A very long and well-written article with mo spoilers so I will only include the link:
Wot I Think – BioShock: Infinite
(14 posts) (4 voices)-
mikiem2
ModeratorPURELY FWIW...
Got a key or whatever for Steam with a graphics card -- look for lots of private sales on the latest Bioshock & Tombraider games, as well as whatever Nvidia's giving away... If either interests you, you should be able to find them quite a bit below MSRP.
At any rate my youngest son wasn't interested, & I wasn't sure his older brother could play them on his older hardware, so I spent a little while Googling... Bioshock is DX 11 but TR is DX 9 BTW. Along the way I couldn't help but pick up a little bit about the games.
Bearing in mind I wasn't looking to read about either, I came away with the impression that the storyline for Bioshock was conceived & written along the lines of many a Hollywood film, where the writer(s) envision themselves enlightened & wise, & so set about the task of teaching the vast, un-washed masses. Skimming the linked article I didn't see anything to change my initial perspective.
I won't say I'm immune to that sort of thing, but rather numb enough so it doesn't bother me anymore -- if that sort of movie or TV show has enough action &/or eye candy to keep me watching while I ignore any attempt at (re)education, cool -- otherwise I'm gone. The ability or habit of ignoring the storyline to appreciate everything else isn't rare nowadays, & it's as alive I think in gaming as it is watching TV. I'd expect some people will love BI's story, some will loath it, but the silent majority will try to ignore it & just concentrate on the game. And like many a blog or article or whatever, having people who love & hate it is good for business -- their arguing etc. creates lots of buzz.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Whiterabbit-uk
Games GuruWhat's amazing about this game isn't the game itself?
It's the pre-order deals (which are now over as the game was released about 17 minutes ago).
Via greenmangaming you got 20% off the price it's being sold elsewhere plus you got the original Bioshock, X-Com: enemy unknown (released several months ago) plus the choice of one other AAA game from The Darkness 2, Mafia II, Spec Ops: The line or Bioshock II. If you purchased it from Steam there were similar deals plus loads of TF2 items.
For a game that has been highly ted year I was very surprised at this amazing deal Unfortunately I already had all the games being offered but it didn't bother me overly as I've been wanting to play this game since I heard about it quite some time ago.
I'd have posted images but it looks like picdepict has gone down, not sure whether it's for good, or just temporary.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Anonymous
UnregisteredTips for Playing BioShock Infinite
BioShock Infinite: The Kotaku Review
Depending on where in the country you live, you might have the nagging feeling that portions of the … Read…Columbia--the airborne, ultra-nationalist city where BioShock Infinite happens--holds lots of beauty. But it holds a lot of danger, too. Swarms of normal human assailants will attack Booker DeWitt as he tries to get Elizabeth out of the gorgeous sky-town and they’ll be joined by augmented Handymen, pyrokinetic Firemen and dudes that can turn flocks of murderous crows. The going can get rough at times, so I’ve assembled a few hints that might help make your time in Columbia a little easier.
Watch Your Salt.You’re going to want to use Devil’s Kiss, Shock Jockey and the other special attacks in Infinite as much as possible. But they drain Salt--the in-game resource that powers your Vigors abilities--pretty quickly if you just spam them. So, be careful with your aim. And you’ll eventually be able to get several upgrades that will let your Vigors attacks chain from one enemy to the next. Grab those as soon as possible.
Upgrade your Shield earlyBooker gets a magnetic force-shield early on in the game. As in Halo and other games with two-tiered health systems, it absorbs the first few hits of damage from enemy attacks and regenerates. When you find Infusions in the game, these colorful drinks will let you increase the amount of Salt, Health or Shield. It’s a good idea to start strengthening your Shield as early as you can, as you have less of it than the other attributes. A stronger Shield means living long enough to progress through more of the game without losing cash and health when you respawn.
Don’t ignore those sidequestsEvery so often, you’ll stumble across optional sidequests in the game. Most of them have you hunting down things like keys for locked doors or items or codebooks to unlock ciphers. While you might be tempted to just plow through to the next section of the game, these side quests will often yield more Infusions and cash.
