What type of game is bioshock infinite

Follow the game's story to its eventual end and you'll likely leave satisfied, perhaps ready to tackle it on its super hardcore difficulty setting. But read between the lines. Apply your experience as a player of games who can recognise tropes, traps and signs that the game you're playing can pre-empt your expectations and BioShock Infinite offers up some pretty damning data about what constitutes entertainment.

And here, already, I feel I've said too much. Really, the only sensible review of this game would be to instruct the reader to close this window, order a copy of the game and play it. It really is that good.

I would love to expound at length about the flying city of Columbia and the relationship between Booker and Elizabeth, but to do so would run the risk of ruining things. This is a game that lives and dies on its story and to reveal any more of that to anyone who hasn't yet experienced it would be unforgivable.

BioShock Infinite exists in a pantheon tagged "required reading" in the gaming medium. In much the same way as Heavy Rain or Dark Souls may not be to everyone's taste, they are still important touchstones in the maturity of video games as an art form.

BioShock Infinite too has an unshakable claim to be challenging what we think games are capable of. The best aspect, however, is that all of this highfalutin preconception doesn't matter a damn. Whether or not you take anything away from BioShock Infinite beyond its story doesn't matter.

If you buy a copy of this game, you will have fun, and really, that's the only recommendation that is required when discussing this medium. BioShock Infinite is a hell of a lot of fun to play.

For a title that some have called " The most important game of the last five years ," there's a seemingly insurmountable amount of pressure riding on it. All this was compounded by a series of delays, which saw the release date get pushed back more than an entire year. Nevertheless, BioShock Infinite has finally arrived and right off the bat it delivers -- living up to the hype as much as one could expect.

BioShock Infinite is the brainchild of Irrational Games co-founder Ken Levine, a man quickly becoming the medium's best storyteller. He and his team's vision for the underwater city of Rapture in the first BioShock game won audiences and critics over for its unique shooter-meets-RPG fusion and a mind-bending storyline that dazzled all who played it. In Infinite the year is and you play as Booker DeWitt, a man in debt. Told he can repay those he owes by locating a girl, he's sent to the fictional floating city of Columbia to locate her whereabouts.

However, we learn very quickly that Columbia isn't the perfect utopia we're meant to think it is. Andrew Ryan had the perfect vision for the underwater city of Rapture in BioShock, and the "prophet" known as Comstock is Columbia's savior.

Rapture had gone mad with all-empowering science, whereas Columbia has an obsession with a racist and sexist superiority complex, worshiping the founding fathers of the United States but then adamantly opposing the nation's shift toward tolerance and equality.

America moved into a world where all people are created equal, and Columbia left to pursue a more segregated reality. In the end, both Rapture and Columbia collapse under the weight of their insane idealism. I'm not sure I've ever played a game with such a distinct identity or commitment to unfolding a narrative story.

The staggering attention to detail and meticulous placement of triggered dialogue creates a world that is way too easy to get lost in. To gloss over the character interactions or resist the story being told is doing the game's makers -- and yourself -- a disservice.

There are different ways to play BioShock. You can shoot and race your way through the game and reach the finish line in about 10 to 12 hours. But for the best experience, make sure the intricate tale being woven becomes a major part of your play. In other words: take your time. My best advice is to play BioShock Infinite as if you were a detective. Try and open every drawer, poke around each room, and read anything that's on the walls. Listen to what everyone has to say and overturn every stone in this world.

Very rarely does a video game's story outshine the actual gameplay, but BioShock Infinite is absolutely one of these anomalies. Along the way, he discovers a large device called the Siphon and the ability Elizabeth wields which can open Tears , rips in the space-time continuum that lead to other parallel worlds. After freeing Elizabeth, her warden, the Songbird -- a thirty-foot tall bird creature -- attacks and destroys the tower she was held in, and Booker and Elizabeth narrowly escape with their lives.

The pair work towards the First Lady's Aerodrome , planning to take an airship to Paris , a city Elizabeth has always wanted to see. When Booker directs the ship to New York City with the intention of delivering Elizabeth to the Luteces, she knocks him out and flees.

He awakes to find the airship under the control of Daisy Fitzroy, leader of the Vox Populi. The 'Vox' are a rebel organization made up primarily of those of the working class, foreigners, and people of color, all of whom suffer in some way at the hands of Columbia's government and society.

