Bioshock Infinite without Gravity pt.02

Part 1

Hey, welcome back to my journey where I try to be positive about one of my least favorite games, before I devolve into shouting into the digital void about how terrible it is. Sounds like fun?

General content warning, though, we will be talking about some rather heavy subjects later on, including some talk about the KKK at the midpoint to the end. So if that makes you uncomfortable, maybe skip this one since we'll be talking about Legend of Zelda later in the week, which have no KKK in them whatsoever!

I mean, unless we're talking about the second Zelda game, which, um... Yeah, let's just move on for now, shall we?

Let's talk a bit more about the city itself. In relation to the story, it really only has two jobs; looking like a place a bunch or privileged white folx live, and being really, really intimidating. And credit where it's due, it nails both.

Columbia being a sky city already gives it a lot of points in both these regards, but also the way houses are decorated and laid out give a very regal air to it all. Take the Blue Ribbon Bar, for example. If I walked into a place like this in real life, my first thought would be "crap, I'm too poor to breathe this air." Everything screams "utter decadence" at you, and along with the religious imagery bloody everywhere, it really sells what kind of a posh, exclusionary, violent place Columbia is.

Plus Columbia uses a particular type of building that sells both intimidation and affluence rather well, that being towers.

From housing to places of business, a vast majority of the buildings in Columbia are built to be long and vertical. Being constantly surrounded by things much bigger than you brings in that special intimidation factor, since you're always so small. Everything feels giant to you, so it gives you a dreadful feeling like a rat caught in a maze. And even the houses that look plain will still make you say "wow, what a gross display of extravagant wealth."

If there's one thing that Bioshock Infinite excels at, it's setting a mood. I just that mood didn't come across as incredibly racist.

Before you're able to leave the bar, the woman Lutece gives you a yellow potion, which gives you your only passive vigor; a magnetic shield that protects Booker from bullets, but will break if it takes too much damage. But don't worry! If you manage to stay out of fire for a few seconds, it will recharge on its own!

... Okay, yeah. I'm thinking it, you're thinking it, we're all thinking it. But be patient. I'm going to make a point of this in about 12 paragraphs.

It's also here, at this point where I'm rifling through pretty much everything in the bar, from cabinets, to boxes to cash registers to trash, that I realize how much of a bloody thief Booker is. He rifles through everything, and I do mean everything, desks, wardrobes, crates, trash cans, you name it, just so he scrounge up a few pennys and a snicker's bar before looting the next house

A lot of people don't like the scavenging mechanics in this game. They say it feels outta place to be . But the only time I really have fun is when Booker "Racoon Hands" DeWitt looks inside a desk drawer, finds an orange, and scarfs it down without a second thought.

Hell, this is a city where people are rich enough to just casually throw away machine gun ammo, so screw decor. 

So after getting the magnetic shield, a woman's voice on the loud speaker shouts out about the false shepherd is here. This lady is... problematic, but it isn't until later I can do a full fledged rant on this, so we'll save it for later.

And on that same note this is the first time we see women in combat, too. Again, this is problematic and I'll save it for later, but for now just think of the implications of this being a 1912 American city that has segregation, but everyone's cool with feminism

So far combat is fine. It's a little chaotic, but otherwise does its job well enough. It isn't until after we meet the leading lady of this game it takes a full on nosedive in quality, but for now it's quick and frantic enough to keep you engaged, especially if you were playing this when it was first released.

Thing is that back in the mid 2000's an certain mechanic crept up onto the shooter scene, and it became massively popular and oversaturated the market. And that mechanic was the cover system, or cover-based shooting, where your character could duck behind walls to protect you from enemy bullets and pop out to fire back, though you'd be vulnerable while doing so.

This was a way around hit-scan weapons, which are basically weapons that you point, aim and your enemy immediately gets hit. It's how the guns in almost every modern shooter works, which does make them R~E~A~L~I~S~T~I~C it does present a problem to the player, namely "why do I keep dying?"

