Rating of
5/5
Effective Anti-Tea-Party Propaganda
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 01/31/15
“BioShock Infinite” (“Infinite”) is the third in a series of well-liked FPSes that began not-so-long ago in 2007. After two games in the series that were practically carbon copies of each other, I was dubious that “Infinite” would actually do anything to improve on a completely average gameplay formula and keep the excellent writing going that finally delivered what I expected in the “BioShock 2” DLC, “Minerva’s Den.” All I can say is that I’m no longer dubious.
Presentation
“Infinite” breaths new life into the drab-but-competent environments and hideously mutated characters of the ‘BioShock’ franchise by placing the game’s action in a fully functioning utopia that begins to slowly fall apart during the actual course of the game. Instead of dropping the player straight into a destroyed and decaying environment that is mostly empty and decorated in lovely shades of darkness and rust, “Infinite” creates a vibrant, beautiful, and fantastical take on an alternate version of the year 1912. The original pristine environments look great, and seeing the beauty fade really helps to create an emotional impact. The presence of civilian characters in the game and the fact that the player is pitted against normal folks as enemies instead of genetically-spliced-up mutants is also a significant improvement over the first two games in the franchise. Even the art direction for simple things like billboards and signage does a fantastic job of evoking America in the early 20th Century.
The audio is quite spectacular, as, once again, the majority of the soundtrack is period music emitted over loudspeakers or nearby victrolas. However, someone on the audio design team for “Infinite” had the brilliant insight to include ‘the sounds of tomorrow, today’ in the soundtrack. The result is that, on rare occasions, music from much later than 1912 creeps its way into the game, but with an early 20th Century feel. When I heard The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” performed by a barbershop quartet standing on a flying dinghy, I knew then and there that I was in for a treat with “Infinite” (even moreso when one considers how well the lyrics of that song jibe with the overarching theme of “Infinite’s” plot) I just wish that more music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s had gotten this retro treatment!
The voiceacting is still fantastic, as expected from the series, but is actually made significantly better by the fact that in “Infinite,” the main character and his sidekick both talk, whereas both previous ‘BioShock’ games featured mute protagonists. None of the credited actors are big-names from Hollywood, but they all kind of sound like someone recognizable, which is a plus for the game’s budget.
“Infinite” also improves drastically on the franchise’s historic technical issues on PC. Whereas “BioShock” had one annoying bug and “BioShock 2” was generally unstable, “Infinite” is a rock-solid experience that runs flawlessly.
Story
The ‘BioShock’ franchise is known for having deeper, more philosophical stories than 90% of videogames and 100% of first-person shooters. These stories have always teased the player with twists and surprises that have almost always failed to deliver at a crucial turning point or final reveal (with the exception of the “BioShock 2” DLC, “Minerva’s Den”). Infinite,” however, finally delivers on the promise the series has always held.
Instead of taking place, once again, in the ruins of the 1950s underwater Objectivist capital of Rapture, “Infinite” takes place in the year 1912 on a man-made flying city-state called Columbia. Our hero is one Booker Dewitt, a former mercenary with the Pinkertons who retired and took up a career in private investigations. Booker’s life is turned upside down when, in order to clear a massive gambling debt, he is commissioned to infiltrate Columbia and retrieve a mysterious girl who has been imprisoned in a gigantic tower by the city-state’s uncontested ruler, savior, and prophet, Zachary Hale Comstock.
Upon freeing the girl, named Elizabeth, from her prison, things go from bad to worse, as Booker and Elizabeth unwittingly set-off a chain reaction of events in their attempt to escape Columbia and head to New York. Between Elizabeth’s mysterious powers and a peasant uprising that aims to take-down Comstock’s religious ruling class and stamp out the endemic racism and inequality in the system, the player is given a front-row seat to the events that take Columbia from an idyllic utopia where capitalism and a twisted flavor of Evangelical Christianity rule with an iron fist to a depopulated wasteland where anarchists roam the streets killing anyone who looks to be better off than they are.
“Infinite” is a much less isolated experience than previous ‘BioShock’ games thanks to Booker not being a silent protagonist and Elizabeth’s near-constant companionship as a sidekick. The two lead characters share frequent dialogs, revealing tantalizing bits and pieces of backstory at a nice pace and providing emotional foundation stones upon which to both build interpersonal relationships between characters and draw the player into the characters’ plight. Elizabeth is a fantastic sidekick character since she doesn’t need to be babysat from a gameplay perspective and is simply allowed to be adorable, enigmatic, idiosyncratic, tough, and feisty, all while dealing with and reacting to the same horrors and revelations as Booker.
