6. The Combat Isn't Anything Special
My first experience with the combat system in
BioShock Infinite wasn't a particularly good one. It felt frantic, and confusing, as if I wasn't doing it right but didn't know why. This was made especially difficult as a hail of enemies fired relentlessly upon me as I tried to get into the swing of things. Thing is, after a while, you get the hang of it. From then on, it's fine. Is it ever really that fun to fight your enemies in
Bioshock Infinite, though? I'm not sure. I mean, in a lot of ways, combat in
Infinite isn't that much different from the combat in a lot of first-person shooters. You run around, looking for cover, using a variety of weapons, like shotguns, RPGs and sniper rifles. For better aim, you look down the sight. There's a good haul of guns to be had, though the game restricts you from having more than two guns on your person at any time (why?). You also get to use something called a Skyhook, a kind of rotating claw-arm of death, which is undoubtably the highlight of your arsenal. But combat here is almost note for note similar to the combat in the original
Bioshock, to be honest, and I don't think anybody could make the claim that the combat is the best thing about either game. Delving into a lot of making of videos regarding
Infinite's production, though, it seemed to me like creator Ken Levine really wanted to make sure the combat was something special. It doesn't feel that way to me, really. Sure, there are sky-lines now, which are certainly fun to glide around on, but can you really use them for combat purposes in the defining ways that Levine wanted? Not entirely: they're too fast, and you'd be seriously lucky to aim correctly whilst you're whizzing around at 80mph, trying to figure out where or what an enemy looks like. Levine insists that he feels like that got it right, but it still doesn't feel fully-fledged to me. Then there's the game's Vigors, which are pretty much the Plasmids from the first game. If you're unfamiliar with both, these are basically serve as "magic," which you are supposed to use in combat in a dual fashion (with whatever weapon you're boasting). Although Vigors are a lot of fun to customise and experiment with, I only really found a few of them to be of real use. Not only that, but the game kept having to remind me to use them, almost as if it knew I might forget. It was right: I did, though I'm still not completely sure why. Maybe because, ultimately, it was just easier to blast an enemy with a shotgun instead of trying to figure out which Vigor would be best for the situation. All in all, though, the combat here is fine - it just isn't anything to write home about.