How will Ken Levine follow-up the critical and commercial success of [amazon_link id=”B003O6E6NE” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Bioshock: Infinite[/amazon_link]? By making the jump to feature films. Warner Bros. has brought on the acclaimed writer to script a new version of William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson’s classic sci-fi story.
Will anyone else find it funny if Sanctuary ends up being a giant lighthouse?
I will just go ahead and be honest with all of you right now. As I sit down to write this review I am having trouble finding the exact words to begin to describe Bioshock Infinite. I mean that in the best possible way of course. As my brain processes all of what I experienced in the city in the clouds named Columbia, I begin to have that same sense of wonder that I was left with after I played 2007’s Bioshock with one significant difference: Bioshock Infinite took everything I loved about the original and improved it greatly while adding what is easily the best written story of this gaming generation.
Now before we begin I want you all to know that this will be a spoiler free review, so have no fear while you are reading along. I will take the more difficult road and temper my want to just expose everything I discovered in this game because I love all of you. That is not to say that me or my fellow colleague, Trey Sterling (who will be reviewing the game also), will not have a later article discussing the complete epic mindfucks that happen in this game, but not today and not here!
You begin the game as Booker DeWitt, a man that has led a life that has been quite unsavory. He has fallen in deep with the wrong people and has agreed to take on a peculiar job in order to clean his slate. You are being led out to a lighthouse in a roaring storm on a boat being rowed by two strangers. A lockbox is handed to you with a photo of a girl and other items. The message is very clear as to what your job is. Bring them the girl and wipe away the debt.
Once you reach the lighthouse, you make your way inside and are greeted with a basin of water to wash away your sins and biblical sounding messages framed on the wall. You make your way to the top and sit in a chair when when walls begin to close around you. Sound familiar? Instead of burrowing your way down into the underwater city of Rapture, you are rocketed skyward and when you break through the clouds you are treated to your first view of the floating city of Columbia. After landing you make your way into the city via unusual means and your adventure begins.
One of the many, many things that Bioshock Infinite does right is that you are given ample time to explore and fully take in how fully realized the city of Columbia is. Citizens live their lives as you walk among them. They have conversations while kids play in the streets. Shops occupy not just business sections, but also, some float on there own and connect with other parts of the city to give patrons a chance to peruse their stock. You can walk up and view other floating parts through telescopes placed around. It is every bit as memorable as the first time you stepped foot into Rapture only this time instead of a cold, dead society you are greeted with a warm, lively version of 1912 America. Take your time and enjoy the quiet serenity, because it does not last.
The proceedings take a sudden and very racially charged turn and before you know it you are enemy number one floating thousands of feet above the ground with no where to go except towards your cargo. When you first begin combat it will feel very familiar to the original Bioshock with one noticeable difference being the Skyhook. The Skyhook is a spinning hook that is wearable on your left hand and is used in transporting yourself around the city on the sky rail system and also as a vicious melee weapon. You also have a pistol, your health bar and your vigor gauge (which takes the place of plasmids). You begin with a simple possession vigor which can be used to take over turrets in your favor and even other humans and have them attack others. Vigors are refilled with salts which can be acquired through bottles, vending machines and various other loot items found throughout the world of Columbia. As you begin the game, you will feel a sense of trepidation when using vigors, but have no fear, you can upgrade them as well as your health and shield (new to the Bioshock series) by finding infusions scattered throughout.
There are eight total vigors in Bioshock Infinite and they will be familiar to fans of the series, even with the new names. My personal favorites were Murder of Crows and Shock Jockey, especially when used in conjunction with each other. Shock Jockey is, of course, an electric field you shoot out of your hands Emperor Palpatine-style and Murder of Crows sends out a Hitchcock-like swarm of birds to eviscerate your enemies. Devil’s Kiss send out a fiery ball to set men ablaze while Return To Sender catches enemy projectiles and lobs them back. I won’t go through every one of them because I want you to have the pleasure of discovering them and finding out all the unique combinations that are possible.