Getting hit was a way for a player to know that they messed up, but by getting rid of dodgable projectile weapons like in the original Doom and moving to the R~E~A~L~I~S~T~I~C hit scan weapons, it means you're always going to get hit by something, so letting the player fix their mistake is no longer about knowing how to dodge, but knowing how to get to cover and figure out where the threat is coming from. Thus, the cover-based shooter!

And look, there's nothing wrong with cover systems in and of themselves. Like anything has its pros and cons, but the thing was back between the mid 2000's and 2010's, cover-based shooting was EVERYWHERE. It hella over saturated the market for about a solid decade, even up to when Bioshock Infinite came out in 2013

Alpha Protocol, 2010

For a brief summery, there was Gears of War in 2006, which probably had a big hand in its popularity, Tom Clancy's Ghost Reacon and Uncharted from 2007, Army of Two and GTA4 from 2008, Vanquish, MGS Peacewalker and Red Dead Redemption from 2010, Deus Ex Human Revolution from 2011, Spec Ops: The Line from 2012 and rounding it all up was the Mass Effect trilogy, which ran from 2007 to 2012

Now not all of these games were games you'd think of and say "oh, it's a cover based shooter" (GTA, for example) but these games all had them, and there were so many games that had them that being able to play a game where you felt free and could maneuver around without hugging a wall must have felt like a breath of fresh air.

Shame then, that it's all undermined by the careless mishandling of the halo shields. Oh, hello there, people who couldn't read through a dozen paragraphs to see what I'd say about Bioshock's use of halo shields! I'm glad you could rejoin us!

So, yeah, this is clearly the Halo shields from, well, Halo. But honestly, I'm not going to give it any guff for taking it, for a couple of reasons. For starters the Original Halo came out in 2001, so a ton of games had already ripped off the idea, and much worse. Hell, at least in Bioshock Infinite you're given a reason as to why you regenerate, unlike in Call of Duty games where you regenerate because "shut up, it's just a game."

Another reason is that it's a smart system that Bioshock almost nails, but ultimately fails. Dang. See, the idea of the Halo Shields is another way to make the player not feel cheated by hit scan weapons; if you start getting hit, you first take damage from a small pool of life that regenerates when you're not getting hit, but if it breaks you start to take damage to your real life bar which doesn't regenerate. It's a good lifeline for players when faced with hit scan weapons.

So what's the problem with it? Well, it's that systems don't exist in a vacuum, and when you combine two systems that work great alone, they won't always work great together (looking at you, FFTA2). With that said, let's talk about Bioshock Infinite's upgrade system.

So instead of leveling up through battle or some such time waster, you instead get stronger by finding this color changing bottle, and by drinking it you can choose one of your 3 stats to upgrade; health, salts (magic) or shields. This may have seemed reasonable to the team making this, but that actually really sucks. Because in order to make the upgrades for the shield to feel meaningful, you have to start with a shiled that's so pitiful it might as well be tissue paper

This is such a bad, bad design choice. It's actively hampering a player's lifeline to make it seem like the upgrading options are good. It'd be like if Who Wants To Be a Millionaire just made every question have 8 possible choices so that their new 75/75 life-line would look amazing in comparison!

Yes, those are all Icelandic cities near Eyjafjallajokull

Also I'm starting to notice some weird habits about the citizens of Columbia. Aside from the fact that 99.9% of them all wear hats, it seems like no matter who I kill, whether it be a fully armed police officer or a citizen with a gun, all of them seem to carry some sort of food in their pockets?

What is the deal with that?! So far I've found on the bodies of people trying to kill me a pear, two hot dogs, soda, some cotton candy and a cup of hot coffee. I mean, why?! What is the point of all this food! Are the people of Columbia such bourgeois fat cats that they just throw surprise dinner parties at random and it's considered a social faux-pas to not bring something? So every single bloody person in Columbia is always like "I better keep a pineapple in my pants at all times, just in case!"

Ok, well the real point is that you don't have a quick heal button in this game, but I'll have to go into why in another article.

Another thing that really bugs me is after 90% of the combat encounters I've found a puddle of oil on the ground and I'm like "oh, I was supposed to shoot my fire ball here to cause extra damage. Shame I didn't see this barely visible puddle of goo on the ground while more then a dozen people were zerg rushing me!

