There’s always a lighthouse. There’s always a person. And now, there’s also a gimmick.
Episode one in every of BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea isn’t a narrative that sheds new light on BioShock lore, but is very a narrative that stitches together two worlds in ways in which don’t enhance either of them. The unique BioShock’s underwater objectivist dystopia referred to as Rapture was a special and fearsome place, a testament to the chaos and uncertainty that emerges when man worships himself at his own altar. BioShock Infinite’s floating city of Columbia was both a monument to manifest destiny and a tombstone marking the human empathy that perished when town was born. Burial at Sea uncomfortably merges both worlds, and diminishes Rapture’s enduring legacy in doing so.
Burial at Sea is set moments. Beautiful moments, sad moments, perplexing moments. They regularly tug at your heart or stimulate your imagination, but fail to coalesce right into a lucid whole. The outlet is this sort of moment. Elizabeth enters Booker DeWitt’s office, but she isn’t the Elizabeth you once knew. It’s December 31, 1958, a storied date in Rapture’s history, and Elizabeth will not be a large-eyed young woman, but a femme fatale who slinks into the room seeking Booker’s assistance. Booker lights Elizabeth’s cigarette together with his bare flaming finger, instead of a lighter. Elizabeth blows smoke from the side of her mouth and shows Booker a photo of a tender girl and the girl’s doll. Elizabeth wants Booker–which is, you–to locate this girl. You, too, know this girl, and her identity is the mystery that catalyzes this short, story-driven adventure.
It’s a cryptic opening that shares thematic ties with BioShock Infinite: again, you’re off to discover an unknown girl for reasons that you simply don’t yet comprehend. Striking visuals and sounds firstly intimate suspense. Elizabeth’s high heels clatter on Booker’s wooden floor, and the office’s half-closed window blinds cast a band of shadows at the dingy wall. And when Booker follows Elizabeth out of the office, suspense is briefly replaced by nostalgia. You’re not in Columbia, but in Rapture. No gods or kings. Only man.
This isn’t the largely abandoned Rapture of BioShock. It’s alive and thriving. i used to be drawn in initially; this was a facet of town I hadn’t seen. Men in bowler hats discussed the philosophies of the day (“What does Ryan say? Petty morality? You’ll be able to keep it”), and girls occupied themselves by applying makeup outside of busy shops. However it soon became obvious that these people weren’t living on this world, but functioned only as audiologs, created for my consumption. Needless to say, you can say the similar concerning the citizens of Columbia, who spoke their lines only once you neared them, and otherwise remained of their poses, silent as mannequins.
The result’s an adventure with fantastic sights and sounds that do not come together in a meaningful way.
The difference is that BioShock Infinite was a completely new world, and overheard conversations were portion of the invention process. As one aspect of a totally imagined adventure, BioShock Infinite’s dialogue contrivances barely registered with me. On this 90-minute side story, i used to be struck by how scripted the conversations were. For the reason that I had discovered Rapture already. As wonderful because it was to look a colourful city nearing its inevitable collapse, these people weren’t telling me anything I hadn’t heard before, or giving me new perspective. They living automatons parroting an identical themes of individual righteousness that BioShock had already fully explored. The belief of melding the universes which contained Columbia and Rapture sounds fascinating attributable to what new insights into the human condition it might offer, but Burial at Sea fails to delve further than the series has already gone before.
Booker remains an effective killing machine.
Nonetheless, there’s true power in seeing known characters and places in a unique light. Again, Burial at Sea is set moments. An angelic walk down a sterile white corridor turns to horror as you come back face-to-face with performance artist Sander Cohen, whose painted mustache and piercing brown eyes remain ever menacing. i will be able to remember his theater for its red velvet curtains, its stoic audience members, and its smoky air–let alone, for the horrors that I witnessed there. i’ll also remember Burial at Sea’s ending, though not only for its symbolic and visible impact, but in addition for the way plainly the sport telegraphed it.
On the entire, however, Burial at Sea comes across more as a who’s who of Rapture than as a convincing story by itself. And that i say “story” in preference to “game” purposefully: combat is more of an afterthought here than it has ever been within the BioShock games, and the action elements aren’t easy fits in an international that wasn’t thematically or architecturally designed for them. Granted, vigors are called plasmids here, but there isn’t any obvious reason behind why they’re named as they were in Columbia, or why they differ from the unique BioShock’s plasmids. This change is an overt contrivance, given how Burial at Sea otherwise goes out of its method to present its version of Rapture as otherwise adhering to the history we’ve already learned. Or even outside of thematic and historical concerns, characters don’t always act in consistent ways. As an example, after urging you to show a valve, Elizabeth then acts shocked that you have turned it, although it was her request–or even though the sport requires that you simply do it to continue.
Next stop: housewares and appliances.
Soon once you arrive in Frank Fontaine’s derelict department store, you discover gear so as to perform melee attacks on splicers from an excellent distance away, which makes Burial at Sea remarkably easy. Nevertheless, there are other methods of killing your foes, including a brand new weapon called the radar range, which looks as if a desk fan and emits beams of deadly energy. You can even take splicers down from above: BioShock Infinite’s skyrails and skyhook tackle new names, but they function an analogous here as they did in Columbia. They’re significantly less enjoyable to take advantage of within the confines of Fontaine’s store, however, where there’s too little space to traverse, and no open vistas to instill the thrill of grinding the rails. Elizabeth’s ability to rip holes into space-time and produce helpful objects like gun turrets and ammo stashes into existence can be a wierd fit: Elizabeth provides a short lived explanation, and Booker immediately starts to reserve Elizabeth to create tears, as though he innately understands the whole extent in their potential in an issue of seconds. This unwieldy cramming together of elements that do not mesh involves a head within the final boss battle, in which taking to a skyhook may end up in a brief demise for reasons that are not readily apparent.
BioShock Infinite’s ending implied an endless multiverse of possibilities. Infinite men. Infinite worlds. Infinite stories of oppression, self-discovery, and redemption to inform. Columbia itself is an intriguing place soaked in history and delusion, with a life of tales its citizens may need told. Rather then telling those tales, Irrational Games inquisitive about a flawed what-if scenario and crafted an equally flawed story to suit it. Burial at Sea seems a first-rate example of the tail wagging the dog, and the result’s an adventure with fantastic sights and sounds that do not come together in a meaningful way.