Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea Episode 1 Review

Burial At Sea Episode 1 is a downloadable add-on for Bioshock Infinite that was developed by Irrational Games. It costs $15 through Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network.

Unlike Bioshock Infinite, which takes place in the floating city of Columbia, the Burial At Sea DLC is set in Rapture, an underwater dystopia built by objectivist Andrew Ryan in the wake of World War II and the atomic bomb. Episode 1 of Burial At Sea shows us Rapture on New Years Eve, 1958, shortly before the city was destroyed by civil war.

The game starts off with Elizabeth walking into the office of Booker Dewitt, a private investigator in the underwater city of Rapture. She tells him that she has information about Sally, an orphaned girl who Booker believed to be dead. Their search for the lost girl soon leads them to Fontaine’s department store, a massive building that has been turned into a prison for splicers, people who have been driven insane by addiction to the gene-altering substance called ADAM.

The story focuses on the relationship between Booker and Elizabeth in this world. Though Booker has the same personality and vices, the events of Bioshock Infinite have definitely left their mark on Elizabeth. In Burial At Sea, she is much more jaded and more secretive about her motives.

One of the biggest criticism that most people had with Bioshock Infinite’s gameplay is that the frequent firefights can get repetitious over time. Burial At Sea attempts to solve this by moving away from run-and-gun gameplay to combat that draws influence from survival horror games. Ammo and Eve are in shorter supply than in the main game, forcing you to rely more on stealth, melee attacks, and the smart use of plasmid traps in order to weaken your enemies and even the odds.

The resource management mechanic is an interesting twist on things, but the stealth aspects need some serious work. In most encounters, you can only take out one splicer quietly before the rest of them are alerted and you’re sent into the chaos of battle. There should have been more opportunities to use stealth and thin the enemy ranks before the shooting starts.

Like in Bioshock Infinite, you are revived by Elizabeth when you died, but, this time around, death carries more weight. Each death costs a good chunk of the money you’ve collected, which means you’ll have less to spend on much-needed supplies from vending machines. Dying feels like more of a penalty than it did in Infinite, which adds tension to combat.

The add-on includes a new weapon called the Radar Range. It fires a concentrated beam of microwaves that cause enemies to heat up and explode, which deals additional damage to other nearby splicers caught in the blast. It’s a lot of fun to use, but I would have like to have seen at least one other new plasmid or retrofuturistic weapon in this DLC.

Things start to fall apart at the end of the two-hour campaign. The final boss fight is underwhelming once you’ve figured out the right strategy. The revelation in the closing scene is a little derivative of the ending from Bioshock Infinite, but all of the story elements leading up to it make it work well enough.

For the amount of content you get with Episode 1, the $15 dollar price tag seems a little steep. Big fans of the Bioshock series will definitely want to check it out for the new story and the chance to revisit Rapture in its prime, but others might want to wait for a price drop.

Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea Episode 1 gets a 7 out of 10.

Bioshock Fan Film “The Brothers Rapture”

“The Brothers Rapture,” a short film made by Vancouver film students and set in the world of Bioshock, was posted on Youtube earlier today. Would you kindly watch it?

The 16-minute long fan film takes place in Bioshock’s Rapture, an underwater city that offers unrestricted freedom for businessman, scientists, and artists to achieve their full potential. It follows the story of two brothers, Charles and Arthur, who come to Rapture to sculpt works of art. They soon turn to gene-altering substances called Plasmids to aid in their work. The decision brings about their ruin, which parallels the fall of Rapture itself.

The movie stars Nicholas Taggart as Charles, Jonathan Alexander as Arthur, and Jake Croker as the Plasmid salesman Mr. Tippet. It was written and directed by Shaun Rykiss.

The film received its funding through crowdfunding site Indiegogo last fall. The campaign raised $925 dollars, falling short of its goal of $1,500 dollars.

“The Brothers Rapture” shows a much more personal side of the destruction of Rapture than you get in Bioshock 1 or 2. The production, especially the special effects and original music, are also remarkably good for the film’s meager budget.

Game Review: Bioshock Infinite

Irrational Games’ Bioshock Infinite came out this Tuesday.

The original Bioshock set the standard for storytelling in video games and Infinite proves itself a worthy successor in that respect. The game takes place in Columbia, a floating city in the clouds founded at the turn of 20th century on the concept of American exceptionalism. The protagonist, Booker DeWitt, is sent to Columbia by a mysterious employer to find a girl named Elizabeth. His search quickly drags him into the middle of a conflict between the self-proclaimed prophet and founder of Columbia, Zachary Comstock, and a revolutionary group called the Vox Populi.

Fortunately, the game doesn’t become one big escort mission after you rescue Elizabeth. She helps you out frequently by scavenging supplies during combat, opening locked doors, and suggesting different paths and solutions to problems. She also has the power to open doorways to other dimensions called Tears, which becomes an important part of the plot later on.

There’s no such thing as a boring fight in Columbia. Aside from normal gunmen, you battle floating battleships, automated turrets, and a variety of stronger enemies like the hulking Handymen and chaingun-wielding George Washington robots called Motorized Patriots. A good selection of firearms and Vigors – tonics you can drink to gain superhuman powers – keep the frequent firefights from becoming repetitive. Elizabeth can also use Tears to summon weapons and create cover for you during combat.

When you die, instead of restarting at the last checkpoint, you respawn nearby with a little less ammo and money. Similar to the way the Vita-Chambers worked in the original Bioshock,  this system allows you to get right back into the action. In my opinion, this mechanic does not work well, because it takes all meaning away from your failure and makes the game a little too easy for skilled players. On the other hand, the system can also strand players with less experience in battles they aren’t equipped to deal with, leading to one death after another.

The ending of the game is one that sticks with you. A couple of memorable plot twists and an ambiguous epilogue will leave you wondering about the game’s story for hours afterwards. Though the twists don’t exact stack up to the one Andrew Ryan tells you in Bioshock, they are still completely unexpected and make you view many parts of the game in a new light on your next playthrough.

With a one-two punch of gratifying gameplay and a compelling, original narrative, Bioshock Infinite lives up to and surpasses its predecessor in every way. It would be a huge mistake to miss out on this one.

Rating: 9 out of 10