BioShock: Infinite

Irrational’s long awaited follow up to 2007′s Bioshock only took 6 years but can it live up to the hype?

Bioshock Infinite is set in a large floating metropolis called Columbia set in alternate 1912, you play as Booker DeWitt a man who has been tasked to save a young girl who is somewhere in the city in order to wipe away a gambling debt. Quick! Call Feminist Frequency! We have a Damsel alert!

Infinite is not actually set in the same world as Bioshock’s Rapture but it has the same kind of oppressive attitude, the little man VS the big man and isolated, mad community thing going on that constitutes its title and inclusion in the series. It is also developed by Irrational Games unlike Bioshock 2 which was made by Arkane Studios who made Dishonoured last year.

Thankfully, gameplay is similar to Bioshock, a FPS with a range of abilities a bit like magic, called Vigors. They are equipped on the left hand and can be used whilst a gun is equipped. Abilities range from fire balls to electric shocks to crow attacks and are collected throughout the game, some as part of story progression and some bought with in-game currency from the various vending machines found about the place.

I found vigors to be more useful than Bioshock’s plasmids – from the start you can have 2 vigors equipped and can quick-change by holding down the switch button. This was bloody annoying in Bioshock where you spent ages flustering about with equipment menus knowing you’ll have a Big Daddy in your face when you unpause.

A new feature is creating vigor traps on the floor by holding down the shoot vigor button and you can also combine vigor effects by using certain combinations in quick succession, this makes vigors more useful in combat situations than in Bioshock as well as the vigors being more action oriented and battle ready.

However, there are less vigors than plasmids in Bioshock, the latter of which are more varied and interesting even though many are pretty useless and also there is a total of 2 puzzles involving the use of vigors, a vast downsize from Bioshock’s environmental uses for plasmids and the hacking mini-games.

The gunplay is vastly improved, the weapons all handle like a dream, really smooth and efficient and you can now melee attack with a gun equipped. The ironsights on guns seem to be more functional and the melee attack can insta-kill when an enemy is on pretty low health. There are number of different vesions of the skyhook instakills and are particularly gruesome, great for creepy serial killer types that are using games to plan out murders and things, which I’m sure most of the people playing this are, because of reasons. And Fox News.

The adjustments to the combat were necessary to the game as the new open air nature makes gunfights a lot more hectic and the addition of the skyline system gives a new dimension to the game play and how you approach taking on enemies.

The skyline is a rail which Booker can jump onto and hang-skate using the Skyhook melee weapon, usually it only goes in circles around the area you’re currently in, resulting in a hilarious circus-style fight, but it can also be your ticket to the next area. You can shoot your gun while on the skyline and can also do skyline attacks by jumping goomba style on people’s heads. Unfortunately you can’t use your vigors while on a skyline as your left hand is holding the skyhook. Useless bloke.

There aren’t tonics in this game, instead we have gear, pieces of clothing with amazing passive-effects, you can equip 4, but only one of each type, hat, shirt etc. I found that there were two types of gear I never seemed to find much of, leaving me with a small selection of abilities, whereas I seemed to get loads of different hats, but could only choose one. I wouldn’t mind, but I’m not exactly a hat person anyway and you couldn’t see what the hats all looked like anyway. I guess Ken Levine is a lot of things but fashion designer isn’t one of them.

There are many other things to “collect” in the game, like all the viewing points using telescopes, public service videos and voxphones, audiotapes with some great exposition and story divulged by various characters of Columbia.

Columbia, that’s what it’s all about in the end. An isolated city with the nihilistic ideals of American Exceptionalism, the militant obsession with religion, employment of segregation and eugenic based labour. Bioshock Infinite has some meaty surprises instore from the offset, with the somewhat allegorical history setting and the more shocking depiction of violence.

