Bioshock Infinite

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

I finished Bioshock Infinite on Sunday night and I've been struggling for what to say about it since. I'm not conflicted, understand. I loved the game. It's gorgeous, its loads of fun, it's full of little details that the perceptive player will eat up (if you're the type of player who just wants to complete your missions and get your achievements/trophies, you may not enjoy this one), and it's got an ending that's as heart-breaking as it is mind-bending.

Like its predecessors (Bioshock and, to a lesser extent, Bioshock 2), Infinite allows for a lot of reading between the lines. It, in fact, requires the aforementioned perceptive player to engage in some light mystery-solving, allowing you to absorb the details at your own pace, uncovering who you are and why you're there (hint: you are not who you think you are until you're exactly who you think you are). This is a deeply rewarding feeling. For example, when you really start to think about the Boys of Silence and understand all the implications of their quantum mechanical abilities, it's genuinely unnerving, largely because your brain is forced to put the grimmer details together on its own (what exactly is under those helmets?).

Yes, quantum mechanics. See, the game gets rather... complex toward the end and it can take some effort to hash out, first, what the hell just happened, and second, what all of it means. Let me see if I can do it some justice.

You are Booker DeWitt, a Pinkerton agent with a shameful past and a significant load of debt to your name. To clear these debts, you are commissioned to travel to Columbia, a literal city in the sky, and return with apparent damsel in distress Elizabeth, whose father, Zachary Comstock, is not only the creator and ruler of Columbia, but something of a godhead as well, hailed as "The Prophet." Except it turns out that Elizabeth is less a damsel in distress than she is a god in human form and Comstock is less your enemy than he is... you... in an alternate timeline. Seems that in order to pay his earlier debts, Booker sold his infant daughter, Anna, to Comstock, who was (re)born when Booker declined an old-time-religion type baptismal and their timelines split. Comstock took Anna back to his dimension and raised her as Elizabeth, who turns out to have inter-dimensional powers because her pinky finger was cut off and left behind during the transition to Comstock's timeline. This all comes as a significant surprise to Booker, less of a surprise to Comstock (who's developed the technology to see into other dimensions, explaining his prophet-ness), and Elizabeth copes with the knowledge rather well because once you've learned that you're an inter-dimensional meta-human, little remains to shock you.

Like I said, a lot to absorb. This is the simplest, most accurate (to my interpretation) summation that I can find. There's more, of course. Turns out that the Columbia we witness is one of an infinite (eh, eh?) number of Columbias, in an infinite number of universes, allowing the game to tie into its predecessors and give Rapture a nice shout-out (note: while some will complain about Columbia looking like a skin swap of Rapture, such callbacks make a lot more sense given the dimensional nonsense). Moreover, Booker's probably been sent to rescue Elizabeth before--122 times, per one theory. But that gets us bogged down in arcane details. The main thrust is the Booker-Elizabeth-Comstock story, an arc that gets more and more attention as the game proceeds and Ken Levine and his team of developers gained more and more fondness for that relationship (and especially Elizabeth) as they went along. This focus forced the developers to drop other elements, to some fans' displeasure, such as Columbia itself and the much-hyped politics of turn of the century American nationalism, each of which seem to wither away about halfway through.

I have some minor complaints about the game's near-dropping of the politics. This particular brand of American exceptionalism is not nearly as strong a through-line as were the objectivist politics of the first Bioshock (likewise, Rapture was more of a character in Bioshock than Columbia is in Infinite). And while it's possible that the writers and programmers could only stomach so much early 20th Century-style casual racism, the sudden dropping of that aspect seems a shame, especially given the contemporary commentary that could be had. But that shifting focus is forgivable because Elizabeth is the real heart of the game. And once you're introduced to her, and the questions her abilities raise, the politics become pedestrian.

Yes, Infinite is technically a game-long escort mission. But, as though anticipating triggered flashbacks to Natalya, the programmers throw up on the screen the eight sweetest words in video game history: You Don't Need To Protect Elizabeth in Combat. Not only does Elizabeth not get in the way, she helps you, tossing you ammunition and health in the middle of firefights. Not always with the most advantageous timing, I'll grant, but because the player can choose to ignore her aid, I usually spared Elizabeth any blame when things went wrong. Better still: unlike Natalya, or Ashley of Resident Evil 4, Elizabeth brings something very rare in games: likability. And a genuine place for emotional investment. Infinite is not about Booker, or even the wish fulfillment of the player, as so many games are. It's about Elizabeth and settling her story. In this way, the game is more concerned with itself than it is the player and seeks to resolve its own questions. Infinite ends on--at best--a bittersweet note for Booker, and while that may turn off some players, the game succeeds on its own terms. You know, the way art does.

Of course the final Booker-Comstock reveal seems to have a pretty serious hole, one that I am not smart enough to explain. However, the hole doesn't hurt Infinite's overall quality too much and gamers have generally forgiven stupider sins in exchange for acceptable gameplay. And, anyway, the Bioshock series should get some points back for striving to be big and grand and important and worth our time. Isn't that what so many of us demand from the medium? Look around the Internet: nearly all discussion of Infinite, a little over a week after its release, is about the twist at the end and the attendant dalliances through multiple universes and alternate timelines. Everyone is generally agreed that the game-play is damned satisfying and the environments damned pretty to look at. The conversation is about the confusing ending, with fans and detractors bouncing theories back and forth in an attempt to dissipate that confusion. These efforts have naturally uncovered some problems with the narrative, as any story that falls back on time travel or inter-dimensionality will have (Looper attempted to diffuse the debate immediately, and still couldn't quite stop the chattering juggernaut from trying to explain it). How many games produce this kind of instant, overwhelming reaction, relying on small, hard sought-after details? Surely, this is what we want from these games.

Awarding brownie points for wanting to do something fantastically mind-blowing while coming a little short is probably jejune. But to brush off the achievements of Infinite over some narrative confusion at the very end of the game is bad for the medium. This is an effort to be rewarded and savored. Because these are the games we've been waiting for.

Grade: A