Clash in the Clouds is the first of three DLC packs for Bioshock Infinite, a wave-based combat mode that sees you battle through increasingly more difficult arenas, whilst earning money by completing waves, and being able to upgrade weapons, vigors and abilities in order to cope with the increasingly more demanding tasks ahead.
There are 4 arenas in total, with 15 specifically designed waves for each one, for a total of 60 different waves throughout the content. You start as if you're a new character playing a brand new game, and beating waves will earn you money which you can use to gradually upgrade weapons and vigors, which will strengthen your character and better equip you for the latter arenas, which scale in difficulty. You also get gifted infusions between waves in order to increase your shield, health and salt capacity.
There are 10 new trophies added as part of this package, with 4 of these corresponding to just merely finishing each individual arena. You have unlimited lives to reach the end, so this is just an exercise that comes down to how long it takes you to progress, and the bare minimum of just passing through each arena shouldn't take longer than 3-4 hours. This is the easy bit.
Overall though, as a wider piece, this is a challenging package, with a difficulty set to a default of "Hard" which cannot be changed, and every type of enemy you've already seen throughout the main Bioshock story is accounted for and thrown at you. There is a noticeable spike in difficulty after the first arena where your upgrades just suddenly don't seem to be relative to the challenge, and you will find yourself farming the earlier stages of this DLC for money in order to improve your weapons and vigors to be able to stand up for yourself in the tougher arenas. However, once you've maxed out all the upgrades for weapons and vigors, it does become more manageable, but still not exactly a trouble-free experience.
It also doesn't help that you'll need to spend a considerable amount of money on unlocking all of the additional gallery content contained for another trophy within the list, and in hindsight, I should have saved this until the end when it turned out I had loads of surplus cash, rather than spending it early when I needed it more, so perhaps some ill-judgement on my part too which made the earlier progress somewhat slower.
The other trophies are awarded for smaller tasks that you should get naturally as you move through these arenas, and there will be plenty of chances to go back through as you drive towards the main goal in this list;
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| Blue Ribbon Champ - In CitC, completed all Blue Ribbons Challenges. |
To start with the challenging part, there are 60 Blue Ribbons in total to earn, and a Blue Ribbon is achieved through fulfillment of a specific task provided to the player at the start of each of the 60 waves. This corresponds to 1 Blue Ribbon for every wave across all 4 arenas, and the range of tasks is very varied.
My approach was to just casually play-through the arenas and unlock the prior trophies awarded for simply beating them, and seeing how many Blue Ribbons I could unlock along the way without trying to be conscious to their requirements. Most of these seemed to tick over relatively nicely at first, and this was a trend that continued right up until around the 45 Blue Ribbon mark, and whilst there was always that expectation I would reach a point where some of these tasks would begin to stand out and halt my progress, some of the tougher ones were either hard to execute, or either seemed to be driven by circumstantial luck, or by discovering ways to fulfill these requirements differently to what was actually stated.
For example, I discovered the objective to "defeat every enemy with the weapon they're using" still registered when you used the Undertow vigor just to knock them off the map instead, but not until I had spent hours attempting to frantically run around and find a specific weapon to kill an enemy with as per the objective only to die and have to go through the whole arena again. It didn't make sense, but it thankfully still worked, even though I had to spend a lot of time to discover an alternate method.
This wasn't always the case though, and the following objectives are the ones I ended up seriously struggling on;
- Duke and Dimwit Theater (Arena 2) - Wave 13 - Defeat 5 enemies with a single Devil's Kiss blast.
- Raven's Dome (Arena 3) - Wave 13 - Defeat all enemies while they are distracted with a Booker decoy tear.
- Emporia Arcade (Arena 4) - Wave 2 - Defeat 2 enemies who are riding Sky-lines with traps.
- Emporia Arcade (Arena 4) - Wave 5 - Defeat both Handymen while they are electrocuting a Sky-line.
- Emporia Arcade (Arena 4) - Wave 7 - Defeat two enemies with the Fireman's suicide attack.
- Emporia Arcade (Arena 4) - Wave 10 - Defeat all enemies only using the sniper rifle.
- Emporia Arcade (Arena 4) - Waves 11 - Defeat all enemies while they are distracted with a Booker decoy tear.
This doesn't quite paint the full picture though, and as previously mentioned, there are some big frustrations with the game design that also make this more difficult than it should be.
The biggest one is the fact that, every time you pass a wave, but you don't fulfill the requirements for the Blue Ribbon challenge (dying will also instantly fail the challenge too), you will have to go through the entire arena in order to reach the wave you still require the challenge for, just to have another attempt. This is a seriously big oversight and causes alot of unnecessary rework in the instances where the Blue Ribbon required is situated within the latter waves of any given arena.
Some of the challenges listed above I struggled on occur within later waves, and there is always that psychological edge that brings some pressure knowing you don't have any leniency from the game when you work up towards a certain wave. For a game that uses the chapter select feature so well within the main trophy list to mop up any excess trophies, to see them completely abandon the ability to replay a wave, just for the benefit of not having to slug through an entire arena just to get another shot at an outstanding challenge, is disappointing. It eventually makes it feel like you're spending a lot of dead time with the DLC, and even the incentive for money runs out eventually, so you really do feel like you're just going through the motions when you get down to the nitty gritty of those 2 or 3 Blue Ribbons left, which isn't fun after the 6th, 7th or 8th failed attempt at a challenge, which seemed to be a regular occurence.
The other big frustration is the fact that the game will register actions of enemies and count them against you for certain challenges, prematurely voiding them.
For example, in a wave where the challenge states "Defeat the enemies using only Vigor traps", enemies falling off the landscape via their own accord, or enemies wielding heavy weapons, such as RPG's, and causing friendly fire splash damage, will go against you and provide you with the failed challenge prompt. I wouldn't say it makes less sense than having to play through an entire arena again, but it is frustrating to know you're being penalised by the actions of questionable AI.
This is a rocky road for numerous and varied reasons, and will take you somewhere within the region of 12-20 hours in total to beat, hugely dependent on the above factors. It is an experience blended up of challenge and annoyance, and completion is met with relief more so than satisfaction, though it is a good feeling to eventually knock off an increasingly elusive Blue Ribbon challenge, even if the incredibly tedious repeatability does wear you down. I actually had a lot of fun pursuing this list, but the nuances do leave a bittersweet aftertaste.
I haven't had an experience with Burial at Sea yet, which is next up, but I would be suprised if Clash in the Clouds somehow wasn't the peak for Bioshock Infinite's DLC offering.
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