Like I said I haven't played a lot of the original Bioshock, but from what I did play, they used water there way better than oil here. Because it's not generally just a puddle of water but a small pool. It's easily visible to the player, and what's more since Rapture is a ruined city underwater, it makes sense that there are a ton of leaks causing these huge pools of water.

But why does Columbia have all these puddles of oil in random spots? There isn't even a barrel on its side to show where it is. Is it that some policemen do have vigors, but all it does is create a single puddle of oil and they're just like "yes, now the false shepherd will slip in this tiny spot on the ground and break his collar bone. Columbia is finally safe!"

If so, then I guess every single cop is on the same power level as Moist from Dr Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog

Now here's the thing about doing a study like this; I'm doing my best to analyze just about everything I can from these games so I can give a full summery on how well every gear turns. I only cut out what I absolutely have to, so I may bring up parts of the game that are super minor and you may not remember

This is one of those parts; it's the home of the Trust. Worthy. Whites.

Ugh.

So first off, the scene is kinda terribly paced. When I first walk in I just assume it's another house and being my usual life as Raccoon-hands DeWitt, but then you start to hear talking. Well, hopefully it wasn't important, because when the dialogue starts I'm too far away to hear it and even if I could I'm too busy being a racoon to care about what they're saying.

However after reseting to the last check point a few times, they're basically arguing about some black folk they're healing in secret, and whether or not violence is inevitable. Given this game's later depiction of violence and its philosophical viewpoints on it, we'll have to keep coming back to these guys through the study. So don't worry if you forgot them─by the end of this you'll wish you still had.

So, you may be wondering why I'm upset by these characters. After all, at first glance they seem reasonable enough; they're taking care of black folx and hiding them from the racist majority of Columbia. Is that so bad? Well, that depends on context. And what is the context here? We just saw a crowd willing to stone a couple to death for being interracial, but now we see other white folx protecting black people?

Why is it here? Well, it's to show that not all of Columbia is racist! There are even some good people here! Or if you haven't put it together the painfully obvious point at this point, the game is saying this: Not! All! Whites!

*muffled screaming noises*

And to hammer that point home, when you approach the couple immediately the cops are at the door and they tell you to use the back way while they stall them. Wow! Who good are these guys! They're like super good! Not like all those other racists we saw back at the fair!

And after you beat the cops they disappear from the game. Where did they go? I dunno. You never see their corpses and they don't show up again as far as I know. So, I guess the trust worth whites either ran away or were arrested off screen. I dunno which, but I suppose we can add martyrdom to their list of virtues.

Honestly, I find this whole part creepy. Not just in what the game is saying by putting these characters here, but also just the characters themselves. And Goofus, I know what you're thinking; creepy? Why do you find them creepy? They haven't done anything to warrant that response."

Well, I mean, I guess you're right, except for the 6-foot tall portrait of a heavenly Abraham Lincoln signing the emancipation proclamation that's hung in their study!

Part of me is surprised no one talks about this creepiness. Heck, I couldn't even find a real picture of it on Google and had to take this crappy screenshot from a livestream. But on the other hand it not ever focused on. It's just there. In their study. With curtains and everything. I suppose those are there to drape over the picture when they have company. Might be a bit awkward to explain to your super racist house guests why you have a 6-foot portrait of Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves in a heavenly glow.

Oh, but I tell a lie; they don't have a 6-foot portrait of Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves in a heavenly glow. THEY HAVE TWO. The other one is in the room that they're treating the black folx! And I mean, my god, do I even have to explain how GROSS that is? It's like saying "Hey, don't forget who freed you while we're treating the wounds you got from our racist neighbors. Want some pie?"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!

It's also worth noting that in the house before this one I ran across a dude who also said he's a trust worthy white, but did it... better, I guess. He just said "don't worry, I'm a progressive" which still came about with all the subtly of a falling steamroller, but at least he didn't have a statue of Lincoln on the cross in his living room!

And again, I need to stress this, we'll be coming back to this scene. Cause really it's good to establish that there are good people and it's not terrible? Well, other than the portrait of Lincoln bit, but because of how the game treats other people trying to do good... Yeah, we'll be checking back with this couple a lot.

