BioShock Infinite

by 2K Games

• The City in the Sky - Leave the depths of Rapture to soar among the clouds of Columbia. The flying city is a beautiful and vibrant world that holds a very dark secret.
• Unlikely Mission - Set in 1912 former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt must rescue a mysterious girl from the sky-city of Columbia or never leave it alive.
• Tear Through Time - Open Tears in time and space to shape the battlefield and turn the tide in combat by pulling weapons and other resources out of thin air.
• Vigorous Powers - Throw explosive fireballs and shoot lightning as devastatingly powerful Vigors surge through your body to be unleashed against all that oppose you.
• 1999 Mode - Open your own Tear to 1999 to experience the design and balance that hardcore gamers enjoyed back in the 20th century.

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B002I0KOSI
• Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 7.5 x 5.5 inches ; 14.1 ounces
• Media: DVD-ROM
• Release Date: March 26, 2013
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (215 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #407 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #28 in Video Games > PC Games > Games > Adventure

Product Description

Platform: PC | Edition: Standard

Amazon.com

BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter like you’ve never seen. Set in 1912, players assume the role of former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, sent to the flying city of Columbia on a rescue mission. His target? Elizabeth, imprisoned since childhood. During their daring escape, Booker and Elizabeth form a powerful bond -- one that lets Booker augment his own abilities with her world-altering control over the environment. Together, they fight from high-speed Sky-Lines, in the streets and houses of Columbia, on giant zeppelins, and in the clouds, all while learning to harness an expanding arsenal of weapons and abilities, and immersing players in a story that is not only steeped in profound thrills and surprises, but also invests its characters with deep emotional bonds.

A brand-new BioShock adventure set in the mobile sky city of Columbia.
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Features

• Immersive Story: From BioShock creators Irrational Games comes an all-new chapter of the BioShock story. The year is 1912 and you’re Booker DeWitt, a former Pinkerton agent with his life on the line. His mission: rescue the mysterious Elizabeth from the sky-city Columbia or never leave it alive. But why is everyone so afraid of a young girl?
• A City in the Sky: The BioShock franchise leaves the depths of the ocean to soar among the clouds in the flying city of Columbia. A technological marvel, it’s a beautiful and vibrant world that has a very dark secret – a secret that not only threatens the existence of Columbia but could change Booker forever.
• Sky-Lines: Using his Sky-Hook, Booker is able to dish out severe hands-on punishment and traverse the city’s hook points and Sky-Lines, turning them into weaponized roller coasters.
• Tears: Your traveling companion Elizabeth is more than just a pretty face – she has the power to open Tears in time and space. Booker can use these Tears to shape the battlefield and turn the tide in combat by pulling cover, weapons, turrets, and other resources out of thin air.
• Vigors: What would a BioShock game be without a variety of devastating powers surging through your body to be unleashed against all that oppose you? From throwing explosive fireballs and lightning to unleashing a murder of crows upon your victims, Vigors let you tailor your play style for maximum effect.
• New Combat Experience: With deadly weapons in one hand and powerful Vigors in the other, you will fight your way through the floating city of Columbia to freedom. All the while you’ll be capturing zeppelins to destroy all onboard, riding Sky-Lines to launch devastating aerial attacks, and opening world-changing Tears to gain the advantage. You’ve never seen combat like this. Weapons, Tears, Vigors, Sky-Lines – every system in the game can be combined for devastating effect.
• 1999 Mode: The player can unlock a secret version of the game called “1999 Mode” that gives experienced players a taste of the kind of design and balance that hardcore gamers enjoyed back in the 20th century.

Additional Screenshots

Save Elizabeth & use her powers. View larger

Avoid pursuing 'Songbird'. View larger

Utilize the Skyline rail system. View larger

All-new mechanized enemies. View larger

Product Description

Indebted to the wrong people, and with his life on the line, hired gun Booker DeWitt has only one opportunity to wipe his slate clean. He must rescue Elizabeth, a mysterious girl imprisoned since childhood and locked up in the flying city of Columbia. Forced to trust one another, Booker and Elizabeth form a powerful bond during their daring escape. Together, they learn to harness an expanding arsenal of weapons and abilities, as they fight on zeppelins in the clouds, along high-speed Sky-Lines, and down in the streets of Columbia, all while surviving the threats of the air-city and uncovering its dark secret. WINNER OF OVER 80 AWARDS

