Now I realise this is about 2 weeks late but I still want to make my opinions felt on this game, I won’t however give you my opinion right now, if I did that it would make the rest of this review about as useless as a (insert your own comparison here), so read on, even if you aren’t a video game connoisseur. This game may change your mind.
Cover Art
Bioshock Infinite is a first person shooter from the Irrational Games studio; they first took us to the underwater city of Rapture in the absolutely brilliant Bioshock and the less than brilliant Bioshock 2. Their 3rd installment takes us up into the clouds and into the floating city of Columbia.
Story Time:
Set in 1912, you play as Booker Dewitt, a battle hardened private eye who has a debt to repay and has been sent to Columbia by an unknown entity to repay this debt by collecting a girl from the city and returning her to New York. Sounds simple right? Well, when you are first dropped off at an eerie dock, which resembles a scene from an episode of Scooby Doo, you may be rethinking your train thought, even more so when you enter said light house… However I am going to try and keep this review for you as spoiler free as possible so you can enjoy the story for yourself. Well one way or another you will arrive in the city of Columbia where you will be transported to what is a beautifully constructed and rendered ‘city in the sky’.
When you get there you will see that there is something a little off about the city, you will notice in the city there is a very white dominate culture, that people of colour or other blood descendants (Irish) are relegated to second class citizens and poverty. You also notice the large amount of religious monuments dedicated to what it appears to the founders of the United States, showing almost a return to white supremacy in 1912 (an example of this early on in the game is 2 statues, one depicting Abraham Lincoln in a negative light with snakes for freeing the slaves, while another showing a large monument worshiping Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth). There is also a ‘prophet’ by the name of Commstock (the antagonist in the plot) who seems to be perpetuating this religious system of suppressing other cultures and religions. After a couple of trials for Booker, you eventually stumble onto the other protagonist within this story, Elizabeth
Without spoiling too much for you, Elizabeth is young girl that has been raised alone under the watchful eye of Commstock, and away from the public. When you meet her you will notice she has some very unusual powers and abilities at her disposal which will be key to the story and also be able to help you with your travels with her throughout Columbia. Your first meeting with her is one of the best introductions to a character I have ever experienced, from the voice acting, to the actions and facial expressions she shows, and from there on, she doesn’t disappoint through the plot.
Elizabeth: One of the greatest characters in any game
Presentation:
The art style of Columbia is absolutely gorgeous, from the grand design of the buildings you can see in the background of the city, to the locals who populate this amazing city. When you are walking your way through the city I implore, nay I demand that you do not just rush from point to point to continue the story, as you will be missing a MASSIVE amount of beauty around you. Half the game I just spent running around just exploring every point, every picture, every propaganda poster, every area that is on offer to you and I am so glad I did. On top of just admiring the surroundings, when you step off the beaten track and explore other rooms or locations you will find an item called a Voxaphone recording which lends itself to fleshing out the story so you can attain a higher understanding of the main plot. Irrational Games have done an amazing job of capturing the feel of a grand large city through the art direction, and making the player feeling immersed. Also one of the main parts of the immersion is the NPC’s, the conversations and voice acting by some of the characters is nothing short of amazing, and a main reason I couldn’t pull myself away from the game.
Columbia: a floating city in the sky
Gamplay:
To the people of who have played the previous incarnations they will be very aware of the combat system that is very synonymous with the Bioshock series. To those who aren’t aware of the gameplay, on the right hand is the general shooting with a variety of different guns, ranging from pistols, rifles, machine guns and RPG’s to name a few. As you progress you will come across more complex and creative weaponry, such as the ‘Heater’ which is a long distance fire based shot gun that can burn and put down one or many enemies in an area. On the left hand, you will have a variety of powers, which are called Vigors, they give you the power to do a variety of moves, at the cost of Salt. If you want to throw fire balls at the enemy, you can. If you want to take an enemy or a turret over to take your enemy down you can and (my personal favourite) you can summon Crows to attack and stun the opposition and do set yourself up run and grab any health or ammo you may need, or get up close and melee them to death with a brutal and satisfying finishing melee strike, which is just about my favourite part of the combat. The Vigors can also be mixed to create some nasty combos e.g. casting crows then a fireball to create a flaming crow attack. These can be found mostly through trial and error.
