FIFA 14 Review

Never has such a beautiful sport had such a shitty game for it.

Ok wait, perhaps that statement was a bit too harsh but truth be told, FIFA 14 is nowhere near as good as FIFA should be.

Everything good with FIFA 14 was copypasted over from FIFA 13. Prior to release, EA showed off some trailers to highlight what's new with FIFA 14. The impact those changes have made are similar to the realistic fish mechanics introduced in COD: Ghosts.

Screw the Premier League, I wanna be a flop in Madrid!

One notable change in the latest FIFA is that players now move more realistically like how all FIFAs have not done before. But in all seriousness, unlike football, the ball just doesn't stick at the players feet anymore. The amount of precision and accuracy the game demands each player behind the controller to have is ludicrous.

You will have tons of missed passes.
You will lose the ball relentlessly when no one pressures you.
You will wonder if you're using school kids to play FIFA that just look like Messi.

In fact, why is Messi's face still on the box art?

The latest FIFA 14 features senior citizens as well

There's a fine line between fun and realism and this is where EA just doesn't get it... or care to get it. Speaking about EA, it seems now that their game making policy has been moved over to their sports titles as well.

The only real noticeable change outside of the new horrendous movement system now is that they place empty bottles on the poles when you play that dribbling skill game. Everything that has been introduced in FIFA 14 is just purely and undeniably superficial.

Europe's Scummiest Team

Outside of that, the graphics have taken dropped in standards since I last checked. If not almost the same, players now look jaggy and unnatural with this plastic like body. Facial expressions are mostly absent and players just open their black hole resembling mouths as big as they can to express their sorrow when they miss a clear chance.

To add insult to injury, the entire animation team should be lined up in Guantanamo Bay and shot. TWICE! The celebrations look pitiful to say the least. Players phase through one another and run around in circles after scoring and even then, framerate is off by a thousand.

If you own FIFA 13 and you're planning to buy FIFA 14, your team should be relegated.

IRON

Pacific Rim Review

There are movies that are so emotional. There are movies that are thought provoking. There are movies that question the realities of life and what it means to be human.

Then there's Pacific Rim. 

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro, Pacific Rim is a movie about giant robots that run around cities and the Pacific Ocean, battling even bigger monsters from another dimension. It goes without saying that this movie doesn't take itself all too seriously. 

Choosing to serve its cinematic themes first rather than logical decisions or intrinsic character development, Pacific Rim is all out action movie under the right mindset, is the most fun and cathartic experience one can get this year. 

Yes, the acting of both Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi are things you've come to expect from B-grade independent movies. The script is so cringe worthy at times that even experienced actors like Idris Elba can't help but pull you out of any immersion that you hope to get. 

Ignoring all these glaring faults, it's still a massively two hours and eleven minutes for those who can turn off their brains just for that little while.

The fight scenes between the Jaegers (giant human shaped robots) and Kaiju (monsters too good to be in Ultraman) are mindblowing. Terms like "Elbow Rocket" will be thrown around and there are even a couple of borderline racist lines that made an Orient like me scream inside. It all makes you wonder if this movie, regardless of its huge budget was aimed at children.

It is apparent that Director Del Toro spent more time and effort in the editing and special effects room rather than with the actors or screenwriter. With that said, this movie will be remembered for its downright awesome action sequences. 

If the horrors of reality are closing in on you and the films of your high bow peers like An Education or Upstream Color just don't cut it, then you owe it to your inner child to watch this movie. It sure hell doesn't make sense but lets be honest, this is what movies are made for. 

SILVER

DOTA 2 Review

A couple of years since its initial release in 2010, DOTA 2 has come out of its beta stage and is finally fully released out there. Free-to-play on Steam, is DOTA 2 worth your downloading time, if not your money?

First and foremost, DOTA 2 is a MOBA game which stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. It's a genre that's been in gaming for quite some time but there have been far too little games made for it and even fewer that have achieved any form of success aside from League of Legends perhaps.

For those unacquainted with MOBAs, how it works is basically like an RTS but instead of controlling and micromanaging an army, you control one hero unit instead. Each unit has a set number of skills which is usually four skills (while some have five or six or sometimes even more).

There are active and passive skills whereby active skills are abilities that can be casted to deal damage, heal allies, stun enemies or help escape sticky situations, depending on the hero you pick. Passive skills on the other hand serve as buffs that are perennially active once you choose to level them up.

Skills are leveled up through experience points which can be gained through killing creeps (cannon fodder NPCs) or enemy heroes and once a hero levels up, he can choose to funnel the skills points he or she learned into his own skill tree.

In spite of saying skill tree, the way a hero skills and levels up in DOTA 2 is incredibly simple and accessible although knowing which skills to max out first is crucial to winning the game. There are also items to be bought in the game and each character can carry up to six items in his or her inventory. The only way to earn gold for buying these items are basically last hitting creeps, meaning delivering the killing blow to the enemy creeps while they have almost no health left.

There are creeps on both sides coming out in waves to constantly attack one another, creeps can also be killed by heroes of the same team to deny enemies of gold and experience which goes a long way to building a strong hero. Denying wasn't introduced in League but is a welcome feature in DOTA 2 as it makes the game more tactical and challenging at the same time.

All that explanation in itself was just basically the first 20% of what DOTA 2 is and with that said, newcomers who've never a MOBA will find that there's a very steep learning curve involved. Thankfully, there's also a training system in DOTA 2 to allow players to learn about last hitting creeps, buying items, using couriers, using their skills and etc to help new players acclimate themselves with the genre.

Now going to the map itself, this was something I found puzzling and a bit saddening at first when I first started MOBAs but in this genre, there's only one map and it remains unchanged as it is perfectly balanced for both sides.

In the top right and bottom left corner of the map are the bases for each side. One is the Radiant, populated by beautiful green meadows and lush trees and the other is for the Dire which resembles a plain scorched by a volcanic erruption. In each base is an Ancient which is where DOTA's name comes from.

The main objective of each side is to eradicate the enemy team's ancient by farming and pushing their way towards the enemy's base while at the same time defending yours from incoming enemy attacks. Hence the title, Defense of the Ancients or DOTA.

In the middle of all this convoluted explaining is actually quite a fun game.

In DOTA 2, there's a wide array of characters for you to choose from which is very well done up. Ranging from your DPS heroes, then your Tanky ones and Casters, Disablers and so forth, each character is very well rendered. New characters are also introduced every once in awhile and while old ones are occasionally remodeled to look newer and better if they started to look out of date.

Each character also has his or her own personal origin story to explain their powers and where they come from and how they got into DOTA but story has never really been a big point of MOBA games. I wish Valve could have done something more about this but given the nature of competition in MOBA games and the amount of abuse, praise or tactics that would be hurdled in the game, I guess it's forgivable that the characters keep their lore to themselves.

Aside from that, I also really appreciate the effort that's done for the design of the characters. Female characters firstly are treated with decent respect where they're not just tits in a petite body walking around in a bikini like League and the other more monster like heroes appear well crafted without looking too gaudy. There are cosmetic items to change the look of certain heroes which can either be bought through Steam or earned by random drops after each game but thankfully they do nothing to affect the overall balance of the game.

With that being said, due to the nature of MOBA games, players can be downright offensive and abusive which makes the community look pretty awful. If you're new, expect to be slammed repeatedly and even reported for action against for doing badly in a game. This, in spite of a very fun game that's out there for everyone, can turn many people away from MOBAs like DOTA 2.

So thus therefore, when it comes down to it, DOTA 2 is a pretty awesome game and given that its free to play, everyone should give a try at least once to see if it's their cup of tea. The many hero characters available to pick is vast, ensuring there's a type or role suited for each type of player.

It plays well and I've seen several modern laptops play the game smoothly so the game's pretty well optimized. Many people will get turned off by DOTA 2, either by it's complexities or by the barbarism of it's community. However, for the more hardcore gamers seeking a bigger challenge, there is little games that are more rewarding and punishing at the same time.

