Drown in Flames of a Bioshock Infinite Review

The seed of the prophet shall sit the throne, and drown in flames of a Bioshock Infinite Review

Topping many of the “Best of 2013” lists recently and also being chastised as an overly praised game, I figured why not throw my hat into the ring on this one. I recently played and beat Bioshock Infinite and I feel that maybe (just maybe) I can offer a fresh perspective of what is an otherwise fine game.

Before we get into the details I will say this game is certainly not making it as my “best of 2013.” It might overtake my 10^th or 9^th spot, but certainly no higher than that. It was fun, colorful, and enjoyable but nothing that really sucked me in in any really meaningful way. This wasn’t to the same narrative level as some of my favorite games like Portal, Chrono Trigger, or even Walking Dead. This isn’t to say it’s bad, but me just letting you know I won’t simply be gushing praise at it.

That in mind, I also don’t plan on spending an entire review devoted to saying how overhyped it was and how it shouldn’t have been on anyone’s top-five list for 2013. You’re entitled to like the games you like to whatever degree you like. And this game certainly had some good/interesting ideas going in that, with deeper exploration, might have inclined me to give it even more praise. But it is what it is. And what it is, is not a pile of shit nor a gift from the heavens. What we have here is a fairly competent shooter that had big ideas. Some of which work and some of which kind of don’t. So let’s dive in and see what’s what. 

Let’s start with a rough synopsis of the story. I’ll keep it spoiler free even though it’s been out for months, so that shouldn’t really be an issue. But, still, common courtesy. Ahem… So the story starts with YOU, Booker DeWitt, begin sent into the sky-city of Columbia to find a young lady (Elizabeth) to help wipe away your debt. You enter the city, take in the sights, find out everyone’s incredibly racist and then they start attacking you like you’re the anti-Christ (mostly because of all the propaganda). You must then fight your way through waves of guards of all shapes, sizes, and ability to find Elizabeth, find out why she’s there, and discover the truth about Columbia and Comstock (I kept thinking Corn Stalk).

Oh, right, Elizabeth! She’s your sidekick/escort/super-powered friend who can open tears in reality. This power isn’t fully explained until the end, so don’t expect me to get into that here. But it’s overly useful in how it helps you get extra weapons, high points, medicines, and even find secrets. I think that Bioshock Infinite does a great job making Elizabeth feel both important, useful, and while continuing to make her a good character. She’s cute, fun, smart, and can see through the bullshit quite well. Certainly among one of my favorite new characters for 2013. 

Let’s move on to gameplay. It’s pretty standard for the most part. You have guns and you shoot at things that are shooting at you. You can also make things shooting at you shoot at other things shooting at you with special powers called “Vigors.” These vigors are drinks that come in a variety of flavors such as providing fire powers, electric powers, mild telekinesis, crow summoning (way to rip off Dishonored guys), Magneto-shield, and my personal favorite, the warping punch attack. Basically, for that last one, you target an enemy when you use it. You instantly move towards them with an explosive punch. It’s pretty effective for moving around the battlefield and I think it looks kind of cool.

You also have a fair variety of guns (nothing too abnormal) all of which can be upgraded for slightly higher damage, accuracy, lower recoil, or holding more ammo. For me, I kept the shotgun with me almost the entire game because there’s literally nothing else I found that delivered on the power in the same way that early on. Close range, sure, but mix that in with your vigors and you’re good to go. It’s especially good when you combine that with the “Charge” vigor. I’d swap my other weapon out now and then, but I mostly kept a sniper as well to make sure I could pick off targets my shotgun was too far away to hit. 

There’s variety in the enemies but not all that much. You have your basic soldiers, your bombers, your flame-soldiers, your mechanical monsters, various turrets, and “the Handyman” which is this game’s equivalent to a “Big Daddy” from the original Bioshock, though I didn’t play that, so I wouldn’t know for sure. For me, I guess a more apt comparison would be like the Tank from Left4Dead or perhaps the Sheegoth from Metroid Prime. A big enemy that feels like a boss but, the more you play, the more frequently you’ll have to deal with them, though not as frequently by the end as I had anticpated.

So with that summary up, what’s good and what’s bad?

What’s good is the world building. The opening sequence of the game (maybe the first full hour or two) where you just arrive in Columbia is pretty enjoyable just to see the world around you and experience all the little bits and pieces of lore. Yes, there’s lots of propaganda, but it’s interesting to see all the shit that indoctrinated an entire culture of people living with their heads literally in the clouds. Lots of work went into crafting this violent and racist cloud-cult that I could actually believe this exists just with how well it was built. 

As I said, the gameplay isn’t anything overly impressive, but it’s still good because it’s fast-paced and the punishment for failure isn’t anything long and drawn out like the bullshit I’ve put up with in some games (looking at you hedgehog). You die, Elizabeth will bring you back up, and then you’re thrown back into the fray again. So the combat never loses its charm, though I would like better melee combat. Something about it never really connected with me, like it was clunky and awkward. Which is a shame because I was focusing mostly on close range combat (thanks to charge-vigor & shotgun) and having a more reliable melee attack would have been appreciative.

