Funnily enough I think the best way to describe Bioshock Infinite is as a religious experience. That is to say, once you’ve seen the credits roll, you’ll feel changed, as though some kind of deep truth about the inner workings of the universe may have been revealed to you.
As always it starts with a man and a lighthouse. This time, new protagonist Booker Dewitt is sat at the back of a small boat heading towards the imposing structure in the distance. In front of him, a man and a woman bicker about having to row Booker to the island. A small wooden box is passed to Dewitt containing a Luger pistol, a picture of Elizabeth with bring her back to New York unharmed written on the back. a curious card with symbols on it, and an ornate key.
As he reaches the lighthouse, the relatively light-hearted nature of the game’s immediate opening slowly peals away as Dewitt ascends the steps of the lighthouse. Reminders of the importance of his mission are strewn throughout the deserted building, punctuated by the sight of the lighthouse keeper; bound to a chair with a bag over his head, executed with a single gunshot wound, ‘Don’t disappoint us’ reads a sign around his neck.
Finally, Dewitt boards a shuttle that takes him to Columbia; the floating city in the sky, I would tell you more about it but I don’t want to ruin it. In fact I’m going to avoid talking about the plot as much as I can from here on out because I don’t want to spoil it. But I will say this, Ken Levine and the guys at Irrational know how to make a first impression. The first time you step out into the dazzling light of Columbia is on par with the first time you glimpse Rapture in the original. It’s simply breath taking.
As I began to explore the city in search of Elizabeth, I was taken aback by just how alive the whole place was. People went about their daily lives, passersby bid you good day, shop keepers tended their wares. An almost nauseating level of hospitality is conveyed upon you. Things are just a little too damn cosy. It’s creepy. Something has to be up here. No one’s that nice. Then in an instant, with one brutal act of violence, all of your worst fears about this apparent utopia are drawn sharply into focus and all hell breaks loose, transforming Dewitt from a curious interloper into a dangerous agitator in the eyes of the populace in seconds.
Needless to say this all ends in bloodshed as Dewitt is forced to defend himself against the residents of the city. The combat on the whole feels a lot like the original Bioshock mixing conventional weapons such as pistols and RPGs with supernatural powers, this time bestowed via bottles of tonic called Vigors. These work pretty much identically to plasmids pulling the left trigger fires them while holding it lays them as a trap. As before, you have your elemental powers such as bolts of lightning (Shock Jockey) and fireballs (Devil’s Kiss) you can use with environmental hazards to cause even more havoc as well as powers like Bucking Bronco which toss enemies into the air for a brief period and Return to Sender, which enables you to absorb enemy gunfire and then toss it back at them.
My personal favourite though has to be Murder of Crows, which like a bucket of Ronseal, ‘does exactly what it says on the tin’. Summoning a murder of crows which home in on unsuspecting zealots and attack mercilessly, stunning them in the process, enabling you to hose them down with your firearm of choice with the minimum of fuss. The power becomes even more impressive to the point of making you nigh on unstoppable at times once you’ve added its upgrade to convert everyone who dies while it’s active into a host for the powers trap form. Chain a few of them together and anyone who enters into the room ends up stumbling around like a retard getting smacked in the face with a million rakes, then they go down, becoming the next trap, then the next guy enters. Rinse, repeat. Victory.
Yes, I know it’s cheap but it’s still incredibly fun. Especially if you start chucking chain lightning into the equation and then find yourself a crank gun dropped by one of the games more intimidating enemies to finish the buggers off, and to the games credit it doesn’t always work. But when it does, you can’t help but feel incredibly bad ass.
The other thing that elevates the games combat, quite literally is the Skylines. At various points during the game Booker and Elizabeth can latch onto these railings with a skyhook and wiz around foes enabling you to better manoeuvre to different parts of the landscape as well as ambush foes from above and rain hell down upon them in lightning fast raids. At the start this did feel a little disorientating due to the First Person perspective and accurately shooting takes some practice, but once you’ve got used to it there’s nothing quite like dashing past a group of enemies softening them up with an RPG and then diving headlong into the middle of them.
Although combat itself is as fun as it ever was, upgrading options for pretty much everything have been pared down quite a lot compared to Bioshock and even more so if you take it right back to the original System Shock. The RPG elements have gone from light to almost non-existent, save for some arbitrary upgrades to your firearms and Vigors paid for at the numerous vending machines dotted throughout the city.
It’s a shame because building your own special brand of boom stick in Bioshock was a real treat especially watching it form from a simple stock weapon into something varied and relatively unique. Likewise being able to avoid using firearms altogether in Bioshock 2 instead combining plasmids into all kinds of chaos gave combat a chaotic charm all of its own.
You’ll be happy to hear that the tonics system does make a sort of return in infinite in the guise of Gear; basically items of clothing you can equip to four different slots that bestow various buffs such as improved reloading times, improved aiming while on the Skyline and, my personal favourite, firebird which creates a ring of fire around Dewitt when he lands after diving off a skyline burning anyone in the vicinity.