The changes in the game are mostly good refinements, making the game more accessible and tweaking it to be more adaptable to the various (and often stupid) players that are going to be buying this game, but this has the unfortunate effect of making the game feel like it’s catered for idiots. The difficulty is much lower than Bioshock and the lack of horror and puzzles was a little upsetting. Fortunately there is a 1999 mode, a little nod to earlier Irrational PC game, System Shock 2, a more difficult mode with some interesting changes that can result in you needing to restart the game from the beginning.

There are needless exertions from the main character which made me sigh with exacerbation on a few occasions. Booker spends the first hour or two in the game whittling dull observations that frankly, could and probably should have just been cut out. His conversation becomes necessary with the addition of another character to have some dialogue, but up to that point, it comes off as really patronising and laughable.

Fortunately the game has so much to get through in terms of plot development and characterisation, you don’t feel too aggravated. Most of the game you will be playing with Elizabeth, the girl you were sent to rescue. She can pick locks and find money, ammo, health and salts (the mana for your Vigors) this can sometimes be a little distracting at first, but is a welcome addition in the middle of a firefight and you’ve run low on health or have just walked away from a vending machine as you look for just a little more money to buy what you want and she throws you some coin.

Elizabeth is a beautifully genuine character and startlingly good at evoking emotions within the player. She moves around, follows and leads Booker with purpose and she doesn’t feel like a robot AI. There are some hiccups with her at times, once she got stuck in a caged door and she couldn’t move until I hit the next load screen. Sometimes when she’s running she looks a little comical as the velocity doesn’t match the style of movement. Aside from these she was incredibly realistic and the game would be nothing without her.

Bioshock Infinite is one of those experiences like Bioshock before it, that you have to play and no amount reading a review is really going to give you a proper idea of whether you’ll like it. However, saying this, I think that most people will LOVE this game. It’s a complete experience. All of the flaws of Bioshock have been addressed in this game and there’s nothing I can really say that’s wrong with it apart from it’s being a little TOO streamlined.

Without going into too much detail about the game, I can say that it is one of the best games this generation, probably THE best and I think that giving it a little time to sink in will make it even more memorable. Which is more than you can say for most games lately, where one week later you can’t remember you even played it.

Like Chinese food.

Whereas Bioshock Infinite is a steak. You feel a little bloated at first, but it leaves you feeling warmly satisfied and without hunger.

BioShock: Infinite

Grendel Omnibus Vol.1

Grendel has reached that age ripe for compilation (over 25 years) having been in publication since 1983 making it now 30 years old. A little late to the party, Judge Dredd series was 28 years old when it decided to start the Case Files collection back in 2005.I have the first volume of the Omnibus released in August last year, this has a lot of the small one shot stories but hasn’t got any of the “true” serialised stuff in, as such I can’t really pass comment on that part of it yet.

Grendel is a graphic novel series created by Matt Wagner about an esteemed novelist and philanthropist, Hunter Rose whose alias is a mastermind criminal in control of almost the entirety of New York’s organised crime. The series has a noir-style vibe with New York bearing German expressionist leanings. So basically it looks like Gotham City.

The writing is mostly done by Matt Wagner so there is a good level of consistency with story detail and the characters’ depictions, there are some interesting themes and ideas that are present within the stories. Namely what it is that people live for. Hunter Rose lives to recapture the excitement and passion that he once held for a previous lover.

He does this by assuming an Oedipal role in a young girl’s life, whose Uncle Barry was killed by his Grendel persona in an incident related to his criminal activities. He covets Stacy Palumbo as an entertainment and also likes to use his “possession” of her to antagonise one of his long-running adversaries, Argent.

Sporting an Art Deco-style frame layout on this page.

Argent is a Native-American that is hundreds of years old, he is cursed with the body of a wolf-man and aggressive tendencies. Unfortunately it’s not fully explained why all this is and there is little other supernatural occurrences in the series. Argent often works with the police despite his innate violence, he loves Stacy Palumbo and they share a similar relationship to a young child and their pet dog.

