The biggest competitor to Call of Duty has always been Battlefield. While both games have drastically changed over the years, they both still compete for the most action-packed single-player campaign and an addictive multiplayer suite. Battlefield has been the superior game for the past few years for many reasons. Not only does the game look better, but the campaign actually has a decent story and feels more organic and well-paced. The multiplayer is actually challenging and requires a lot of skill, rather than who can quickly scope the fastest.
While many fanboys may disagree and send me angry emails about that statement, one thing is certain: Battlefield is a huge game, but did anyone even want BF4? BF3 was a fantastic game and was well-balanced. BF4 feels very similar to the last game without many changes, besides a new campaign and maps. The campaign is actually rather disappointing and not nearly as fun as BF3‘s campaign. It’s short, typical, and feels very generic. The story is forgettable despite having some ground. A civil war in China has broken out, and the US government is involved, but you never really know why. There are a lot of loose ends and loopholes, and by the time the credits roll, you just won’t care.
Multiplayer is as fun as ever but doesn’t have as memorable maps as BF3. I loved having all the same modes and an easy-to-navigate server browser on the console. The game feels just as balanced as BF3, but there’s just a little bit of that magic missing. I didn’t have the same long play sessions I used to have with BF3.
The graphics are fantastic, and they make BF4 one of the best-looking next-gen games out right now. The textures are superb, the lighting is gorgeous, and the sound and physics are top-notch. I’m not kidding about the sound. Battlefield has had some of the best-sounding guns and explosions since Bad Company, and that still hasn’t changed. Overall, Battlefield 4 just doesn’t do enough; that’s new, like BF3 did. I honestly felt the game could never have been released, and fans would still be happy with an HD upgrade of BF3 for consoles. As it is, if you can find it cheap enough, BF4 is well worth the purchase and playthrough. Just don’t expect anything as groundbreaking as BF3.
Overall, Battlefield 4 just doesn’t do enough; that’s new, like BF3 did. I honestly felt the game could never have been released, and fans would still be happy with an HD upgrade of BF3 for consoles. As it is, if you can find it cheap enough, BF4 is well worth the purchase and playthrough. Just don’t expect anything as groundbreaking as BF3.
So here we were. Everyone who grew up in the 90s has gone through four PlayStation console cycles. I remember 11 years ago, when I got my PS2, I thought that the PS3 was going to be something incredibly futuristic, akin to something out of a sci-fi movie. While that wasn’t the case at all, the PS4 gets us one step closer. The PS4 may not be the huge leap that the PS2 and PS3 were, but it’s enough to completely create a whole new generation of gaming.
First Time Look and Setup
When you get the big, blue, hefty box home, you realize that the thing is huge. It makes the PS4 seem five times as big as it really is. Outside of the design of the box to get you to buy it, it’s rather plain inside. The first thing your eyes are drawn to are the sleek edges of the PS4. It has a much better design than the George Foreman grill-esque design of the original PS3. It actually looks like a space monolith. A third of the console has a sleek black look that is known to Sony products (and the fingerprints). While the rest of the top has a rough black material similar to the slimmer PS3, The front bezel is designed like it was cut at an angle with a knife. It’s double-tiered, with the disc drive to the left and the USB ports nicely hidden to the right. The power and disc eject buttons are well hidden and lined up with the LED line separating the slick and rough parts of the top casing. The rear of the console shows the vents and a simple Ethernet, HDMI, power, and audio optical cable. Very simple and easy to understand. The PS4 logo is shown nicely on the front left bezel of the console. This is a sexy console and probably the best-designed one from Sony since the slim PS2.
Setting up the PS4 is really simple and easy. Once you get your HDMI and power cable in, you must power it on via the console button. I didn’t know where the power button was until I read the quick start guide. It’s really hidden, and you wouldn’t even think of it being lined up with the LED bar. After it turns on, you must connect the PS4 controller with the USB cable included to pair it with the system. After this, you log in to your PlayStation account and set up your WiFi. It’s really as simple as that.
