Author: Logan Pendragon
Overall Rating and Thoughts
9/10
A very solid game. The did a good job in bringing all of the elements of this game together, for a very strong experience. The story line, character development, environments, and overall plot line take this game to the next level. A lot of user reviews believed that this game was sorely lacking as compared to Bioshock 1 and 2. Everyone has their own opinions, but I completely disagree. Even all of the reviews online that claimed the ending was bad or lacking, I feel are also incorrect. If you fully understand the ending, and have played all the DLC then there would be no reason to think the ending was bad. The storyline itself was very complicated, but not to the point of being ridiculous.
I consider this game very high quality, and I definitely recommend it. I cannot give specific feedback between the different platforms, I played the PS3 version specifically..but I feel that any version of this game would turn out well.
Music
7/10
Overall the music was good, but I feel it could have been done better. It wasn’t necessary bad, but it didn’t really stick out either. Meaning it wasn’t memorable. If any part of the game could have been improved on, I feel the music behind the game could have taken slight improvements. Just a few adjustments on some of the tracks and some of the timing, would make this an easy 9 out of 10 on the rating scale. Some would disagree, it’s just my opinion.
Sound
10/10
I really enjoyed the sound affects. I believe they did a wonderful job on this, and more than made up for the slight lacking of music quality. The gun shots, the reloading sound affects, the tears opening, and so forth. I believe this added a great depth of immersion to the game and I have no complaints about the sound effects at all. It was one of the highlights of game play.
Voice Acting
8/10
Overall I feel the voice acting quality in this game was very high. There were a few “scenes” that could used vast improvement, but nothing is perfect. Overall I felt there were enough flaws in it to warrant an 8 out of 10, but overall I was still fully satisfied with the voice acting quality. Especially for a shooting game. Some of the “timing” on the voice acting was also off, just with the way the scenes played out overall, but the voice acting was still executed very well.
Graphics
9/10
Graphics looked very good on PS3. At first I was a little “put off” by the graphics, and felt the game was not going to be as graphically inclined. I guess because the people did not look as realistic as in other games (like Tomb Raider) but once I got past that I could see there was a certain appeal in the overall quality of the graphics, and what they choose as an artwork/graphics style. Overall it seemed the more i played, the more realistic everything looked. As I got use to their graphical decisions, and it started to set in I see what they were trying to do with the world and with the graphics. They did a very good job doing so, and employing graphical goodness, especially throughout a wide variety of regions and environments. I was overall thoroughly satisfied with the graphical experience.
Difficulty
7/10
The majority of the game was “too easy”. Then if you switch to 1999 mode, it was “too hard”. Overall I feel the difficulty experience in and of itself could have been retooled and done a lot better. It felt like I was almost breezing through the game. Some repeat deaths in a few key areas, but for the most part it was to easy. I think there were like two scenes in the entire game that became frustrating briefly, but I made it through them within a few tries. One was the space battle against the Vox, and the other I don’t recall. Either way the difficulty settings could have used a lot of work.
Bugs/Glitches/Errors
8/10
I played through the entire game without really running into any bugs or glitches. I did not find any within the main game, or either of the DLC (burial at sea 1 or 2). The first time I encountered several glitches was in the DLC Clash in the Clouds. That seemed very buggy, see below.
– Sometimes when you clear all of the enemies in a specific wave, it delays heavily when ending the wave. It will show 0 enemies for a long time, and not want to finish.
– Per the above, I even had two situations where the wave did not end at all, even after messing with it awhile to get it to end. I literally had to close down the game, or leave the wave because it was stuck. One time was in Wave 9 which was frustrating.
– On one of the airship waves, the wave never ends if you accidentally destroy the airship. You have to jump off the ship in teh right spot for it to end…this “Might” have been by design, but it wasn’t clearly instructed within the game, so considering it a bug or glitch.
– There are also situations in certain waves where enemies don’t want to spawn for awhile. Like if you kill 1-2 enemies, sometimes certain ones just don’t want to spawn. This might have just seemed like a glitch, but perhaps I wasn’t in the right place. Anyway…possibly a glitch.
Overall Gameplay and Controls
10/10
Game play and controls were both great. I loved every aspect of the game play from the gun fights, to being able to use Vigors in mid-combat, as well as open tears in the middle of a fight. Overall they did the combat experience very well, and it allowed for a lot of strategic approaches to battle. The controls were dead on. I really have no complaints about the control scheme either.
Realism
7/10
Graphics not really that realistic. However body movements, hair blowing, and overall body language was very realistic. Gun battles not very realistic in regards to enemy damage models, but they were not really going for “full realism” in this game. Some of the sky line battle moves were not realistic either, or the distance he was able to jump. Again..they were not focusing heavily on realism for this game and I think that was by design.
Replay Value
8/10
Very high replay value. They could have made getting the collectibles easier. They did a poor job recording what you have unlocked, and what you are missing. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to find out what locations you missed for Eavesdropping, and collectibles (voxophones and so forth). Besides that, the combat and general mechanics alone enhance the replay value greatly. The “Clash in the Clouds” DLC also adds a great deal of replayability. Overall it is good, and can keep you busy for an extended period of time. Especially if you want to replay for 1999 modes and so forth.
Systems
Rifts
10/10
The overall idea behind the rifts, the way the open, the affects they have on your character, the environment and battle… the rift system was executed flawlessly. I am very happy to have this addition to the game, and the way it interacts with the gameplay overall, was amazing. All the way from opening rifts with sky hooks, to ammo and health, down to getting combat helpers and so forth. Great experience.
Vigors
9/10
I really had no issues with the vigor system. You can use them or you can not. They were developed well all the way down to the purchasable upgrades. A few of the vigors felt like they were done poorly, and were virtually useless. However for the most part it was a satisfying experience. Had they updated a few of the vigor powers to be a little more useful, or make a little bit more sense, it would have been a perfect system.
Sky Lines and Sky Hook
8/10
The sky line and sky hook system was surprisingly deep. Even down to integration with some of the gear, and some of the vigors. I do feel it was a little unrealistic, but it was still a good experience. It was a deeply involved system, but I feel wasn’t presented well enough (or often enough) for someone to really take advantage of them. Due to this, I rarely used it, and when I did it was just for sky attacks. I mean I used it throughout the game, but had the implementation been a little deeper (had them available in more place s0 I can see how it could have turned out much better. Overall the system was developed well….but, they should have presented more options to take advantage of it and had them integrated into more areas of the game.
Gear
10/10
The gear was very well done, and a nice touch. It allowed you to really build out your character with specific builds, and assuming you get all the gear, the gears alone can make someone very formidable because some of the affects are very helpful. Some of the gear is a little under whelming, but they are all useful in the right situations and in their own ways.
9/7/2014:
– Fixed a formatting error on the page.
Release Date:
– Initial Release