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 47 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Didn't Play BioShock 1 or 2 March 29, 2013

By R. Ung

Platform for Display:PC|Edition:Standard

Fun: 5.0 out of 5 stars   

The game struck me as entertaining, beautiful, and intense at moments. I absolutely love the storyline and have fallen in love with Elizabeth's character. It's true about what the others are saying about its length, but to be honest, it really completes the story within a reasonable amount of time. Story, story, story. I don't want a story to drag on longer than it has to but I was sad that it ended abruptly. But that happens sometimes, with a good movie or a miniseries, and you're just left in awe, about the experience you had just had with the movie/game/show. The visuals, the characters, the plot, will have a lasting impression on me. I love a good story and am glad to have played this game.

I think this game deserves all the 5 star ratings it has received. When people say, "It isn't worth $60," I think, look at all the time and effort the creators of this game have put into the details, the lovely animation, the character complexities, etc. This outweighs any minor aspects of the game, to me at least. Sure, I only ended up using Bronco, Jock, and Devil's fire thing, and the Carbine, Machine, and Hand Canon, but those are just aesthetics. The story, again, and characters, and the revelation of the game touched my heart. Cheese, I know, but it impelled me to write a review. My first review, in fact.

5/5. Played on Hard, 13 hours, exploring every corner of the game. I really wanted to experience everything it had to offer.

58 of 77 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Breaking the trend March 27, 2013

By UCI2CI

Platform for Display:PC Download|Edition:Standard

First off, If you have the PC version and get occasional stuttering, make sure you set the following in the XEngine.ini (the one in My Documents\My Games\Bioshock Infinite\...\ folder, not the steamapps folder)

- texture pool size to a higher value (512 or 1024)
- Min and max framerate to 59 and 61
- background texture streaming to false (this one may or may not give you issues, so try it if the other two don't give you good results)

EDIT: *important* a commenter has stated that disabling background texture streaming has fixed the stuttering but at the same time caused a hanging at a load level screen. Keep this in mind if you are going to use this tweak, and if you do use it, please post a comment here as to its effectiveness. I havent encountered a problem myself, but YMMV

Now to the actual game....there are plenty of reviews here already that praise the hell out of it, so I'll save my breath and not repeat too much of whats already been said. But I wanted to say this and developers please take note: you don't need the newest game engine, uber-high res textures, and gimmicky physics (i.e. Crysis 3 brought to its knees by a swinging rope) to make a great looking game. Irrational/2K didn't spend their resources on live rendering individual blades of grass, tessellating every imaginable surface, and making anatomically accurate yet somehow emotionless faces. They gave us a work of art rather than follow the current trend of games making a desperate attempt to wow us by imitating the "real world". Who came up with the idea that FPS need to be totally void of imagination and artistic style, while at the same time require a $1000 GPU to run smoothly? I don't give a crap if I could see the individual eyelashes on an NPCs face; the novelty goes away in 5 minutes. Give me more games like Bioshock Infinite that let me forget about the real life for a few hours.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Visually and Acoustically Superb March 28, 2013

By SMULLET

Platform for Display:PC Download| Edition:Standard|Amazon Verified Purchase

First off, this game was very hyped. We've literally been expecting it for "forever" (give or take a year), since we saw the first gameplay reveal what feels like so long ago, and boy did this game deliver... I mean I used the word "superb" in my title... I'm not the kind of guy who says "superb" at the drop of a hat.

Graphics 9/10 - This really utilizes the Unreal engine, which fits the style of the game and the overall feel. There was nothing in this game graphically to detract from the visuals except for poor wall textures in some of the dimly lit areas (developers may have gotten a little lazy there), for the most part the graphics were able to compliment and deliver the stunning visuals. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the developers gave more visual options than most games do, allowing me to balance performance and graphics on a gaming rig that is starting to feel the pressures of age.

Visuals 10/10 - As I touched on in graphics, the visuals of this game are stunning. Every environment is unique, and if you enjoyed those feelings you got playing the first Bioshock -- wonder, scale, fragility -- you feel all of that in this game and some. Artistically, this game is a masterpiece, I couldn't find anything to take away from this game. Originally, when I saw the first gameplay footage, I was very concerned with how Elizabeth looked but they came through redesigning her to make her much less like a caricature (in fact they worked with a cosplayer who looked similar to their original design to make the character more realistic). I cannot overstate just how important it was that they did this, the original character modelling would have really detracted from the immersion of the game.