Just as the combat experience in Bioshock Infinite begins to feel like you might be in for a repeat of the previous adventures to Rapture, you are introduced to Elizabeth. She is the daughter of Columbia’s founder, Zachary Comstock, and the girl you are supposed to bring back from Columbia to wipe away your debt. She is trapped away in a monument and been carefully watched her whole life by the scientists and zealots of Columbia, but why? Why does Comstock keep his only daughter locked away from all outside interference and have literary propaganda thrown about the city promising she is the future savior of Columbia? Perhaps the fact that she can tear open the fabric of time and space to see anything she wishes in any time period. Yeah, that would do it for me too.
When you rescue Elizabeth from her tower prison you discover she has been protected and cared for by a huge, mechanical creature called the Songbird which you should know if you bought the massive $150 collector’s edition. He will make occasional visits to screw up your journey.
Once Elizabeth joins you in your escape from Columbia, this is when combat fully opens up and separates itself from the original Bioshock. You don’t have to worry about this being one big, long, annoying escort mission. Elizabeth can take care of herself and before the game reaches its completion she will have saved your sorry ass more times than you can count. She is always readily on hand and ready to toss you anything you happen to be lacking during the many frenetic gunfights you will encounter. You will see a prompt come on screen and Elizabeth yell at you and simply press the corresponding button and she will supply you with health, salts or ammo. I will warn you not to become overly dependent on this though because there will be times, especially during lengthy battles, where she will run out of supplies. So don’t get cocky and expect her to always come along and pull you out of the fire.
The biggest addition to combat in Bioshock Infinite is the fact that Elizabeth can open tiny tears in space and make available to you new ways to get the better of the people hunting you down. She can summons sentry guns, mosquitoes (floating automated machine guns), walls for instant cover, medical stations and even skyhook connections that allow you to get the higher ground in a hurry. You may consider yourself a Bioshock expert with your learned use of weapons and vigor combinations, but it is the mastery of those two things and Elizabeth’s abilities that will truly make you feel like you are a badass. You could play through this game over and over again and no two battles will ever be the same. Do you take cover behind a wall created by Elizabeth and use your vigors and weapons like a cover-based shooter? Have her create a skyhook connection and get to higher ground, rain down some Shock Jockey then take out a few guys with your sniper rifle? Have her summon a patriot and as your enemies are focused on him, sneak around and flank your enemies? My brain is literally spinning right now trying to remember just how many different variations I used and all the new ways I can try on my next playthrough.
A quick word to the wise when it comes to upgrading your abilities: build up your shield first. The shield is new to Bioshock Infinite and is a life saver on many occasions. It will regenerate unlike your health so getting this to maximum quickly is a very good idea. I actually upgraded my health last after my shield and vigors. My shield recharges and I can find food everywhere for small boosts until I could find a vending machine for a refills. I used my vigors almost constantly so upgrading them second just made sense so I could have more uses of my powers.
Enemies in Columbia range from meh to memorable. In Rapture you were truly freaked when you came across splicers for the first time or when you watched the Big Daddy lumber by on the other side of the glass. Columbia has a wide range of enemies, but none really jump out at you…with the exceptions of the Handyman and Boys of Silence. The easiest way to describe the Handyman is to think of the big badassery of the Big Daddy and let him run fast and jump far so he can be all up in your face before you know it. The Boys of Silence are only used in one area of Columbia, but it is more than memorable. You must remain unseen or they can call in an army of dead creatures. Believe me, after one time, you will quiet the hell down. The other members of the rogues gallery like firemen or soldiers do not give you the same feeling as the denizens of Rapture. They feel more like cannon fodder.
This is the hardest part of my review to write. I have to convey to you how truly amazing the story is without possibly giving away anything. Bioshock Infinite could be called many things. A look back on the racial tensions that has marred this country for generations. An indictment on American culture today when it pertains to the working class and the one percent. A look at family and how the dreams of parents for their children are not always what is best for either party. Bioshock Infinite is layer after layer of storytelling and as you delve deeper into Columbia you may think you have a grasp on what is going on, but you truly have no idea. There is one event about 85% into the game where you believe a big reveal happens and you begin to think that maybe your idea about the ending was a bit muted and disappointing and you, like me, will be completely wrong. I promised a spoiler free review and dammit that is what I am going to do, but I honestly have to tell you that the last thirty minutes of Bioshock Infinite left my jaw agape and my controller nearly slipped out of my hands. I can not stress enough that you should let no one ruin the end of this game for you. This is coming from a cynical bastard that does not care about spoilers. Don’t do it.