Expand
Listen to the ladyWhen you’re in a firefight, Elizabeth will helpfully throw you a health pack or an ammo clip when you’re running low. But this prompt--and the scavenged resource--disappears when the fight’s over so always grab Elizabeth’s ammo first. Also note that she dispenses ammo for the weapon you’re using, so if you’re not holding an empty weapon that you want to keep, switch to it before accepting her help.
Upgrade your machine gun and pistol attacksThey’re not the sexiest weapons in the game but they are the most plentiful. Walking around with a heater and/or RPG with no ammo isn’t going to get you anywhere. There are times you’re going to need whatever weapons happen to be close-by, which more often than not will be the machine gun and pistol. Purchase the damage upgrades. If you have to pick them up, make sure they pack more of a punch until you find something more powerful.
These are just a few hints that came to me as I played through BioShock Infinite. If you’ve got your own, please share in the discusions below.
Kotaku loves Bioshock: Infinite. If you missed the slew of games and credit on offer for pre-ordering, you're not out of luck. Here are the best places to buy the game right now for all three platforms.
PC
Green Man Gaming is still offering 15$ credit or $14 cash back with a purchase of the game, which is crazy for a Game of the Year frontrunner that came out today. GMG was our best pre-order option and remains our best day one option. Plus, Steam DRM.
blurb from Kotaku
BioShock Infinite FPS boosted by up to 41% with new Nvidia drivers
by Alice O'Connor, Mar 26, 2013 7:45am PDT
Related Topics – BioShock Infinite, Tomb Raider, PC, NVidiaAs you rush to explore the floating of Columbia, don't be too hasty. Nvidia yesterday released new graphics card drivers which can boost BioShock Infinite performance by up to 41% (with certain system and settings, obviously), so you'll want to install them. The 314.22 WHQL drivers also boost Tomb Raider framerates by up to 71%. Gosh! If you have an Nvidia card, you'll want to install these.
Nvidia has whipped up all sorts of fancy graphs showing the spread of performance improvements over the last set of certified drivers. They're tested with specific settings so you may not see quite such large improvements, but either way it's good news.
As ever, the drivers are up for download on the official GeForce site.
Blurb from shacknews to remind Whiterabbit to upgrade drivers if he hasn't. (:)
Posted 11 years ago # -
Whiterabbit-uk
Games GuruSo far I'm impressed. It wouldn't start on my main computer so I went back to my old dual core 3.2GHz cpu with a single Geforce GTX450 card with 2Gb of memory and was able to max out the graphics. Was surprised as I'd expected to have problems on my older computer.
I think I like it better than the original. Oddly it had a similar start apart from it wasn't a plane crash and you were in a dinghy rowing to a light house.
I'll post some screenies in a few days. :)
Posted 11 years ago # -
Remind me not to read that post - I'm anxious to play but I won't be able to afford it for some time so I'm trying to avoid spoilers at all costs :)
Posted 11 years ago # -
mikiem2
ModeratorIt wouldn't start on my main computer so I went back to my old dual core 3.2GHz cpu with a single Geforce GTX450 card with 2Gb of memory and was able to max out the graphics. Was surprised as I'd expected to have problems on my older computer.
Condolences on it not running, but with the amount of attention it's getting there should be plenty of fixes -- might be one already -- very soon. Otherwise thanks for the info, that it will run on the older PC... My son would only need to upgrade his graphics card for DX11, &/or my wife's PC shouldn't have any problem if the scenery & gameplay overcome her dislike of shooters.