The enemies you will be opposed with can be a handful, but might I quickly add are some of the best and most quirky designed enemies that I have ever seen. You have your regular grunt that will be brandishing a variety of weapons; obviously as you get further into the game they will have more powerful weaponry that will cut you down quicker. You will have men who are also infused with Vigors which makes them tougher to take down. You have the amazingly designed and wacky Patriots which look like mechanical George Washington’s that brandish the American flag on their back and a crank gun in their hand. Lastly, you have the ‘Handyman’ which is a massive hulking cyborg which are very challenging to take down, they only have melee attacks, but they are extremely fast and if they hit you prepare to extract each and every one of your teeth from that wall he just planted you in. He is especially difficult on hard setting, and unless you use both your Vigors and weaponry to come up with a clever way to hit the small weak target in his chest, you will find yourself on Struggle Street fast.
The last piece of gameplay which I enjoyed immensely was the use of Elizabeth, unlike other games when you have an AI companion that is as dense as a plank of wood that you have to protect and escort, even though they seem to have a sexual attraction to bullets and danger, Elizabeth is different. She is capable of looking after herself and you don’t have to worry about her health or protection. She is also very handy for 2 main reasons. Throughout the course of a battle you may be running low on health, ammo or salts, at random intervals she will offer to throw this to you to stock you up on the particular item you need, all done by simply pressing a button when prompted to(she will also give you money at random intervals too, what a girl!). Her second function is using her powers to spawn a variety of different items for you to use from an opposing dimension when prompted to. She will sometimes spawn turrets cover, ammo, medic kits anything that may aid you in the course of battle which I think is such a smart innovation which allows you to attack a situation in a variety of different and creative ways that won’t be the same as other people who have played the game. An example of this would be spawning puddles, and then the enemy is standing in them, shocking it with your shock Vigor to put a heavy amount of damage on an enemy.
Overall I feel the combat is slick and smooth. With the inclusion of Elizabeth into battle and the use of different Vigors, there are a variety of different ways to attack a situation which is very fresh for anyone playing the game and could allow for you to play a certain part of the game over and over to see the different ways you could solve an issue.
The Negatives:
To be fair the only negative I can draw from the game is the pacing in the middle. In my opinion the game does seem to lose track a little in the middle and drag. You would reach a point for instance and you would be like ‘oh sweet can’t wait to see what happens next!’ Then all of a sudden something would happen would need to have a needless fight with waves and waves of enemies without progressing too far, without really extending the story any further. But I digress, if that is my only complaint; take it that everything else in this game is of the highest quality.
My Conclusion:
This game is one of the best games I have played in years. The way the characters and especially Elizabeth is created, handled and molded throughout the story is so thoughtful and endearing that I couldn’t put my controller down, and made me actually care for what happened to her. I find it very hard for a character (be it TV, Movie, Game) to grab that sort of emotional reaction from me (since Clementine from the Walking Dead game). Her voice acting is immaculate and her story and characterization is stellar. The combat and presentation are both what you would expect from Irrational Games and the Bioshock title (ignoring Bioshock 2 of course), it looks gorgeous and plays almost seamlessly. The story also has a very twist within the game, which you can sort of see coming, and at points you will be walking through an area, or hear a piece of dialogue and go ‘WTF was that all about?’ but at the end it is all tied together pretty well and will have been well worth your time.
Recommend!!!
I defiantly recommend this game to anyone who has a gaming console or PC, it is well worth your time and will be one of the games of this year, easily.
So that is my review please leaves a comment if you agree/disagree/want to take me out. You can like it, or share it on Facebook it would be so much appreciated as I have put a fair amount of time and effort into this. So thanks for reading.
Keegan
The Rainbow Road 