You should know that the skyhook system does not make this game into a huge open world adventure. Now that is so minute that it should not register when weighed against the overall incredible feeling of this game, but I feel that I need to let you know that. The skyhook is used in combat (amazingly) and it is used to funnel you betwen areas, like a fancy ass tunnel system from Batman: Arkham Asylum. You can go back and forth between areas as you want for side missions and what not, but don’t go into Infinite thinking you are going to be getting Bioshock: San Andreas. I am pretty sure if you are playing Infinite then you are familiar with the structure of the original Bioshock, but I had to put that out there for new adopters.
I can not say enough about the experience that is Bioshock Infinite. I have tried to explain how you immediately get lost in the world of Columbia and how smooth and free-flowing the combat is, yet there is no real way to truly put into words just how deep, emotional and satisfying this game is.
What Ken Levine and the team at Irrational have been able to craft with Bioshock Infinite is nothing short of awe inspiring. If you thought you got lost in the immersion of Rapture then you haven’t seen anything yet. It is a one of those surreal experiences of gaming bliss that only comes along a few times in a gaming generation. Bioshock, Mass Effect, Uncharted 3, all these belong in the same company. Bioshock Infinite should be held higher than all of them. It has taken everything that was good about Bioshock and made it great. That alone should tell you exactly how wonderful a game we are dealing with here. Then add to it that it also improved what made Bioshock great, adding in the greatest story of this console generation, and what you are left with is gaming history.
When BioShock came out in late 2007, it was an instant commercial and critical success, and raised the bar exponentially for story-driven FPS. Its influence can still be felt, with the most recent example of its progeny probably being the excellent Dishonored. The game had a few shortcomings, of course, as anything made by humans tends to. Even the mighty Ken Levine felt compelled to include an unfortunate “final boss,” a fight which culminated in what may be the single most anti-climatic ending of modern gaming. But taken as a whole, BioShock was a singular and arresting masterpiece.
Business being what it is, publisher 2K immediately wanted to get rolling on a sequel, something which Levine and the team at Irrational Games agreed with… at first. Issues arose when 2K wanted to rush the studio’s (admittedly lengthy) standard development process, and were further compounded when it was determined the game “needed” a multiplayer component. Irrational departed the project to work on a “true” successor, and BioShock 2 was released to middling scores; arguably the game’s most interesting feature was the laundry-list of development teams featured in the opening credits.
Fast-forward to August of 2010, when Irrational used the tease of “Project Icarus” as the lead-in to Infinite’s reveal trailer. Eager players got our first look at Columbia, an almost complete inverse of Rapture: A city among the clouds, founded on the principles of American exceptionalism, racial purity, and religious fervor. We were also introduced to the game’s central plot: You were trying to rescue a young woman with special abilities from this city, with things apparently bigger and badder than even Big Daddies trying to stop you. Unfortunately, the initial release date of “October 012” eventually became March 26, 2013 owing to Irrational’s aforementioned penchant for taking their (sweet-ass) time.
Alright, I promise the history lesson is done, and apologize to anyone who was already well-aware of that information. I chose to include it, however, to make a point: Very few games have ever had this much hype to try and live up to. Hell, just go give my “Five Reasons” article another glance and you’ll understand just what this game had to leave up to for my expectations, alone. I want to establish these things so that when I tell you the final product met and exceeded my desires in almost ever area, you get a feel for just how good this game must be.
The opening lighthouse-centric portion of this game is, if anything, even more mysterious than the plane crash that launched BioShock. You’re Booker DeWitt, a former Pinkerton agent turned private eye / “independent contractor” who is being sent… somewhere in order to retrieve a young woman named Elizabeth. The game doesn’t give you much to go on, except that Booker has fallen in with some bad sorts, and he needs to “bring them the girl to wipe away the debt.”