UI and Settings
The PS4 UI breaks away from the XMB that was born with the PSP and used on the PS3, along with some early Blu-ray players. However, the system still uses the foundation of the XMB bar mixed with the Vita’s app switching. Settings, friends, PS Store, messages, and all that stuff is one click above your games, movies, and media library. I like this double-stack instead of a long menu full of submenus. However, it’s very plain. There are no themes or wallpaper settings, even as of this review. Hopefully more are to come.
There are a good number of settings that allow you to pretty much adjust everything on the PS4. The PS4 now has a standby mode that is more advanced than the PS3. You can charge controllers, download updates, and perform various other tasks, including (at a later time) immediately resuming a paused game. The only issue is that the standby mode uses more energy than previous consoles ever have.
The system also records your gameplay footage and will snap screenshots with the touch of the Share button on the controller. I thought this would be useless, but I have actually captured some awesome footage and shots that I thought were only possible on PCs.
Under the Hood
The PS4 is the most powerful of the three next-gen consoles. The PS4 has finally moved away from custom-made hardware seen in previous Sony consoles that made coding a pain. The system uses 64-bit hardware that is seen in PCs today. The system has two quad-core Jaguar CPUs developed by AMD. The GPU runs at 2.75 GHz and can compute 1.84 teraflops. The system also has 8GB of GDDR5 RAM, which is faster than the standard RAM seen even in most high-end gaming computers. The system has a 500GB HDD that can be swapped by the user, which is a nice gesture by Sony. The USB ports are 3.0 instead of the 2.0 seen in previous consoles. For the first time ever, this is the first Sony console that does not have an analog output; this is HD only. What does this all mean? The PS4 is 16 times as powerful as the PS3 and is the most powerful next-gen console (a little like the last generation as well).
My biggest complaint about the hardware would be the lack of a 5 GHz WiFi card. The system only supports the slow 2.4 GHz bandwidth, which will not give Sony the faster download speeds they need for the larger next-gen games and streaming of games. If you can set your 2.4 GHz band to wireless N mode, you can get the most speed out of the PS4. This also causes issues with the Vita’s remote play over WiFi. I could not get a stable connection, and ultimately, the PS4 had to connect directly to the Vita itself for stable true remote play.
The Controller
My favorite part of the PS4 is the amazing controller. The PS3 controller wasn’t all that great, but Sony made a huge comeback with the DualShock 4. The ergonomics of the controller are just fantastic. The handles are longer, the analog stick is concave with better rubber grips, and they are spread further apart. The triggers (R2 and L2) are much improved and no longer make your fingers slip. The newest addition is the touchpad on the front of the controller. Most people probably shake their heads wondering what Sony is doing to their controllers again, but this thing is actually useful. It doesn’t get in the way and can be used to navigate maps, quick-time events, and text input, among other features that haven’t been thought of yet. This is probably technology left over from the rear touchpad of the Vita. The DualShock 4 also has a strange LED light on top that has upset many gamers. It’s extremely bright and is really leftover tech from the Move. It’s used to track the controller with the PlayStation Camera. However, it is used as an indicator in games such as health and notifications. The controller took a page from the Xbox 360 controller and added a headset jack to the controller to get rid of the long cables that had to connect directly to the console.
This controller even tops the Xbox 360 controller, if you can believe that. Another major move is the banishment of the Start and Select buttons so often remembered on PS controllers. There is now an Options and Share button on either side of the touchpad. The Options button is used to start and… It’s rather useful and is the evolution of the select and start buttons. The Share button is for social media goers, and I promise you will be hitting that button more and more as you have the console.
In the end, the PS4 delivers some great content, but it’s very limited as the first batch of next-gen games gets released this holiday. The PS Store is pretty empty and lacks demos for new buyers. There are not many features to keep you busy for days, and even the games are slightly limited. But the PS4 has great hardware and a great future ahead of it. The $400 price point was a smart move compared to the terrible launch of the PS3.