Sound 10/10 - The sound of this game will blow you away. Everything is amazing, I get chills hearing some of the renditions of old-timey religious songs. I'm not sure if they intended for this to happen but it actually really made me yearn for more of that kind of music. It's not all hymns though, don't worry, there is such a variety in this game you should be blown away. There will be a lot of times you won't be able to help grinning, if you recognize the music.

Story 8/10 - The story was great, obviously very well-written and unpredictable throughout. The characters developed well and I was able to connect fairly well to them. In many ways it's structure was akin to the first Bioshock, and although it didn't (sorry to say) deliver on the same scale the first Bioshock did, it was great none-the-less. I don't quite agree with the people who think it's the best part of the game, it was really lacking in some areas. Without spoiling anything, I simply didn't feel like all the necessary loose-ends were tied. There are not multiple endings like I had assumed, which isn't a terrible thing, I'm not crazy about having multiple endings on a linear story, it would feel like a bit of a cop-out. It does however affect replay value.

Gameplay 7/10 - More than anything, the beefs I had with Infinite were that they sold me on it being in the Bioshock universe but with a much more unique playing style. While this is true for the environment, it's not functionally very different from Bioshock. The system of powers was supposed to be quite different, but functionally it was the same (with the exception of the addition of traps). In fact the only noticeable differences in gameplay were the elements that were simply not there anymore. There are no big daddy's or little sisters (I'm not saying there needed to be, but there needs to be some sort of functional equivalent to that game mechanism). Also eliminated were hacking and photography, which to me was a bummer since I always found that to be a nice optional bonus to the game. There were not the level of power-ups/upgrades strewn about the maps to be found that there were in the first Bioshock. In fact, most of the upgrades to your powers were just meant to be purchased. This was a huge step backwards from the first Bioshock. I didn't fully explore the Infinite environment, but I explored it quite a bit my first playthrough, and it wasn't as satisfying as fully exploring the Bioshock environment.

Combat 8/10 - The combat, on the other hand, WAS better than that of Bioshock. They added a great new mechanic in the skylines that makes combat a lot more mobile, fast paced and open. They did change the way powers work by having them be left-right mouse instead of making you use one mouse button to switch between (similar to Skyrim). This was a definite upgrade. Unfortunately one thing to be mentioned is that there weren't as broad of uses for the individual powers like there were in the original, instead there were simply more powers. The oil spills and patches of water were all very small so localized they were inconvenient to use, unlike in the first Bioshock where I found myself frequently utilizing the old water/shock combo. It seems like the one thing they did do to make up for this was to build-in "traps" that you can place with your powers for the enemy to run in to. This was a great mechanic. (a useful tip might be to change your keybindings so that you aim with the right-mouse and use powers with the middle-mouse... it worked better for me).

Misc. n/a - I can't really give a score to the game based on the fact that it allows you to do simple things like change key-bindings... however it does deserve mentioning since, sadly enough, some games don't actually allow that these days. The original keyboard layout is very poorly configured, but it didn't take much to fix it and make it usable.

Overall 8.5/10 - I really enjoyed this game, the music was probably the most outstanding part of it, giving me chills at several points. The environment captures that underlying darkness of the first Bioshock but in a much more subtle way; with how bright and open this game is, it really doesn't have the intensely dark feeling of the first, and that's not a bad thing, it really worked for this game and fit the mood perfectly. The environment and tone were the biggest things setting this game apart from the first Bioshock, and definitely worth mentioning and applauding the developers for. Not having a save system was a real drag, especially for a casual play-through. I'm fairly anal-retentive about unnecessary killing, so at a few points I found myself having to restart a chapter because I upset the locals. They should have simply disabled saves for the hard-mode/1999 and allowed them for the medium/easy. The story added to the game, but it didn't deliver like the first Bioshock, but it would be asking a lot to ask for it to deliver on that level, the first Bioshock might have been the greatest video-game story of any I've ever played.

This game stands on it's own, although I think it will always be the little-sister (no pun intended) of the first game, I should clarify that I'm putting it to a very high standard by comparing it to the first Bioshock, I would still say it is one of the best single-player storylines out there.