The titular ‘infinite’ refers to parallel dimensions and alternate universes, which end up being at the core of “Infinite’s” narrative. The overall plot of the game reminds me very much of the TV show “Fringe” (which I really liked!), with Elizabeth merging the roles of Peter and Olivia from the show. Other important roles from “Fringe,” such as the mad scientist and the desperate father, are present in “Infinite” as well, but with enough twists that it doesn’t feel like plagiarism.
In the end, “Infinite” ties up all of its plot threads with a neat bow, drops a stunningly amazing twist, and resolves with a satisfying conclusion, all in a nice 20-hour package. Some minor plot details don’t get covered in as laborious detail as in previous ‘BioShock’ games – for instance, very little to-do is made about the Vigors that replace the previous games’ Plasmids as a form of attack ‘magic,’ as they are simply accepted as one of the miracles allowed by Prophet Comstock’s omniscience . But spending so much time explaining some of “Infinite’s” non-central supernatural elements would only serve to drag-down the pace of the narrative and bog down the player with inconsequential minutia.
Aside from its fantastically written and resolved narrative and delightful cast of characters, “Infinite” does an amazing job of world-building. The alternate 1900s universe where the separation of church and state has been tossed-away and mad science provides the fact behind 100% of the Prophet’s miracles is combined masterfully with historical social and moral norms from the real world to create a terrifyingly-believable look at where the United States was in the not-so-distant past and where the Tea Party Republicans want to take the United States in the present. The endemic racism – which even classifies Irish people as ‘colored’ – and an unhealthy love of the Protestant Work Ethic (which holds that successful people are successful because God loves them more) are representative of the way the ‘BioShock’ writers love to take a philosophy and stretch it to dysfunctional extremes.
The Columbian lore that elevates George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson to sainted status while vilifying Abraham Lincoln as a devil who was heroically slain by John Wilkes Booth provides yet more anchors in true history for events that have spun gloriously out of control in the game’s distorted alternate universe. Even as the detestable rulers of Columbia begin to lose their grip on power, the player is left in a lurch regarding which side to root for, since the peasant uprising allows their growing power to corrupt them into a full-blown terrorist organization. This kind of moral ambiguity and preponderance of ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ situations makes “Infinite” far more interesting than the moral dichotomy of previous games in the series. Even in a game that focuses on ‘infinite’ possibilities in ‘infinite’ universes, “Infinite” only has one possible ending, and is far better for focusing on telling one great story rather than branching off into numerous mediocre ones.
Gameplay
“Infinite” finally proves without a shadow of a doubt that the development team behind the ‘BioShock’ series is perfectly capable of making a great first-person shooter if they want to. “Infinite” is a 100% modern shooter with the perfect cherry-picked mix of modern mechanics. Really, the only detrimental loss from previous ‘BioShock’ games is the map, which has been replaced by a summonable arrow that points at the next objective for a few seconds before disappearing.
Booker gets an electromagnetic shield early on in the game which protects his health from direct damage and regenerates after a few seconds of safety, bringing in the best feature of the ‘Borderlands’ series. In order to recover health, Booker must pick up food items scattered around the environment – there are no more first-aid kits to carry around and no more healing stations.
The weapons in “Infinite” are, by and large, FAR better and easier to use than the garbage guns from previous games in the franchise. The starting weapons are fairly weak but accurate, while weapons found later on provide plenty of options for various play styles. Unlike previous ‘BioShock’ protagonists, Booker can only carry two guns at a time and swap between them in the ‘loadout’ style that is common in modern shooters. There are plenty of options to swap weapons, however, as enemies drop theirs when killed and weapon stockpiles are scattered liberally around the game world. I was delighted that only the hand cannon and carbine are duds with sloppy targeting, with the remaining plethora of weapons (including an amazing sniper rifle I kept with me at all times after finding the first one) being eminently useable.
Vigors (which are cast using Salts) have replaced the Plasmids and Eve of the older games in the franchise as a form of ‘magic,’ but are ultimately identical in function. The Vigors themselves, however, are almost all new, with effects never before seen in Plasmids. There is significantly better balance in the Vigors when compared to the older games’ Plasmids, as most of the Vigors are useful for things other than ‘solving’ a one-off ‘puzzle.’ There is a Vigor that has replaced the hacking mechanic from the earlier games in the series, a new take on the old Bee Plasmid that sends ravens to harass enemies instead, a Vigor that temporarily levitates an enemy, and a Vigor that allows Booker to catch a mound of bullets before tossing them back in enemies’ faces, to name a few. While they aren’t all as useful as they could be, the situation is a marked improvement for the franchise.
Most notably, both the Vigor upgrade and weapon upgrade systems have been streamlined significantly compared to previous ‘BioShock’ games. All upgrades are simply purchased with in-game money now, with no limitations outside of how many Silver Eagles the player can scrounge up. Likewise, the passive boosts provided by Tonics and photographic research are gone, replaced by a simple system of finding Tonic vials that can increase the player’s choice of either health, salts, or shield capacity.