I haven’t been so misled by a game as Murdered. A murder mystery game about a cult in Salem, Massachusetts (my favorite type of murder mystery) is all wrapped around a serial killer known as the Bell Killer. You play a ghost detective named Ronan who gets murdered by this killer during an investigation. You have a bratty teen named Joy who helps you in the real world, and the story all comes to a nice close at the very end.
It’s everything in between that really disappoints. This game not only feels about 10 years old but is sometimes downright boring. In each area, you have items that need to be “examined.” This turns into pixel hunting like the adventure games of yore. Sometimes I found myself too frustrated because the examine button wouldn’t come up unless you were facing it just the right way; that’s glitchy and annoying. Once you find all the clues in an area, you conclude the investigation by picking three of the clues that relate to the scene. This is where some of the nonsense gameplay comes into play. Most of the time, you don’t even need all the clues to conclude, and most clues are pointless for the scene. I feel like I’m hunting for all these clues as just filler for gameplay.
Is there any combat? Not really. A shoehorned combat scenario was put in by sneaking around demons and executing them with weird button combos. Sneaking around them is pretty tense, as is running from them. But was this merely an excuse to be able to die in the game and call it a full-on game? The only other way I died in the game was by getting hit by a ghost train in one area. There’s also an open world that is boring and lifeless. The game is also full of items to find, which is archaic and just plain boring. Why would I run around in an empty, boring world, finding items I could care less about?
There are actually rules to this game, though. Just because you’re a ghost, you can’t walk through everything; otherwise, you’d be clipping into the gaming abyss. Most items can’t be walked through, and there are some that don’t have a blue aura around them. You can teleport yourself, which only comes in handy for a few parts of the game. You can possess people to read their minds or influence them during an investigation. This isn’t nearly as cool as it should be.
The only thing that kept me going was the story. The twists and turns were just interesting enough to make you think you figured it out, and then it turns out to be something else. The game actually has a satisfying ending with no cliffhanger. When I played through this whole game, I just couldn’t help but feel how dated it looked and played. The graphics, while not ugly, are simple and boring. This game would have looked amazing about 5 years ago. I also didn’t feel an attachment to any characters because of how boring and cookie-cutter they felt. Ronan is just your typical New England cop, Joy is a snotty goth brat, and the other characters don’t really show up enough for you to care about them. Soul Suspect had a lot of potential, but in the end, it felt like there wasn’t really a goal for what to do outside of the story.
If you’re a fan of adventure games, I would give this a shot. Murdered isn’t going to revolutionize the nearly forgotten point-and-click adventure-style gameplay, but it is worth slogging through the gameplay for the interesting story.
Episode Two takes place right after Episode One, but this time we play strictly as Elizabeth. I love this move-in perspective because Liz can’t fight like Booker can, and it’s noticeable right off the bat. Liz has to sneak her way around using crossbows, vigors that turn her invisible, and ones that add extra armor. She only carries a shotgun and pistol, but very little ammo. The new weapon is one that microwaves enemies, but I was only able to use it a couple of times in the whole episode.
The story still doesn’t make much sense unless you play both BioShock games. This DLC is really for the fans of those games. Elizabeth is on a mission to save Sally, the little sister you were trying to find in Episode 1. With Booker dead, it’s up to you to run from everything bad in Rapture to find her. This includes Atlas, Andrew Ryan, and even Suchong. These characters won’t mean anything to anyone who hasn’t played the first game. I loved the setting and the brief trip back to Columbia, but the atmosphere is really great in this episode, along with less backtracking. Sure, Liz can’t fight off Big Daddies in this episode, but it makes everything more intense. The game is about twice as long as the first episode but can still be finished in a few hours.
