Bioshock Infinite Gameplay Trailer

I declared media black out on this game in the morning. That lasted until about 11'o'clock that same day.

I'll just get out some quick thoughts on it after the break...



The action looks pretty good, but it clearly needs tuning still. You can see it in the amount of damage the enemies are doing mostly, also the uncertainty on the shotgun's range. You'll notice at one point the player has lost all but a sliver of life and then takes more damage then it took to put him there. Obviously they didn't want player's at E3 keeling over, but that's going to need to be seriously tuned before the game is ready for launch.


I'm not sure about the new voice actor, I'm kinda pissed they replaced the ones they had in the first conceptual demo. I dont know who they were previously using for Elizabeth, but Booker was originally voiced by Stephen Russell, the guy who voiced Garrett in thief. The new guy... I don't know. Maybe he'll grow on me.


The rail play is finally looking exciting now that they've tuned it's sense of speed. There's a real sense of movement to it now, though I dont think the player in the video was making the best use of it. I can see a lot of opportunities to use it to dodge around gunfire or slip behind enemies. Of course once the swarm hits that might be more difficult. That brings us to the next point.


There are a LOT of enemies now, like the environment is drowning in them at times. With them constantly moving on the rails and shooting at you from unpredictable angles I can imagine finding cover could prove very difficult.

It's a goddamned Barnum & Bailey show here...

This is also why a re-tune of the damage that enemies put out will be so important so you can survive several shots and keep trucking, because, based on how things are currently, with the number of enemies and the rails leaving you out in the open, you will take many shots. It's a given. On other enemies the blimp as a heavy threat is pretty great, especially given that you can stall or even prevent it's entry. Even when it does show up you have multiple ways of combating it. Still I wonder how a rebel uprising manages to hide a blimp in a city in the sky. Seems like it might be easy to spot, or at least follow to wherever they hide it.


Finally Elizabeth needs work.

Old Look

New Look

Old Elizabeth was feisty. New Elizabeth seems... pinched. Characterization wise she seems too playful one moment and a total drama ham the next. I'll need to see more of her in action to completely decide but as of right now I'm not a huge fan. Her tear power seems neat, it's a nice way to set up extra possibilities within the game space but not have them overwhelm and clutter the view. They're basically there if you want them, and semi-invisible if you don't. It's basically going to be made or broken on how well the designers provide options dependent on the situation and how often it can be used before she needs to recharge. If she bombs out every other use then I might end up hording it until the situation it's totally necessary for comes up. On the plus side you can basically dump her and not worry too much, unless I'm reading the situations poorly. You see her fighting with a dude at once point and the player's all 'whatever' and keeps on riding the rails. That's pretty radical thinking where AI sidekicks are concerned.

I'm still interested in the game but this definitely seems like it needs more work before it's ready.