7. It's Awfully Similar To BioShock
All right, so this a game in the
BioShock series, so it's obvious that there were going to be some similarities - lots of them, in fact, and that's fine. But when you consider that the original
Bioshock came out out six years ago, you begin to think: "Six years on, and this is what we get?" I don't necessarily mean that in the snarky tone you probably read it in, though. What I mean to say is,
BioShock Infinite doesn't do that much to separate itself from its predecessor - not in the "six years have passed" sense, anyway. Aside from the plot itself (and even that draws extremely close similarities, right?), there isn't much difference between this game and the original. If you've played the game, you'll know that in a way, that's exactly the point: that "infinite" subtitle isn't there for nothing. But as I ventured around Columbia, awing at its beauty and detail, I soon began to feel like I was just re-living the original game, albeit under a different skin. Sure, there's a new sky-rail feature and the overall mood is somewhat different, but the game itself feels like a twisted copy. Once again, those who have completed
Infinite will probably insist that the point of the game is that it bears a huge resemblance to the original - and on purpose. But that's more to do with the storyline and not the gameplay itself. Despite the six year gap,
BioShock doesn't really feel like a "new" game in the way that, say,
Half-Life 2 felt for those who had played the original entry (also separated by a six year gap, by the way). In gameplay terms, at least,
Infinite feels like something of a
BioShock 2.5.