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Bioshock Infinite - All News

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Monday - April 15, 2013
Monday - November 21, 2011
Monday - November 14, 2011
Monday - November 22, 2010
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Monday - April 15, 2013

Bioshock Infinite - Combat Mechanics Regression

by Myrthos, 13:28

In his blog on Gamasutra Eric Schwarz explains why he feels that the combat of Bioshock Infinite is a step down from the previous Bioshock games.

One of the dangers in striving for "perfect balance" as BioShock Infinite does is that you can end up with a game that feels very flat and soulless.  Outside of the competitive multiplayer community, I'm of the opinion that balance is something which needs to be "good enough" but nothing more.  In trying to ensure every option is equally effective in most situations, BioShock Infinite runs into the unfortunate problem if no weapons being especially preferable to any others.

The two-weapon-max system is a tacit admission of this by Irrational Games - if you could carry all guns you would have virtually no weaknesses in combat, hence the limitation imposed on the player.  As there are no guns which are significantly better against certain enemies, or certain weapons which offer substantially different or interesting functionality, you end up sticking with the same guns throughout the whole game.  You've invested money into upgrading them, you can only carry two, and combat is only going to get harder as you go - so there is actually substantial disincentive to experiment.  And while there is a widely-held belief that two-weapon limits are more tactical, when you have so few enemy types and all guns are so effective in almost every situation, there's not much point to this limit.

The lack of interesting weapon upgrades and secondary capabilitie sis another big concern.  Customization of your guns in Infinite is nothing more than a slight boost in effectiveness, and while upgrades are limited by the money you have available, you really don't have to make significant choices about what weapons to upgrade since chances are you'll only be using a few weapons throughout the game anyway.  BioShock 2 had interesting capstone upgrades for its guns, like super-charging your Rivet Gun with bolts capable of setting enemies on fire.

 

Monday - November 21, 2011

Bioshock Infinite - Video Round-Up

by Skavenhorde, 17:44

We haven't posted much on Bioshock Infinite, but since Mass Effect 3 gets coverage here I might as well post some on Bioshock Infinite as well. Here is the gameplay trailer from E3. If this has been posted before, I apologize, but I could not find it anywhere here:

Two videos giving a behind-the-scenes look into the voice actors for Booker and Liz.

Behind Booker and Elizabeth Part One:

 

Behind Booker and Elizabeth Part Two:

Monday - November 14, 2011

Bioshock Infinite - More Enemies, More Weapon Range

by Aries100, 22:10

Gamespy has news about the combat in this game. According to Ken Levine there will be long-rage combat as well as more enemies. A quote:

BioShock Infinite is going to have much greater ranges and, potentially, far more enemies, so we're greatly increasing the spectrum of encounters that are possible, and that requires the player use a broader set of tools.

Source: GameSpy

Monday - November 22, 2010

Bioshock Infinite - No Lead Platform

by Skavenhorde, 14:47

Chris Kline posted at the Irrational Games Forums that they are doing simultaneous in-house development on the PS3, 360 and PC versions of the game. This was mostly to assuage PS3 owners' fears that it'll be a simple port:

 

We’re doing simultaneous in-house development on the PS3, 360, and PC versions of the game,” wrote Kline. “We all know that the PS3 is powerful but unique console with its own strengths and challenges. But compared to the PC, the Xbox 360 is challenging too. So instead of declaring a 'lead platform' and porting the game to the others, we’ve instead changed the game engine so that all platforms look (to a programmer) more like a PS3.

Source: Gamasutra

Information about

Bioshock Infinite

Developer: Irrational Games

SP/MP: Unknown
Setting: Post-apoc
Genre: Shooter-RPG
Combat: Real-time
Play-time: Unknown
Voice-acting: Full

Regions & platforms
World
· Homepage
· Platform: PC
· To be announced
· Publisher: 2K Games