Overview
Developer: Irrational Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Platform(s): Xbox 360, PS3, PC (Steam)
BioShock Infinite, the third game in the franchise and second from Ken Levine and Irrational Games, is a game that truly understands what it means to set a scene and establish a world. For someone such as myself who plays games to escape and to visit places that would otherwise be impossible to explore, the floating of city of Colombia could not be a more perfect setting for the story that Infinite aims to tell. This is truly a game that grabs you immediately and refuses to let you go, even after completion.
As mentioned above, the game does a great job of letting you know what is going on in its world as soon as you step off the boat. In the early stages of the game, Columbia seems like a giant World's Fair, with fireworks popping off to celebrate The Prophet, Zachary Comstock, the newest technologies being shown off, as well as lines upon lines of ambient dialogue that give players a glimpse into what is going on. The pomp and circumstance of it all may seem overbearing to some players, but it is really done to drive home the points the game is trying to make about society in the city. As the game goes on, the setting changes to reflect the mood of the level, each area different yet same enough to be recognizable as part of Columbia.
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| Columbia is truly a beautiful city in the sky |
In addition to the setting changing as the story moves forward, Irrational has filled Colombia to the brim with little tidbits of information. One of the reasons I took over 12 hours to complete the game while some people are taking 8 or 9 is because there are simply so many little nooks and crannies to explore. Almost every room has something like a newspaper or a painting to really set the mood, and the voxophone audio logs really help to flesh out the world as well as the story set within it.
Oh boy, that story. In BioShock Infinite, you play as Booker DeWitt, a man who is sent to Columbia to “Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt.” The debt he has acquired from years of gambling, and the girl is Elizabeth, a young woman trapped in the top of a tower, guarded by the mysterious Songbird. Where the story goes from there is really best discovered by the player. Overall, the story is very good, and achieves its goal of making you want to carry on throughout the campaign. However, it is the last chunk of the game, let’s say the last 30 minutes or so, that elevates the story from well above average to one of the smartest and one of the best stories ever seen in the medium. Ken Levine is a masterful storyteller, and BioShock Infinite is his magnum opus. It truly has to be witnessed to be believed.
Story aside, Infinite is still a video game, specifically a first person shooter. The good thing is, it is a really fun one. In addition to your standard mix of rifles, pistols, shotgun, and heavy weapons, you have access to an arsenal of special powers called vigors. These act similarly to plasmids from the original BioShock, except this time around they are just activated with a separate button kind of like grenades in most shooters instead of being equipped like a gun. The vigors range from a simple fire bomb to things like my personal favorite, “Bucking Bronco,” which lifts enemies up in the air, leaving them vulnerable. Most of the vigors have a secondary function such as leaving a trap, but I didn’t find most of them to be useful in most situations. Elizabeth can also open tears in combat that do things like spawn a friendly turret or make health kits available. You can only have one of these tears open at a time, but they definitely allow you to really change the flow of a battle.
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| The themes tackled in the world of BioShock Infinite make it a world completely worth getting lost in. |
The combat overall is mostly fun, but seems to rely too heavily on the environment in which the battle is taking place. Indoor and corridor shoot-outs are still satisfying, but it is in the open areas that feature multiple tears and skylines that things really get hectic and incredibly enjoyable. I was playing on the Hard difficulty for most of the game, and having to run and jump to and from skylines while popping off shots and grabbing supplies in brief windows of opportunity is some of the most fun I have had in an FPS in quite some time. The indoor and more restricted fights do make it somewhat easier to get into a boring rhythm of using the same weapons and vigors, but if the player makes a conscious choice to mix it up, the combat never gets stale. It is a combat system where the more you put in, the more you will get out. As a personal note, I really felt that playing on a harder difficulty made even the more mundane fights interesting, but that is obviously not something every player is willing to do.
There are good games, and then there are great games. Similarly, there are great games, and then there are games that really remind you why you enjoy games in the first place. BioShock Infinite is definitely one of the latter. It is experiences like Infinite that remind me that the industry is not just nothing but predictable sequels and annualized franchises. It may have taken 4 more years to make than your average Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed, but the extra time and care that went into creating the world clearly shines through. As someone who plays games to get lost in another world, I can think of few more interesting worlds to enter than the floating city of Columbia. BioShock Infinite is a masterpiece in almost every way, as well as the most modern game I have played it years in terms of thematic impact and story. Since the original BioShock was released, there has been some discussion about where it stands among the best games of all time. Now, with Infinite added to the mix, there will be discussion about whether the original is even the best game in the franchise.
10/10
