Bioshock Infinite (Review)

Bioshock is back with a floating city, and this time it soars...

You have to give it to Irrational Games - it's not easy to make a new instalment to a current generation franchise that is held so closely to many modern gamers' hearts. When the original game came to consoles six years ago, it completely blew the minds of players all around the world. The marvelous city of Rapture, lost deep beneath the ocean. The fantastic Plasmids, which gave us incredible supernatural abilities. Twisted, memorable characters. THAT plot twist. Irrational Games took a break for Bioshock 2, so in actual fact, Infinite is Irrational Games' true sequel - but how do you go about making a sequel to what is considered by many as a modern day masterpiece?

Bioshock Infinite takes place in 1912, and is set in Columbia, a fantastical city which floats thousands of feet above the rest of civilization below. You take control of Booker DeWitt, a former Pinkerton agent who is sent to the city above. Why? "Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt" is all he - and we - have to go on. The girl in question is Elizabeth, a young lady locked away in a tower by the city's leader, Comstock. Many of the citizens in this obscure city refer to him as The Prophet, but it's evident from his immediate antagonizing of Booker that's he something more in the vein of a dictator. It's not long before he sets the authorities on you for being what he brands the "False Shepherd", who has come to lead his "lamb" (that's Elizabeth to us normal people) astray.

Infinite's atmosphere is certainly a masterstroke. The first moment you catch a glimpse of Comstock's hovering haven, the brilliant music accompanying it (the soundtrack of the game stays superb throughout, too) as well as the game's gorgeous visuals are enough to put a tear into any art-lover's eyes. Actually setting foot into Columbia for the first time has a similar vibe; never have I felt so much like I was actually in the game world than I did with this. Irrational's design of the city is incredibly intelligent. The detail of every scene is simply jaw-dropping, and you'll never find two locations that look the same.

The Bioshock fans' message to Irrational Games...

From the offset, there's obviously a great deal of mystery surrounding Elizabeth, Comstock and the city of Columbia. Why is Elizabeth locked away? What's the deal with Comstock? Why is there a city in the sky? The fact that Irrational Games make you question so much from the very beginning really drives the narrative forward.

Elizabeth has a pivotal role in the game, not only in the plot but also in the gameplay. For the first few hours, you play as a lone-hero, but once you guide her out of the tower that she's been locked away in for so many years, that's when the real game begins. As far as videogame characters go, especially non-playable ones, she has to be one of my favourites. Ever. Whilst your exploring, looting and shooting, she doesn't need any protection at all. You rarely need to wait for her, and if you do need her, she'll be straight there. Sometimes she offers you Silver Eagles (the game's currency), and in moments of desperation she'll offer you health, ammunition and salts. The real thing that seals the deal is what makes Elizabeth truly unique in this tale: an incredible power which allows her to open Tears in the world. Tears are basically "windows into other dimensions" which means that Elizabeth can pull through items of use. During combat she can spawn you turrets, cover, weapons and all manners of things. It isn't really all of this that makes her so great, though. It's the relationship that you as Booker share with her which unravels into something simply marvelous before the game's climax. Director Ken Levine has always been fantastic when it comes to story-telling and character developing, and Infinite is no exception to this. Her abilities are quite simply the icing on top of an already delicious cake.

Elizabeth's character is as colourful as her design.

Salts are effectively your ammunition for supernatural powers called Vigors. Despite the name change, Irrational do nothing to hide the fact that these are pretty much the same idea as the original game's Plasmids. Although a couple are borrowed from the first game, they've still had a beautiful graphical overhaul, and there's no forgetting the countless other abilities. Bucking Bronco launches enemies into the air, Murder of Crows swarms them with - you guessed it - crows, and Shock Jockey zaps them with a bolt of electricity. There are eight different Vigors to be obtained throughout the course of the game which creates a whole host of combinations. Infinite rarely ever encourages you to use variety (you could complete the majority of the game using only a handful of Vigors and weapons), but the option for spicing combat up is certain there.

Then, of course, you have your guns. The left shoulder button is responsible for Vigors, so the right one controls your weapons. Each different gun - from standard pistols to gatling guns and rocket launchers - is incredibly satisfying, and pairing them up with the brilliant Vigors makes most combat situations a bundle of chaotic fun. What could possibly make it better? Oh that's right, the Sky Hook. Columbia's main travel system is a set of rails that follow the winding city. The Sky Hook is a contraption that fits onto our hero's hands. You'll use it for fast-navigation between locations - but we're not the only ones who get to use them. Many enemies throughout the game have them too, and so there's a few scenarios in the game where you can fully utilise the rail in combat situations. Whether it's whacking your opponents down to their doom, launching yourself off the rails at them or simply using it as a melee weapon in close-quarters combat - the satisfaction is always there. It makes for some pretty gruesome animations, too.