I won’t spoil your initial arrival in Columbia, but I will say that Infinite begins at a much more easy-going pace than its predecessor. Depending on how much time you spend looking around, there’s almost an hour worth of simply wandering around Columbia; you can listen to a barbershop quartet, watch fireworks, and play games at a carnival. (Appreciably, the carnival games are actually tutorials on some the weapons and abilities.) You’re slowly making your way toward “Monument Island,” a giant statue of a winged girl where Elizabeth is being held. Everything is going well until someone notices the letters “A.D.” scarring the back of your hand.
You see, Columbia is ruled over by Zachary Comstock, also known to the residents as “The Prophet.” Comstock claims he was given a vision from an angel, and Columbia was the result. Apparently Elizabeth is his daughter, born under miraculous circumstances to his now-deceased wife, who was supposedly murdered by the “Vox Populi” labor rebellion. Elizabeth is now known as the “Lamb of Columbia,” though the Prophet has seen that a “false shepherd” will try and lead her astray.
A false shepherd who happens to have the mark of “A.D.” on the back of his hand.
From there, the idyllic sight-seeing turn into a full-fledged fight for survival, as the Prophet employs ever-increasing measures to try and stop you. Your first two acquisitions are a sky-hook and an ability-enhancing “vigor” (plasmids from the first game) that allows you to posses enemies. The sky-hook serves as both your melee weapon and gives you the ability to use freight hooks and sky-rails to move about the environment. As such, the player understands from these very first fights that combat in Infinite is about mobility, using your environment, and creating ways to keep focus off Booker when possible.
It’s here that I want to avoid talking too much more about the story, except to say that Booker does eventually reach Elizabeth, and from there they get swept up into the larger conflicts of the city. There’s the aforementioned Comstock and his other “Founders” Cornelius Slate and Jeremiah Fink, who are the heads of the city’s security forces and manufacturing, respectively; Daisy Fitzroy, the former servant and Vox leader accused of killing Lady Comstock; Robert and Rosalind Lutece, a pair of twins who appear to be involved in Booker’s mission and have connections to Comstock; and finally, the Songbird, the mechanical being assigned the task of both caring for Elizabeth and keeping her under confinement.
Elizabeth is probably the main reason I looked forward to each play session. It is evident from the first time Booker sees her – under circumstances where she can’t see him – that we are intended to love her, though not necessarily in a romantic or sexualized way. Her captivity has made her both naïve and world-weary. The first thing she does upon escape is to join a group of people dancing on a pier, and it seems she could do that indefinitely and still be happy; at the same time, her desire to escape has made her an expert in lock-picking and cryptology.
While held captive physically, she has been afforded every opportunity when it comes to education: We see her painting, dancing, and singing; she seems to be exceptionally well-versed in the arts and the sciences; there is reason to believe she is multi-lingual; and even though she can’t leave her tower, she can see outside and beyond it through her use of “tears.” In a nutshell, tears are windows into other points in time and space, such as Paris in 1983, or a Kansas farm in the middle of a tornado. This ability has been studied and exploited over the years; for instance, Fink uses it to discover new items for his factory and has his brother produce songs based on music he hears through the tears.
Comstock has been using a device to limit these powers, but once freed of her tower, Elizabeth slowly grows stronger in ways that become exceptionally useful. Initially, she is able to bring small changes in from other versions of Columbia, such as a box of med kits or an automated gun turret. Balancing which tear to have opened during combat becomes a huge focus at this point, and is one of the most refreshing things about the game. Elizabeth herself doesn’t participate in facts, but also doesn’t have to be “escorted” through them; she does, however, keep an eye on your health, salts (used for vigors), ammo and cash. If any of these take a big hit, she will try her best to provide you with more so you can keep going.