After that you can find an audio log by a guy name Preston E Down, and honestly, I really liked this guy's story my first time through this game. It's well acted, the character, while utterly racist, is likeable to me in the way he tries telling jokes but he can tell they're all terrible, and his story is a redemption arc which I'm a sucker for.

But here's the thing about redemption arcs that most people don't seem to get; to be redeemed, you have to have something to be redeemed from, and that's the problem with a lot of "I was racist but now I'm not" redemption "arcs." You have to make ABSOLUTELY SURE that the audience knows that RACISM IS TERRIBLE. Because if you make your redemption arc end with "I didn't know any better when I was racist," then congratulations─you just helped to normalize racism as an "oopsie" and rather than what it is; monstrous and inhuman.
 
Honestly, I want this to be good, but given this game's track record, I doubt it will be.

And oh, dear, we're finally here, aren't we? The building of the Brotherhood of the Raven. Honestly, in another game this would be my favorite part, because when I said this game is exceptionally good at setting a mood, I mean it.

You enter this area from gates that are so high you can't see what's over them, only to walk into a set from Silent Hill─the lights have darkened, crows take off as soon as you open the gate, there's a creepy fog rolling in, an incredibly racist statue out front that I'm not even going to touch! But it all works together to drive a sense of horror into you. This next part is the horror section of the game, like Bottom of the Well is for Ocarina of Time, or the Boo Mansion from Mario 64.

I loooove horror bits like this, and this should be my favorite part of the game. But not only do they misuse the horror here for more "not all whites" crap, they pull a 180 right at the end that creates some seriously terrible implications.

So let's take this step by step; as you enter the house you're probably going to do see two things at once, a bowl of fruit right in front of you, and a statue in the foyer. Let's discuss the statue first.

Walk up to the statue, and you'll see a plaque naming the figure; John Wilkes Booth, the man who assassinated Abraham Lincoln who, if you didn't know, is widely attributed as being the president who "ended" slavery.

This is incredibly jarring. So far nothing about this house was particularly out of the ordinary for Columbia (other than the horror movie environment). Despite the carnival scene we haven't seen any colored bathrooms or monuments to confederate generals (oh, but trust me, we will). And now you walk in here and BAM! This thing!

Now I could write an entire article with the problems of *points finger at statue* THIS, but I'm only going to make one point; despite all the racism we've seen, we haven't really seen anything that would imply that the normal Columbia citizen has any problem with Lincoln. Hell, we just got out of a home with 2 giant butt pictures of him, and now you throw *points finger at statue* THIS at us? What the heckers for checkers?!

Now back to the bowl of fruit. It's full of rotten food, with birds eating the contents of it. Actually, there were also birds on the JWB statue, too? I wonder why that was? Well, it's to show the house is in disrepair, but doesn't this seem like something that's more akin to Rapture than Columbia?

"Well, maybe this is them establishing it for the first time and you're jumping the gun on this criticism" I hear myself say but I'm going to project onto you, the reader. Well, I'm very glad you asked, Goofus!

Because yes, this juxaposion, if done well, could be used to create some mystery, some intrigue, but the problem is it's way too much of a tonal shift. Because of that it comes off as a lot more confusing than it does interesting. Especially when you learn that this isn't just some abandonded building─people are still in here, meeting for their KKK get togethers. Oh, how pleasant

And make no mistake, they are the KKK, but the game is so non-commital in its portrail of them it comes of as utterly pointless. I mean, think about it; why are they wearing that get up? Columbia is already racist AF! What exactly is the bridge-too-far that the citizenry what associate with these guys? Is the klansman look just out of style? Did they bring the wrong fruit to Susan's get-together last Saturday?

Picture found in the klan's mansion
Honestly it looks like a MTG card...
"tap to free the slaves"

Nothing here makes any sense! Not the squalled condition of the house, not the fact that the kultists are hiding away in it like weirdos, not anything! This whole part is completely pointless.