I'm anxious to play but I won't be able to afford it for some time so I'm trying to avoid spoilers at all costs :)
I'd expect prices to drop rapidly so hopefully won't have to wait too long. :)
[I'm actually quite anxious about price drops, as I'm waiting for my son to tell me if he wants my copy so I can put it on ebay if he doesn't.]Posted 11 years ago # -
Anonymous
UnregisteredEvery fix you need to make BioShock Infinite run infinitely better
Mar. 28, 2013 (9:30 am) By: James PlafkeJohn Wilkes Booth statue
You’ve had some time to dive sky-hook-deep into BioShock Infinite, and while you’re undoubtedly thrilled that Ken Levine and Irrational Games are back on the BioShock bandwagon, you might not be thrilled by some of the PC version’s more pressing issues. From a smaller field-of-view, to random choppiness regardless of PC’s specs, to an overly sensitive mouse, the game is not without its annoying faults. Luckily, you can manually fix most of them, and it isn’t too difficult to do so.
Fix the overly sensitive mouseThe default option for the mouse sensitivity is the second lowest choice available, and the mouse flies around too fast to stop and smell Columbia’s roses. Unfortunately, dropping the mouse to the lowest choice available makes it too slow (at least for many of use). Now, you can muck around for an hour (like some of us did) adjusting your mouse sensitivity through your gaming mouse’s proprietary software, then combining that with the in-game slider. Or you can just edit a config file.
You can edit the ranges of the slider, so you can more precisely alter the speeds:
Head over to %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Games\BioShock Infinite\XGame\Config\
Open the file XUserOptions in a text editor of your choice
Search for the phrases MinMouseLookSensitivity and MaxMouseLookSensitivity
By default, the minimum will be set to 0.100000 and the maximum will be set to 4.000000
Make the minimum setting a smaller number — reports around the web have suggested somewhere around 0.05
Make the maximum setting a smaller number — reports have suggested as drastic of a drop as down to 1.0
As an added bonus, shut off mouse acceleration, and you won’t have the feeling that something is “just off” when you swing the camera aroundNow, each tick on the slider will be a more precise change, and you may not have to combine the sensitivity with third-party software.
Wider FOV
Widen the field-of-viewYou may not notice it at first, but the field-of-view in Bioshock Infinite is actually a little tight. The FOV option only changes the view by around 15%, but with a simple config edit, you can extend the field.
Head over to %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Games\BioShock Infinite\XGame\Config\
Open the file XUserOptions in a text editor of your choice
Search for the phrase MaxUserFOVOffsetPercent
Change the 15.000000 number to 100Now, when you start the game, your slider will extend the FOV further than before.
Disable the annoying intro videosAfter a long day of work you want to sit down and play some BioShock, not sit through a bunch of company logos. They only take around a minute (if that) to get through, but they’re annoying regardless. Luckily, you can disable them, and get right into the game after you start it up.
Head over to %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Games\BioShock Infinite\XGame\Config\
Find the XEngine.ini file
Search for the [FullScreenMovie] phrase
Search for the phrases: StartupMovies=2KLogoSweep720p2997, StartupMovies=IrrationalLogoTest, StartupMovies=UE3AnimatedLogo_ProRes, and StartupMovies=AMDLogo720p
Add a semi-colon before the S in each “StartupMovies” so it looks like “;StartupMovies”When you start the game next, you won’t have to deal with companies barraging you with their logos.
ChoppinessThere are widespread reports that the game has a bit of lag of choppiness regardless of how powerful your rig may be. Well, this doesn’t seem to have any sort of reliable fix, but there are a few things that helped me.
Run the game’s benchmarking utility, which you can access from Steam
Update your drivers. Head over here for Nvidia, and over here for AMD. They make a big difference.
PC purists will undoubtedly say there’s a stark difference between the Ultra and Very High graphical settings, but I barely noticed one. My rig, which can run just about anything I toss at it, seemed to stutter less when I set the quality to Very HighUnfortunately, the reports of the random stuttering are so widespread that there doesn’t seem to be a solid fix at the moment. On the other hand, at least you know it’s not just your computer, so you don’t have to spend all your time trying to fix it.
Columbia
DifficultyBioShock games have harder difficulties unlock after you beat easier ones. However, those of you experienced withe the series will most likely find Infinite a bit easy. In order to avoid wasting a playthrough to get to the good stuff, you can unlock a harder mode right from the start.