As the story progresses, her use of tears gradually advances to where she – and you, by proxy – can sometimes move between different versions of Columbia. This is every bit as potentially disastrous as it sounds, especially considering that the tears are what Elizabeth refers to as “some sort of wish fulfillment.” Thus, when in high states of emotion, she opens tears to realities that reflect that. For instance, after something truly horrific happens to someone connected to the Vox, she states she wants “a real revolution, just like in Les Mis.” She opens a tear to a Columbia where the Vox have been much more successful and better-equipped, but are also exceedingly more violent. In these rare moments, you feel a slight understanding for her containment; it might not be a good idea to let an impressionable teenager freely make use of her ability to reshape existence.
Of course, Booker wouldn’t be necessary if Elizabeth could do everything on her own, and brings his own skills to the table. A veteran soldier, he is easily able to utilize the various weapons used by both sides of the conflict: Pistols, machines guns, rifles, and even the occasional explosive are all at your disposal. These can also be upgraded the same way the guns in the first game could be, although there are a few notable differences. This time around, you can only have two weapons equipped at a time, forcing you to think about what’s best in a given situation; ammo is more plentiful, but that’s because the tone has shifted to a more-action oriented approach; and alas, this abundance of ammo comes at the removal of the different types of ammo available in BioShock.
Your other primary means of attack are vigors, of which there are eight scattered throughout the game. These range from familiar fire and shock attacks, to new abilities like launching enemies up into the air, to the powerful – but draining – ability to possess enemies. All vigors have a built in secondary / trap version, and can again be upgraded at vending machines. The final piece in the combat puzzle is the inclusion of gear: Booker has a slot for a hat, shirt, pants, and shoes. Scattered throughout the game, these articles range from making your clips bigger to giving your melee attack an elemental charge. I found that I kept the same few pieces equipped for the early parts of the game, but the later battles almost require you to suit up for specific circumstances.
Though Infinite does feature some corridor-based brawling, most of the excitement takes place in the open areas around Columbia’s buildings. These arenas are usually feature at least two vertical levels, and find you riding sky-rails between sections that may not even be physically connected. I already mentioned how managing which tear you have opened is vital, and this only becomes more prominent as the battlefields get bigger. I will freely admit that I tried several times to get through a fight – including the game’s final, unbelievably frenetic setpiece – by holing up next to an ammo spawn or automated turret, only to find myself cornered.
The game is designed to keep you moving, and certain design features highlight that: Booker can move freely on /off or between sky-rails without taking fall damage, no matter how far the jump; special, devastating attacks can be performed against enemies on the ground and on the rails with you; tears to health and ammo crates that seem randomly placed on the ground suddenly make perfect sense when seen from the perspective of the rails. The dynamic nature of these fights puts me best in mind of the large exteriors of Halo: Combat Evolved in terms of how three-dimensionally the fights require you to think.
The only real complaints I have come from what seem like holes (or tears, if you’d like) in the world-crafting. Plasmids made sense in Rapture and alongside ADAM / EVE added key elements to the story of the city’s fall. But within the racial-purity-driven halls of Columbia, Gatorade bottles full of demigod powers seem a little out-of-place. I also found absolutely no explanation of “salts” and how they fuel vigors, whether they are natural or synthetic, etc. Admittedly, there are several of the excellent audio and video logs that I didn’t find, so it’s possible one of them addresses salts.
My good friend Erich Wildgrube (JS Wolfwood from the “Blackout” blog days) has an interesting theory that some game elements support: Originally, vigors were going to be limited in use based on finding bottled versions scattered through the game. This is still evident in an early area where a vending machine is selling a four-pack of the “Bucking Bronco” vigor. The price tag is well beyond any amount you could have amassed so far, so most people assumed it was a simple nod to a former iteration of the game.
As you progress through the game, however, you come across numerous areas – especially in Fink’s factories – where there are busted-open crates filled with bottles of a certain vigor. When Booker picks these up, all they do is provide a refill of salts, but the existence of these crates seems to indicate the need for large quantities of particular vigors.
We also only ever see two enemy types using vigors: the “firemen” who attack with Devil’s Kiss, and the “reapers” who use a variation of Murder of Crows. In many ways, their use of the vigors seems to have altered their very nature, much like the way plasmids altered the splicers of Rapture. Think about the terrible things that happen to Booker’s hands each time he picks up a new one; perhaps prolonged exposure could lead to permanent damage for the citizens of Columbia.
