Bioshock Infinite

While I very much enjoyed the first Bioshock, I still haven't played the second one - put off by its terrible reputation. Similarly, Bioshock Infinite, though I very much liked the concepts revealed in the development process, was low-priority. But hey, it was free for PS+ members this week, so why not?

Ultimately, it's not a game I would recommend, especially beside the far better original. There are some fine ideas, and the basic concept of taking a series known for being set underwater and taking it instead up into a floating city is a nice idea. Unfortunately, it also means they swapped claustrophobic, dank, creepy tunnels for wide open spaces and bright colours, noir-ish art deco for idealistic Americana - horror for cartooniness. And a whole lot is lost in terms of atmospherics as a result. 

Bioshock Infinite follows grizzly but heroic Wounded Knee veteran turned potboiler detective Booker DeWitt (geddit? Like Bryce DeWitt?), who has a chance to wipe away his gambling debts by recovering a girl from the floating city of Columbia, run by a prophet in a monumental cult of personality. Along the way, he has to contend with the local law enforcement, including people with bizarre powers that he can then take on himself much like in the first game, plus sentry turrets, goofy-looking 'handymen' and the best idea of the game, the iconic 'Motorized Patriot'. Later, there are also the utterly pointless Boys of Silence, who are supposed to encourage stealth but do nothing more than set weaklings on you anyway, and the game's beefed-up version of the Big Daddies, the massive Songbird, which it is only possible to defeat through the power of plot progression. 

In terms of gameplay, it's like playing the original in the sunshine, only with a lot more limitations on guns. You can only carry two at a time, and ammo is limited - though in massive supply. It was a mistake to put it on 'normal', because it was extremely easy, with no strategy needed except for one annoying ghost battle. My biggest problems came from poor QA - twice I had to restart my game because of bugs, once when Mrs Lin refused to move out of the way and once because I charged at the ghost and got stuck inside a pillar. Great. I suppose that's the trouble with playing the free games - I normally want to get as much time as possible out of a purchase, but free ones I want to rush through. 

Once DeWitt meets Elizabeth, the girl he's been charged to rescue, the main thrust of the plot begins - not only is there the question of why the 'prophet' Comstock has locked her up, but the fact that she has unusual powers. The city floats thanks to advanced quantum engineering, which also hints at multiple worlds. Though the title is 'Infinite' and the story hints at infinite possible universes, that's not the route it goes at all. The plot relies heavily on the idea of constants - there is apparently 'always a man and always a lighthouse', which allows for a nice trip to Rapture that unfortunately is only a keen reminder of how much better the first game was, and though I like the way DeWitt is led to make the decision Elizabeth is leading him to from the start, without some very iffy reasoning on how constants then exclude the possibility for infinite worlds to come about and awful Back to the Future paradoxes with people able to make themselves disappear by altering past events, the ending just doesn't work - and in any case certainly isn't compatible with the idea of infinite universes of the 'quantum tears' crossing time as well as space - which it does. We should be used to bad sci-fi writing on time travel by now, sure, but Bioshock is known for its clever writing and intelligent twists. So the disappointment was far worse.

There are some bright ideas and lovely visuals here. But the precedent made me want a game that was fun to play, frightening, creepy, intelligent and had a good twist. And it kinda fell short in every one of those aspects. 

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

(Fanart by yami-izumi on deviantART)

I could have expected this acclaimed ‘art game’ to get dark, really. It starts with a child at his mother’s grave, thinking about watching her drown and being unable to help her. But hey, plenty of Disney films have that sort of death scene and mourning afterwards. After the twee first hour or so of this, I was totally unprepared for just how dark things would get. It’s less the larger events, the traumas and the losses, and more the details. No young Disney hero has to choose whether or not to save a grieving father from hanging himself, cause the dead bodies of giants to hack one another’s limbs off so they can get past or bathe in blood to interrupt a cult from sacrificing a young woman. As to that oft-seen trope where a boy becomes tempted sexually, is implied to lose his childhood and then immediately pay a dear price for it…well, there’s a lot psychoanalysts can say about it, I’m sure.

