some retard anon's 300 word essay about bioshock infinite

Oh boy, where do I begin:
It's no longer a horror game, or a role-playing game, because Bioshock 1 proved that watering that stuff down only makes for a shit game. So it's an action game instead with all of Bioshock 1's "RPG elements" (if you can call it that) streamlined or removed because who gives a fuck. Things like streamlined upgrades for guns and vigors. Hacking being removed entirely because not only was it too easy but it made the game too easy. In Bioshock 1 turrets and security cameras weren't a threat, they were environmental advantages waiting to get expíoited by the player. Instead of hiding from them, you ran up to them and hacked them the first time you saw them and then they were instantly out of mind because they would never turn back on you. In Infinite, you actually need to ise Possession to take over enemy turrets, and not only can Infinite turrets actually kill you real fast (something Bioshock turrets couldn't do), but for most of the game, using Possession on them uses up half of your salts. So you need to use half of your meter just to take out one (albeit special) threat. THAT'S balance.

This leads me to my next point: Infinite is actually HARD. It's hard as balls in fact. What with the game being a proper FPS now (it had the best gunplay on the planet until Destiny came along, and there is still stuff Infinite does that Destiny doesn't), the enemy threat could actually be ramped up. I can't even remember how many times I died in Infinite, and I KNOW it was always because I didn't take full advante of the game's combat system (the dedpest, most complex combat system in FPS games to date - I played soooooo much Clash in the Clouds). All the stuff you can do in the game, the unique and varied vigors, the wonderful mobility options you get, the unparealleled GENIUS of tears, altering the battleground at your will on a whim and every area holding a myriad tactical possibilities! (cont.)

Bioshock Infinite has the best gameplay of any FPS on Earth (even if Destiny is more addictive). It's just so endlessly (Infinitely) complex that I STILL haven't mastered it. Meanwhile I don't need to explain to you what a piss-easy and flat out BORING game Bioshock was.

Special mention should go to te enemy and level design. Zipping around from ship to ship, using a Skyline or Charge? Nothing else like it. And the enemy design, with those cultists, robot Patriots and sufferring, pleading Handymen (who are a much better enemy design than Big Daddies, but I'll get back to that)? Nothing in FPS gaming beats them. Only Destiny's Taken are a more challenging and vatied anemy to fight, but even they aren't better designed.

Then there's the story, the world, and all that. Now it's a given that Infinite is beautiful and Columbia is a gorgeous place, and I personally found the feeling of walking around Rapture akin to exploring a never-ending subway station, but to each their own. No, Infinite's story is objectively much better.

To a certain degree this probably has to do with me being european (continental, none of that UK bullshit) and finsing the very concept of economic libertarianism laughable (cultural libertarianism is another matter entirely of course), but I never really "bought" the ideological dilemma of Bioshock. To me, Andrew Ryan took capitalism, championed its failings, made it exponentially worse than it already is, and then I, the player, am expected to consider it a tragedy when his society collapsed rather than the logical outcome of zero social sensitivity in a civilized society. Andrew Ryan isn't simpathetic, he's wrong on everything he says, and the story of Rapture's collapse is subseaquently less interesting as well as mysterious. (cont.)

Contrast that with the institutionalised white supremacy and its pseudo-christian justification in Columbia. Zachary Comstock is fucking terrifying because the shit he says and the shit that his society does is an actual problem in the world, but especially in America, TO THIS FUCKING DAY! You look at the racism in Bioshock Infinite, and you look at Black Lives Matter and the racial violence that is actively stoked by the media happenning in America AS WE SPEAK, and it's like that country made no progress whatsoever in almost a hundred years! Like 12 Years a Slave, a game like Bioshock Infinite is more than just "great": it's eye-opening. It's relevant. It's poignant. The fact that that it can pack one of the greatest stories on video games (and all of science-fiction in fact) onto so much historical and racial baggage, and make all of the story's varied aspects cohere into one another, is a daredevil storytelling act of the highest order. You don't see THAT every day.

But the ultimate proof that Infinite is one of the greatest video games of all time and that Bioshock simply does not work, is their central gimmicks.

Biohock's central dynamic of Big Daddies and Little Sisters is a noble idea, a great concept, but it's let down by the game simply not being brave enougn to take it to its extreme. You need to be an actual, certified, genuine, headgear-wearing retard to feel sad for a dead Big Daddy. And a sociopath to slaughter Little Sisters (which I guess makes Bioshock a valuable tool for keeping public safety, but I doubt that was Ireational's end goal). Forget how you are never actually doing anything BAD to Little Sisters, as after you rescue them it is completely obvious that they were brainwashed the whole time, but rescuing them barely nets you any less ADAM than harvesting them! And after every three rescues you get a bonus supply of ADAM! Bioshock's big "moral dilemma" is a bullshit smokescreen for idiots to fall for! (cont.)

And you know what? I can't really think of a way to make it actually work! You could make it so that you NEED to harvest Little Sisters in order to actually get any ADAM, but after the first three they would become just another animation for the player to sit throug. You could maybe show the "harvesting" in gruesome, graphic detail, but as we've already established, Bioshock is waaaaaaay too cowardly a game for that type of stuff.

By contrast, Elizabeth in Bioshock Infinite is one of the greatest characters in the history of video games. Not to say that Booker Dewitt isn't a slam dunk of a protagonist, or that Zachary Comstock or Daisy Fitzroy aren't outstanding characters, or that the Lutece twins don't steal the show every time they appear, but Elizabeth is the most successful video games have gotten to inducing empathy in the player. You BELIEVE Elizabeth is a living, breathing human being, not just from her interactions with you, the palyer, but also from her interactions with the world around her. And the game smartly makes her an invaluable asset in combat as well, further cementing your connection to her. That's why the game is capable of producing a scene that shows you what happens if you fail to save her, and it STINGS.

Also Infinite's twist is much better than Bioshock's. Plain and simple.

So that's what Infinite does better than Bioshock: it knows what works in the game and what does not, it knows what to keep and what to throw out, it has a better setting, a better story, better characters, a better "big idea" gimmick, it's actually relevant to the world we are living in, and all in all it just generally actually works as a video game, something Bioshock fails to achieve. In short: everything.

Oh and don't worry, I could go on about the genius of evefy last minute little detail in Infinite for days :)

(Meanwhile Bioshock 2 forces you to play horde mode for half an hour every time you want to gather ADAM. 'nuff said.)