Metascore

Universal acclaim - based on 32 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 873 Ratings

  • Summary: Thrust into the year 1912, players take on the role of former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, who has traveled to the flying city of Columbia on a rescue mission. His target is Elizabeth, a young lady imprisoned since her childhood years. During their bold escape, Booker and Elizabeth form a powerful bond -- one which lets Booker enhance his own abilities with her world-altering control over the environment. As a team, they fight from high-speed Sky-Lines, in the streets and houses of Columbia, on giant Zeppelins and in the clouds, while simultaneously learning to harness an growing arsenal of weapons and abilities.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 30 out of 32
  2. Negative: 0 out of 32
  1. Apr 8, 2013
    100
    BioShock Infinite is an excellent game and will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout. Once you finish the game it will make you play the original BioShock all over again, which is truly saying something about this release.
  2. 100
    Whether or not you enjoy first-person shooters is irrelevant. It is whether or not you want an experience like no other; one that will be left in the back of your mind for years to come.
  3. Apr 8, 2013
    84
    BioShock Infinite puts the relationship between Booker and Elizabeth right at the core of your experience. It is absolutely central to how you interact with the game. But in a genre where you can’t see Booker’s feet, let alone his face, this throws up insurmountable and unavoidable barriers to how closely you can truly engage with Booker and his relationship with Elizabeth. Again, these challenges are self inflicted.
  4. Apr 19, 2013
    70
    Fuzzy-headed narrative and thematically irrelevant auxiliary mechanics make Infinite feel sloppy even when it's working. Combat increases in frequency and decreases in impact after the Hall of Heroes, so for most of its length the game sinks towards a deflated ending rather than rising towards a climax. However, that slow descent starts from a great height, so there is still much to value in Infinite even as it drowns in its own shortcomings.

See all 32 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 23 out of 257
  1. This game was an incredible experience for me, start to finish. The art design and characters were great, and the story made me want to keep playing until I had beaten the whole game. I had a blast with the skyhook. In my opinion, this game surpassed the original Bioshock. Expand
  2. Bioshock Infinite starts off pulling the player in by immersing them in a creative sky city, where buildings move and the town is filled with circus games and stores. The story is pretty good and the voice acting by the main characters is top notch. The random npcs can become a little stale because most look the same and act the same but that doesn't hinder the game really. The graphics on 360 are good, not great with barely any textures but the art style makes up for the lack of textures. The atmosphere and art style is what you would expect from a Bioshock game, but this time the setting is in a different location entirely. The gameplay as well is what you would expect as well but with a few changes such as the unique sky hook which makes action quicker and kills all the more satisfying. To me after a while the gameplay gets a little stale, and the shooting seems kind of dull but that is just my take on it. The game to me gets a little tedious at times when there are a lot of enemies, I prefer when there are less and you can explore more. The story has a good pace to it and will keep you interested the whole way through, with a pretty good ending. Besides the sky hook the game feels the same as previous Bioshocks which is good and bad I guess. I personally am getting a little tired of the same art style and atmosphere with the whole early 1900's but it feels modern. It seems like a lot of games use that theme now but Bioshock uses it better than anyone else. Overall I feel the game is very solid and interesting but gets a little boring from time to time for me. I almost feel as if it is a bit overrated cause I feel like the game is good but not great. I give it a 9/10 for story, 8/10 for graphics, 8/10 for gameplay. I would give this game an 8.5 overall but metacritic does not do decimals so I give it an 8. Expand
  3. I loved the first two Bioshock games. I have read everyone talking about the first Bioshock but I hope you all played Bioshock 2 as well. As far as Bioshock Infinite goes, I am still playing it. If i'm going to run out and spend $60 on a game, I'm going to take it slow and get my money's worth. To start off, this game's first impression was great graphics. I love the detail and the early century artwork. LOVE IT. So far the story seems ok. I am however disappointed.

    I suppose from the end of Bioshock 2 you can't really continue the story line much, but you could always go back in time and explore the beginning of Rapture, maybe before everyone went nuts if you want a lighter story. I feel this would be a better story to carry the name Bioshock. I don't feel that this game really should be named Bioshock. It is similar, but about as similar as Rockstar games are to each other. This game is what L.A. Noire is to Grand Theft Auto.

    To reiterate what another poster said, THE DESKS! Oh my god, the desks! ENOUGH WITH THE SAVAGING OF THE DESKS ALREADY. Another little thing that bothers me is the extras. They must have only had like 4 to choose from. Every male citizen you go up to looks like the same dude... and that dude looks like me... it's freaking me the hell out! Why waste so much effort in structural detail and design just to skimp on the characters living there?

    As far as the weapons go, WEAK. If there were no prior games to compare this too, it wouldn't be so bad, but sorry, don't get lazy now guys. The "plasmids" are not nearly as fun or powerful. Plus the "Eve" seems to run out so much faster in this game. The new scale that your bars operate on to deplete and refill is also a little confusing. Two shots in the beginning and your out. The Gene Tonics have been replaced with articles of clothing, which to me seem confusing and offer too little. The gun handling is not what you would expect in a FPS either. It's very choppy and hard to aim accurately, quickly. I too dislike the weaponry, the inability to progressively modify your weapon. That was really cool in the past Bioshocks. That kind of makes a player a feel like he's earned something for his time. A little merit badge. A friend comes over and say's "Hey how did you get your shotgun to look so crazy?", and you get to show him the blisters on your fingers.

    To sum it all up I guess I'd say this game would be great if it didn't carry the name Bioshock and along with it all the memories and expectations of the other games. It's misleading. This is not a Rapture story or anything like it. It is also less a FPS and more a First Person Scavenger and storybook. This is all fine, just not what I was expecting.
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  4. 0
    First off definitely not worth the price of £35. Not a patch on the original games. It is a point and shoot pure and simple. All it is, is derranged police security coming after you in droves and other enemies I have yet to encounter. The game jumps from a few minutes of welcome serenity to complete chaos with bullets and rockets flying from all directions for apparently no reason whatsoever. I have been playing it for several hours but most of that time has been spent shooting at something (and there is no way around this you have to engage the next battle to progress the game, which I cannot wait to end so that I can chuck it back on ebay). I am struggling to find anything that involves even a small amount of thought or skill. What is the sky hook thing all about? It just flings you about all over the place or this the 'skill' element of game that needs to be learned? It may just as well have been a spider man trick or a jet pack it has no relevance to the game.
    The only impressive thing about this game is the graphics and detail, but what is the point of applying all this detail to a building that isn't reachable to explore or to an object you can only admire but not do anything with??
    The creators of this game have missed the point big time. I hate it because you have to play it the way it wants you to and the outcome is always the same shoot, shoot, shoot.... Dull, Dull, Dull.
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See all 257 User Reviews