerves, it's the "bosses". The mechanic resembles the Big Daddies from the original game in size, but is extremely hostile - without a decent supply of ammo, it is difficult to defeat him. But most of all, the fights with the ghost boss are annoying - the developers have not found a better solution than to impose the same fight in different scenery.

Conclusion

Perplexity. This feeling is an invisible companion from the very beginning to the end of the video after end credits. Why was Infinite so simplified (or rather dumbed down) compared to the original 2007 game and its sequel? Why did many reviewers suddenly go blind, not recognizing a whole heap of flaws? Why does 2K Games have so much disrespect for the Russian-speaking community?

Elizabeth is not as simple as it seems at first glance. Sometimes she is not herself, as you can see.

However, do not think that the game is bad. It's just that the original raised the bar of quality to such a high level that it turned out to be an impossible task to achieve it a second time. A hard to understand plot, poorly developed characters and a bunch of at least ambiguous gameplay decisions - multiply all this by the excellent work of the artists and divide it into unfulfilled promises and cut scenes. The rest is BioShock Infinite.

Verdict: never game of the year, never failed. Just good game, without any variables. It could be better, but thanks for being at least that way.

Rating: 8.0.

Between the lines. For me, this is the biggest disappointment of the year. It is rare that expectations are so different from end result. If with Aliens: Colonial Marines And resident evil 6 was essentially clear from the start, the quality of BioShock Infinite was a real blow. It turns out that to spoil the ideal concept, it is enough to remove the map, first-aid kits and normal saves, adding an unnecessary restriction on the carried weapon.

Vitaly Krasnovid aka Dezintegration

• BioShock Infinite: Performance Testing
  Testing of nineteen video cards and seventy-two processors in three resolutions and two operating modes.


• at the conference site.