So how is this shit really? I still haven't made the decision to buy the game yet...
Here's a quick comparison of the first game versus Infinite, we'll exclude Bioshock 2 from this discussion for all the obvious reasons:
1. Infinite is much better mechanically, thoroughly better. This point has been argued and broken down numerous times before, so I won't bother rehashing. If you ripped out the mechanics from Infinite and stuck them in a FEAR-esque office space it would still hold up. The transition here is from good enough to worth your time all on its own. The one thing I miss are the Big Daddy encounters, those were interesting. Is it worth the money for you? I don't know, that's subjective. I'm not sure what you consider to be good first person shooters or how much you like them in the first place. It's not as good as Halo, but better than most.
2. The systems have also been improved. We'll define systems as everything involving the player in the two games. Inventory, gear, the economy etc. It obviously drops the inventory, which I like. There's nothing particularly interesting about brute forcing your way through an encounter because you can suck down on 10 potions. I don't think that's valuable in this context. The economy is much better balanced. In the first Bioshock all upgrade decisions were made superfluous by the abundance of the currency/adam. Not the case in Infinite. I think the addition of gear works as well, adds a wrinkle to the way you think about strategy. Limiting the number of weapons the player carries to 2; a more subjective topic. I like it. If you develop the habit of pulling out the bazooka when you see the heavy armored guy, the game ceases to be a sandbox(which Infinite is) and becomes much more of a lock and key affair. Forces you to be more creative in some ways, limits in others... subjective. Again, the nod goes to Infinite overall, by a wide margin.
3. The world! Both are excellent. Hanging out with Elizabeth in parts of the city that are thriving and have a bunch of NPCs is cool, constant depressing atmosphere gets old. I will say though, Columbia has a tendency to feel like a theme park more than an actual city. None of the locations were as memorable as the best levels in the original(Fort Frolic especially). Bioshock 1 probably takes it, even if it is constantly dreary.
4. This is where the original has an advantage, and by a wide margin. The "story". Again, I won't rehash, it's been discussed, analyzed and dissected. No need to spoil it really. My thoughts from a previous post, "the image of "Ken writing Infinite" is more like him completely unable to stop adding shit year after year. He started off like a master chef, having conceived a brilliant dish he couldn't stop, first adding a sauce and then a garnish and then another sauce. By the time he was through adding his third herbal blend for some fragrance a thought hit him, "this is just a side dish on a much bigger plate!" and on he went." And yea, there's no one as interesting as Andrew Ryan or Sander Cohen, or that plastic surgeon guy.
