WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF BIOSHOCK INFINITE
Here's a small preview of the official BradyGames strategy guide for Bioshock Infinite.
Set in 1912, the player assumes the role of former Pinkerton agent Booker DeWitt, sent to the flying city of Columbia on a rescue mission. His target? Elizabeth, imprisoned since childhood. During their daring escape, Booker and Elizabeth form a powerful bond—one that lets Booker augment his own abilities with her world-altering control over the environment. Together, they fight from high-speed Sky-Lines, in the streets and houses of Columbia, on giant zeppelins, and in the clouds, all while learning to harness an expanding arsenal of weapons and abilities.
EAT DRINK AND BE MERRY
ALCOHOL (WHISKEY, BEER, ETC.) & FOOD (HOT DOGS, COTTON CANDY, ETC.)
These items restore a lot of health but also decrease Salts a significant amount. These beverages should only be used in an emergency because the trade-off of health for Salts usually isn’t worth it. These beverages can also make Booker drunk, which is required to unlock the Lost Weekend achievement. Food items restore the Health Meter a small amount. You’ll find plenty of them all around, but it might take a few of these items to fully restore Booker’s health if he is really hurting.
DRINKS (SODA, ETC.)
Non-alcoholic beverages restore the Salts Meter a small amount. When it comes to Salts, every little bit helps, so pick up these supplies whenever they are avaliable.
CIGARETTES
Smoking restores Salts, but at the cost of a large portion of health. These are almost never worth using because Salts are fairly plentiful. You probably want to leave these alone, unless you are in a situation where you really need the Salts.
WEAPONS AND AMMO
You can collect weapons either from defeated enemies or from random locations around Columbia. Watch especially for weapons that are simply placed in the world, as these can provide a hint about what’s coming up soon—if you see a Sniper Rifle on the ground, beware of enemy snipers! You can find ammo for weapons separately. There are boxes of ammunition hidden all over the game world. These generally restock a large portion of your ammo supplies. It can also be scrounged from the corpses of your enemies, though this typically only replenishes your ammo a few shots at a time.
MEDICAL KITS AND SALT PHIALS
Food isn’t the only way you can restore your health and Salts, since you can also find Medical Kits and Salts Phials of various sizes located throughout Columbia. Small Medical Kits restore 25% of a meter, medium sizes restore 50%, and large sizes can fully restore a single meter. Salt Phials can range anywhere from 10-100%, but will generally restore more than finding drinks. There are also many Vigor bottles in various places that can be picked up and used. If you haven’t received a particular Vigor before, it will grant a new power for you to use permanently! If you have already found it, it will completely restore the Salts Meter, so you should pick up any Vigor bottle that you see in Columbia—you never know, it might power Booker up permanently!
GEAR
Booker can equip up to four pieces of ability-enhancing Gear to boost his powers and give him access to an array of new combat options and tactics. Each piece of Gear attaches to one of four specific slots—Hats, Shirts, Boots, and Pants. Only one piece of Gear can be affixed to a slot at a time, so even if you have two different Hats, you can only equip one. Of course, you can just store any extra Gear in your inventory and swap it out when the need arises. Whenever Gear is collected, the piece that is actually received is completely random—each time you play through the game, you may find a completely different set of Gear! Most Gear is carefully hidden, so you should always keep an eye out for more pieces. Also, you receive a piece every time you kill a Handyman, so pay close attention whenever you take one of these hearty foes down!
INFUSIONS
These rare items give you the ability to permanently boost one of your meters, allowing you to increase your Health, Salts, or Shield Meter each time you pick one up. Each Infusion bottle only allows you to boost one stat, so keep this in mind before you decide on the choice of upgrade. Infusions are very well-hidden and incredibly rare. They also fully restore whatever meter you’re upgrading. Consult the walkthrough of this guide to make sure that you find them all!
BROADSIDER PISTOL
STRATEGY
The Broadsider Pistol is the first weapon you’ll find in Columbia. The Pistol doesn’t deal much damage, but its speed and high ammo count make it a valuable weapon throughout most of the game. Although it doesn’t deal much damage per shot, the Pistol can fire very quickly—as fast as you can pull the trigger! The Pistol also reloads quickly, so when using the Broadsider, don’t be afraid to spray ammo everywhere! The Pistol deals huge damage on a critical hit, which is often enough to take out many soldiers in one to two shots. When using the Pistol, aim toward the heads of your enemies to take them out quickly.
FIREMAN
TACTICS AND STRATEGY
These heavy hitter enemies are trapped in iron maiden-like devices that are constantly burning them for their wrongdoings in life. They use the Devil’s Kiss Vigor in combat, allowing them to attack you with the fire that surrounds them. The Fireman generally attacks by throwing Devil’s Kiss projectiles at you. While these fireballs are slow and easy to avoid, they explode shortly after hitting the ground, damaging anything nearby. This explosion has enormous range, so even if you dodge the initial fireball, run as fast as you can to get away from it! If you get too close, the Fireman attacks with a close-range explosive attack. Before this attack occurs, the Fireman glows brighter and brighter before exploding. You can bait this attack by moving close to the Fireman, causing him to stop and charge up. Then, move backwards out of his range to fire at him.
To take a Fireman out, keep aiming at his head while moving from side to side to avoid the attacks he throws at you. Once you get used to his methods of attack, bait him into exploding by moving close, then backpedal while firing at him to stop him from throwing fireballs. Be careful once you have the Fireman near death—he’ll charge at you and then self-destruct, causing big damage while wiping himself out. Early in the game, keep firing at him even once he starts running toward you, since you won’t be able to do much to stop him. You’ll slow him down with every shot, so make sure you keep unloading on him until he explodes. After you get Bucking Bronco, you can use this to both take him out quickly and completely avoid his self-destruct attack. Lift him up in the air, and quickly unload on him to dispatch this foe in a flash!