"John, I told you not to scratch with your Sky Hook!"

Now that we've mentioned enemies, we're onto Infinite's only real downfall. Although the game is packed with many different enemy types, it just feels slightly too forced. The designs are rather cool, but rarely exciting. The Fireman is your typical bomber-type enemy. Patriots are essentially walking turrets. The Handyman feels like a deliberate, unsuccessful attempt at replicating the sinister Big Daddy, and have one of  the silliest, most BLATANT weakspots I've seen in a video game. The disappointing Boys of Silence only appear on occassion - but did provide me with the one true scary moment of the game. Luckily, there's one foe that really does excite. The Songbird is a mechanical winged creature that is supposed to keep Elizabeth in the tower, and as a result of Booker breaking her free, strikes back at the pair various times throughout the story. I won't go into too much detail so it's fresh when you play it yourself, but the Songbird provides some of the greatest moments in the game.

Summary

It's very hard to express how special a game Infinite is. There's so many little factors in the game that add up to its brilliance that it's hard to pin down a single spectacular factor - but if I had to, I'd say its the ending. Whether it can be called a twist or not is beyond me, but it hit me so hard and left my jaw hanging so low that I simply had to restart it straight after. It's complex, incredibly clever and one of the best endings to anything ever, in my eyes. It also brings the series to a point where I fail to really see why they would make any more instalments. I look forward to the impending DLC, but I like to think that the genuises at Irrational Games have a new original franchise up their sleeves for the next-generation. They've certainly proved themselves as masterful designers on this one - and what better way for them to say farewell to this generation with one of the console's finest games?

9.5/10

Tomb Raider (Review)

It would be easy, and indeed very lazy, to write off this game as a mere Uncharted rip-off. After all, one thing many of the gamers who call the similarities seem to forget  is the fact that Naughty Dog's Uncharted series was obviously greatly inspired by the Tomb Raider series itself. Why is that? Well back when Core Design released the original game in 1996, it impressed and excited many of those who got their hands on it - and in turn, inspired many of the great action-adventure games we play today. But when the Tomb Raider games began losing their way over the years, and Uncharted's Nathan Drake rode onto the scene, boasting a smoother, higher quality series, Lara Croft found herself giving up her throne as queen of action-adventure gaming. A new hero had taken the crown...

But that may no longer be the case. Crystal Dynamics' reinvention of the series, and indeed the character of Lara Croft, is one that easily redeems the last few instalment's lack lustre efforts, and puts her way back up on that throne. If she can't take it back from Nathan Drake, she is at least worthy of sharing it.

This reboot follows a much younger Lara through her origin story, showing us exactly how she becomes the legendary Raider many of us gamers know and love. One of the immediate differences from past titles you'll find is that it's all set in a single environment; a mysterious island that Lara and the many of her fellow crew members on board the Endurance find themselves ship-wrecked on. It's a far cry from the globe-hopping levels fans of the series are used to, and in turn forces the entire game to adapt around it. This is, in fact, essentially an open-world game.

Lara's new look is fresh and realistic.

Each section of the story leads seamlessly into the next, and back-tracking is possible at any time. There's even fast-travel to and from the game's camp fires (checkpoints). These are a stroke of genius - not only do they serve as breathers between the many high-octane moments, but they also allow you to spend the skill points you earn for doing various tasks in the game. The XP you gain for doing things like killing enemies, collecting items, skinning animals and completing challenges can be used to hone and master the many skills Lara will need to survive the terrors of the island. As a system that isn't usually seen in this genre, it's a clever idea which gives you something to work towards. I genuinely wanted to unlock everything and evolve Lara as much as possible, which is just as much fun as watching her as a character develop throughout the course of her adventure.

Whilst there is still a great amount of time spent exploring and scaling the gorgeous environments, this is perhaps the most combat-centred Tomb Raider game has ever been. For every moment spent climbing or solving a puzzle, there's sure to be one right after where you're pumping someone full of lead, arrows, or whatever else it is you can get your hands on. It's a good job, then, that combat is genuinely an absolute thrill in this game. The weapons and gear you acquire, ranging from bows and arrows, to shotguns, pickaxes and World War Two rifles, are a joy to play with. The sound and feel of each weapon is extremely satisfying. Your inventory, just like Lara's skills, can be modified and upgraded too.

Obtaining the weapons and items in your inventory also strangely reminded me of The Legend of Zelda, in the fact that whatever you gain allows you to progress and access locations you couldn't have before for the next few sections in the game. For example, at one stage you acquire rope-arrows, which can be used to create zip-wires around the environment. They can also be used to pull doors open, and so any areas that you previously had no access to could now be returned to and explored. It's a great little mechanic, and having new tools to play with not long after you've just had one keeps things spiced up throughout.