I really appreciated how the stealth sections were interspersed with just exploring and cinematic events; it felt balanced. Sneaking isn’t just as simple as ducking and hiding from enemies. They now have an alert meter above their heads, while a new lockpicking mini-game has been added but is mostly lackluster and just filler. You can even use this mini-game to hack turrets to fight against you, but there were maybe only two opportunities to do this in the whole game. The new crossbow weapon with gas, alarm, and sleeping darts comes in handy, and the shotgun does a lot of damage. I felt the revolver was nearly useless, though.
With all that said, Episode Two really feels like an extension and slight evolution of Infinite in a good way, but anyone who hasn’t played previous games will be completely lost.
Media Molecule is known for innovation. LittleBigPlanet was a huge revolution in creative sandbox gameplay and platforming. Tearaway does the same thing for the Vita, but for the platforming genre. The game is the best-looking game for Vita and is the only one that uses all of the hardware’s features in a very unique and original way.
You play as the messenger Atoi, who must reach the sun where you (the player) have ripped a hole and are letting Scraps into the world of Tearaway. The game uses a front-facing camera to show you the sun. You can then control Atoi and guide him using the rear touchpad and touchscreen. There really aren’t complicated puzzles, but challenging platforming sections. When you see gray areas with the PS buttons on them (like the rear touchpad), you can poke your finger through them in the game. The first time I did this, it made me giddy and smile. You can do this to fight off scraps, push blocks around, and bounce drum pads to help Atoi along. You can also use the touch screen to roll out paper and interact with dozens and dozens of various papercraft items.
Just these two major features alone are enough to call Tearaway the best game for Vita, but it doesn’t stop there. You can customize Atoi and characters in the world, kind of like LBP. There’s no Pop-It, but you can buy items using confetti you find in the world. There aren’t as many items as LBP, but because it’s a straight-up platformer, you won’t really need that many items. Tearaway also has a unique papercraft origami collection you can find and print out online to create your own Tearaway world. To acquire these blueprints, you need to find pure white objects in the world and take pictures of them. This adds to the creativity on a whole new level and helps build on this “real world leaking into the virtual world” theme.
Outside of platforming and customizing things, there is combat, but it’s very simple and easy. You can’t die in the game, and combat never varies, from jumping on scraps to picking them up and throwing them. Some involve jumping on their springpad and tapping them to kill them. I wish the combat were a little deeper, but what’s here at least works and is fun. There’s a lot of stuff to find in the world, like hidden presents and side objectives where you help out various animals. After you beat the game, the only thing you can do is complete the game 100%, but the game is well worth multiple playthroughs.
Let’s talk about graphics. I have no idea how MM got this game to look like a PS3 game, but they did. There are no jaggies, no ugly low-resolution textures, the lighting is great, and the animations are gorgeous. Wrinkled paper on the ground can be stepped on, and you can watch it depress and rise back up when you walk off of it. All effects are done on paper, and no other game looks like it. This is truly the best game on Vita right now, and every owner needs to play it.
Bastion was a fantastic game with a memorable narrative and fast-paced combat. Transistor slows it down a bit with more strategic combat and a slightly less memorable story. The story is about love. The whole story never really makes sense; you’re just thrown in the middle of some battle between a woman named Red, a man named Grant, and a sect called the Camerada. I had no idea who this rebellious sect was, who Red was, or who Grant was. I guess that’s kind of the point. You’re in some sort of computer world, and the transistor is your weapon. A horde called the Process is trying to kill you.
The combat can be done in real-time, or you can stop time and plan out your moves. These moves eat away at a meter, so you need to plan carefully. Each enemy has a different play style, so you really need to adjust and learn each one. Your combat moves are completely customizable, which is a nice touch. At access points, you can load a main type of weapon onto each face button. There are two add-ons for each button, and these will add characteristics to that weapon. Of course, you can make any weapon you have the main weapon. This is great because it allows for many combinations of weapon types. However, you have a limited number of add-ons you can use until you upgrade your maxed-out stats. I found a very frustrating feature of your weapons to be your health. Once you lose health, a weapon will break until you get two access points again. If all four weapons break, it’s game over.
