BioShock Infinite 25: Wrapping Things Up, Again And For Good

In which we do exactly what it says on the tin.

This is the final final post of the Infinite. And what a ride it was.
The game started with a good idea, warped and twisted by blind implementation of legacy mechanics without sufficient anchoring in the world and the fact that they did Columbia as a shooter with a mediocre-at-best gunplay. Then we were given some more gunplay. THEN we were given everything missing and some more: the Burial at Sea-DLC did so many things so right that it is both a shame and totally incomprehensible how this could happen.

Some numbers: Infinite and all its DLC occupy around 42GB. The DLC-installation downloaded about 22 of those. Huge, but worth it.
The whole thing took me about 27hrs according to Steam. This was one playthrough on medium difficulty, without additional runs to get all the achievements and without any time invested in Clash in the Clouds. This is not much. I got the game for cheap during a Humble Bundle, and I got the season pass half off during a steamsale. Would I have paid the full price for the base game, I’d probably be pretty pissed about that.Achievements: 35/88 – 44%. Missed some telescopes and kinetoscopes and other collectibles, and most of the combat-stuff. I’m not going back for it.

Do I recommend this game? Yes, I do.
But be aware about what it is. The main game is a mediocre shooter in a beautiful backdrop, the DLC is great. Especially the main game suffers from linearity (compared to the older Bioshock-games), and even in the DLC it was usually the better idea to go to the plot door first and then start exploring. Ep. 2 does great things with the game’s mechanics. The whole story, which should be spoiled to hell and back for you by now, does something difficult very well.

What’s coming up next?
This blog started as a place to bitch and moan about all the things Infinite sucked at. The DLC were more of a slightly commented Let’s Play. I still need to find the best way to do this. And I probably should be more constructive in this final post. Oh well.

Thank you for showing up. “Let’s do things with games” will continue next week, on the 24th day of February, with Valkyria Chronicles.

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