Constants and Variables

Game--Bioshock: Infinite

System--PS3, Xbox 360, PC

Release--March, 2013


When I first heard of Bioshock: Infinite my expectations were low. The prequel to the ever popular Bioshock couldn't possibly be better. How could it top the under the sea dystopian antics of Ryan and Fontaine? Especially after the sequel panned out to be a pale imitation of it's predecessor.

The answer lies in time manipulation and companionship. Similar to Half-Life 2, Infinite tells a tale through the interactions of the main playable character, Booker, and the non-playable character, Elizabeth. The relationship between the two characters is one of the driving forces pushing the plot, and it is well executed.

Many touching moments are shared between Elizabeth and Booker that are seldom seen in games today. There are also strong themes throughout the story that range from religion and industrialization; to temporal distortions and paternal problems. Not surprising, the city in the clouds has much in common with its sister in the sea.

Booker is sent to the city of Columbia with a simple task. Find Elizabeth to wipe away his debt. Taking place during the early 1900's the American city is a utopia for the privileged white elite. You know. Those kind folks who didn't appreciate Lincolns little war. They just wanted a safe haven to practice their faith, and protect their white babies. Turns out it's a heck of a lot easier to secede from the Union when you are a floating city in the sky. Of course Columbia doesn't reject their darker skinned brothers and sisters. Someone has to work in the industrial sector, and keep the place spic and span.

Naturally the town goes to hell in a hand basket shortly after Booker arrives. He has to fight his way through waves of armed forces using any gun he can find and Plasmids--I mean Vigors. That's the bottled goodness granting you magic from your finger tips.

There's decent variation between enemies, but the guns could have been better. Luckily the Vigors nicely supplement the lackluster arsenal. If you've played any of the Bioshocks, then you'll be familiar with the gameplay. The powers are different, but not to the point of confusion. Fire is fire. Lightening is Lightening. Bees are now Crows. etc. The new twists lie with your partner and the Skyline.


Elizabeth is your best buddy in a firefight. She will throw ammo, salts (used to refill your Vigors), and health packs when you need it most. She can also make all sorts of items appear with her temporal powers.

Not to be outdone. Booker can leap on to the overhead railing and zip around the area in style. The swashbuckling feel is enjoyable, and landing on unsuspecting enemies is rewarding. The rail device attaches to the left hand, which also doubles as a viscous melee weapon. Players can access melee, guns, or powers at any time without having to switch between the three. As a result the whole combat system feels more streamlined, and the action wasn't interrupted as frequently as past titles.

Infinite does a great job implementing new tactics into a familiar setting, while simultaneously redefining the Bioshock universe. The developers brilliantly found a way to explain why the formula would be copied from the previous titles. Elizabeth is gifted with some serious temporal powers that allow her to tear open time itself. This provides all sorts of interesting twists and turns throughout the story. By the end players will have a completely new perspective of this fictional playground.

If you are like me, then you'll immediate start up a new game to catch all the foreshadowing and innuendo. Bioshock: Infinite is easily my favorite game of the year, and I'm looking forward to the upcoming downloadable content Burial at Sea.

@2K Would You Kindly Stop Making Bioshock games?

Game: Bioshock 2

System: Xbox 360, PS3, PC

Release: February 2010

Bioshock was one of the best console FPS experiences of 2007. The perfect blend of atmosphere, gameplay, and story warranted numerous Game of the Year awards. Unfortunately the high critical acclaim and sales comes with a price. 2K is cashing in on the one franchise not under attack from EA sports. This means a number of sequels for a game that didn’t need any. Bioshock 2 is not a bad game. It just doesn’t have the same zesty zing of the first.