Enter the famed Konami Code from the main menu (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A)
If you’re playing on the PS3, replace the B and A with O and X
On the PC B and A will be whatever buttons you have set up as the cancel and confirm actions (not the A key and the B key!)You’ll have unlocked 1999 mode, which makes the game significantly more difficult.
Posted 11 years ago # -
mikiem2
ModeratorUpdate your drivers. Head over here for Nvidia, and over here for AMD.
If you're running AMD/ATI, might want to make that the 13.2 Beta 7 drivers -- you certainly can try the 13.3 Beta 3 version, but reports I've read suggest it's still behaving very much like a Beta, so maybe be prepared to move back to the 13.2 B7 just in case. That said, maybe the best thing to do is wait -- I expect the next 13.3 Betas will specifically address Bioshock the way 13.3 B3 addressed Tomb Raider.
Posted 11 years ago # -
It wouldn't start on my main computer so I went back to my old dual core 3.2GHz cpu with a single Geforce GTX450 card with 2Gb of memory and was able to max out the graphics. Was surprised as I'd expected to have problems on my older computer.
Condolences on it not running, but with the amount of attention it's getting there should be plenty of fixes -- might be one already -- very soon. Otherwise thanks for the info, that it will run on the older PC... My son would only need to upgrade his graphics card for DX11, &/or my wife's PC shouldn't have any problem if the scenery & gameplay overcome her dislike of shooters.
I'm anxious to play but I won't be able to afford it for some time so I'm trying to avoid spoilers at all costs :)
I'd expect prices to drop rapidly so hopefully won't have to wait too long. :)
[I'm actually quite anxious about price drops, as I'm waiting for my son to tell me if he wants my copy so I can put it on ebay if he doesn't.]Yeah, I'll be keeping an eye out for sales..
For anyone worrying about DX11 you might want to check the forums to see if it'll run in DX9 or DX10 mode. I had a similar concern with Dishonored, only to find out it played perfectly well in DX9 mode on my HD 3850. They've since updated the system requirements to reflect this, but initially it only listed DX11.
Worth looking into.. I'd check myself, but again, I'm worried about running into spoilers in the forums.. topics like "Wasn't it stupid when Elizabeth died at the end?" or "How cool was it when Booker turns out to be a robot?!" or "ZOMZGZMSZ!! Who knew Darth Vader was going to be Luke's dad?!?!" etc.
Posted 11 years ago # -
mikiem2
ModeratorFor anyone worrying about DX11 you might want to check the forums to see if it'll run in DX9 or DX10 mode. I had a similar concern with Dishonored, only to find out it played perfectly well in DX9 mode on my HD 3850. They've since updated the system requirements to reflect this, but initially it only listed DX11.
You're right - Thanks!
Digging a bit found the new Bioshock has a minimum, minimum requirement of an ATI 3xxx series card in XP SP2.
Posted 11 years ago # -
:) His mom :)
Sorry -- couldn't resist. :)
Well, *technically* she died before he became Darth Vader, so I'm not sure if that counts :)
You're right - Thanks!
Digging a bit found the new Bioshock has a minimum, minimum requirement of an ATI 3xxx series card in XP SP2.
Glad I could be of service! :)
If Dishonored is anything to go by, it'll still look awesome. I'm only running a 3850 and a low end Intel E2220 (at 3Ghz) and it was pretty smooth throughout, even at 1920x1080. I just had to cut back on some of the eye candy.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Finally got to play and finish this game - fantastic! :)
I did have some issues running it at first, but came across a thread with trouble-shooting info on the 2k Games forums.
In the end it was much like Dishonored - I ran it at 1920x1080 but with the fancier bits turned down, except for the detail settings. Frames per second were ok, but it slowed down when the action got going. Upping the pool size to 800mb, as per the link above, fixed things for me and I had no further issues.
It's really an amazing game, with such great attention to detail it really deserves to be played so you can see it, so I hope this proves useful to someone :)
Posted 10 years ago #
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