I’ve wanted to write a review/analysis/critique (what have you) of BioShock Infinite for approximately a billion years but it was hard to get my thoughts all in a tidy little order. I have, perhaps unfortunately, a buttload (the abbreviation for one unit of buttload is bd) of things to say on the matter, and it was difficult to find the time to say them until I thought “Wait a second, this does not need to be one blog post. In fact, it can be—joy of joys!—many!
BioShock Infinite was released to amazing reviews and relatively minor controversy (Trigger Warning: Face goo). Developer/dramaturg Ken Levine gave an interview which is worth a listen, but some of the things I’ll be talking about will address the various criticisms levied against Infinite—both good and bad. I have lots of things to say about this game, so in the next few days we can look forward to me talking about the following things: 1) Violence AKA Face goo; 2) the Expectations of Story; 3) Gameplay; and 4) The Ending.
Clearly your days will be rich with wonder.
As the Kotaku article suggests, the violence in BioShock Infinite defines the gameplaying experience for more than a few players, so let us begin with that.
If you read that article you get a pretty good idea of what quite a few people were saying about the game. If you don’t want to read it, here’s the gist of it: the game plays like a masterpiece until about an hour in, where it risks alienating players by being too violent and gory.
I’ve never personally been adverse to violence, particularly of the stylized, cartoony variety that Infinite has on offer (and it has a lot). In fact I’m pretty sure I’m a shining counter to the Video-Games-Cause-Violence pundits as my appetite for fake violence could be described as ravenous, while so much as watching someone get punched in the face is enough to make me sick to my stomach (the aversion hypnotherapy I recently underwent probably doesn’t help). So it’s worth noting that while I generally feel Infinite’s violence was perfectly fine, I also think the scene in Hannibal where Lecter feeds Ray Liotta his own brains is pretty much the greatest moment in cinematic history.
Sup
But to flesh out my perspective, let’s actually visit the moment. I’m an atheist, so I’m inclined towards immediate and intense distrust of religious dogma. Columbia put me more on edge than the Spider Slicer at the beginning of BioShock just by virtue of its candles and hymns and people calling me brother.
Nevertheless Columbia grew on me quickly, even despite the baptism and crazy people praying to statues of the Founding Fathers. Before long I was mentally how-dee-doing and tipping my hat to its fine citizens. I liked Lady Comstock’s “Without sin, what grace has forgiveness?” quote and despite my deep dislike of religion I am a sucker for early 20th-century Evangelical imagery, replete with “Hallelujahs” and “Praise the Lords”. In fact I was eventually feeling so good about Columbia I even honoured the honour system and paid for the things I bought from a shop—even though it was clear Booker would not do such a thing, and I’m usually loathe to do something against character lest I ruin a carefully-crafted arc.
So the moment when all Hell breaks loose was, to me, an emotional mindjob. I’m sitting there reveling in the glory of this floating city, the pretty girl with the raffle balls is flirting with me all sweet-like—and then within about thirty seconds everything that I felt was delightful and wonderful is turned completely upside down. It happens so quickly that I only have time to think “Wait a second, why is it a baseball? Oh God No—” before sure enough an interracial couple is wheeled out for the world’s amusement and then I have to murder a guy by turning his face into anachronistic chop suey. It’s totally raunchy, and it works amazingly well.
As mentioned I am rarely disturbed by fake violence, and in fact if there was anything that turned my stomach it was the flirting raffle girl, retroactively, as I discover what she was so excited about. But the entire moment, over before I could even be sure it was really happening, helped to take this city that I was falling in love with and immediately turn it into Hell incarnate. I’m sure it’s no stretch, given the imagery and themes of the game, to suggest that this is exactly what the writers intended. So … well done, Irrational.
Would the moment be as effective if the violence were removed? I suspect that yes, it would—because as I mentioned it wasn’t even the thing I found most disturbing. But as a friend of mine suggested when we were discussing the game, the violence is important for another reason: it tells us, relatively early on, that Booker DeWitt is the kind of guy who would make confetti out of another man’s face. Granted it’s in the heat of the moment, but just like Jack in BioShock injecting himself with magical glowy substance without any indication that he should, Booker reacting with lightning speed to murder a man in a particularly grisly fashion tells us something.
FPS character moments are extremely difficult to achieve. We almost never see Booker’s face and while he has a voice the camera and gameplay constantly suggest that it is our hands at work, and thus our voice behind the hands. I could empathize with a stickbug it the story is compelling enough so if the game turns on, I am Booker. So finding ways to give us hints and insights into who these characters are is clever and useful. The violence is one of those moments—if we took it away, Booker would be a different man.
Maybe this one.
I will leave you on that note for today, because tomorrow’s post is going to be … quite a bit longer. And grumpier. Listen, just get ready for it.
– Shannon
Booklubbers 