BioShock Infinite

The Good
BioShock Infinite's strength lies in the portrayal of the impossible city of Columbia. Undoubtedly one of the more unique locations in fiction that deserves its position among the likes of Castle Gormenghast, the city of Amber and BioShock's own Rapture, the game explains the city as the vision of one man who was thoroughly indoctrinated into the beliefs prevalent in America- of the individual's importance in protecting the traditions of America from America, here by Manifest Destiny, in BioShock by Objectivism's belief in the legitimacy of seeking economic prosperity as an individual. Unlike Rapture, the depictions of how Objectivism influenced the city go beyond the explanatory role, but that is mostly because the philosophy Comstock adopts is important to his arc, and, thus, that of DeWitt, the protagonist.

The city oozes an 'Applied Racism for Dummies' vibe that, thankfully, does not directly target the ethnic group to which yours truly belongs to and the point of debate brought about by the eerily Disney-like world design, the story of the transformation of Elizabeth and seeing how well a melee attack with your Sky-Hook disfigures early-20th century ideas of beauty in more ways than one, that can help you find solace for the possibly traumatising time you spent in Disneyland with Goofy (or so says Yahtzee Croshaw), being a case of ludonarrative dissonance can be explained when one assumes that DeWitt is an embodiment of a typical player's propensity for violence. Elizabeth is just someone who has no other alternative to follow.

Speaking of the story, the game' story is, while not being groundbreaking, interesting in its presentation. True, the game does not present reasonable avenues of exploration beyond one defined by the bounds of an immediate point the game is making, like the scenes set in the poorer parts of Columbia and the beach suggesting ordinary life for the poor and the rich of the city (but, sometimes, not even that) and the game ends by pushing the player on a more-or-less on-rails explanation of the entire plot. Still, the game must be applauded for having such a complicated story for a AAA budget title, even if it falters when it comes to explaining the time-space paradoxes that pop out of it in the end suggesting, obviously, that it was a late game addition.

The Bad
The level design. I was honestly sold on the game's 10- minute presentation where DeWitt and Elizabeth fight in a massive arena, filled with a roller coaster rides that you could change and not care about your ticket price, a dynamic system of enemy engagement focusing on localised conflicts that can become bigger if the player is not fast enough to stop them getting bigger and, for once, lots of non-player characters on the screen who did not want to kill the player on sight for a BioShock game. Instead, what we got were smaller arenas, Sky-Lines that actually paled in comparison to those one could make and sit on in Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, and combat sections that, especially in the arena where the player sees the Vox Populi burning Comstock's statue (using the sound assets that made the trailer more thematic than most of the actual game) show how much of the original settings had to be abandoned and remade in to an easier- to- produce aesthetic that ditched the the sky and pushed you insides, in case you found that the rest of the city was poorly rendered when you did go outsides.

The combat is also disappointing, and not just for the reasons you have been told. The game's idea of higher difficulty is to make the enemies bullet sponges, forcing the player to adopt one set of weapons, one set of clothes (that make no sense narratively, just as the absence of the use of vigors, despite their widespread availability, by the enemies) that give those bonuses that specifically favour the player's style and a frustratingly simple AI that cannot go beyond the happenings delivered by a scripted scene here, 10 bullets per second aimed at the player's face there and the Vox Populi incapable of understanding that DeWitt apparently died for their cause (in one of the universes where he did) and they unquestioningly follow Fitzroy's simple instructions in the middle.

The Bottom Line
BioShock Infinite was Irrational Games last major release. Its dissolution within 6 months of its release, the box art being geared towards the Call of Duty crowd (as stated by Mr. Levine himself) and the subsequent dislike, even hatred, that the game received stands as evidence to the back-door dealings that happen in one of the most secretive industries on the planet and bring games like this, but also the likes of Total War: Rome II and Civilization: Beyond Earth.

It is possible that the BioShock games are a metaphor of Levine's life- an innovator whose own ambitions are incompatible with the lives of those around and under him that ultimately leads to his own downfall. Sadly, this time, the cause cannot be the protagonist of his next game.