Well, kind of. See, in universe this part is completely alien to the rest of what we've seen of Columbia so far. But out of universe? This whole section makes a lot of sense, and it's really terrible. And it's mostly a way to bring up the KKK while also not bringing them up. Because this game is set in 1912 and is (tentatively) about racism at the time, and, spoiler alert, white people in the 1910's were really, really racist!

And that's what makes this game so terrible when you get right down to it, and one of the most important thing to know about the creators of Bioshock Infinite; they're cowards. Like the most cowardly cowards of the coward dynasty cowards And I'm not pointing fingers straight at Ken L. VGs are a collaborative efforts so there's plenty of cowardice about.

This is the main problem with this whole scene and most of the game; it does not want to grapple with the fact that the average white person in 1912 was super racist. Maybe they were nice to other white folx, but they were still super racist, and the game just doesn't want to touch that.

And for another uncomfortable fact, the klan was massively popular at the time. They weren't some fringe group of weirds who met in one of their mum's basement. Susan would have been exited to see them at her party.

And yet in this game everything about the Order of the Not-Klan is meant to "other" them, to disassociate them from "normal" whites. From their crappy house, to their weaker combat prowess (yeah, they suck in combat, too), to the bird poop everywhere, to the audio log you find before coming here where the person always called them "them" and mentions "their secret meetings," which clearly need a better name at this point.

Everything about them is meant to make them look like a joke, that no one seriously thinks like this and even if some fringe people do, they're not representative of white folx and that they're just a bunch of lone wolves, and that "we" are not responsible for "their" actions.

But I can hear you again, Goofus. "Isn't that a good thing?" you say, "To treat them with utter derision/mockery like the Superman radio show did in 1947 which caused a massive PR to the klan, to the point that no one ever took them as seriously again?"

And you're right, Goofus, but remember this scene comes right out nowhere, and after these scene is over we never see these guys again (with one exception I'll talk about when I hit the "boss" of this area.)

So that begs the question; why is this scene even here? Near the start of the game on the main path, no less. So there must be something in it that's relevant to the story overall, or there should be at least.

Well, I can only think of one reason, and it's to paint the KKK-expies as the "real" racists, and by extention to make the wealthy, slave owning and posh upper class of "normal" white folx who goes along with it as "misguided," the lesser of two evils. Which, if true, uh...

But hey, it could be a lot worse. At least they didn't portray them as intimidating or cool. Because if they did, that would be really, really awkward!

... Oh, by the by; do you remember that exception I spoke about?

After traveling around a bit more and finding the kult's creepy, underground basement/headquaters/dungeon, you'll run across this freaky lookin' guy who is akin to a boss battle!

... So let me get this straight, Bioshock Infinite; after you fight the weak grunts who are much weaker then the cops and aren't meant to be taken seriously, you force me to fight a super klansman? WHY

This is one of those things that is great in a vacuum, but is utter garbage because of the execution. See, when you approach the boss's room, you hear the voice of a prisoner. You open the door, but a chain only lets you peek through it, and what you see is a man, tied to a rack, being mauled to death by crows under the command of an unseen person.

When you break open the door the prisoner is dead, and the boss vanishes like a ghost into the arena, which is an eerie covered in fog. If this were a horror game, this would be a masterful intro to a boss battle.

BUT GUESS WHAT IT'S NOT SO THIS IS POOPY

I mean, yes, it was an incredibly effective villain moment. You got to see the boss's super power just before the fight with him, and the way it's shown to you is straight out of a horror movie, so it puts you on edge right form the start of the fight. But there's a huge problem here & guess what? It's racism

Let's start with the obvious; the subtitles helpfully point out that the prisoner is Chinese. So not only is this a casual display of violence meant for shock value, it's a RACIST casual display of violence! Yay, haven't had enough of that now, have we? But the bigger problem for me is that they use horror to frame this fight

Do you know why people love Darth Vader's scene in Rogue One, despite the rest of the movie being at best okay? Do you know what despite the Clone Wars cartoon being pretty dang good, what everyone remembers from it is General Grievous? It's because of the way the films framed their villains; they were treated like monsters out of a horror movie.