The ensuing fights between Grendel and Argent form a basis for these stories, with Hunter Rose using the nature of the beast as a way to humiliate him. Grendel is a fast and intelligent fighter and often outwits his opponents using planned tactics and shadows to his advantage, much the opposite of the strong and terrible Argent.

The design of Hunter Rose is fantastic, the costume is a minimalist black all in one jumpsuit with white gloves and boots, the mask is a piece of cloth tied round to the back of his head, and looks like Rorschach meets Spiderman. His weapon is a bo staff with a tuning fork style blade on the end.

It’s a distinctive weapon and quite unique.

Argent looks like a were-wolf and has incredible speed and stealth, although is unable to sneak up on Grendel.

The One-shots and Red, Black and White piece mostly cover different envisions of Hunter Rose, his past and his criminal networks in New York. This is told through multiple perspectives of different characters, enemies, allies and witnesses, leaving a lot of information on Hunter Rose/Grendel’s past and his current activity mysteriously vague and punctuated by the teller of the story’s own impressions and interpretations of the events.

Roses are a prominent feature in the narrative.

The different character’s perceptions come off incredibly well when twinned with the various different art styles, as pretty much every short has a different artist. The noir setting is emphasised with a colour palette of only black, white and red, and the noir-speech this also helps with the immersion of the character’s narration (often speaking to the police) and really keeps you interested in the goings-on of the plot. This is also pretty fortunate because in this volume there is a lot of repeated story segments of Hunter’s life are not always completely coherent when left without a character to fill you in on the details of the situation.

If you pick this up on a whim like I did, then it was probably because Grendel looks like an interesting character in a beautiful setting not often explored in mediums outside of comics and Graphic novels, and as an added bonus, the art looks awesome. It’s a stylistically violent graphic novel and is very atmospherically engaging. The art variations are interesting to see as too often artists don’t try to experiment with the page layout or design. In this you will often find many different panels and text boxes that you must navigate and sometimes even take the initiative with when reading.

The first volume of Grendel oo es with noirish style and pulpy violence, it’s approach to design is fresh and the fast paced story and witty dialogue keeps you coming back for more. It is a great read for fans of bloody action comics like Sin City and it has a hard-boiled feel too. The second volume is available now and has the serialised stories of Grendel: Devil Inside, I’m really looking forward to seeing more of this.

Grendel Omnibus Vol.1

Tales from the Half Life Pt. 6

Stuck. So bloody stuck I nearly resorted to checking online for answers.

Basically you have two routes you have to go down, one to activate some heating pipes and the other to activate the generator.

But having no initiative I didn’t guess that and was flitting between the two routes (for no fucking reason I might add) has drained a tonne of my life. All to just defeat the weird large crab monster from the last post, except it took so damn long that’s all I have to say for this fricking post.

A particularly great picture of a Crab-man.

It really doesn’t help that I’ve been at the Jim Beam and it’s a work night. So have some sodding pictures. To be honest nobody younger than me is this late to the Half Life party.

The incredibly slow-moving fan creating enough air resistance to lift a full si ed man.

It was nice to kill that crab-cunt, especially after a small number of back-track saves and several runs through the centre shaft as it seems to randomly kill you.

Not sure what energy filled Gas this could be, nor how exactly it set fire, but won’t complain either way.

So now have reached a slightly more alien domain, filled with ovarian matter and hopefully less antagonistic enemies.

Tales from the Half Life Pt. 6

An open letter to James Cameron

Dear Mr Cameron,

Today I was watching (…well hearing) someone play Dead Space, which brought me to an odd conclusion.
What I realised is something that has taken the best part of my life to figure out.

Firstly, I loved Terminator 2.
It mixed high-octane speed, explosions and lorry stunts to provide one of the best filmed car chase scenes ever. It’s a solid action film with a sentiment. The character development and relationship between the good Terminator and John Connor is not exactly the most touching, poignant or even deepest one, but it’s enough for a film where the protagonist is killed off at the end. Oh, spoilers.