I honestly felt the game never really came together in any way except for the art and audio. The music is fantastic, and the game is wonderful to look at. There are some boss fights thrown in, but they’re extremely tough and will frustrate most players. I also found the game to be way too short, coming in at about 5 hours. With that said, the main focus is combat here. The game is intense, and the added element of strategy and the combination of weapons are all up to you. There’s a small test area you can access to hone your skills (kind of like Bastion), but in the end, this game isn’t something I’m going to remember a year from now. It’s a nice attempt at a spiritual successor but doesn’t really come close.
The game also lacks replay value. It felt so frustrating that the last thing I wanted to do was play again. For serious masochists, there are limiters you can add to make the game even harder. Once you kill an enemy, a cell will burst out. You get so many seconds before that enemy respawns unless you absorb the cell. A limiter can put a shield around this, requiring you to break it before absorbing it to gain more XP. But remember, once you have used your time to stop the ability to plan out your combat, you can’t fight in real-time until it recharges. You can literally lose a whole health bar in those 5 seconds.
With that said, if you loved Bastion, you’re not really missing much here except some eye and ear candy. The story makes no sense despite having a touching ending, and I never really connected with any characters. It’s a fun weekend to play through, not much more than that.
Ever since Amnesia: The Dark Descent was released, atmospheric horror adventure games have been popping up, but none are as good. Among the Sleep is probably the only one that has come close (even more so than Amnesia’s own mediocre sequel). You play as an infant (gasp, a baby in a horror game!) and you just wander around a very strange land-out horror adventure trying to figure out who this mysterious dark creature is that is trying to find you.
The game starts out pretty cheery. It’s your second birthday, and you get a gift from a mysterious person. As your mom puts you in your playpen, you learn the controls and get out to open this gift. Lo and behold, it’s a creepy talking teddy bear that you can hug and use as a flashlight. As you go deeper and deeper into this crazy world, the game gets tenser. You go from simple climbing puzzles to finding and hunting for items and keys and running and hiding from this scary creature. A lot of elements feel similar to amnesia, such as not being able to fight at all but only running.
Due to the claustrophobic and nearly haphazard way everything is laid out, no particular moment is really memorable, save for the first 30 minutes. You end up going through random doors; hallways appear out of nowhere in the dark; strange sounds will clatter away in the background; and things will flash in front of you. All of this is to make you tense, but there’s no real scary moment where you jump. It’s all about a tense atmosphere that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
The main goal, you could say, is to find four relics to unlock a mysterious door. This is your hub that you always come back to. The game actually has a pretty crazy finale, and things finally start clicking as to who this creature is and what it represents. It’s pretty sad in the end. The whole game can be beaten in less than 4 hours, which is a real shame. I would have liked to see the actual story unfold and some more cutscenes. The graphics are fairly decent, but the textures are flat and muddy, so you won’t be seeing much in the pitch dark 90% of the time. The game supports Oculus Rift if you are lucky enough to own one, so that is a bonus.
Overall, Among the Sleep is a short but sweet horror ride for any fan of amnesia or adventure games. There’s no combat, just you as a vulnerable baby trying to run away from your fears and keeping your teddy by your side.
Vanillaware is known for one of the hardest JRPGs on the PS2, Odin Sphere, and I was very excited upon hearing about the spiritual successor to that game. While Dragon’s Crown isn’t nearly as hard as that game (it’s much more forgiving), it still has a lot of challenges that await you. Dragon’s Crown’s biggest disappointment is its short length. There are almost no main quests and mainly side quests (about 50). Once you finish the game, you unlock a hard mode and then an inferno mode. Thankfully, the game can be played with up to four players, so it can be a blast.
