So back during the Steam Summer Sale I bought the newest installment of the BioShock series after much acclaim from literally everyone I've spoken to about it. It was my first BioShock experience & I have only every heard good reviews the game series, so I was super hyped to play Infinite. Fast forward to the point where I've been playing for a good 2 hours or so & I am channeling the "Not impressed" meme, lacking any real love for any part of the game. Usually by the 2 hour mark I've found something that makes me say "it deserved at least some of the hype it got". but after a really intense search for 1 single solitary thing that to make me feel like the purchase was justified, I just couldn't come up with a single reason.

The game was fantastic in 3 respects: 1. the Graphical application of the art style was superb! The ambiance in the graphics was awe-inspiring. 2. the Voice acting was top notch! The voice actors got into character & never sounded like they were reading lines off a sheet, they sounded genuine. & 3. Historical references made were extremely meaningful! The battle of Wounded Knee & Comstock were absolutely amazing references that I wouldn't expect out of most developers!

Now usually I would commend a game for achieving what this game has, but being there were so many other horrible parts to the game (such as the level design & character writing... or writing as a hole really.) that bleed into the things I gave them credit for, their achievements just felt hollow to me. I mean what's the point of having a beautify, expansive city & extremely far render distances, when the level design guides you on small pathways that don't connect to any other part of the city unless you progress the story line breaking any chance of exploring the part of the city you were in before the progression (sorry if that didn't make much sense, I kept trying to find a way to say that better & all those years of grammar lessons failed to help me :/ ). What the point of extremely high quality voice actors who keep in character really well when nearly every character their acting as is either completely 2 dimensional, has almost no lines, or is designed to be unrelatable being their the cartoon-esque-evil-maniacal-only-want-to-do-bad-things-muhahahaha antagonist? What's the point of the meaningful historical references to add to the story when the whole plot had little to no meaningful connection between the protagonist & antagonist? I mean until the end it seemed like DeWitt was just as bad as Comstock as far as Elisabeth went & other than the fact that you are forced to have DeWitt's perspective she was the only reason to care for the protagonist-side.... there were too many failings in the story & too much disappointment after hearing about all the historical references for me to continue with that. How dry the story was really got to me because I had extremely high hopes for the story after hearing about all of the references my friends were talking about.

(sorry if any of this seemed incoherent, I was trying to write while majorly distracting things were happening at my house)

So if someone can pinpoint for me why other liked the game so much, please do. I really wanted to like this game & if you can point me to something that says "I didn't waste my money" & I can get rid of consumer's remorse, that would be great.

It's one of the most overrated games of all time. The gameplay defines average.

svcks to hear that, didn't play it but I was really into buying this game since I love Bioshock 2 and liked what my friend told me about Bioshock 1's story.

Maybe you just have higher standards than your friends.

Yeah, it was pretty average. Shooter mechanics weren't really anything special, and you always decide on 2 guns for the entire game. Story was ok with a pretty decent plot twist, but was pretty overrated otherwise.

You might appreciate the game more if you play the first two. If not then different strokes.

I've played the first two. Infinite is just asaverage. I've played 6 releases this year and Infinite is my least favorite.

Your spoiled by the Open World games of Fallout and TES. This is the biggest complaint I have on the game, I want to explore the city and the world. But, alas, the world is just a set stage for the story to be unfolded as you play. As long as I approach the game the same way I would Tomb Raider or Borderlands, then it's fine in that regard.

As for the story falling apart in places, that's to be expected in a game, at least for me. I can't focus on plot holes, I would have to quit watching all TV Movies if that were the case nor play any games.

Yeah, the gameplay was nothing special. I tend to ignore game hype and I know better than to believe that any game is perfect. Everything amounts to the sum of its merits and flaws. IMO the hype does little more than set you up for disappointment. When I hear things like "best/worst ever" or "underrated/overrated" with regard to just about anything I usually assume it's coming from a less-than objective point of view. I also tend to evaluate games on their merits and only harp on flaws that really get in the way of enjoying myself. From that perspective I enjoyed Bioshock Infinite. The artwork and attention to detail in the game world made it a worthwhile play-through for me. There are plenty of things I would have liked for them to have done "better," but I still thought it was an enjoyable experience.