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Forget
Hitler. Screw Freddy Kruger. Hype is the biggest killer in the world. Hype can
ruin just about anything. It’s why I dislike Chris Nolan’s Inception, also because Nolan is a very average director, but also
because everyone told me how great a film it was and how it will blow my
freaking mind.
And much
like my penis during my final year of university…my mind remained unblown.
It’s a similar
case with Bioshock Infinite; it received
5/5 reviews, over forty awards at E3 and was said to be “the greatest game ever”
by one of my favourite videogame journalists. So, I was sold. I wanted to play
this game! No, I needed to play this
game! And now I have. But before I express my opinion and ended up getting
disowned by every gamer friend I have, let’s go over THE FACTS!
Bioshock Infinite is a first-person
shooter developed by Irrational Games
released in 2013 and was written and directed by Ken Levine. Normally I wouldn’t
say who wrote of directed the game but Levine has become somewhat of a
celebrity with the success of the Shock
series; consisting of System Shock
and Bioshock games. Now THE VERDICT!
Yeah, it’s good.
It’s not “so good that I came all over the keyboard and now I don’t have to use
the auto-run key because my buttons are so sticky” but it’s good. Like I said,
hype really fucked this game over for me. I sat there waiting for this big epiphany
moment that would make this game everything that people were telling me but I
got to the end of the game and it never happened. Okay, at the end of the game
when you momentarily visit Rapture from the original Bioshock was very cool and nonstalgic, but “the greatest game ever”
should build upon the past and innovate, not leave us reminiscing.
Bioshock Infinite does exactly this with
its combat, because Bioshock’s
gunplay was tighter than the Virgin Mary. There is a good feel and look to the
guns in the game; in fact the guns looked so good I often found myself reluctant
to drop one for another which lead to me carrying my starting pistol for the
first couple of hours of gameplay. Although greatly out gunned, I did feel
really badass taking down a man covered in armour hurling fire with my trusty
peashooter. Most of the guns feel unique and it’s only in the later parts of
the game that you start to encounter weapons that are remarkably similar to
each other; this design choice is made all the more baffling by the fact you
can only carrying two guns at a time and about half way through you will have
decided what combination works best for you. My set up consisted of a Carbine rifle
that could blow off enemy’s bollocks at a distance or up close, and an RPG for
the bigger, tougher bastards. Also making their return from Bioshock are Plasmids, except they’ve been
renamed Vigors in Infinite because
fuck you. These powers allow you to throw fire, produce a shield or convince
Justin Bieber just to give it up and work in McDonalds with the rest of the
uneducated teenagers. However, these fall into a similar problem as the weapons,
where you find the two powers that work for you and stick with them for the
rest of the game. Some of the Vigors are introduced oddly late in the game and
seemed to be there for the sole purpose of trying to keep the game fresh but
they were so uninteresting that I just stuck with my fire throwing and bucking
bronco; throwing enemies into the air and them hitting them with the flaming
grenade really does relief the stress of a hard day’s work.
The parts of
the game where you are trapped in a certain area and can’t go on until you’ve
killed all the enemies in the most brutal way possible are made all the more
interesting by the introduction of a Skyline, a rail that runs through the city
which you can ride on with your melee weapon. The Skyline does add uniqueness
to the combat; otherwise these sections would just equate down to nothing more
than a static turret sequence. However, these “killing playgrounds” aren’t new
and are taken from games like Batman
Arkham Asylum, except in this case it’s done via first-person. There sole
purpose is to make the gamer want to come back and play the section again just
to discover new ways of these killing the enemies.
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| Sigh...look at her. She's just perfection. |
Now, I will
give credit where credit is due and say this, “Elizabeth is hands down the best
companion in video game history”. There is so much I love about this character
and how she’s programmed to behave at all times. When you’re just walking about
she will wonder off and look at things in awe and when she’s done waits for you
at exit, which might not seem like much but it’s the fact the designers
animated her to lean against the wall with her arms folded just makes it seem
so natural. Elizabeth’s mannerisms changed too, depending on the environment;
while walking through a burning building she would develop a terrible cough or
when sneaking through a creepy mansion she would fearfully hug herself. It’s
this attention to detail that makes Elizabeth truly come to life and her
positive attributes don’t stop there as during combat she will actively seek
out and toss things like ammo and health to you mid-fight and save your ass.
However, the greatest thing about Elizabeth is that she can’t die! An escort
that can’t die! It’s the childhood dream fulfilled! Honestly, this kind of
makes me hate the game more because I know I will never find a girl that is as
perfect as Elizabeth in real life.
The game has
an amazing ability to tell a story without taking away from the gameplay and
any cutscenes in the game are seamlessly integrated with the gameplay and
always from the P.O.V. of the protagonist, Booker DeWitt. What helps the story
be told is the world in which we inhabit, the floating haven called Columbia,
and how is uses every detail to add new layers of narrative to the world; from
the conversation between two citizens to the propaganda posters plastered of
the city. However, the dialogue between DeWitt and Elizabeth seems very forced
at times because of the lack of cutscenes, for example, I was reading a poster
on a wall when all of a sudden Elizabeth says to me, “It’s okay. You can ask.”
This leads to a conversation about Elizabeth’s pinky finger, which is missing,
during which she insinuates that I was looking at it, whenever I wasn’t. I
swear I wasn’t. I was just looking at the wall. Honest! The beginning of these
conversations just come out of the blue and can be very abrupt but once they get
going they are funny, emotional and very realistic.
Okay, now
here is the real reason why I
included Ken Levine earlier and it’s so I have someone to direct my utter
contempt at for this plot point. Oh…and SPOILERS by the way. You gone? Good!
Ken Levine you can go and fuck yourself with a twelve inch rubber dildo with
rusty nails sticking out of it for using a plot element so fucking convoluted and
“get-out-of-jail-free”ish as the multiverse theory. That shit is right up there
with time travel! What? Couldn’t get the copyright done in time to make a time
travelling Zeppelin with a balloon the shape of a DeLorean, you twat? The story
was good! It was a touching piece about a father’s self-sacrifice that could have
had be crying on the ground whilst hugging my knees but instead you take the
most pretentious route possible. Seriously, do yourself a favour and stick to
directing your next game and hire the writer of Spec Ops: The Line to teach you about real action and consequences
in a narrative.
Bioshock Infinite is good. Really good.
It isn’t “the greatest game ever” and, sorry to sound pessimistic, but we never
will have a greatest game ever because games are too versatile to have a title
like that and it’s that versatility that makes me love videogames. The ability to play a game and then play something completely different in mere secondsis one of the best things about games. Is Bioshock Infinite the greatest
first-person shooter of all time? Possibly. Is Bioshock Infinite the greatest Shock
game of all time? Yes. However, that’s just my opinion. So do me a favour and
stop throwing your “greatest game ever” opinions in my face.
Instead,
start a video game blog and shove it in the internet’s face. Like me.
“Bioshock?
More like Biocock! Imma right?"
Hans Davis
