BioShock Infinite

Bioshock Infinite is not a bad game, but it does not live up in any way to the enormous praise given to it by "professional" reviewers. If you are expecting the "Citizen Kane of gaming", you will possibly be deeply disappointed.

Let's start off with a good thing: This game is beautiful. It's stunning both in graphical fidelity and design and is an impressive display of creativity. The city in the clouds is by far the most memorable aspect of the game.

Another thing I'm generally happy with is the story. It's not bad, at least for video game standards, but don't expect too much. What we have here is a solid, but not all that exciting sci-fi-time-travel plot with a bad presentation. You rarely feel as if you're actually in the story, it's more like being on a carnival ride, although it's a nicely looking one.
Speaking of carnival rides, that's also what the city of Columbia feels like. It's technically alive, as opposed to Rapture, but actually it's just as dead and empty as that underwater hellhole. Sure, there are citizens walking around, but there's no way to interact with them, they might as well be mechanical puppets that repeat the same phrase over and over again.

What's still to discuss is the gameplay, and here's where things get bad. The original Bioshocks weren't great shooters, but they made up for it with creative and fun to use weapons and of course the whole plasmid system which always gave you multiple ways to approach a situation. It brought a lot of variety to the game, and this is what's missing in Bioshock Infinite.
Creative selection of weapons? Gone, now choose two weapons out of the most bland and boring arsenal imaginable. Modular and gameplay-changing weapon upgrades? Gone, replaced by generic +damage or -reload. Different types of ammo? Gone. The plasmids or "vigors" are largely the same, but the interaction with the environment has been toned down a lot, so all you can do is throw them at enemies. The different types of enemies from the original Bioshock have mostly been replaced by generic policemen/soldiers and the bigger enemies are horrible bulletsponges.

This really is what killed Bioshock Infinite for me. It seems like a promising game, but behind the beautiful facade lies nothing but dullness and mediocrity. If you liked the original Bioshock games, you'll probably get some fun out of it, but overall there are many, many better games that you could spend your time with. Not recommended.

A decent game, but there's no real improvement over Bioshock. The skyline system is very neat, and in some areas it's put to good use, but a lot of the time it's just a less dynamic, teleport/stalking version of the mechanics that you saw in Dishonored.

The "Clash in the Clouds" DLC is fun if you enjoy Bioshock shooting/power gameplay; Burial at Sea is boring as heck and a wet fart to end this series on.