Would you kindly explain how to top one of the greatest games of the PS3/Xbox 360 era? Sure. First, you start throwing darts. Instead of underwater, we're above ground, no, we're in the clouds! Instead of plasmids... we'll call them....tonics, yeah! Oh and instead of a sense of isolation, impending dread and ethical questions about science and morality, we'll turn the game into a graphically violent mass-murder simulator where the bad guys are racist so it's okay you're killing them in waves while doing a weird multi-verse alternate history thing! It'll be great! Right? RIGHT? Not so much, Ken. Hype ruined Bioshock: Infinite simply because Irrational Games and creative director Ken Levine got lost in the lights. In an effort to be bigger, grander and more robust both in scope and message, Bioshock: Infinite lost its humanity both literally - by making your character a mass-murdering sociopath you're supposed to care about - and figuratively; where the plot-points involving mothers and fathers and portals and wombs and alternate dimensions and giant robot birds don't hit home because they're such broad ideas that become tricky to fully digest. The problem with Bioshock: Infinite is the idea that a sequel has to be 'bigger' and 'better'. Bioshock: Infinite is in the sky, and now the sun is shining, the buildings are bigger - the scale larger - and where before you were essentially fighting to save some children from an evil scientist in an abandoned city, here you're ultimately unraveling the fate of the universe in a largely functioning society across several different dimensions. It's a massive jump in scope, which it handles poorly because it's a first person shooter. You'll be shooting countless enemies, who unlike the splicers in the first Bioshock - are generally sentient humans, mostly policemen, and it gives you an icky vibe that's hard to shake off because you're constantly challenged to take the meta-physical themes of the plot seriously and disregard the shooty gamey parts. It's a strange case, where Bioshock: Infinite is actually worse than the sum of its parts. It's obvious a ton of TLC went into creating the dynamic gameplay, plot, and especially the visuals. But they never come together - instead saying "Here's the game parts!" and "Okay, time to care about this story again!" and hoping we're okay switching from left brain to right brain so quickly. But we're not.