Let’s start with what 2K got right—combat and gameplay. The first game required radial menu navigation to switch between plasmids and weapons, and everything was performed with one of the character’s hands. The new streamlined combat has plasmids assigned to the left trigger/bumper and weapons are on the right. This results in faster paced action and strengthens the immersion. Hacking is also less cumbersome. The pipes mini-game is replaced with a quick time event. Players must observe a gage and press a button while the dial is over a green or blue square. Landing on a red square triggers an alarm, and no colors results in an electric shock. I did miss the pipe mini-game, but the new system makes hacking a room full of turrets, cameras, and bots faster. Like the changes to combat, this keeps the immersion factor high. Rapture is such a fascinating setting and the developers did an excellent job of keeping players in the city and out of menus.

Weapons and plasmids have seen only minor adjustments in Bioshock 2. There are very few new powers, and each of the old abilities has a new twist. Lightening, for example, can be charged at level two for chain lightening and a longer shock. At the max level a constant stream of lightening can be deployed from the hand. Because the main character is a Big Daddy, more on that later, weapons like the Rivet gun and Power Drill have been added to the arsenal. These additions make sense, but I didn’t utilize them as much as the shotgun or spear gun. The best new weapon was actually not really a weapon at all. The Hacking gun allows you to…yep you guessed it…remotely hack items.

Just about everything else in Bioshock 2, except multiplayer, is copied from the first. The plot is a different shade of dystopia. The setting is Rapture about ten years later. The villain is a communist version of Fontaine and Ryan. The main character is a Big Daddy, and that does not change the interaction with Little Sisters. These angels of ADAM are back, and just like the end of the first game players must escort them as they collect ADAM from corpses. After harvesting a few bodies you get the same old choice to save or kill the Little Sister. Basically they took the most boring part of the first game, and smeared it all over the second like too much butter over toast. The developers seemed afraid to branch out into the new and this creates a dull experience for Bioshock veterans.

A few gamers have argued the new main character is an improvement. The new weapons are awesome—agreed—and the idea of the Bid Daddy searching for his one and only Little Sister is daring or edgy—disagree. The relationship between father and daughter is not developed to the point where I felt anything for the later.For all I know she is just another controlling psycho from Rapture. The brief moments of mental spam didn’t thrill me in games like FEAR or Halo 3, and fails to elicit anything but annoyance in Bioshock 2. Another issue I have concerns plot holes. If you didn’t collect all the audio logs, then the connections between the two games can be lost. Even with all the tapes many questions were only answered with ADAM. How does Rapture, an underwater city, remain inhabitable after a decade of disrepair? ADAM that’s how! Why would anyone attempt to take over Rapture? ADAM is the shit yo! Why didn’t the first Bioshock mention anything about Lamb—someone who seriously threatened Ryan’s power? Dude, the ADAM made me forget to mention her. Sorry about that.

One thing that ADAM did improve was multiplayer. Taking place during the New Years Eve war between Atlas and Ryan players can choose between a number of different characters. Each has their own unique back story denoted through personal audio logs and advertisements from Sinclair Solutions. They also have custom weapons and outfits. The house wife, Betty Johnson, uses a frying pan for melee and fights in a 50’s style dress. The old southern bourbon salesman runs around in a suite wielding a golf club. The shit talking is hilarious, and the amount of detail given to each character is really impressive. Gameplay is also well done. Turrets and vending machines can be hacked to lay traps. Weapons and plasmids are unlocked as player’s level up—that’s also how you unlock more audio logs to complete each characters story. Everyone starts with the basics: fire, electric bolt, shotgun, and pistol. Eventually the entire stock of Sinclair Solutions is at your disposal: grenade launchers, bees, and traps oh my! The multiplayer experience is unlike anything on the market today, and 2K should be proud of what they accomplished. Bioshock 2 is a great game all by itself. The combat is smooth and streamlined. The story is excellent—especially if you ignore the first Bioshock—and the multiplayer is a great addition to the franchise. I can’t help but feel that if Bioshock 1 never existed Bioshock 2 would get a perfect score. The shaky connection between games and unanswered questions, however, are readily apparent and this hinders the experience. I also felt the story, when compared to the first, was lacking that something special. The zing, pow, zap, or whatever word you want to use from ADAM West’s Batman. As a result Bioshock 2 gets a respectable 4.8 out of 5.