The story is about a crown that has been taken by an ancient dragon. Your job is to return this crown to your kingdom and kill the dragon. The story is very light, and I know there could have been so much more here. But the super short length makes it impossible to write a better story. There are very few cutscenes and not much spoken dialogue (which is only done by a narrator). Once you jump into the game, you can attack, use items, cast spells, and use the right analog stick to move a hand around the screen to collect treasure. You always have a non-fighting thief with you who can pick locks on hidden doors and open chests. Sadly, you can’t change out your equipment during a mission (most levels can be passed in less than 10 minutes). However, at the end of each level is a boss, and they increase in difficulty throughout all 8 levels or so. Each level has two bosses at different levels for various players.
Once you finish a mission, you can return to town to appraise your items, bury or resurrect bones you find in levels for new AI partners, level up, acquire new quests, and buy runes. Runes are found throughout levels in pairs, which need to be matched with runes in your possession. These add various buffs to your party, which can turn the tide of a battle. Outside of those main things, there’s not much to do besides hit the level cap. The missions are extremely repetitive since you need to find nine talismans before facing the Ancient Dragon (that’s almost all there is to the entire main quest line), and once you are able to beat the Ancient Dragon (probably when you’re around level 30), you do it all over again on a harder difficulty. It gets kind of boring after a while and extremely tough towards the end. It’s best to go in with actual people since your AI partners can mess things up. Thankfully, unlike Odin Sphere, you have lives and can even pay to keep reviving with your coins. This alleviates some of the frustration.
I just wish there was so much more to this game. It feels so small and claustrophobic. The short levels, the nearly non-existent questline, and the story—but at least the characters you pick are fun to use, and the controls work well. The art itself is stunning, with beautiful water-color backdrops and crazy-looking enemies and bosses. This game is mainly designed for fans of the co-op arcade RPGs of yesteryear from Capcom. Not much of a story, but tons of combat, enemies to kill, and levels to acquire. If you want a story-heavy RPG like The Elder Scrolls or Fable, you won’t find that here.
Final Fantasy X was a game in the series that really shifted things around. It broke some common JRPG rules and was a bit all over the place. This was the first JRPG I had ever beaten as a kid, and it was the first Final Fantasy I ever finished. I have a lot of fond memories of this game, and the HD Remaster brought a lot of those back.
The core game hasn’t really been touched, but US gamers will finally get a taste of the tougher international version, which adds an expert sphere grid and Dark Aeons, which are the toughest enemies in the game (some have millions of HP). Outside of the game, the game is still the same, with great characters that are memorable and beautiful locales. The story is a bit confusing at first, but very original, if not very deep. You play as Tidus, who is a young man sent forward in time hundreds of years into the future. His original home is now a sacred ruin, and a giant being called Sin is destroying humanity. Every 10 years, this sin comes back, and the calm ends. Another summoner must go on a pilgrimage to gather all the Aeons and take down Sin for another 10-year Calm. Your goal is to put a stop to this cycle. You gather your crew along the way to level up and put an end to all this nonsense.
Before you jump into this game, you must have a mindset from when the PS2 first launched. This game was fantastic back in the day and still holds up well. Most JRPG gamers will be thrown off by the Sphere Grid. There is no traditional leveling up where you gain levels. Instead, you acquire AP and get sphere points, which allow you to freely upgrade various attributes and skills for each character. The expert sphere grid allows you to use keys to go off your path and learn other abilities from other characters. This is a lot of fun and gives you total freedom over your character.
Outside of the sphere grid is the obvious combat. Yes, there are random battles, and some areas are so bad that you hit one every 2–3 seconds—literally. A maximum of three characters can battle at once with the freedom to swap out. It’s the usual JRPG turn-based battle system, but there are overdrives that are crucial to winning boss fights. Characters learn new drives as they battle. Aeons are also essential, but only Yuna can send them in. They are large, heavy hitters that will take away massive damage and can also be overdriven, which is probably the #1 technique for winning tougher boss fights. Like any other JRPG, learning enemies’ weaknesses and battling with magic is a must. Some bosses nearly turn into puzzles where you must cast Reflect on them so their healing spell bounces off of them onto you. Some bosses will cast status ailments that can cripple your entire party. If you don’t grind a bit and stay ahead of the game, you will struggle.