The lush environment's of the island are varied and heaving with
attention to detail.

Exploring and raiding tombs is now more open than ever before. Strangely, the majority of the tombs up for raiding are actually optional, and whilst this does seem slightly at war with what the series is supposed to be, it does allow players to decide how they want to experience the game. If you want to stay in one location and explore every tomb, solve every puzzle, complete every challenge or collect everything there is to collect, then you can do that. If you want to just follow the story Tomb Raider has to offer, then you can do that to.

The story is in fact probably the only place where the game falls slightly short of being a well-rounded experience; the supporting cast are simply too dull and lacking in spark to really hook you into the plot, with the exception of a couple. When you compare this to how likable our struggling, young Lara is, you can only feel as though Crystal Dynamics missed the trick here slightly. Even a more memorable main villain would have helped to make the story truly exceptionable.

Despite that though, this is a game about Lara, and when you think about it like that, the developers have done a great job. She truly is a one-of-a-kind character, and it's great to have her back living up to the potential that she has. The way the events of the game affect her emotionally and physically is delivered expertly, perfectly demonstrated when she makes her first kill. The effect of this moment clearly weighs heavy on her conscience, and could have been one of the most moving parts in any recent game, had it not been for the fact that straight after, you're right into killing a horde of enemies, Lara seemingly unphased. You can't blame Crystal Dynamics, mind - Ubisoft had difficulty dealing with a similar event in last year's Farcry 3. How exactly can you make these moments narrative-appropriate, without substituting enjoyable gameplay? At the end of the day, players like shooting enemies sometimes. So that's what you do.

The Tomb Raider reboot is gritty and brutal, which really makes
you feel for Lara.

The explosive set-pieces, merged with the odd quick-time-event, are balanced into the regular gameplay perfectly. Crumbling bridges, flaming Japanese palaces, dodging a cascading plane - Tomb Raider knows what it's doing. Perhaps one of my highlights, though, was a slightly slower moment, in which Lara is tasked with climbing a huge radio tower in order to make an attempt at contacting the outside world. The ascent is built up to brilliantly, and finally reaching the top of the tower, making contact, and experiencing the incredible view was a joy.

Tomb Raider's other game mode is a needlessly tacked-on mutliplayer. This is probably one of the few parts of this title I actually could properly connect to Uncharted. The multiplayer has much the same essence, but lacks anything truly explosive to make it worth playing regularly. The lack of more than four game modes doesn't help.

Summary

The reinvention of Tomb Raider is probably one of the finest reboots in gaming. This is certainly no Uncharted clone; it's a well-crafted, original game, hooking in the finest ideas of the genre and merging it with others that you might not have seen in action-adventure game before - to great success. The shaping of a gaming icon isn't something we get to enjoy often, and is no easy task to go about from a designing point of view, either. Look over the slightly shallow supporting cast, occasionally lacking plot and pointless multiplayer and you've got an excellent adventure that will sadly be over-looked when it comes to gaming awards at the end of the year.

8.5/10

Heavy Rain (Review)

In the midst of a generation laden with generic grey-brown first person shooters, annual action or sports titles which struggle to bring anything new to the table each year, and some boring, two dimensional characters (and in this case, I'm not referring to the design of them), you'll sometimes find a game comes along that dares to be different. A game with such an unusual, cinematic style, that it'll completely split gamers' opinions of it,  and to top that - what we think of as video games as a medium. One such game, in our current generation, is Heavy Rain.

Released exclusively for PlayStation 3 back in 2010, Quantic Dream's psychological thriller follows four playable characters involved in the case of the mysterious Origami Killer, a serial murderer who drowns young victims in the extensive amount of rainfall that the setting of the game experience's every few months. The case has been going on for years, we're told, but the race to discover the killer's identity and put an end to the tragedies is reignited when Ethan Mars (one of the four playable characters) a father who's depression and anxiety (for reasons you'll discover early on in the game) causes him to experience blackouts, reports his son, Shaun, missing. Before long, the police and Ethan himself realise that Shaun is the killer's next victim - and given only three days before he will drown in the rain water, the pursuit to find his son begins.

The loading screens in Heavy Rain show you the rather zoomed in mugshot of
whichever character you're about to play. Looking good,
Ethan.

The other playable characters are private investigator, Scott Shelby, who is looking into the case by himself. There's also a journalist, Madison Paige, and an FBI investigator, Norman Jayden, who is present in the town's police station to aid the force in the Origami Killer investigation. The play styles of each character don't change drastically when it comes to the gameplay, perhaps with the exception of Norman Jayden - but it's actually the fantastic story telling and characterisation implemented through this change of protagonist that mixes things up. Giving us four characters to play with, each with their own thoughts, feelings, motives and events, really allows the story to progress in a way that I've never really seen before.