Is it possible, then, that Booker’s ability to absorb vigors for repeated use is tied to some of the more… interesting aspects concerning his presence in Columbia? It would explain why vigors weren’t seen as too big a threat to the Founders’ rule; the supply would have been carefully controlled, and the presumably horrific results of overuse are a deterrent in their own right. I’ve come around to this way of thinking, although it still doesn’t give a reason for why there would also be bottles of salts lying around and available for purchase in vending machines.
The game also seems unsure about what exactly to do with tears, both from a story perspective and as a gameplay mechanic. Certain combat zones are rife with little doorways to all sorts of goodies, while others within the same area of the city have none at all to utilize. The same is true of big, reality-shifting gateways; there’s a section where you pass through several over them over the course of about 90 minutes, but then they don’t really become prominent again until the very end of the game.
I’ve already mentioned that I understand how Comstock would feel the need to limit Elizabeth’s powers, and I can also understand it from a developer standpoint. Too much messing about with alternate reality tears would make the story more convoluted than it already (slightly) is, and too many combat-enhancing tears would make them less exciting and eliminate much of the challenge. Still, it feels like the game presents us with only half an explanation regarding when they can and can’t be utilized, which only serves to highlight the questions that remain unanswered.
All of these things didn’t really come to mind until after I had finished the game, though, and begun discussing it with other players. While I was in the thick of it, leaping from skylines to airships, launching my enemies into the air and then summoning a mechanical George Washington to pick them off, all I felt was raw elation. When the game took Elizabeth from me, I was angry; when she ran away because of things I had done, I was heartbroken. I was never compelled by thoughts of “the end,” but rather by a desire to spend more time with these two.
And as the credits rolled, after an ending that was simultaneously a mind-frak and exactly what the game had been leading you toward, I felt resolution coupled with a profound sense of loss. I feel no shame in admitting that I eventually loved Booker every bit as much as Elizabeth and saying goodbye to them will stay with me for a long time to come.
[amazon_link id=”B003O6EB70″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]I played BioShock Infinite on the Xbox 360. It is also available on PS3 and PC.[/amazon_link]
In some of the greatest stories written, a creator must kill his creation before it gets out of control. Thus is the story of the Bioshock movie. At a recent BAFTA event, Bioshock creator Ken Levine was blatantly honest about why audiences never got to take a cinematic trip into Rapture.
He decided to kill his own creation.
“Take Two is one of those companies that gives a lot of trust to their creative people and so they said to me, ‘if you want to kill it Ken, kill it’. And I killed it.”
This came about after Universal trimmed the budget from $200 million to $80 million and director Gore Verbinski left the project over the budget reduction. And why did the studio suddenly get cold feet and slash the budget by so much? Would you believe [amazon_link id=”B001FB55H6″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Watchmen[/amazon_link]?
“There was a deal in place and it was actually in production at Universal, and Gore Verbinski was directing it. And what happened was – this is my theory – it’s a very big movie and Gore was very excited about it and he wanted to make a very dark, what he would call a ‘hard-rated’ horror film – an R rated film with a lot of blood. Then The Watchmen came out – and I really liked The Watchmen – but it didn’t do well for whatever reason and the studio got cold feet about making an R rated $200 million film.”
I don’t blame Levine for wanting to keep the movie from beginning if he didn’t feel wholly comfortable with the direction it was heading. As far as Universal getting cold feet, I don’t blame the failure of Watchmen, I blame the comic fans who clamored for a big screen version of the greatest graphic novel ever written and didn’t go and give it the support it needed.
Don’t ever say that game developers refuse to listen to their fans. After Bioshock Infinite’s box art was met with less than enthusiastic results it seems Ken Levine has given fans a choice for an alternate cover. The cover will be reversible so you can choose between the original and whichever other choice is voted in by fans. There are six designs to choose from. Make your voice heard.
Go vote on your favorite design here.