Outside of battle, there are the Cloister of Trials, which are a huge pain and aren’t fun at all. These are puzzles in which you place various spheres to unlock doors. Another huge pain is the Blitzball mini-game. This isn’t fun at all and requires math to actually play. It’s stiff, shallow, and just plain boring. I hated it as a kid, and I hate it even now that I know math better. It’s all nearly luck-based and a roll of the dice. You have almost no control over characters.
FFX is also full of pre-final boss content, but there are a lot of requirements to get this stuff. Ultimate weapons are a must-have to do more than the 9,999 HP damage limit. However, they require you to be in certain areas, acquire certain other items, or even get through harder areas that require getting through other areas just to get to that area. Sounds confusing? It is. I spent a good 15 hours just trying to figure all this out and could get only one optional Aeon (Yojimbo). Anima is another optional Aeon but requires getting through a tough boss with the three weakest characters (Tidus, Rikku, and Wakka) and then getting all the destruction spheres in every trial. It’s a huge pain, requires a lot of running around and backtracking, and can make you frustrated. You can also monster hunt, but this requires training a Chocobo (which is tough as nails to get through), and then capturing the toughest monsters in the game easily requires ultimate weapons, which require more backtracking. It’s a frustrating mess but also somehow extremely satisfying once you do it.
With the main game out of the way, let’s talk about visuals. The HD upgrade isn’t exactly what you think. Most of the game has been remodeled, and all the main characters are completely redone; however, many monsters and NPCs just had a few passes of texture filtering, and that’s it. It really looks ugly in spots, but it’s not so bad if you’ve played the game before. I just wish the Japanese voice track was on here since the English voice acting is so terrible and embarrassing to listen to.
Note: Shame on you, James Arnold Taylor, for your terrible voice acting in Tidus. You’ve done better! Like Ratchet from Ratchet & Clank, Gabriel Logan from the PSP Syphon Filters, and even Marty McFly from the Back to the Future adventure games!
The long-awaited Infinite expansion set in Rapture is out and about. I honestly didn’t know what to really expect from this other than more questions and fan service from Rapture. The story started out very similarly to BioShock 1, where you are riding down the bathysphere into Rapture. It brought back a lot of great memories, and I was happy to see the beautiful Elizabeth throughout the whole chapter. What I wasn’t happy about was the length, the gameplay, and the lack of anything memorable.
You feel more like one level from a full game. The one level that is really just action is more than the story. It doesn’t pick up at all until the last 2 minutes of the ending, which is both shocking and expected and gives us more questions than answers. The same infinite guns are back, but with only one new power, and that is Old Man Winter. It is not much different from the freeze power in BioShock 1. It can freeze running water to make a bridge, and that’s about it. I ran around closing vents to draw Sally out (the girl who Booker must get back) and not much else. The ammo is extremely scarce, so you will be scrounging for it more than at any other moment in previous BioShock games. You also don’t get the full arsenal in Infinite, and nothing much else has changed gameplay-wise.
The setting is fantastic, however. The underwater city is memorable, and it’s great to be back before it went to crap from the previous games. We are seeing the calm before the storm here. The Little Sister program is starting, and so are the new Plasmids. It’s very interesting to see how things are happening when everything is prosperous and fun in the underwater utopia. Another great addition is the return of Sander Cohen, who is probably the most insane person in Rapture. This section is memorable but dies out quickly with more boring shooting and getting lost in hallways.
Outside of the interesting ending, there’s not much else. This was a real disappointment because of how long everyone waited. The gamer who just played Infinite and moved on shouldn’t even bother. This DLC is mainly for hardcore fans who actually want the ending in Episode Three rather than the tidbits from each episode.
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Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !