BIOSHOCK: INFINITE – Big Trouble in Little Columbia

It’s once again time to put on the top hat and monocle and talk a little  of the game’s brief history:

Bioshock is one of those “Legacy” titles.  Legacy in the sense that when you shout “Bioshock” into a crowd of gaming nerds, such as myself, everybody in the room asks “Big Daddy?”  There have only been 2 other incarnations of the game (aptly titled Bioshock and Bioshock 2), and both feature dives down under the ocean to an 1960’s Ann Rand style utopia turned into graphic and horrifying dystopia…with some pretty killer super powers to boot, yet the Bioshock series has become a well recognized franchise in gaming.

One thing that is always interesting about the Bioshock series, is the fact that it mixes a few gaming themes together.  It’s not quite an RPG, and not entirely quite a traditional FPS, it’s not really rail shooter (kind of ironic in Bioshock: Infinite, actually), and not quite a cinematic game.  It’s a mix and match of all of these things, patched together with story that makes makes the game as a whole quite interesting and holds enough flashing lights and tense situations to capture your attention with ease.

Game: Bioshock: Infinite
Platform: PC, Mac, Ps3, Xbox 360
Dev: Irrational, 2k, Human Head Studios, Darkside Game Studios
ESRB Rating: M

Now to the game that’s on hand.  Bioshock: Infinite.  I have to say, I had a little hesitation with getting it.  To be honest, I was not a fan of the second game.  I did love Bioshock 1, but even in that incarnation, the first half of the story was brilliant, the 2nd half… felt like they had written themselves into a corner and couldn’t quite hash out where they were going.  Bioshock 2 had a large thick heavy handful of story issues..  The sequel is never as good as the original, as the saying goes.  Overall, it felt like they just took the environments from Bioshock one, did slight alterations (like changing the colors of the majority of enemies) and repackaged it, hoping no one would really notice.  There were also some points where they had set up a zone and story scene for a dynamic character’s entrance… only to just throw “her” into the slew of infinite spawning generic baddies.  I did like, however, that you could defeat the last boss with a crossbow and some string.

Playing through Bioshock: Infinite (and beyond), was, well, a visual treat.  Every single scene was absolutely beautiful.  They said “We’re giving you all a sky city” and oh boy did they deliver.  I liked the time setting (late 1800’s – early 1900’s), and they do a very good job in encapsulating the feeling of such a time, even when faced with in-game technological marvels.  Like previous Bioshocks most of the enemy types are the same (tons of straight up people), they do a good job of keeping each enemy interesting, for the most part.  There’s lots of dramatic costume changes and it keeps things quite fresh between boss fights.

Game mechanics on the whole, work.  They did a very good job in keeping what usually is a fairly complicated video game maneuver into a simple action in so you can  focus on important things like “keeping yourself alive”.

Your grappling magnet arm of death contraption (the Sky-Hook, or as I like to call it “Spinny magnetized bludgeon of +1 decapitation”) has a dual functionality as either a powerfully destructive and decadently gruesome melee attack, upon each “special kill” I get from it has me yelling “BOOSH!” at my screen, and the GTFO style grappling hook.  The major thing that made the game mechanics around this so easy was the fact that you don’t have to “stand in a special designated spot” or “be within a very narrow and limited range” of the object you are grappling to.  They made a good decision to keep it distant enough to allow freedom, but limited just enough to allow for an air of belief.  In a simple button press, you are zip-lining your way to victory.  They did a very good job in solidifying this bizarre device into being the next iconic melee weapon to be worshiped and known by nerds everywhere, enshrined right next to Gordon Freeman’s brand of crowbars.

I’m going to try and spoil as little as possible in this review.  One of the things I was a little disappointed with the game, was that it looks like the developers were planning on putting a decision based mechanism in the game… then didn’t.  So there are key frames of “make a decision” junctions you come across, yet no matter your choice, nothing changes in any real notable significance.  There are only two other things that gained my disapproval.   One being that it introduces a blatant in your face vision of racism and your character stays unconcerned and neutral about it through the whole thing.  Well, not as much neutral, more of a “well, it’s just not my fight, nothing to do here” attitude.  With all the propaganda and a “not-so-secret society”, I was expecting a little more of a kick to that aspect of the story.  The last thing is on the ending.  Not so much with the ending itself.  The ending wraps up everything quite nicely into little tidy bows on top… it’s the fact that they’ve wrapped up so nicely, and there’s supposed to be DLC in the future… what on earth is left for them to tell?  It’ll be interesting to see where they go from here.

Another minor spoiler: Bioshock: Infinity has one of the best escort quests I’ve ever played.  There, that’s it, that’s all you’re getting from me spoil wise.

I do have to say, I was surprised the internet wide dreaded 1999 mode (the hardest mode of the game) wasn’t really that difficult.  There were some parts that really sucked (Handy-men especially), but it didn’t really take me much longer than a normal play-through to get through it all.

In the end, the one major downer of this game, is that it is short.  It’s about a 10-15 hour game, which is a shame because what is in those 10-15 hours is so good.

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being absolute trash and 10 being face-melting video game godliness:

Bioshock: Infinite gets a 7.  A Sky-Hook of bliss right to the brain.