The visuals are incredible and still look stunning today, despite the use of CG and the time travel story line is interesting if not ridiculous.
I hadn’t watched the original Terminator film until recently and pretty much most of his other films he has made I’ve despised. Titanic is sickly sweet romantic tripe and Avatar is a glossy Pocahontas/Fern Gully. True Lies is alright.
After watching Terminator, I realised that T2 is just a bigger and better film in every way.

But after the Aliens: Colonial Marines shitstorm, I decided to rewatch Aliens as I’ve only watched it the once. This time however, I thoroughly enjoyed it, unlike last time when I couldn’t get over what I saw as a complete bastardisation of the vision of Alien.
I disliked the “Lets add MOAR” sentiment so aptly expressed in the title and in the film.
More Xenomorphs, more deaths, more guns, more women. MOAR!
But I don’t think I realised until now, just how brilliant that is.

The addition of more Xenomorphs was not just a crowd pleasing stunt. It’s integral to the essence of Aliens. The focus of the many messages in the film work best as a juxtaposition against all of the MOAR going on in the film. The addition of marines allows a social, political and obviously a military outline to the world of Alien, something we had very little knowledge of. The additional marines, twinned with the preparation and forewarning of possible Xenomorph activity warrants the use of having more of them.

Ripley’s mothering as a result of the solitude of the Nostromo compares nicely against the most often considered “manly” desire to destroy found in the Marines.

However, what starts as yet another reinforcement of gender stereotypes is quickly alleviated by the presence of Vasquez.

Normally I would just claim that she is a typical stereotype herself, used as man’s desire to laud the stupidity of women by showing just how lame they can be when trying to act “masculine”.
In other words, most “Butch” lady characters are quickly shown to be completely incompetent, stupid and usually have some kind of dissociative or penis envy problem. It’s almost as if it’s a message to women saying “You can’t be tough, because Psychology”, all under the unconvincing guise of character development. What makes this worse is that it necessitates a man to go and sort out the crisis caused by the female’s inevitable breakdown. Those silly women!

But in Aliens, Vasque hasn’t got any mental issues, she doesn’t particularly lead the pack, but she doesn’t trail behind either. She is compassionate but not too warm.
She’s accepted as part of the group. Just like the female pilot is, who is not as aggressive, but not a pussy character either.
Basically there are MOAR women in this, but that serves as being MOAR better characters and a more equal measure too. They aren’t pathetic, neither do they feel like they are trying to overcompensate like Jack Russells. They match in nicely with the well-developed character of Ripley.
Something Veronica Cartright’s character didn’t do in the original Alien film, instead they opted to use her as the “loser rape victim” in need of saving by the man of the group.

Aliens managed to surpass an aspect that was pretty damn crucial (and one of my favourite aspects) to the success of Alien.

One of the things I have been blaming Aliens for, is exactly what I applaud Terminator 2 for doing. Approving on the original.
As its own film, Aliens took the franchise and character in a new and interesting direction. It even neatly rounded off the pregnancy/birth allusions raised in Alien and moulded them into motherhood. It uses a uniquely feminine experience and uses it to give further depth to the film without being patronising.

I still prefer the original Alien film, as the suffocating seclusion and weakness serves its purpose better in this film as opposed to Terminator.

Going back to Dead Space, I can hear only a single female character talking.
As the shit hits the fan, all I begin to hear from her is hysterical wailing.
So now a “rational man” has to calm her down.

Being reminded of Aliens by the setting and its clear influence on the game, I quickly began to form an accusation in my head, blaming it for the poor female design in the game. Only for it to quickly fall quite flat upon realising that its not Aliens doing. Dead Space has fucked this up all by itself.

Aliens has influenced so much of the Sci-fi genre and most predominately, games.
It’s clear now to me why this is and also why it won’t be easily beaten as the best Sci-Fi action film.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I was wrong, Jim.

And maybe… a little bit sorry.


Yours… conditionally,


Michaela “Mike” Buckley




An open letter to James Cameron