But I was left deeply impressed by Brothers. It is indeed an art game in the same vein as Journey, short in overall length but unhurried, deeply influenced by fantasy writing, mature in presentation and emotionally heavy-hitting. Telling the story of two boys in a world of mythology that draws many comparisons to Fable but with a more Scandinavian twist to it – trolls and all – it intentionally starts with low-key puzzles like chasing off a village bully by setting free a silly little yappy dog and transitions through an episode of wolves and graveyards to the far darker themes of the later chapters…though always with touches of light, usually revolving around making animals happy. One of the good things about trophies and achievements is that a game like this, full of sweet little touches, can guide you to seeing the scenes put in just for fun, and several of them are very rewarding – and one pretty heart-wrenching. If you’ve seen it, I’m pretty certain you know which I mean.

The brothers themselves, despite have Sim-like speech, grow well over the course of the game. The earnest one learns to be a bit less blinkered (though perhaps to his peril) and the younger one, who starts out incredibly obnoxious even for a ‘prankster’, has to mature very fast. The game itself is a pleasure, with simple controls facilitating some ingenious puzzles, all of which are easily figured out but often raise a smile with their cleverness. I wasn’t stuck once, but had to pause to think – and admittedly had to go back for several trophies. And though it seems like the only way to die at first is to fall from a great height or to get attacked by something and fall over, but there are some moderately brutal death scenes here, especially when you first meet the girl and have to escape a mysterious threat. Gameplay-wise, there were several puzzles that reminded me of the co-op in Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, but mostly it reminded me of the old PC puzzle game Gobliiins, another European game with a medieval setting and lots of creatures from mythology wherein a single player controls multiple characters so that when they interact they get through puzzles. This is over 20 years later, though, and things can be done on a more epic scale – and the grandiose view is something this game does very well.

I would like to have seen multiple possible endings, though I guess that if there was a statement to be made, the writer wanted to keep it consistent. Besides, this sort of downloadable game is generally considered a single unified playing experience that may be brief but is affecting. It certainly is that, and I will watch with interest for any sort of follow-up, and beyond a doubt play it through again sometime that I want to be a little moved. 

The Last of Us: Left Behind

It’s only a short DLC, sure – though a 5GB download – but Left Behind is worth a little entry here.

This is the first time I've bought DLC to continue a game, and that's really because what was most striking and enjoyable about The Last of Us was its story and its characters.

Not a whole lot happens in Left Behind, in all honesty - the side-story jumps between two different time periods while drawing parallels between different events in the difficult life that Ellie has led. One part fills in the blank between Joel's injury and Ellie caring for him in the isolated hut - just how did she get him there? The other, perhaps providing more of the heart of the piece, is the flashback to Ellie before she met Joel - and her entirely adorable relationship with another rebellious girl called Riley, who has come back to see her after having become a Firefly, filling in some blanks such as who the dog tags in her backpack from the main game belonged to. 

The actual game portion is really centred on the midquel part - there, Ellie is armed and capable and has to deal with some quite tricky situations, including some incredibly annoying stalkers. On the other hand, I was slightly disappointed because I kept trying to play the game with stealth and finesse, only to keep failing and to realise it was a lot easier to kill one enemy sneakily, then just go ham and shoot everyone very loudly. The parts where you set the infected on the 'Cannibals' was quite enjoyable, but the combat segments were few and far between, and not the focus at all. 

Because this DLC is here to tell a little story, the story of Ellie and her sweet little romance with Riley as they run about a mall, having water gun fights, taking photos together (that, sweetly, get posted onto your real Facebook) and dance to Riley's mix tape up on a counter. Of course, it inevitably ends badly - otherwise how would we get to the story proper? - and there's a definite tear-jerker element, but I have to say that in the tradition of the game, the most harrowing parts are actually left unsaid. 

Incredibly cute, cleverly-done and interspersed with a lot of fun details - especially in the Hallowe'en joke store - this was also a pleasant reminder of just how superb the game looked and how well-crafted its characters are. Great stuff.