 Heavy Rain's story is one that I had great fun experiencing, one that kept me gripped and hanging on for more throughout. Writer, director and Quantic Dream founder, David Cage, constantly had me guessing who exactly the killer was, and then he'd soon after me change my mind. The plot is always racing forwards, but does have slower but still enjoyable moments to keep a neat balance - just like a great movie, or a TV drama. Watching the four different characters, who cross over in various occasions (and finally all meet in the grand finale), is an absolute joy. The different characters offer variety, and a uniqueness, a realness, that video games just don't usually offer. The plot is perfectly possible, grounded in a life-like reality which makes you really feel for the characters. Sympathizing with father for Ethan Mars, for example. Feeling Norman Jayden's frustration, who constantly finds his hot-headed partner in the police force pulling the investigation backwards. Madison's curiosity as she risks life and limb to uncover more information. Private investigator Shelby's persistence as he aids a victim's distraught mother in finding the truth.

Levels are, keeping in theme with the film/TV-style, episodic and short, which means you can devour Heavy Rain at whatever pace you like. The main gameplay at heart, again, is something quite different to what players will be used to. It's understandable that in many player's eyes, this is a title that would perhaps be more accurately coined as an "interactive movie" than a videogame. It really is quite the cinematic experience, with the smooth, realistic graphic style (aided by some fantastic motion-capture technology which allows us to watch real-life actors in our virtual world) present throughout. A dialogue heavy plot can be daunting to some, but the developers really utilize the PlayStation controller by allowing to you to choose what's said, with different options on the triangle, square, circle and X buttons. The same goes for character's thoughts - each one will react to their environment, and the ability to hear what they're feeling makes the game all the more immersive.

Clever use of the PlayStation controller goes even further though. Heavy Rain is full of what are, essentially, extended quick time events. Now, that could sound awfully boring to some; most games have QTEs as a tacky, cheap game filler. But Quantic Dream really makes them feel interesting, by having you combine button presses with motions of the controller. In intense scenarios, such as the many brawls and scraps pretty much all of the characters get themselves into, it just really works. For such a film-like experience, I can't have seen any other type of gameplay working quite as well as this. It makes a change from it being just your typical third-person shooter.

One of the QTEs in action. Shaking the controller allows
you to fight back.

The controls generally work pretty well, although one frustrating niggle I encountered throughout the game's entirety was walking. It sounds ridiculous, but instead of allowing players to navigate locations with the use of the left analogue stick and that alone, you have to hold R2 to move forward, and then direct your character with the left stick. The animation of each characters movement throughout the environment is pretty robotic in comparison to the rest of the gameplay, which is a real shame considering it's clear that Quantic Dream wanted to make this adventure as true to life as possible. Luckily, it's not exactly a game breaker.

Most levels are cleverly designed, and there's a lot of variation here, too. Whether it's as Ethan, taking on the various trials that he must undergo to prove to the Origami Killer how far he will go in order to get back his son, which are, as you'd expect, suitably gruesome and treacherous. Or, as FBI man Norman Jayden, in which you investigate the case, all with the use of a unique piece of technology that comes with the job - ARI glasses. This gadget, whilst worn, allows Jayden to see environments in completely new ways: scanning for pieces of evidence, analysing clues, fingerprints, and the like. Think a slightly more elaborate version of Batman: Arkham Asylum's detective vision. It's an interesting little distraction, and although it can be tedious upon occasions to have to constantly scan or turn over evidence, it works well for the most part.

The best plot twist in the game is discovering that  Norman Jayden is
in fact Bruce Wayne... What do you mean that doesn't
happen?

Chuck in a fantastic soundtrack which compliments every tense, dramatic and emotional moment in the game, and you'll find that Heavy Rain really quite is a game that you won't forget soon. It's an experience quite unlike what gamers are used to, and in that respect is also one that , as mentioned, will split players' opinions. To some it's been described as merely a slightly "interactive power-point", giving the player very little choice but to spectate the outcome. But given the fact that your actions in the game decide the fate of our protagonists, giving us various endings and different scenarios and perfect incentive to replay the game, I'd say I care to disagree.

Whether you like first person shooters, or cutesy platformers, or sports simulators - I urge you to give Heavy Rain at least some of your time. Lovers of great stories and characters, awesome set-pieces and just generally looking for something a little different to the norm will be perfectly at home here. While the occasional annoyance can come up, it doesn't generally hinder from the enjoyment of a game that dared to do something different. With Quantic Dream's new title Beyond: Two Souls headed to PlayStation 3 this year, it's the perfect time to try out what will be looked back at as a PlayStation 3 classic when we move onto the next generation.

9.5/10