Would You Kindly Buy Bioshock?

Game: Bioshock

System: Xbox and PC

August 2007

Would you kindly pick up a crow bar or some other blunt object? From the moment I heard those sweet words I was in love. Bioshock is one of those games that attempts to combine multiple video game genres and does so phenomenally. This game is a science-fiction horror first person shooter with RPG elements. The plot is shocking, compelling, and is destined to become a future blockbuster movie. Ken Levine creates a disturbingly vivid dystopian world influenced by the works of Ayn Rand and George Orwell. Take a deep breath boys and girls. We are about to enter Rapture.

The game begins in the year 1960 with you, Jack, in an airplane that crashes over the Atlantic. Strangely there is a nearby building that you can swim to, and inside there is an inviting diving pod. From there you run into your first human contact Atlas, and the adventure of a lifetime begins. Rapture is filled with all sorts of wonderfully amazing things. Stem cells from a sea slug have created the substance known as ADAM. This product has insane possibilities and eventually spawned the Plasmid Corporation. From in-game scenes and scattered tape recorders, you discover that this company provided everything from the cure for cancer to pyrokinesis—that’s setting stuff on fire in layman’s terms. Eventually a power struggle develops between two men; the founder of Rapture Andrew Ryan and the founder of Rapture’s blackmarket Frank Fontaine. Of course various things go horribly and disturbingly astray, and it is up to Jack to sort it all out.

Bioshock utilizes the awesome power of Havoc Physics for stunning environment and rag doll effects, and the gameplay is extremely smooth with the Unreal Engine 3.0. Movement is fluid, the environment is very immersive and interactive, and the sound is top notch. Players get a host of upgradeable weapons and special abilities brought to you by the Plasmid Corporation. Powers include pyrokinesis, telekinesis, electric bolts, killer bee swarms, and more. There are also passive abilities that make hacking easier, add bonuses to health packs, and provide a host of other useful talents. The offensive powers interact with the environment for outstanding encounters. My personal favorite was setting people on fire, and when they jump into a near by pool of water I let loose an electric bolt to finish them off. Yes...you read that correctly. The AI is smart enough to jump into a pool of water when it is on fire.

Enemies come in two styles: mechanical and human—if you can call these things human. All of these enemies are extremely smart, and will force players to stay on there toes throughout the game. Turrets, cameras, and drones will be consistent pains in your ass. Luckily you can attack, sneak, and hack your way past these obstacles. Hacking will also unlock various vending machine benefits, and is accomplished through a pipes mini game that resembles the popular PC game Pipe Dream.

Human enemies take on a variety of mutated forms. Splicers are very agile humans that wield two curved hooks. They move quickly, crawling across the ceiling and walls, and they will jump out of various hiding places unexpectedly. There are also deranged humans wandering Rapture in search of ADAM. They wield guns, pipes, monkey wrenches, and anything else they can get a hold of. Precious ADAM is derived from Little Sisters, who are helpless little girls that harvest dead bodies for stem cells. Big Daddies, however, make the Little Sisters a lot less helpless and a hell of a lot deadlier. Killing these monsters will reward you with the benefits of harvesting ADAM from the Little Sister.

How much ADAM you take from Little Sisters is up to you. Early on in the game you will be confronted with the ultimate choice. Harvest the Little Sister to death, or use the device Dr. Bridgette Tennenbaum gives you that extracts a portion of the ADAM and allows the girls to live. Pick one or the other, and stick with that choice. Each will result in a different ending, and trust me you will want to play this one more than a couple of times through.

Bioshock has won numerous awards for its overall presentation, plot, and gameplay. Many websites have given it the honor of Game of the Year for 2007. My own personal score will be no lower. Bioshock gets an amazing 5 out of 5. There was nothing in this game that I didn’t enjoy. The only issue I could possibly think of is a lack of multiplayer, but the balancing issues would be a huge deterrent. Fortunately this game doesn’t need a multiplayer mode to stand out as one of the best video games of 2007.