Hey forum how are you? Good, good. Now it's time to talk some games. Yes I haven't been around here in a while due to me suffering from a freaking writers block, but now I surpassed it and am ready to talk about one of my favorite games of this generation.
Part I: The History
The first Bioshock game came out during what I call the dry season of the year 2007,(formally known to others as the month of August) the game is fully developed by Irrational Games and Published by K2. The game shortly created a tidal wave of amazing responses and it lead to it being one of the most highly rated games in the history of the shooter franchise. This game has won so many awards that it's ridiculous for me to even try to do a list, so instead all i'm going to tell you is this Guinness World Records have awarded this game with the award for the most amount of demo downloads for Xbox Live. This game is also considered to be the spiritual successor of System Shock 2. Ken Levine is the main writer of both Bioshock and Infinite, and so far he has made two amazing games, two amazing worlds and two of the most interesting written stories in gaming history this past decade alone. (Now imagine Morgan Freeman saying: This man is destined for grantees.)
Enough banter about the creators and the magnificent jobs they do. Bioshock is a first person horror survivor shooter placed in 1960's. The players get to control Jack (the main character) after he is the lone survivor of an airplane crash near the bathysphere terminus that lead to the underwater city of Rapture. (just imagine a Steam Punk Atlantis with severe horror elements and all the residents are as insane as the most controversial DC villain of all time 'The Joker')
The story elements combined with the fluid gameplay and the beautiful artwork, secured this game a place on the top 100 video games of all time. Overall the game sold over 4 million copies world-wide landing the project as an immediate success for Irrational games.
Part II: The Game
Infinite follows the story of Booker Dewitt a private detective that has a clear mission: 'Get the girl, and pay off the debt', but as soon as mister Dewitt reaches the shore of a mysterious lighthouse everything changes, and by that I mean we get transported to the beautiful world of Columbia. (a flying city in the sky)
Now at first sight everything in this city is perfect, the people are nice and posses a shred of sanity, the streets are clean, the children are playing outside and the shopkeepers let you eat all the cotton candy and Hot-Dogs possible for free, but it also made perfectly clear that Columbia is run by one man called: Father Comstock (also refereed to as The Prophet). You get to bask in the glory of this amazing world for about another half an hour and see some amazing things such as a barber shop quartet of The Beach Boys, a carnival attraction that is set up as the tutorial and the fact that Booker bears the sign of the False Prophet, and that inter racial couples apparently are publicly humiliated. Once I was handed back the controls I quickly proceeded to hit the announcer with a curve ball in the face. Alas I got stooped by the police officer when they saw the mark on my hand and as you can imagine that's pretty much when all hell is set loose, and everyone besides me and the officers get to run away in terror.
I will not indulge in spoiling the story line of this game simply because it's too fresh, but you have premise of the world and it's people. From the gameplay point of view this game is flawless, I soon had logged over 14 hours on my first playtrough and hadn't managed to find any flaws or glitches when it comes in terms of shooting or zapping people to death with electric vigours. (spells)
Playing the game on hard I can tell you it was a pain to get trough some of the levels especially a boss battle that is set in a cemetery, (if you played the game you will understand why later) but never had I wanted to smash a controller over my knee more than when the same f*^%ing enemy re-spawns 3 times. (now normally I wouldn't complain but when the boss is a bullet sponge and you are ridiculously low on ammo, it just brings me back memories of Dark Souls) To make things more interesting this is the first game that I have encountered in which I had to think very carefully which guns I wanted to upgrade and which abilities since you will not be able to upgrade all of them, however I think that they could of made this slightly easier by letting you carry 3 guns at the same time instead of 2. (I mean come on Dewitt has a gun holster, he could easily carry one more strapped on his back while shooting people to death with the one you have in your hands and swapping between them, but maybe i'm being picky) The artwork of this game is a mixture of Steam-Punk with early 1900's American history with a slight twist. I love this amazing transition from the dark and gritty artwork in Bioshock to the amazing colorful streets of Infinite, plus there is just something amazing about seeing a giant steam-punk robot dressed as Abraham Lincoln with devil horns.
Around the first quarter of the game we are introduced to the secondary character Elizabeth, and let me get this out of the way now: 'She is the most amazing side-character ever'. What what what? Yes you heard me right people, she is helpful at all times and even when she isn't she will never get in your way. Let me just give you an example I spent over 20 minutes blasting away trough bad guys and I've ran out of ammo, and i'm taking fire left right and center and while I run away from the conflict Elizabeth has found a healing potion and trows it to me to spare me from dying. She can scavenge around the stage and collect stuff like: lockpick's, money, salts, health and ammo.She can also open up 'Tears' in the universe that can provide you with supplies,some well needed cover at times or maybe some flying turrets that can murder your enemies. Throughout the game we build a relationship with both Dewitt and Elizabeth and begin to care about them as they push towards their general goal of returning Elizabeth to New York or Paris.
Everything about this game screams how amazing it is but the soundtrack of the game is special, and I really wish that I could have basked in the world for more than 14 hours, but the most memorable moment of this game has to be when you land on a beach, and in the background Cyndi Lauper's: Girl's Just Want to have fun.
I have so much more I want to tell you about the world of Columbia, but I will just tell you this, if you loved Bioshock, or you just want to experience an alternative American History lesson with beautiful artwork and amazing soundtrack wrapped in a giant tortilla known as the story, then this is the game for you.
Final Score:
9.2/10.0
Plus:
+ Beautifull Artwork
+ The Music
+ The plot driven story
+ Charismatic Characters
+ First secondary character that doesn't get in your way
Minus:
- The amount of weapons you can carry
- I didn't get enough of Columbia so the game seems short to me
- The one annoying boss fight
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