Think about all the great horror movie monsters; Jason, the Alien, Michael Myers, Satako, they all had a very sinister atmosphere around them, a certain sense of fear and pure malice for monsters filmed this way; like they're dripping with so much evil and power that you couldn't even hope to defeat them, let alone survive

And guess what? THEY GAVE THAT HONOR TO A FLULLING K/LANSMAN! WTFFFFF?!

And the exception I mention? It this boss. There's a ton of elite mooks that are just like this boss, so it makes them seem even more intimidating. How do you fail this badly?

even getting the crow vigor after the fight feels hallow, cause now I'm just wondering if I'm a very racist Megaman. Get Equipped with Incredibly Racist Implications.

One nice bit of game design is that if you can hear the music, there's always an orchestra string after you kill the last enemy. It's a good way to show you're out of danger.

Speaking of fights, I get into a lot more of them the closer I get to monument island. Most of it is just filler, but there are 2 moments that really stick out. The first is some banter with some cops, which I'll sadly have to bring up in another article (I know I've been doing that a lot today, but there's a particular spot where it's best to just dump all of this trash at) and then during the middle of another frantic battle a siren blairs and a voice on the PA tells all the combatants to stand down, because it seems Comstock wants to talk.

This whole scene feels rather, well, mediocre, and that sucks. I mean, this is your first direct dialogue with the big bad and it's very poorly done. On my first playthrough after this part I couldn't figure out what had just happened, which is pretty bad since he drops some plot critical details here, indicating a knowledge of Booker's past and that if he tries to take "the girl" away from him, there will be much, much more bloodshed.

So, why doesn't this scene work? Why am I not blown away and feeling threatened by the man who owns the city and everyone in it? Well, I guess the first place to look is your first confrontation with another big bad who owns their own city; Andrew Ryan.

This is clearly what the blimp talk with Comstock is trying to be, but it doesn't even pull of a fraction of the magic here. Like Comstock, Andrew Ryan has more than one introduction; one where you're told about him and the other when he actually speaks to you. As mentioned last time where Comstock is show through propoganda and "wow look how amazing this guy is," Ryan does it talks to the viewer himself. True, it's a recording, but you get much more of a sense of him knowing how great he is, and that he's not afraid to flaunt it.

This contrasts nicely with the first time he talks to you. The city is already in ruins and while you're trying to escape the psychotic former citizens, you find yourself trapped on an elevator when everything goes dark, except one screen lighting the room. You see a single, still picture of Ryan on the screen and he accuses you of being a thief trying to raid Rapture, and that he won't allow you to steal from his city, and leaves you to your fate at the hands of the splicers.

This scene is way more intense than Comstock's scene. Thing is we get a good idea of Ryan's personality from that intro movie, and he still retains that "I'm better than anyone else" ego in his conversation with you. Plus you get the feeling he's gone a little mad, perfectly reflecting Rapture's fallen status.

This is made more clear since he accuses you of being KGB or USA, both groups he perceives as his enemies given what we learned from the intro movie. He's clearly gotten a little paranoid, and it makes the whole scene more intense and intriguing.

But for Comstock? There's nothing interesting about him! His head is on a giant novelty blimp as he tells you how bad of a person you are and how you can never be forgiven and this all end in blood and OH SHUT UP! You suck, Comstock! Funko Pops are more intimating than you are! You aren't even a fraction as interesting as Andrew Ryan. Hell, Zant is a better villain, even knowing how his arc ends!

Though, credit where credit is due; when Booker tries to steal an airship, Comstock does say one hell of a line before destroying your ship and leaving you to die; "The lord forgives everything. But I'm just a prophet... So I don't have to." That is a seriously good villain line and if Comstock had more lines like that, I'd actually think he'd be a much better villain.

So Comstock has one of his followers burn the whole ship we're on, trying to take me with it, but I manage to escape and land on... Monument Island. Wow, thanks for getting us there a lot faster, Comstock. Truely, you are a villain without rival. Surpassed many times, but never rivaled.

So we've finally made it to Monument Island, but a lot happens here, so I'll save that for the next article. Thank you so much for reading! And until next time, take care 💜

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3