Within the game world these changes make an odd kind of sense because Booker is constantly on the run, scavenging whatever he can find and pulling through from one scrape to the next. As the somewhat meditated and measured exploration of Rapture has been replaced with a greater sense of immediacy and with it a more frantic pace and a much higher body count.
But before you get the pitchforks out, the combat has not been dumbed down for the CoD crowd. In fact the combat is, crow spamming aside, incredibly varied and tactical thanks mostly to Elizabeth.
Yes, I know having AI partners is nothing new, but having one that’s actually helpful is nothing short of miraculous and a complete game changer, especially if you consider that she doesn’t do any fighting at all. The game could have been a 15 hour escort mission but instead Irrational have given you a bona fide partner. She never gets in your way and saves your ass time and again with health packs, ammo and salts. If you thought seeing her toss Dewitt a shotgun in the trailers was cool just wait until you’re the guy controlling him.
However her greatest trick is the ability to manipulate rifts in space-time known as tears. These modify the landscape at the press of a button. Calling in all kinds of support such as turrets and mechanical allies, guns, crates of salts and health packs, cover, and freight hooks all at the press of the button. However you can only open one Tear at a time so do you go for the guns or the cover? Do you try and take the skyline using the freight hook or distract enemies using a turret?
All of these interactions feel incredibly slick and organic and help you to empathise with the characters even more. There’s been an incredible amount of time and effort put in to making sure that every action Elizabeth performs work flawlessly. Which make a great deal of sense because if she was a pain in the arse to fight alongside the games narrative would fall flat since most of the games impact revolves around Booker’s relationship with her.
This is backed up again by some utterly astounding characterisation from the games main cast. Elizabeth and Booker’s interactions are phenomenal to behold and incredibly touching as they both attempt to escape from the emotional, and in Elizabeth’s case, literal prisons they both find themselves trapped in. Booker wishes to escape his violent past and, initially at least, pay off his debts. Elizabeth on the other hand wishes to escape the shackles imposed upon her by her father, the leader of Columbia; Father Comstock. Revered by its citizens as a prophet by creating a strange religion that worships the founding fathers as instruments of god’s will, if god’s will included; apartheid, racial purity, extreme isolationism and an almost evangelistic devotion to the state.
As Comstock’s heir Elizabeth is prophesised to return to the Sodom below to rain fire down upon the wicked. All Elizabeth wants is to leave Columbia and see Paris.When Dewitt breaks her out of the statue she’s imprisoned in and tells her he’ll l take her there, she jumps at the chance.
Needless to say Comstock and his followers do not want Dewitt and Elizabeth to escape. As literally everyone in the city begins the hunt for the duo resistance becomes increasingly fierce and you face off against not only the towns populace but some incredibly sinister mechanical monsters, such as the gorilla like and incredibly brutal handymen and the demented, crank gun wielding mechanised patriots. Creepy automatons made in the likeness of George Washington and Father Comstock. These however pale in comparison to Songbird; the giant, winged, big daddy like guardian that hounds Booker and Elizabeth throughout the course of the game.
Although this might sound mighty intimidating within the confines of the game itself, much like the other games in the series there is nothing that you cannot get past with a little brute force and bloody mindedness. Dying is more of a inconvenience than a punishment and at times almost feels like a legitimate strategy as you’ll only lose a little money but regain much needed salts for your Vigors and ammunition. It only feels like a problem during the games boss battles as enemies also regain some of their health.
The flip side of this is 1999 mode. Unlocked either by completing the game for the first time or by tapping in the Konami code at the games main menu, named after the release year of System Shock 2, this masochistic difficulty setting does all sorts of cruel things like locking out upgrades, increasing the difficulty of enemies, taking away the ability to respawn when you die and getting rid of the way point indicator. I started my second play through of the game in this mode yesterday and I have to say it’s not for the faint of heart or easily frustrated and would highly recommend playing through the game on the standard difficulty settings first.
In a way, this gives the game a sense of replayability and the kind of people that laugh at the likes of Dark Souls something to get their teeth into.
Personally any excuse to spend more time with the game, even if it has now decided it now wants metaphorically violate my mother while pouring sugar in my petrol tank, is good enough for me.
Although on the surface Columbia is the polar opposite of Rapture, it is just as compelling a setting as the doomed aquatic utopia. its history laid bare in audio logs and videos strewn throughout the miraculous city. Yet again I found myself scouring every corner and crevice to find out how this marvel sprang to life and what compelled its citizens to follow Comstock into the sky.
The greatest strength of Bioshock as a series is that although the settings are outlandish, even laughable if you think about them seriously for more than a couple of minutes, while playing there’s no doubt in yout mind that these places could exist. They feel plausible, palpable, and dare I say it, realistic but at the same time an elaborate window dressing. A portal to worlds where the coin landed on tails instead of heads, where the Republican Tea Party formed a hundred years earlier and flew away into the clouds, where Atlas Shrugged wasn’t just a terrible book but the basis for a whole misguided society.
By combining solid gameplay with thoughtful, intelligent storytelling and expert pacing Irrational have simultaneously created the perfect swan song for the current generation of consoles as well as a glimpse into gaming’s future.