Bioshock: Infinite and Tomb Raider

A quick rundown of my thoughts on the aforementioned games.

I know I'm a bit late to the party with Bioshock, but it bears mention nonetheless. It's good, very good. There's no praise that I can give it that hasn't probably already been said. The atmosphere is absolutely incredible. Elizabeth is an awesome companion, as well- the game could have ended up as an excruciating, never ending escort quest but thankfully she never ever proves to be an annoyance. To be perfectly fair, this is because she's invincible and her job is to avoid combat, so it isn't exactly a triumph of AI mastery. If I had to register any complaints about the game it would be the weapon balancing and the random, arbitrary difficulty spike at the end of the game. Regarding the weapons, I found that the hand cannon essentially becomes the only weapon you need to use, once it was fully upgraded. Exploding heads left and right made my second weapon slot and "vigors" (special abilities) collect dust for the vast majority of the game, and the fact that Elizabeth would throw you ammo nearly every time you almost ran dry, there was hardly any need to even touch other weapons. The difficulty spike at the end of the game was far more of an issue. The final battle ramps up the difficulty to the point where you don't even feel challenged, simply bashing your way through a trial and error sequence. That said, I would still highly recommend the game.

Tomb Raider is a thoroughly enjoyable reboot of the franchise that I'm really liking so far. I've yet to get all the way through the game, but it's quite fun aside from a few little areas where it becomes clear that it is a PC port of a console game. I don't like quick-time events one bit, and the fact that they often have obscure commands you need to follow that aren't exactly clear the first time or two though can get really frustrating. The upgrade system for the weapons and skills, though, is quite nice. Graphically, the game is amazing as well. Barring some sort of egregious shortcoming that I uncover as I continue through the game, I would also give it a good recommendation for players who enjoy adventure games.