This game is not a masterpiece. It is Call of Duty meets Sliders with a few very minor RPG elements thrown in for flavor (you never really need the vigors or gear they give you... even to make it through the game even on 1999 ... just makes it a little easier). Not that the other 2 Bioshocks were masterpieces either (it is one of the most overrated franchises next to Metal Gear Solid), but at least the first one felt fresh and new, and it explored some ideas (Objectivism) that were never really addressed in a video game before (even though Levine completely misunderstands Objectivism and takes the boring and cliche stance of posturing it as an evil belief system ... even a college freshmen would at least ponder the merits of the idealogy whether he or she agrees with it or not).
Things I didn't like about this particular Bioshock ...
-The story is strange so the game press immediately assumes it is good (can't really blame them considering how boring and generic most game stories are).
-Goodbye first aid kit management and scavenging and hello to Halo/CoD/Battefield style regenerating shield.
-No strategic planning before a battle. In Bioshock 1 and 2 to some extent you had to carefully plan your encounters with certain enemies (Big Daddy is best example), by setting up traps, getting the right plasmids for the situation (electricity for a water filled area ect.), and deciding whether or not the risk was worth the reward (I will loose 3-4 first aid kits fighting this thing so should I even bother ... but I could also get some Adam and buy an upgrade with it ... what should I do??). Don't worry about those questions anymore as all of Bioshock Infinite's enemies are just thrown at you while giving you few opportunities to plan out a strategy. The only time thinking comes into the mix is when you try to find ways to glitch enemies and exploit terrain features to make hard encounters a little easier. Irrational Games clearing does not want to scare away the CoD crowd by putting in encounters that require some basic use of strategy.
-Was there a single character in this game that was likable or interesting? Booker is a blank slate mostly, Elizabeth is just a naive girl locked in a tower with magical powers (female Harry Potter?), Comstock is so uninspired and mostly absent from the game that he makes me long for Sophia Lamb (ugh) to come back as a villain, the Vox Popuwhatever are just a bunch of Marxists/anarcho-communists hell bent on blowing up and killing everything around them(well at least Levine seems to understand that idealogy). The founders are the same as the Vox except replace Marxism with Republicanism.
-Vigors served no logical function in the world of Columbia. They are just there for a more traditional Bioshock experience for the player.
-Same old tired moral that has been hammered into us since the first game. No matter what the idealogy is Objectivism (Bioshock 1), Socialism/Marxism (Bioshock 2), and Republicanism (Bioshock Infinite) they are all wrong if consistantly practiced. The moral is that any extremism of any kind no matter how rational or justified is inherently bad by virtue of its rigidness. Of course Levin expects you to ignore the fact that anti-extremism is itself a consistant idealogy even though it is self-contradictory and irrational (hey, "Irrational" Games, it all makes sense now!)
.... I will try to think of positives too. It was a very well produced game world. Columbia and Rapture are both beautiful locations to set a story in. It's too bad nothing interesting ever happens in either of the two cities. I guess this post was kind of longer than I expected. I guess I have a lot to say about this game series because it is a tragic missed opportunity (they had the gameplay [Bioshock 1 and 2 at least], art design, graphics, and setting all perfect and they just completely missed the mark with the story).
