Why does Bioshock Infinite get flak for its shooting part?

Every time Bioshock Infinite brought to the table there are people who say that it is a weak shooter and a CoD wannabe. But it is not like CoD at all. The gunplay is much more solid (that shotgun is the second best to Doom 2 SSG) and you often get close and personal to the enemies. I find the shooting parts in Infinite among the best in modern shooters. Actually, they feel very similar to Rage and that game had many problems but gunplay ain't one. There are mini bosses aka the heavy hitters too. In many regards Infinite plays more like oldschool stuff with some story thrown in. It is completely different from "get behing a cover, fire away and wait for an airstrike" CoD formula. You don't even have to aim down the sights in Infinite because the hip firing is good enough. ADS was probably added as a useless gimmick for those console plebs who cannot imagine a shooter game without it.

The answer lies in your own arguments: you say the shooting is good, but you are unable to formulate why it is good. There is hardly any depth to it; while one tier over your standard console shooter, it still remains a trite walk forward, defeat all enemies in arena, move to next arena model where every fight plays out the same way, because all you do is use best currently available ability, point gun at bad guy, hide behind cover when in trouble.

The game deserves credit in hiding this complete lack of depth very well; between gorgeous, colorful art direction and a steady stream of character upgrades, your attention was diverted away from everything being the same thanks to this constant introduction of new elements. Behind some pseudo-intellectual "smart game for smart people" promo, it was an unabashed theme park shooter and accomplished what it set out to do just fine.

I played it for about an hour (45 minutes were the intro handholding crap probably).

As soon as the gameplay started and I realized how much I hated the gunplay/feel, I uninstalled it. It felt worse then the previous games, which were already very mediocre shooter-wise.

VGA said:

I played it for about an hour (45 minutes were the intro handholding crap probably).

As soon as the gameplay started and I realized how much I hated the gunplay/feel, I uninstalled it. It felt worse then the previous games, which were already very mediocre shooter-wise.

So, what exactly is wrong about Infinite gunplay? The guns feel powerful and have a punch unlike CoD and, dare I say it, Doom 3 guns. Hit reactions were good too.

In my case, I didn't hate the shooting part of Bioshock Infinite. To be honest, I really enjoyed it. Despite the fact that I can only handle two weapons(and a sky-hook), the weapons have their unique personalities, and I categorized them with following characteristics:

- Rapid Firing: Pistol, Machine Gun, Repeater(#2 favorite), Crank Gun
- For close combat situation only: Shotgun
- Powerful and accurate: Hand Cannon, Carbine(#1 favorite), Sniper Rifle
- Explosives: RPG, Volley Gun, Hail Fire

* I rarely use Burstgun and Heater. I picked them whenever I have no other options.

I know that some weapons have poor ammo capacity, but it was nice to have a companion girl who offered me ammunition, healthpacks, salt, and even friendly mechanics from other world. In combat, you need to choose your weapons wisely to deal with enemies. Thankfully, there are various weapons lying around the field, so you can pick one whatever you want. Vigors also made the combat even more interesting, although I use Shock Jockey a lot since it helped me to aim their head easily with no counter attack from them. Not to mention that you need to use your vigors wisely, depending on the monsters you're dealing with. For example, you need to use Murder of Crows while you're fighting against Handyman since it's the only effective vigor against them.

Yes, It's not like CoD at all. As I said before, the weapons have their own personalities, so the player must think proper strategies for each situations.

Probably one of the best games I played, thought that the gameplay was solid as a rock. I actually thinks that the gunplay was better than the previous games.

All of Bioshock are equally average games, but gunplay is by no means any of their strong points.

Because having a vitriolic disposition is part of assuming an individuality, to which everyone conforms.

Phml said:

The answer lies in your own arguments: you say the shooting is good, but you are unable to formulate why it is good. There is hardly any depth to it; while one tier over your standard console shooter, it still remains a trite walk forward, defeat all enemies in arena, move to next arena model where every fight plays out the same way, because all you do is use best currently available ability, point gun at bad guy, hide behind cover when in trouble.

The game deserves credit in hiding this complete lack of depth very well; between gorgeous, colorful art direction and a steady stream of character upgrades, your attention was diverted away from everything being the same thanks to this constant introduction of new elements. Behind some pseudo-intellectual "smart game for smart people" promo, it was an unabashed theme park shooter and accomplished what it set out to do just fine.

This. So much this.

I think Bioshock Infinite is goddamn awful. The upgrade system is complete tripe. A flat increase to damage? That's all they could do? All it has going for it is the art style and Elizabeth. That's it.

Where is the little girls there? I want rescue their all and get a present from them.
But Elizabet is sexy and i can't say something wrong about it.
Shooting part? Amm. Much better than in first Bioshock.
Anyway while I played it I didn't felt like something wrong with game like it was with Fallout 4.

