Ok, finished...
And i have to say, i have very mixed feelings about this. It is a very good game, but i can't understand how you can praise it without pointing at any of its many, many flaws!
What i see when i play it:
Gameplay-wise, Infinite is an improvement from Bioshock (and 2), yes, because the additional elements make it more engaging, more fluent and exciting. But on the other hand, they transported about every flaw from the previous ones and that i simply can't understand! The game is "imbalanced" as fu**, considering loot is mostly random and while the places you get gear are fixed, what you actually get is randomized as well. And this makes for awkward situations from the start: Why would i have any interest in gear that gives me a malus on something i prefer over another thing (gear that would increase aimed shots, but decrease unaimed "shots from the hip", one of the few with an actual malus) but i couldn't take it off, because i simply had no other piece for that slot for a huge portion of the game - while in another slot i had a piece which practically would make me invulnerable close to any sky-hook devices! Half the game i did nothing but mount those devices and jump in the faces of my enemies, simply because i could do so unpunished. So later i would simply go for all out melee combat, just because all the gear i got saw fit to it and make me close to invincible. That i simply call balance issues and while Infinite has somewhat more rounded combat, it remembers me of feeling like the Hulk through midgame just as with the previous titles.
But that's not all, considering the Vita-Chambers were already criticized in the first titles (and then got an option to turn them off), why include this feature in this title as well? Hey, we got no saves now, well that's... not really an improvement!
And while combat is more exciting, to me, though those flaws, at some point it got as tedious as in the previous ones as well.
Maybe 1999 mode fixes this, haven't started another playthrough yet, but that's because i simply can't subscribe the statement, that it would have this much of a replay value! Including a "game+" or altered mode or whatever doesn't make for necessary replay-value! On the contrary, the fact that it has an altered mode which might be "better", but you have to access it first by playing through the game once does not make it a "better game".
And that brings me to the next point: The story itself. I won't spoil anything yet and when i do, i'll warn you about it. But i feel confident to say, that within the story, while even the previous titles tried to create the illusion, that your actions would matter for later and the topic in this title would have made for the most perfect basis to include this as well - even in better ways - throughout the game it becomes clear, that what you do barely matters at all! Your decisions may include minor differences (like the picture on a accesoir Elisabeth gets - wow), maybe a bonus at this point or a missing secret at another, but in the end, there is only one inevetible conclusion... which by itself is good, yes, could be excelent for a movie, but has again huge inconsistencies and created a rather empty feeling for me as someone playing through all of it.
And now to go a bit deeper into it:
no really, if you want to find it out for yourself, don't look any further
To me, the whole story feels awfully inconsistent, from the beginning to the end! Now this could be all excusable by the topic presented itself, but that won't let the feeling go away. Starting with the relationship of Booker and Elisabeth: I don't get it. First she distrusts him (for good reasons), then runs away, then gains some trust, then runs away again and then cooperates again without any obvious change for their relationship. And that all happens within - what time exactly? - within a single day? or within a single day plus a six month "magical" absence of Booker? However i look at it, this simply can't make any sense!
If the main part of the story takes place within a single day (plus the six months absence), which would be right to assume by the pacing of the game itself, both Booker and Elisabeth would have barely any time to develop an actual relationship. Their actions would rely on their first impression and presumptions of each other, there would be simply no time to establish any kind of "trust" which would make Elisabeth further cooperate. Other than her being kinda naive, which is possible, but barely a good explanation for all her actions considering she could have trusted - well - anyone from this perspective. So why trust Booker? Because he is in "twistedytwist secret" her father? But she wouldn't really know and through the most part of the story she thinks Comstock is her father (which in a way is not completely false), but she hates him for that, so why not hate Booker as well? Or maybe she is able to see all truths possible through the whole space-time-whatnot "by instinct"? But then again, why struggle through all of this shit?
And that's when the story got to the big twist for me, which kinda shifted the perspective, but arose other inconsistencies:
How is it even possible for two "versions" of Booker to exist in the same dimension as independent individuals, while this did not work for anybody else? If Comstock (Booker) build Columbia, how can it exist in a dimension where Booker never build it (or vice versa)? Well, you could explain this through the "tears" and that dimensions get (partially) merged when Elisabeth (or the siblings) steps through them, but in my opinion, that makes everything only more twisted than it would explain it.
And then there is the end itself. Again, it is not a bad ending, but for me, it left an in-erasable feeling: Did i really struggle through all of this, just to get to a point where i would/should consent with suicide/beeing killed to prevent it all from happening? Wouldn't this be the definition of "pointlessness"? Does the explanation through the game, that through all possibilities this would be the inevetable outcome, just underline this? As said, for me it would have been a lot more satisfying, if the possibility were given, through the game, of seeing real impact through choices made which would have made huuuge sense looking at the topic of multidimensional existence... but noooo, why would they do this?
I respect how they made the ending anyways. I just think, this will earn more praise than Mass Effect 3 ever got, just because they marketed it differently, but in the end, the essence of the ending feels barely different to me.
And while the game makes somewhat more sense, now that i've played it: It becomes clear why it is called "Infinite", all the subtopics presented through the game come together and it seems logical the story-telling is bound to specific characters, rather than playing a "nameless protagonist" and i have to further think about it, which is something i wanted to... i just think they could have done better and i also think, that praising this game, without pointing out all those flaws, isn't really good criticism!