Also the vigors didn’t seem overly useful in this game. There is a couple you have to use for story progression or finding secrets. But for the vast majority they went unused for me after their initial test-run to see if they were any good. As I said, I mostly stuck with “Charge” and I would only sometimes switch to “Possession” or “Devil’s Kiss” if I needed to get extra firepower from a turned-ally or literal fire. And that seems like a bit of a let-down. I would have thought a game with such depth would have at least offered some more challenging situations to make those other vigors more useful. Especially that shitty water vigor I never used because by that point I had already found a combination I liked and it was just getting in the way. 

Speaking of challenge, the game is fairly simple and straightforward without anything too challenging that brute forcing a segment can’t accomplish. It’s also a fairly short game. It’s a rarity I can beat a game in a weekend, but the fact I could shows just how short it is. That or how compelling I found it where I couldn’t put it down. Perhaps a bit of both? According to steam, I only played 11 hours in total. So, yes, I suppose that is kind of short. Not Bastion or Portal short, but still not all that lengthy. And that was with dying a few times when I initially tried it on hard-difficulty and getting lost a couple of times.

But now for what I think is the most important part, moments for me that stood out in the game for whatever reason. Here’s where spoiler territory comes into play. So I’ll put up a “Buffer” at the beginning and end of the spoilers. Just skip to the last set of “buffers” to avoid spoilers.

BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! 

As I already stated, the beginning of the game certainly set up the world of Columbia quite nicely as a façade of wholesome niceness that was hiding a deep and terribly violent nature that just wanted to come out and it’s impressive when it finally does. And I’ll hold up it’s certainly one of my favorite “intro sequences” to a game, there are some other great scenes here as well. 

One of which is the mental institution you go through nearing the end of the game when Songbird has recaptured Elizabeth and you have to free her. Various parts of the level are telling you a lot of time has passed since you last saw Elizabeth. The whole section builds up the illusion that you failed to do your job while you’re trying to do your job. But what really got to me was how creepy the institution itself actually was with the inmates (I assume) all being guys with the Founder’s masks on and they’d be called to attack you once the security alarm went off. This tension was only compacted when I ran out of ammo and vigors at one point. And while normally I could get more from defeated enemies, the inmates never had anything on them, leaving me with only melee as an option until I could find ANYTHING else to shoot nearing the last rooms.

Another section worth of note was earlier in the game when you are called out by Daisy Fitzroy to get guns for her revolution in order to get your airship out of Columbia. There’s a lot about this I could talk about in great detail that I like in spades. BUT two points I want to touch on would be earlier in this when you are first trying to do the mission. You have to speak to the gunsmith, Mr. Chen. By the time you go to see him, he’s dead. You travel across dimensions to where he’s alive, but not really. But then you have to travel again to find out he’s dead in the next reality you go to and it is already the first sign in the game that something isn’t right and that perhaps the amount of action your taking in crossing dimensions isn’t good for all of reality. 

This is further evidenced when, after supposedly helping Fitzroy in her revolution, you find out that she’s no worse than Comstock. She lied about you being a martyr (killing her dimension’s version of you and saying you died at the hands of Comstock) in order to further her rebellion’s efforts. Her people damage the city in ways far beyond what I had initially anticipated, reminding me of scenes from Dishonred and the city of Dunwall being torn asunder by the plague. The power got to her head like it did Comstock and it was then you see just how horrible everyone up there is.

I could talk about the ending a bit, since we are in the “spoiler” section. I don’t want to go into too much detail. But for all the shit I’ve seen people give this game, I’ll say it’s okay. BUT it has the same issue I have with games like Sonic 2006 or Super Mario Bros 2. In that the ending event of the game erases the events of the game from ever taking place. In Sonic 06, they went back in time to when Iblis and Mephiles were first created and prevented them from every existing, thus erasing all the events of the game. In Super Mario Bros 2, the entire game was a dream, making it seem like the events of the game never really happened. And now we have Elizabeth/Anna killing her father, Comstock/DeWitt which erases both of them from existence and prevents all the events of this game from ever happening. 

I’m not saying the scene didn’t look cool or that it didn’t make sense. It all fell together to make the events of this game all sensible in a logic I could mostly follow. But the fact it’s one of those save the day by erasing the events that led to it from existence seems kind of cheap and makes me feel like the overall narrative of the game serves no real purpose. Certainly a lesson could have been learned by letting DeWitt/Comstock live to see the consequences of their actions. Because it is my opinion that we learn best through failure and no one failed harder than Comstock. Letting him live to wallow in that failure would have been punishment enough. Seeing his kingdom fall apart and lie in ruins could have been punishment enough for him. But erasing him from existence? That seems like taking the easy way out to me.

Now excuse me while I buffer some of you back into the review.

BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER! BUFFER!

So that’s my review of Bioshock Inifinte. It’s a good game and certainly one that can initiate some deep discussions one a wide array of topics. I wouldn’t call it one of my favorites from 2013, but it most decidedly is not bad by any means. If you have a weekend free and some extra spending money, this is one I’d recommend picking up at some point. Now that I’m done with that, I might take a crack at Bioshock (the first one) and see how it holds up for me after having been out for something like seven years. See ya next time.