As you may or may not know, I am not the biggest fan of the original Bioshock. I thought Rapture was an great setting and I really enjoyed the first few hours as a result, but once the wonderment had worn off, I thought the rest of the game was pretty poor. The combat was extremely unsatisfying, the pacing was awful, and the main points of the story were lifted straight out of System Shock 2. However Bioshock lacked all of the tension and interesting role-playing elements of that game. After the famed 'twist,' Bioshock fell to shambles in the final third as the most interesting aspects of the story had been told and the gameplay had become beyond stale.

     So as you might expect, I was pretty skeptical going into Infinite. I reluctantly bought it after hearing nothing but unanimous praise for the game, and overall, I thought it was great and a huge improvement over the first Bioshock. The setting is just as interesting as Rapture, but the combat is hugely improved and while the pacing still isn't perfect the narrative drive kept me intrigued and entertained until the end. The story is quite good if not a bit cryptic in its telling, and the characters are generally interesting. The game also sounds and looks great; the soundtrack is very similar to the film 'There Will Be Blood' which is a good thing.

     However, despite really enjoying my time with Infinite, I think it could have been even better. The problem I have with the game is this: you are presented at the start with an extremely rich setting, and exposed to themes of religion and racism. Interesting quotes are displayed prominently in the environments; "what is Columbia if not another arc for another time?" And people yell at you to "go back to the Sodom from which you came!" After a few hours of being exposed to these ideas and messages, I was incredibly interested to see where the story went. The game reminded me at this point of HBO's Carnivale and Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood, a show and a film that both took place in the early 20th century that dealt with religious themes and have in my opinion some of the best stories ever told in their respective mediums. I was thrilled that Bioshock Infinite seemed to be following in the footsteps of these masterpieces.

     Yet as the game progresses, the focus is pulled from the themes of religion and racism, and instead is placed on... multiverse theories and quantum physics. Yea. It turns out that these are the narrative elements which Bioshock Infinite hangs its hat on. While the second half of Infinite that focuses on these elements is really interesting and full of cool moments, I can't help but feel that the narrative would have been more meaningful and memorable if it had focused on the aspects of Columbia that make it so strange and enthralling. The character of Comstock is not explored on any meaningful level, yes you can make some inferences about him once you learn that he is Booker later in life from an alternate universe, but you only learn tidbits about how and why Columbia was formed. Why does Comstock consider the world below Sodom, and Columbia an arc? How did he become racist and a proponent of slavery? How did he convince a huge number of people to come live in his city in the sky? We can assume perhaps that his experience fighting aboriginals in the battle of Wounded Knee and exposure to the Boxer Rebellion painted his picture of the world below, but these are things that could have been much more fleshed out.

    We are given glimpses of some very interesting themes and ideas that are swept aside to make way for a complex and convoluted but hardly deep or meaningful science fiction tale. Racism, religion and slavery take a back seat in the narrative to quantum physics and somewhat gimmicky plot twists. Singularity, a game that borrowed heavily from Bioshock and was not aspiring to provide a fresh and exciting video game narrative had many of the same story elements as Infinite; they really aren't as novel or exciting as some people seem to believe.

     These twists and ideas are interesting in and of themselves in the context of Columbia, but they are poorly explained, and have you mulling the ending over not because it questions accepted ideas surrounding the three aforementioned themes but because it is cryptic in its presentation of the ideas. Would people consider the ending brilliant if it was told more plainly and was easier to figure out? Probably not, people like the fact that they need to put the pieces together so that everything makes sense. The final 'twist' is something of a narrative low blow and does not add any richness to the story, and you are left trying to figure out how a low-key guy who doesn't seem to like attention turned into the religious fanatic-come-quantum physicist that Comstock is. Maybe they will flesh that out with DLC, which would a even less appetising possibility.

     Perhaps I am not being realistic in my hopes that developers will challenge directly more mature and adult themes such as racism and religion. Rockstar has in a few games hinted at some interesting ideas like the struggles of immigrants in America with GTA IV, racism against aboriginals in Red Dead Redemption and the class divide in Sal Palo with Max Payne 3. Will there ever come a time when these issues are tackled head on in main stream games, or will they forever be relegated to thematic backdrops while more conventional video game story tropes take center stage?

The first few hours of Bioshock Infinite hinted at something of great narrative significance and depth which I hope one day will make it into mainstream games. Sadly it didn't quite deliver on that potential.