When comparing Bioshock Infinite vs The Talos Principle, the Slant community recommends The Talos Principle for most people. In the question“What are the best singleplayer games on Steam?” The Talos Principle is ranked 7th while Bioshock Infinite is ranked 17th. The most important reason people chose The Talos Principle is:
The puzzles in the game are great, but they're tied together with a thought provoking story line filled with mystery and intrigue. A story about a robot with human consciousness who is being guided by a disembodied voice, are they to be trusted? As the story progresses the player is drip fed clues which can lead them closer to the truth.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Great story
Touching on themes of classism, racism, the power of religion, propaganda, and even delving into the metaphysical, Bioshock Infinite delivers a compelling story that will have you engaged till the very end.
Pro The world is amazing
A city floating in the sky with quantum physics set in the early 1900s with gear propelled robots and powers brought on by tonics are awaiting you in the city of Columbia. Bright colors and amazing vistas that are populated with floating islands that house full carnival resorts, giant memorial statues, along with deadly enslavement camps and prisons bring Bioshock’s world to life.
Pro Intense fast-paced gameplay
Continuing the super-powered gameplay from the first two Bioshock’s this installment in the series refines the fun and fast formula. Use tonics to launch fireballs, ravens, or electricty at your foes, or make them fight by your side, as long as you have enough salt that is. Then to liven things up get help from Elizabeth’s “tears” to bring in more guns and tin-men from another time/dimension to aid you in your fight!
Pro Great Add-On content
With the main game being so great you just want to keep playing. So Irrational Games came out with four DLC packs: Columbia’s Finest, Clash in the Clouds, Burial at Sea Episode 1 and Episode 2.
Pro Great storyline
The puzzles in the game are great, but they're tied together with a thought provoking story line filled with mystery and intrigue. A story about a robot with human consciousness who is being guided by a disembodied voice, are they to be trusted? As the story progresses the player is drip fed clues which can lead them closer to the truth.
Pro Lots of side content
Many Easter eggs and more difficult puzzles as well as an ending in many parts of the game, as well as hidden lore.
Pro Difficulty ramp-up
Starts out easy enough, but gets to some truly difficult puzzles by the end. If you get stuck on a puzzle you can skip it and come back to it later.
Pro Rewards exploration and out-of-the-box thinking
It's hard to explain this without spoiling anything, but there are lots of "aha!" moments you will encounter on the areas if you get invested into the story, making the game deeper.
Pro Great original soundtrack
The soundtrack is very pleasant to listen to and fits perfectly with all the areas and themes present in the game. It varies from calm music, for those heavenly areas where you are solving puzzles, to more misterious and epic pieces for moments when things get... real. It's good to have some nice music playing while your brain is melting from solving the puzzles, or just appreciating the scenery.
Cons
Con The ending is very unclear and open to interpretation.
After multiple twists that logically link from one to another, the end doesn't completely follow any reasoning or logic, it seems out of the blue, confusing and open to interpretation. As someone who played the game for the story, a huge disruptive disappointment.
Con Story and Gameplay can give mixed tones
A high story concept mixed with super bloody battles threw off some people’s experience of the game who site ludonarrative dissonance as the problem.
Con Working with the level editor is difficult (no documentation)
There is not much documentation for the level editor in the game, as the creators primarily use it for themselves. There are of course many hotkeys you could accidentally press as well.
Con Obtuse puzzles, especially with optional content
Mediocre game design all around. Many puzzles are ordered badly or redundant and could have been combined or removed to smoothen the experience, as well as occasionally not exercising the bounds of certain elements (like ranged pickup). The game's optional content is even more worrisome as it often leads you to play hidden object games to look in hundreds of corners instead of using more difficult puzzles. One particularly egregious example is when you have to interpret a message in a very specific way after using a decryption algorithm you may not know about into another questionable input system.