Bioshock: Infinite
If ever there were a series that was self-aware about the nature of storytelling and the mechanics of sequels, it’s Irrational Games’ Bioshock. The much-anticipated Bioshock: Infinite takes this to new heights (ha!) by framing a story with multiple universes, one that seems to wink at the player that every time they fail and die just makes another universe where your character made a bad move. Bioshock prides itself on dollops of deep story, genuinely beautiful worlds, and twists that make you feel every moral choice you make.
But there is always a man, a city, and a lighthouse, and B:I puts you into all of them right from the off – the man is Booker DeWitt, a bloodied ex-soldier, the city is Columbia, the beautiful city among the clouds full of old-timey racists and religious nuts. The lighthouse is where it all begins, launching you into the sky in search of a girl to pay off a debt. And for those who hate spoilers, that’s about as far as I can go before ruining everything for you.
Games are held to a different standard from movies or TV, because the interactivity means there’s a whole separate component of actually playing the game that has to be as fun, compelling and rewarding as the visuals, audio, and story. And sadly, this is one area where B:I drops the ball. It almost seems criminal to take such a beautiful environment to explore, lavishly decorated with brilliant ads, period details and clever music, and muck it up with running and gunning first-person-shooter bloodbaths. The fights seem very mechanical, out of place in the narrative, and a distraction from an engrossing story.
Happily, at least for me, those clunky combat sequences never seem to make their way into my fond impressions of the game. It’s just fun, engaging, intelligent, endearing, punctuated by moments of riding the rollercoaster rails that wind around the city and pummeling racists. Bioshock: Infinite is unequivocally worth your time and attention, and is the kind of game that reminds us what a magnum-opus looks like in a game.