Thom

I liked the game, but not enough to finish it. One of the problems was that the base building wasn't really explained, so I had to restart 10 hours in because I didn't realise that the effect of placing like-structures next to each other was cumulative. Consequently, I lost half the council in one month due to an inability to launch satellites. There's also a case to be made that the game over-emphasises a slow defensive approach this makes battles take far longer as you tediously move each squad member forward between alien encounters. It's not a massive problem for most of the game, but then you get to the final the story missions, one of which is basically a long, long corridor. It's just tedious moving your guys forwards. In the end, I just got sick of moving guys around arbitrarily and packed it in. Still had a fun 20 hrs with the game, which is pretty huge given I'm not a strategy fan.

This game reminds me of Skyrim in many respects. You given a set of tools, and largely left to your own devices as to how to complete the assorted tasks available. Conquering bases and towers across the map is never boring. Hunting is a slow, but enjoyable task it also allows for a lot of emergent gameplay experiences when other predators turn up and interrupt your hunt. The story is pretty good too, at least for the first half of the game.

I almost never play games twice. However, upon finishing Bioshock Infinite, I rebooted and started again straight away. The characters, setting and plot are fantastic. The combat is interesting and tight, though I agree with others who suggest there might have been a bit too much of it. The sound track is outstanding I want to buy it. I know I'm gushing, but I think this is my favourite game ever. It's plot and characters are as good as, or better, than any film or book I've seen or read. To an extent, I feel like this is a new level of story-telling in gaming.

I think a lot of the criticism of the game has been overly focused on the combat. The combat certainly has its issues, but the real problem the game is its complete lack of pacing or plot. Origins was an epic adventure where your choices actually mattered. This game doesn't even provide the illusion of choice, as its painfully obvious that the game will rail-road you as it sees fit. This would be acceptable if the game had a decent story, but with the exception of a few interesting side quests, it really doesn't. Character motivation is often non-existent and their decisions often make no sense. The plot is painfully predictable. The three acts are basically unrelated. I admire what Bioware tried to do with the 7-year plot span, but it required a sense of change that wasn't present. My other gripe is that the game only provides about 10 hours of content, and then pads it out with recycled environments and fetch quests. I think almost everyone would agree this is a big problem. I'm giving the game a seven because the companions were mostly excellent. I didn't care for Merrill, because I felt her side-stories had no rationale, but most people seem to like her too. Otherwise, there are much better RPG's out there, many of them by bioware. Try one of those.

It's pretty obvious why Activision flew most reviewers to a Hotel in Europe to play the game: because using a real world Internet connection, the game is unplayable. The lag is shocking, and the hit detection is garbage. Needs a major patch. The real disappointment for me was the single-player though - not only was it buggy, it was poorly-paced, and a blatant rip-off of the Manchurian candidate. One of the things Infinity Ward does well is keeping you in the action. Treyarch kept tearing away player control for no valid reason. And what was with Sam Worthington's accent? I'm Australian and I found it grating. Why didn't they do additional takes? Good sound track though.

The original game on the SNES was one of my favourites. When I ordered this, I thought it was just a simple re-release. How wrong I was. It's like a totally new game, remade from the ground up. The battle system and the balancing isn't great, but they retained everything that made the original game great - music, story characters. I hope this game sell buckets and it gets a sequel!

The gameplay is less RPG and more 3rd person shooter, but they retained the RPG story elements, which is what made the original Mass Effect Great anyway. This is my game of the year. Though I hope they 3rd one removes the element mining, which was monotonous.

You can't release a game in this state. A month later, its still possible to encounter 100's of game breaking bugs. It's bad even for a Bethesda release (though about what you'd expect from Obsidian. The game play is essentially the same as Fallout 3. The faction system is really interesting though, and demands multiple play through's. Ignoring the bugs, the game is better than FO3. However, its definitely more of the same, and if you exhausted yourself in FO3, you won't find enough here to keep playing. Also, the Radio playlist is way too short, so you'll need an add on for sure.

Being a big fan of the original trilogy on the SNES, I feared that Retro would destroy my childhood. Fortunately they've done an excellent job. The level design is interesting, challenging and lots of fun. This is one of my games of the year.