Bioshock Infinite Review

It has been a long wait.  I looked at the Murder of Crows poster that came in my issue of Game Informer for nearly two years, wondering and waiting for the latest masterpiece due to spring from Ken Levine’s mind.  I played the original Bioshock for so many hours that I actually surpassed my Fallout 3 playing time.  And that’s saying something.  If there’s one thing I can’t get enough of, it’s steampunk.  So waiting three long years after Bioshock 2 to get more steampunky goodness was just under my patience threshold.

Bioshock Infinite isn’t like many games that have come out recently, for a multitude of reasons, but the main one being that it was kept under wraps until right before the game was released.  They had no intention of giving us more information than we needed about the game.  So when I got my copy, I went into it knowing only three things; there’s a floating city in the sky, you have to go there to retrieve a girl, and the place is run by religious zealot assholes.  But before we jump ahead to the action, let’s go to the beginning.

As soon as the game starts, it feels like the old games.  It’s a first person shooter, just like the first two, and you are pretty much abandoned in the middle of crappy weather in the ocean, much like the opening of the original Bioshock.  However, instead of a plane crash in 1960 that leads you to an elevator that takes you to an underwater city, you are dropped off via rowboat on a dock at a lighthouse in 1912.  From this lighthouse you are propelled into Columbia.

The first thing I want to point out here is how amazing the architecture is.  It’s a true period piece, but with Bioshock’s own steampunk spin.  I can only imagine the countless hours that went into modeling and designing the buildings and structures in this city.  I was content with just looking around at first, and completely ignore the storyline for a full fifteen minutes.  It really feels like a beautiful Utopia.

Well, at first it seems like a Utopia.  However, it doesn’t take long to realize that the amazing floating world around you is saturated with the leader’s evil religious ways, vile racism, corrupt law enforcement, and a demand for patriotism and loyalty that leaves the inhabitants the choice of doing as told or dying.  And these people do as they are told.

 

The place is run by Father Zachary Comstock, and he has long preached of a “false prophet” who would come and try to tear Columbia apart.  The player is cast in the role of Booker DeWitt, a man who has agreed to go to Columbia to retrieve a girl named Elizabeth in exchange for having his substantial gambling debt erased.  However, it doesn’t take long for local police to realize that you are not one of them, and you are seen as the false prophet.  From here on in, it’s a battle to stay alive as an entire city makes it their duty to kill you and stop your blasphemous ways.

Eventually you make it to where Elizabeth is being held prisoner, and as you work toward your goal of getting her out of Columbia and back to your employers in New York, you start to realize that this girl is no ordinary person.  She has the ability to manipulate “tears” in the fabric of space and time, and can summon many useful items for you.

As the game goes along, you come into contact with a hardcore black woman named Daisy Fitzroy, who is the leader of the Vox Populi.  She and her followers are on a mission to bring down Comstock and his obsession of an all-white world.  Yeah, the guy is an asshole.  Told you that paragraphs ago.  So in order to get out of Columbia with Elizabeth in tow, you are required to retrieve weapons and supplies for Daisy’s cause.  I was only happy to do this.  Booker’s goal might have been to get out of Dodge, but I wanted nothing more than to bring that city down the moment I realized what Comstock was all about.

Now, when it comes to weaponry, everything is just a little bit different compared to the original Bioshock.  You start out with a handgun, and as you go along you can acquire heavier guns off corpses as you kill enemies off.  Within the first hour, you have access to a machine gun, a sniper rifle, an RPG, a hand-cranked turret gun, and several others.  You also get the awesome melee weapon known as the skyline hook.

You can literally take someone’s head off with this thing, pulverize their chest, and send them flying fifty feet away.  It is also your quickest form of travel.  You use it to grab onto the skyline rails that circle and weave in and out of the city.  It’s a fast way to get where you’re going, get the drop on enemies, and board airships that are doing their best to send rockets down your throat.  Trust me, that hook is a blast.

The next thing you’re probably wondering about is what is available for powers.  First, get the idea of “plasmids” out of your head.  That was in Rapture, and won’t be invented for over 40 years.  Instead, you have access to liquids in jars that resemble steampunk versions of Egyptian burial jars.  These are known as “vigors”.  Think of the old snake oil ads from the backs of old magazines that promised all kinds of fantastic results.  Same thing, only these actually work.  And strangely enough, they are recharged by consuming salt.  Yeah, salt.  You can drink sodas, eat hot dogs, or just consume entire containers of salt.  Weird?  Yes.  But the weirdness will pass eventually.

You can also locate collectible gears, such as hats, that can be used to provide Booker with sweet buffs.  One of the first things I found was a hat that allowed you to siphon health from baddies when you butcher them with your skyline hook.  This one is particularly handy, as you’ll sometimes have ten or fifteen bad guys swarming in on you at any given moment.  You can jump on the skyline rail, perform a flying attack, jump back up there with more health than you had before, and do it all over again.  This takes some finesse, but it’s extremely satisfying.

This pretty much goes without saying, but Big Daddy is nonexistent.  As are the Little Sisters.  Creepy and fun as they were, they are a product of Rapture, and are not found in Columbia.  However, you do have to contend with the Handyman, a giant robot with a human head.  You’ll also have to fight the Motorized Patriot, a tall robot of George Washington (at least to my eyes) that fires a mini-gun at you.  They are big, they are mean, and they are tough to take down.  However, they lack the ominous presence that Big Daddy had.  It’s really the only let down in this game.

The big thing, and I do mean BIG, that sets this game apart from every other game I’ve played recently is the narration.  There is no half-assing here.  As Booker and Elizabeth find out things about themselves and each other, and grow to like each other, you can actually hear it in their voices.  It’s some of the best voice-casting I’ve ever heard.  I think that if this had been a spin-off CG movie instead of a game, I wouldn’t have felt let down at all.  The emotion is seriously enough to bring a tear to your eye.

And to top it all off, there’s the ending.  I’m not going to divulge a single detail here, but I feel it should get a freaking Oscar nomination.  As the ending comes to the story, and you find out everything that has been a mystery for so long, and you see that Booker and Elizabeth have grown to love each other… there’s really no way to describe how amazing the ending is.  You just have to play it.  It’s very rare that I feel hatred and excitement and on the border of tearing up in one game.

I feel no hesitation in giving this game a 5 star rating all across the board.  I could easily play it again and again.  The casting is spot-on.  The gameplay is nothing short of flawless.  It’s Bioshock, but it’s not, and I can’t find anything wrong with that.  It’s a work of art, and worth the three year wait.