Orchid87 said:

Every time Bioshock Infinite brought to the table there are people who say that it is a weak shooter and a CoD wannabe. But it is not like CoD at all. The gunplay is much more solid (that shotgun is the second best to Doom 2 SSG) and you often get close and personal to the enemies. I find the shooting parts in Infinite among the best in modern shooters. Actually, they feel very similar to Rage and that game had many problems but gunplay ain't one. There are mini bosses aka the heavy hitters too. In many regards Infinite plays more like oldschool stuff with some story thrown in. It is completely different from "get behing a cover, fire away and wait for an airstrike" CoD formula. You don't even have to aim down the sights in Infinite because the hip firing is good enough. ADS was probably added as a useless gimmick for those console plebs who cannot imagine a shooter game without it.

It's hard for me to come up with a good response considering everything you say is outrageous to me. One of the best shotguns? Similiar to RAGE? Oldschool? Are we talking about the same game?

There's so much wrong with it that I don't even know where to begin. The guns are boring and lack a punch. There's nothing interesting to play with as it has the most basic loadout you can think of. There's a two-weapon system which means you're using what enemies are currently using. It's slow and the combat is based purely around arenas with waves of enemies. Because enemies come in hordes they're just a stupid cannon fodder. Enemies are boring and lack variety. Lots of them are bullet sponges.

While it's fair to say shooting has never been a strong point of BioShock games I'm always amazed when people say that Infinite has a better combat than 1/2. The only and I mean the only redeeming quality it has are skyrails but that's it. In earlier BioShock games you could go in guns blazing, you could hack security systems or use Plasmids to mark enemies as targets for the security system. Enrage Plasmid alone is a huge game changer that allows you to pit enemies against each other. There are far more opportunities to use the environment and because levels are more open there is a potential for unexpected situations. The encounters are also more elegant and small-scale as opposed to dozens of mindless drones charging at you from all directions. Often you can choose when to engage in combat. Not to mention setting up traps, ammo types and access to all weapons at once.

Infinite is such a gigantic step back for the series it's hard to believe. Every design decision they made is wrong. BioShock peaked with Minerva's Den which to me is the best BioShock game to date.

Hmm, As a fan of the series, Binfinite was divisive for a couple reasons, many already mentioned here, like the lack of any other method to approach the gameplay other than just shooting everything. The guns, though being mostly fun to use, lack any real balance. You can essentially beat the entire game with the pistol, when fully upgraded.

Headshotting everyone with a mouse takes no effort at all. One you get the handcannon or carbine the challenge goes right out the window. The upgraded crow vigor is borked too, creating crow traps from corpses making it very overpowered. Then enter the clothing system, adding more powerups over enemies that weren't even hard to begin with. Sheltered Life is the biggest offender, eating any food makes you completely invincible for about 4-5 seconds. The enemies are stupid, and the Handyman isn't nearly as fun to fight as a Big Daddy, which you could engage after planning ahead and laying traps for it for instance. It also makes no sense that Elizabeth picks up ammo and money for you, but not lockpicks, the one item she actually uses.

So, the story carries the game along (what sense of it can be made) and the cool scenery, but playing the game on subsequent runs is really a chore, and there's little fun to be had in changing up your guns or vigors since as mentioned, you're limited to using whatever the enemies drop. It all becomes very tiresome.

antares031 said:

For example, you need to use Murder of Crows while you're fighting against Handyman since it's the only effective vigor against them.

Nah, the water vigor, whatever it's called, using the secondary attack grabs and holds a Handyman in front of you for a good several seconds, while you can unload directly into his heart. Easy as pie.

Touchdown said:

The guns are boring and lack a punch.

Now this is just a BS. Speaking in console terms, how many FPS games had better feeling guns last gen? FEAR, Killzone 2, CS:GO, and that's probably it. Rage is on par. Can't remember anything else. Going from weak CoD bb guns, the gunplay in Infinite feels great.

From what I heard about BSI the problem with the game was how it focuses too heavily on the shooting side and less on everything else, I guess what I heard was wrong.

BSI is basically a Call of Duty clusterfuck in that the combat is a mess of bullet-hell chaos, and it's constant. What little downtime there is is intended only to serve the story, rather than let the player explore on his own. Every fight has to be huge. It's stupid, and a step down from how BS1/2 did.

And the story sucks too.

Yeah it just has far less depth and variety than the previous 2 Bioshocks both in weapons (Carrying capacity and ammunition types) and the plasmids/vigors (The first 2 have like double the amount of plasmids available).
Also the plot is far too damn preachy and Elizabeth is so goddamn irritating i wanna punch her.
Even the atmosphere takes a step back in my opinion, i much prefer the darker atmosphere of the previous 2 over the absurdly bright and colourful look of infinite.

"Preachy" isn't the problem with the plot and story, or rather it's not the only problem.