In place of the passive boosts provided by Tonic in older games, Booker can find ‘equipment’ to wear, in the form of boots, pants, vests, and hats. This equipment doesn’t boost stats in any way, but instead provides a passive ability when worn, ranging from the ability to find more money, to expanded clip size in weapons, to an incredibly useful shock explosion that occurs whenever an enemy is ‘overkilled’ with massive damage. Since Booker can only wear one piece of each type of equipment simultaneously, the player must strategically choose which passive perks they want based on their playstyle.
With many of the optional ways to accumulate ‘bonus’ damage out of the way, the combat in “Infinite” feels ‘infinitely’ more balanced than in previous ‘BioShock’ games (at least on Normal difficulty). Enemies actually die to single headshots (unless they are wearing visible helmets, which makes sense) and no longer have supernatural accuracy at ‘infinite’ range. Booker’s moves in combat feel responsive and accurate, with very little in the way of ‘cheap’ deaths.
The Season Pass
After finishing the main “Infinite” story, I didn’t think it was possible for any add-on missions to take the narrative in a direction it needed to go. Of course, I was so unbelievably happy with “Infinite” that I wanted more, and was willing to give the season pass a shot (plus I had already bought it when it was on sale). Unfortunately, my initial instinct was correct: None of the three DLC missions is worth a damn.
The first DLC, “Clash in the Clouds,” is… a battle arena. Not only is it nothing but a crummy battle arena, none of the upgrades unlocked in the main story transfer over, so it’s a cash-grinding battle arena. Yuck!
The second and third DLCs are two parts of a whole, entitled “Burial at Sea.” Both of these DLC stories take place in Rapture (ugh) in 1959 (ugh) starring alternate alternate versions of Booker and Elizabeth dealing with the build-up to Rapture’s fall in the original “BioShock” (*facepalm*).
“Burial at Sea –Episode 1” puts the player in control of an older version of Booker who has opened up a PI office in Rapture. A version of Elizabeth walks into his office one day, in as cheesy and stereotypical a way possible, and asks for his help in finding a missing girl. It just so happens that this version of Booker had adopted this missing girl, and is eager to follow Elizabeth’s lead on the girl’s location. While the story is adequately twisty and hits home with another nice surprise at the end, the gameplay is the main problem here, as it falls back into the older ‘BioShock’ way of doing things. This Booker only has access to the worst guns and is given very few bullets for them. Splicers still take way too many shots to kill, and the Plasmids are fairly boring (and no Bees). At least Booker does get his magnetic shield, not that it does him much good…
“Burial at Sea – Episode 2” mixes things up by putting the player into the role of alternate alternate Elizabeth in Rapture. Burdened by guilt about not being able to help the Little Sisters of Rapture and finding herself inexplicably trapped in a ruined section of the city, Elizabeth takes it upon herself to usher in the events that lead to Rapture’s fall. The storytelling in this episode is too convoluted for its own good and feels more like a desperate fanfiction attempt at cramming the events of “Infinite” together with the events of “BioShock.” If the writing in “Infinite” is like “Fringe,” the writing in “Burial at Sea” is like “LOST.” The narrative doesn’t jibe with the resolution of “Infinite’s” main story and ends up falling flat. What’s worse, the gameplay backpedals away from what made “Infinite” great even further by transforming itself into a Stealth game. Elizabeth is given few weapons and little ammunition, and is instead expected to sneak (by crouching) behind enemies and brain them whilst they are unaware. She does eventually find a unique Plasmid (that has two upgrades which are ESSENTIAL to find) that allows her to see enemies and items through walls and turn invisible, but the fact that Splicers continuously respawn and can dodge point-blank shots makes the whole thing feel tedious and nerve wracking. Survival Horror fans like tedious and nerve wracking? Good for them, but “Infinite” is NOT a Survival Horror game… why should the DLC be?
Even simple, fundamental mechanics have been messed up in the season pass missions, like having to press a different button to loot containers than to pick up loose items (WTF?!). Pathetically, the only marginally good thing about the season pass is that it unlocks a few weapon upgrades early and comes with some free equipment for Booker in the main game. It’s definitely a sub-par experience compared to the main story and serves as nothing but an unnecessary and ham-handed coda.
Overall
“BioShock Infinite” is an absolutely incredible experience, which is extra meaningful for a game in a genre that typically isn’t known for great or original storytelling. The evocative visuals, masterfully-written narrative, likeable/hateable characters, glorious world-building, and perfectly balanced shooting gameplay all act as individual reasons to enjoy the game. But taken together, all of these well-done elements create the type of sublime gaming experience that is all too rare… Just don’t bother with the season pass.
Presentation: 5/5
Story: 5/5
Gameplay: 5/5
Season Pass: 2/5
Overall (not an average): 5/5