Fitzroy offers to return the airship if Booker recovers a shipment of weapons from the slums of Columbia. Booker rejoins Elizabeth and they venture deeper into the city. While Elizabeth uses her ability to manipulate Tears to aid in their journey, she grows disturbed by the physiological and psychological consequences of manipulating reality on Booker and the other citizens of Columbia.

One Tear leads them to a world where Booker has died and become a martyr for the Vox Populi, and the Vox are in the process of a violent revolt. That universe's Fitzroy believes that this Booker undermines her Booker's sacrifice, threatening to weaken the Vox Populi cause, and so turns her forces against him. Elizabeth is forced to kill Fitzroy to prevent her from executing a Founder boy, and as she and Booker prepare to leave Columbia by airship, Songbird attacks and they crash back to the city.

Realizing they cannot leave Columbia without stopping the Songbird, Booker and Elizabeth seek the instrument to control it. While continuing their search for escape, they begin to unravel a conspiracy behind the founding of the city, through Tears and an specter of Lady Comstock brought to life by Comstock using a Siphon on Elizabeth.

The Lutece Twins are revealed as not actual siblings, rather as being two versions of the same quantum physicist from two different realities.

Comstock had taken Elizabeth from his alternate self in Robert's universe and adopted her as his daughter, groomed to be the city's future leader. He had been rendered sterile and artificially aged from his use of the "Tear" device while obtaining his 'prophecies'. Comstock had the Luteces construct the "Siphon" to subdue her powers, then plotted their murder, along with that of his wife, to conceal the truth about Elizabeth's origin, and blamed Lady Comstock's death on Daisy Fitzroy.

However, in the process, Comstock inadvertently spread the Luteces throughout the multiverse through the attempt on their lives, giving them the same powers as Elizabeth. On reaching access to Comstock House, Elizabeth is captured by Songbird and taken to the mansion.

Booker follows but is drawn into the future by an elderly Elizabeth who has suffered decades of torture and brainwashing in Booker's absence; she has inherited Comstock's cause and wages war on the world below. She reveals that Songbird would always stop Booker's rescue attempts in the past, and implores him to stop this future from coming to pass by offering the means to control Songbird.

Booker returns to the present and rescues Elizabeth, and the pair pursue Comstock to his airship. Comstock demands that Booker explain Elizabeth's past to her, and why Elizabeth is missing a finger. Booker becomes enraged and drowns Comstock in his baptismal font when he begins to attack Elizabeth and blame Booker for all her hardships. Booker denies knowledge about Elizabeth's finger, but she asserts that he knows but does not remember.

Booker decides to destroy the Siphon so Elizabeth can access her full power and learn the truth. With Songbird under their control, the pair fend off a Vox Populi attack, before ordering Songbird to destroy the Siphon. When the device Booker used to control Songbird is destroyed, he attempts to attack him. Elizabeth opens a Tear, transporting the three of them to the underwater city of Rapture, Booker and Elizabeth remain safe inside, but Songbird is transported outside in the water and is crushed by the immense pressure of the ocean.

Elizabeth takes Booker to that reality's surface and lighthouse. They travel out through the building's door to a place outside space and time containing countless lighthouses and alternate versions of them. Elizabeth explains that they are within one of an infinite number of possible realities both similar and drastically different due to choices that have been made. She shows Booker the truth, that on October 8, , Robert Lutece approached him on behalf of Comstock, requesting that he "give us the girl and wipe away the debt", referring to Booker's infant daughter, Anna DeWitt —- the origin of Booker's "AD" branding.

Booker reluctantly agreed to sell Anna in order to pay his gambling debts, but soon changed his mind. He arrived too late to stop Comstock escaping to Rosalind's universe through a Tear; the closing of which severed the child's finger.

Comstock subsequently raised Anna as Elizabeth, his daughter. Due to the severed finger, Elizabeth exists in two realities at once, her finger in Robert's reality and the rest of her body in Rosalind's. This is what gives Elizabeth the ability to open and create Tears at will. Later, Robert, feeling guilt for his actions, convinced Rosalind to help him bring Booker to Columbia in Rosalind's reality to rescue Elizabeth.