First off, it's definitely very ham-fisted in how it tackles historical racism, American exceptionalism, and social inequity -- all good topics to discuss, and all overdone to the point of cartoonishness.

And then it throws all that away for some bullshit about alternate universes and shit, that puts a lot of gravitas behind it but lacks any real depth behind the pathos. The worst part is basically taking the one genuinely sympathetic character in the whole game, Daisy Fitzroy, and throwing her characterization under the bus to make a lame point about rebellions being as evil as the oppression they fight against, which is glib, trite, undifferentiated, ahistorical, and essentially an old oligarchist propaganda trope.

And for all the effort that went into Elizabeth, she's basically a Disney princess.

Ken Levine is a hack who believes his own hype and I will never buy another game he's involved with ever again.

(I will say that Burial At Sea fixes almost everything wrong with BSI, even the thing with Daisy.)

The weapons felt good and powerful? We must have played different games then.
Quoting what I posted in another forum:

the game is a combination of the following elements:

- enemies are bullet sponges
- the weapons (except the rifle) are useless
- Ammo is scarce (notably on the rage-inducing ghost momma)
- You can only carry 2 guns

Now, alone each of these things can work depending on how you design the game, but ALL of them thogether turns into a clusterfuck of a bad game because you have strong enemies with weak weapons and not enough ammo from the 2 you're carrying to put them to rest. And to seal the deal they made a shitty story that made no sense. The only thing good is the setting.

I despised the game and it doesn't even have enything to do with nostalgia. I finally played Bioshock for the first time this last December, then Bioshock 2, then Minerva's Den (and I liked all of them very much) and when I played Infinite I was sooo disappointed because it started well but got crappy pretty fast.

The only thing that saved it was the opportunity to see Rapture (in the DLC) before it's destruction.

Also the story is bad, the exploration is reduced a lot in favor of cinematic setpieces and big battles, and it was a huge step down compared to both previous Bioshock games (and Elizabeth is not as helpful as people like to say).

vinnie245 said:

i much prefer the darker atmosphere of the previous 2 over the absurdly bright and colourful look of infinite.

It's funny how Fallout 4 also follows that same path after the first two 3D Fallout games.

i agree any who thinks its a cod wanna plays it like a cod game thats the problem. your not using and combining all the abilities to their fullest potential. gears i feel are very under used but grant there is a problem with the original and remastered versions having some of them in different slots. but even without the pre ordered bonus ones there a op builds depending on how you use them. you can use the reload checkpoints in certain gear locations early in the game you can get the ones you want

deadly lunges, vampires embrace, and electric punch gives the sky hook a lot of power which can carry you through most of the game on 99 mode. even more useful than charge you dont have to charge it up and it uses no salts. winters shield helps with avoiding damage.

going back to electric punch 75 percent shock and stun damage no salt use, heavy effective against motorized patriots pair it with the sniper or the shotgun you can close in and hit their gears for critical damage easily. i use it with the sniper as my go to the second i get it from hall of heroes, sure i sometimes use it to pick off enemies in cover but using with with eletric punch deadly lunges, murder of crows, possession etc it all leaves them stunned to easily line up headshots. possesion makes them a walking lighting rod super effective on beats with volley guns

my other main weapon the rocket launcher, the splash damage has the devils kiss effect so i use brucking bronco ,devils kiss and storm on big groups it causes the screen to spazz out from the super amount of overkill i just caused. again electric punch, deadly lunges combo with bucking bronco gets an insta kill with and with storm it creates a kill chain. these builds knock even the high health heavy hitters and enemies on their asses.

i also get plenty of resources from elizabeth so im never worried about running out. her help is dictated by how your holding up in the fight. she ll even toss me salts even though i hardly used them thats how frequent she aids if your doing good in combat. gotta brawl with enemies in infinite and everything described in these comments tells me your playing it like a cod game having to take cover frequently and using up all your resources before she has time to give you more meanwhile you still a lot of enemies with nearly full health bars on the verge of killing you.

confronting daisy fitzroy with the vox turning on you is when the game becomes difficult on 99 mode. if your not insta killing enemies by that point then its you have change up your method and find what works. to me theres an answer for dealing with every encounter until the final battle

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Welcome @kuruption0021.

I was reading through this thread thinking: "Wow, I didn't know Doom_RO and Coopersville still posted on Doomworld", then I saw the timestamp.

I just found it to not be as good as the first two games as far as the shooting and weapons went. The weapon limit was also very limiting and defeats the purpose of upgrading weapons. The other games let you carry all of your guns and you still have to scavenge for ammo and whatnot, so the 2 weapon limit didn’t really do anything other than limit how many weapons you could carry. I think they may have thought limiting the weapons would make you scavenge more but it just was more frustrating and less fun for it. Bioshock just isn’t a series that needs a 2 weapon limit really.