Well, it’s finally time. 2K has released its “BioShock Infinite.” This game has been anticipated since 2010 when the original news of its development was released. Before I go any further, I will not put any spoilers in here to preserve the fun for everyone.
I got a PC copy of the game because I couldn’t get my hands on a hard copy for PS3 or Xbox 360. I’ll admit that I am a little out of my element since I don’t play first-person shooters or play on the PC, but I bought into the hype. I had to play this game. For a first-person shooter, “BioShock Infinite” is incredibly easy to get used to. It took me a good twenty minutes to get used to the control system. The game has a very manageable learning curve.
The game itself is super pretty. Even with very low resolution, the graphics are mind-blowingly good. I’m honestly too afraid to raise the resolution — my eyes may explode from the beauty. It’s not just combat or the Vigor abilities either; the entire floating world of Columbia is amazing. The creators put so much effort into the entire world and it features minute details in every section: If you wander into a random room somewhere on the map, you will find at least a blood stain and some object with which you can interact.
You start the game as Booker DeWitt, a man with a shady past, who is riding in a rowboat to a lighthouse. Booker is left on the dock with only a picture of a girl, a pistol and a card with some pictures on it. So after Booker gets dumped there, he proceeds to the lighthouse. After he climbs to the top, Booker enters the room with the light in it and sits in a chair. Booker gets strapped into the chair, and the chamber closes around him. The chair flies in a rocket to the floating city of Columbia.
So that’s all in the first 10 minutes. Columbia may be in the air and a somewhat technologically advanced city, but it has an old-time America feel to it. People wear suits and dresses out on the town, and men’s swimsuits are the old full-body suit complete with red stripes. It even comes complete with its own civil unrest and religious fanatics. Booker doesn’t pay too much attention to any of that, though. He tries to save the girl from the photo.
The Belle from “Beauty and the Beast” look-a-like, Elizabeth, is a girl locked in a library who the players must lead to safety. Don’t be too upset about the escort mission because Elizabeth DOES NOT need to be protected at all. The game even has a tutorial to tell players that she can handle herself. Also, to my knowledge, she can’t die. She is the best escort mission I’ve ever had to deal with.
Elizabeth not only cannot die, but she can also be helpful. 2K really outdid themselves. Elizabeth can pick locks, which becomes incredibly useful when all of the items you want are behind a pane of glass taunting you and the only way in is a locked door. She finds money on the ground and, during combat, she gives you health packs, ammo and salts. She saved me countless times.
Elizabeth also has a special talent that players will learn about when playing that allows her to be even more helpful in combat and advances the story. She can open distortions in space called tears. In the tears are another form of reality. It’s pretty easy to guess that the tears become an integral part of the story later on, but that’s all I’m going to say. I will tell you about tears in combat though. While on the battlefield, a number of tears exist. You can tell Elizabeth to open the tears and you can exploit whatever comes out of them. It can range from health packs to automated turrets. She can only open one at a time, but picking which tears to use when is incredibly important.
The rest of the combat is pretty standard for a BioShock game. It has guns galore that you can upgrade at vending machines and Salts, replacing EVE from the old game, which allow Booker to use new abilities like sending a bunch of crows to distract people or throwing fire bombs. The amount of battling does get crazy at times, but it’s all pretty manageable.
“BioShock Infinite” has been ridiculously hyped, and I would say it has lived up to the reputation. For such a complex world, the game has very few glitches, with visible effort put into all aspects of the game. The game caters to all types of gamers from the rush-in-and-shoot-everything type to the hide-and-snipe-everyone type of players. The story is so-so, but the experience is amazing.
Christian Moberg is a junior studying Japanese and computer science.
