Bioshock Infinite is a lot of fun to play and that’s all most games have ever achieved. The fact that it does feels so much more like an advancement of video games as an art form. BioShock Infinite is one of the best and most glorious video games ever made and anyone who cares a bit about art in video games should experience this adventure at least once.
Bioshock Infinite is available on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation.
Remark: Heavy spoilers ahead
Story
Bioshock Infinite leave Rapture behind for an all-new and completely opposite setting, Columbia, the city in the clouds. The story is the big thing people look for in a BioShock to play endless more than delivers.
endless starts simple, with a lighthouse just like the original Bioshock. You are Booker DeWitt and you have been given the task of a rather mysterious man to bring “the girl” and wipe the blame away. At the top of the lighthouse is a chair in which you are tied up and shot into the atmosphere. When the clouds part, you’ll see the beautiful floating city of Columbia.
There is always a lighthouse, there is always a man, there is always a city
Columbia is a great place to be, the all-American dream turned nightmare crossed with steampunk sensibilities. Nationalist propaganda is mixed with airships and mechanical combatants, and the moving picture machines you occasionally use delve deeper into the history of Columbia, which broke away from an America that just wasn’t American enough.
The leader of this town is Father Comstock, a self-proclaimed prophet and terribly well-meaning man who believes so strongly in his own corrupted philosophies that you can only fear him.
Eventually you find “the girl”, Elizabeth, locked in a floating tower and protected by a monstrous clockwork creature called Songbird and the two of you must find a way to escape the city.
At first glance it may sound like too simple a story and it is if you want to. Dig a little deeper, however, and you start to wander into the kind of high-level philosophical field that covers all subjects of patriotism, racism, interracial marriage, self-identity, religion, redemption.
This story is not for everyone, but it takes patience and time from the players to fully appreciate it. And that’s the beauty of it. If you only care about surface detail and a few hours of entertainment endless have you covered, but if you want a more layered story then? BioShock Infinite can easily feed a few philosophical dissertations. 2K games really went in the opposite direction from the norm of how first person shooter games told their stories in the early 2010s and told a story that no other game can compare, and it paid off.
Gameplay
At first sight endless plays a lot like BioShock. The plasmids are now called vigours, but they are much the same. These include Bucking Bronco, which can levitate enemies and give you a free melee, Devil’s Kiss, which throws a flaming projectile and burns enemies, Murder of Crows, who drops a Murder of Crows (hehe) on the enemies, and more.
Unique Skyhook mechanics
But then you meet Elizabeth. She has superpowers, including the ability to open tears or portals in the Game World and teleport things like cover points, automated turrets, weapons, and more. This adds a unique layer to combat and encourages variety and experimentation.
Infinite’s another great thing is the skyhook. You can use this zipper around the battlefield, dodging bullets and hitting grounded enemies in the skull, which never gets old.
The great thing is that even with all this mechanics, there’s no handholding crap like all other games without you wandering aimlessly. There are no tagged characters or compasses with giant markings. There is a cleverly disguised tutorial at the beginning of the game in the form of a funfair, which teaches you all the basics like shooting and using power.
The main problem with the gameplay is how linear the levels are and how weak the weapons are, which makes the game feel almost like a regular first person shooter. This is only saved by the addition of skyhooks and the ability to teleport objects in combat. This is a big regression after seeing how effective Bioshock 2 improved and perfected the gameplay of Bioshock. The gameplay also starts to feel a bit repetitive towards the end, but that’s easily excused when you play BioShock mainly for the story and not for the gameplay.
However, while the previous two games featured one of the most unique and iconic enemies, the Big Daddy, this time they have been replaced by Handymen, giants with big hands in an exoskeleton. While fun to fight the first few times, they quickly become annoying as their weak spots are very difficult to photograph as they are always moving and jumping around the map.
Graphics and audio
Like Rapture’s failed underwater utopia in the first BioshockColumbia “forces you to stop and admire its beauty” is quite beautiful to look at. A bright and vibrant color palette of white and gold practically ignites the display, detailed with beautiful locations and vistas. Columbia is an almost flawless setting for a game, especially if you’re playing on PC. It’s amazing how well the game has aged in art style alone. However, the graphics and character models are starting to look a little rough.
Vivid color palette
And of course we have to talk about the score. The original soundtracks bounce between three narrative tones: those of wonder, those of action, and those of solemn, mourning. The songs that best express the sheer wonder of Columbia mainly focus on period instruments and sounds. But the songs that steal the show the most are the renditions of some of the old songs like “After You’ve Gone”, “Fortunate Son”, and the best example of this “Will the Circle be Unbroken”. This number is mainly used at the inauguration center once you arrive at Columbia.
One of the most glorious video game moments
This song goes perfectly with brightly colored and warm painted glass and makes for one of the most glorious feats a video game can achieve, making you stop and admire and almost make you cry with its sheer beauty. Impressively, if you play the game again you might realize that the lyrics of this clearly indicate the big plot twist at the end.
Bioshock Infinite was rated on PC.
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