Vague applicability is basically BioShock's "nanomachines, son."
That's definitely what it felt like though I did like MGS 4 in spite of its gratuitous use of nanomachines as plot fuel. No idea why it didn't work for me with Infinite, but it just didn't.
The one thing I'll hotly contest in this review is the suggestion that it received critical acclaim. A lot of critics liked it, but I think even at the acme of its release buzz, people were finding problems with the mechanics, plot and characters.
Book me today! I also review weddings, funerals and bar mitzvahs.
@Disciplined Riot that's because MGS 4 is a concoction of brilliant ideas put together by a madman and it only adds to that absurd genius when they have an immortal superfast blood-drinking pointy-toothed sexually aggressive villain and then say with a complete straight face "nanomachines did it"
In Bioshock they were just being lazy.
Wow, I guess you just didn't 'get it', and that's too bad because it's amazing.
@sjebens why are trying to criticize someone opinion on a game, you gunna yell at people who don\'t like the same food as you
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How the hell does this have universal critical acclaim?
This should have just been called Ken Levine's Shoot n' Loot because that's the entirety of the gameplay in a nutshell. You shoot enemies, loot trash, loot bodies, etc. There are maybe five guns in this game that aren't reskins of other guns and none of them are remotely interesting. The powers are somehow even more boring than in the first Bioshock. Oh, here's a spoiler for what every single power can do: stun, knockback, AOE, charge, temporary invincibility.
To my utter shock, the enemies are also even more boring than in Bioshock too. They are almost all one of the four models of thousands of clones that never change up their strategy of attacking you beyond sending waves upon waves of their number to each battle arena. Combat can be summed up as you are either in the range of their hitscan bullets raining on you or you are in cover, you use your powers to knock/stun, and then waste everyone else with bullets. The special enemies aren't much better. They come in the forms of either actively make the game less fun to play (Handymen), can be killed in one hit (Crows), or are barely even in the game (Firemen).
The story was absolutely one of the worst I've seen in a videogame. I'm sadly limited to 400 words but the long and short of it is the entirety of the story is just a build-up to a bunch of really stupid plot twists.
I could not stand any of the characters in this game. Elizabeth serves the purpose of being an item dispenser and the multiverse ass-puller the writers can use to explain away plotholes. I also don't get how Elizabeth somehow cares about the plight of racial minorities and the working class despite being raised by someone that would make the Klu Klux Klan blush. Meanwhile we have Booker who constantly whines about his violent past while gleefully mass-murdering the thousands of clones living in Columbia. The Lutteces, whom I assume were the attempt at some sort of comedy/whimsical relief, were absolutely grating.
In summary: Bioshock Infinite is just a bog-standard shooter playing dress-up as something meaningful.
How did this get the amount of critical acclaim it did? Bioshock I could at least understand being lauded the way it did given the state of console gaming in 2007. But there are countless first-person shooters that came out more than five years before Bioshock Infinite that were immensely better than it.