BioShock Infinite Complete Edition

As a not so much player of FPS games, I really like the world concept and the idea behind it. The story is interesting and motivating and character writing is good. A big disappointment is the level design. The visual and audio impressions can create a great atmosphere but too many levels are built with the same structure or pattern.

note: the review applies to main game only, I haven't played any DLCs yet. The game design is seriously flawed in the later stages of the game. The game doesn't give you enough ammo. Vending machines disappear in later stages of the game. The ammo you get for your weapons is very limited. You can only carry two weapons at a time. The best way to have ammo is to pick up weapons from the dead enemies. This is fine, but it doesn't work well with the gun upgrade system. Upgraded a Hand Cannon and a Carbine? Well, tough luck, most enemies will wield Machineguns and Repeaters, so you'll be constantly out of ammo. And there's not enough money in the game to just upgrade what you want (like in Bioshock 2 you can easily have too much ADAM). I found myself dying often, just to replenish my ammo reserves. Melee attack is useless in later stages of the game, unless you got lucky with gear (gear is randomized, so you might not get the melee upgrades at all). That was on hard difficulty. Plasmids (called Vigors in this game) could help, but there aren't really any good damage dealers. Most focus on pushing enemies around or stunning them temporarily, dealing limited damage. Apart from that, the game is great. Gunfights are fun, the visuals are great, and the storyline is interesting (although I am not a fan of this kind of storytelling). Another minor thing - when playing with DLC the game gives you additional items from the start, which you can't ignore. I didn't like this, because I like to play the games as they were originally released, but there's an easy way to work around it (rename the DLC directory).

It is true that like other works this did start out overly ambitious and end up under delivering. In my opinion what we got was still amazing. I'm not going to go too much more into detail since it's been covered quite well already. Suffice it to say the trailer seemed to promise one thing, it ended up becoming clear that they couldn't quite make that and so they instead found ways to include all the things that we saw there but in a way that they could feature. This features a well realized world that I loved exploring. It feels lived in and you get a strong sense of what it's like to actually reside in Columbia. The gameplay is satisfying and the way that you unlock an upgrade abilities over the course of it keeps it from ever getting stale. I do wish that Victoria did not feel so much like a walking plot device. Yes, it's nice that she's not just a damsel in distress but those are not the only two options. With that said I quite appreciated how we see the relationship between the two leads grow and the way that really it starts out seeming like he's her knight in shining armor and ends up being more like, well, Adam from Beauty and the Beast. The first person shooting feels fairly well realized. I found myself liking a lot of the weapons and really appreciating how each of them have very different uses. None of them attempt to just be the solution to every situation. It is kind of silly how the limitation to how much you can carry leads the game to just having it toss you literally the weapon you need in some situations. They didn't just reiterate the first two but instead went for a new thing though it is still very much about equality. I am aware that some people read this as saying that if you fight fascists then you're no better than they are. I respectfully but vehemently disagree. In my opinion it is saying that we must be careful that our revolutionary actions don't end up being as brutal as what we fight which is what happened with the French Revolution.

If you like deep interesting stories and characters and also enjoy Singleplayer 1st person shooters, this is a must-play for you! Also I would HIGHLY encourage you to play Bioshock 1 and 2 before this game and play the DLCs 'BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode 1 and 2' (these are included in this Complete package) AFTER you finished this one. Your mind will be probably blown away, when you find out how all the 3 games and their characters are connected with each other ;-)

I would give the game 4-5 stars, but this is lacking the Linux version that Steam has. Please update!