6 - GOLD

 Here's a little extra something to introduce new players out there to DOTA 2 by one of my favorite DOTA commentators. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f-jR3Vo3Rw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx_vkYApVf8

The Sad Case of Trayvon Martin

*Disclaimer* This post isn't meant to offend anyone. It's just a personal opinion that may or may not fully reflect the true reality of the unfortunate event that happened.

Towards the end of February last year, a 17 year old Black boy was shot by a 28 year old half Hispanic, half White man in a neighborhood in Florida. This story caused quite an outburst within the African American society cause obviously when you kill a member of a minority ethnic group anywhere, people from that group are bound to make some noise.

George Zimmerman, the 28 year old Hispanic dude claimed that he was assaulted by 17 year old Trayvon Martin which was heavily armed with a can drink and Skittles. The shooting took place within a gated community where Zimmerman was a member of the neighborhood watch.

Prior to the shooting, Zimmerman first spotted Trayvon walking around the neighborhood at night in the rain dressed in a grey hoodie. As a result of Trayvon's suspicious behavior, Zimmerman called the police and proceeded to follow Trayvon in his vehicle in spite being told not to by the police while he spoke to them on the phone.

While being followed, Trayvon suddenly decided to run and escape Zimmerman. When Zimmerman finally caught up, he got out of his vehicle and confronted Trayvon. After a physical tussle in which nobody knows who started it, Trayvon was shot in the heart once which killed him.

Zimmerman made no attempt to flee the scene and when the police arrived, they found Trayvon dead on the pavement and Zimmerman with bruises to the back of his head and a bleeding and swollen nose.

After police investigation and a long court case, Zimmerman was acquitted and walked a free man. As expected, members of the African American community did not take this lightly. They claimed that Trayvon was murdered and his killer walks free. Many protests have gone underway and Zimmerman himself has received several death threats.

So this is all the stuff you need to know.

Now lets get down to the details...

First and foremost, people who side with Trayvon claimed that he was this innocent child of a boy who was unfairly murdered by this racist White man. They claimed that Trayvon was a law abiding citizen and an outstanding member of his community.

Is he?

According to Wikipedia,

• At the time of his death, Trayvon was suspended from school for the third time
• He was once caught by the police for possessing a used weed pipe and there was weed residue in his backpack
• He had a history of violence in school, occasionally getting into fights
• During another search, police found a number of women's jewelry in his backpack along with a screwdriver

There was no evidence that suggested that the jewelry was stolen but why would a 17 year old boy carry not one but several pieces of women's jewelry. Perhaps we could have dismissed him as a potential cross dresser and that would have been alright but the screwdriver was what got me.

When Zimmerman spoke to the police, he said there had been some break-ins in the neighborhood. No one was ever caught before.

Now lets look at Zimmerman's background. Firstly, Zimmerman is not a pure Caucasian white man. He's half Hispanic but for the sake of it, lets pretend he's White.

According to Wikipedia,

• Zimmerman assaulted a police officer before and resisted arrest
• His ex-fiancee filed a restraining order against him for alleged domestic abuse
• During the court case for the restraining order, the judge described Zimmerman as a mild person and that "these things" happen. 

Looks like neither of our guys here are saints anyway. For the sake of argument, I'm gonna dismiss Zimmerman's degree in criminal justice and dismiss at the same time this was a racially charged incident.

So lets focus on the incident itself.

According to Wikipedia,

• Trayvon was shot at close range and that the shot was a contact shot, meaning the gun was most likely touching Trayvon when it fired
• There was some yelling for help before the single shot was fired 

Now, I'm not sure about you but I'm definitely not one to bring a knife to a gunfight. Regardless of who started the fight or whether or not Trayvon was provoked by Zimmerman, I wouldn't fight a man who's holding a gun, more so a pistol which could shoot me from a really close range. 

Hell, he could call me or my family anything he wanted and I wouldn't even think about retaliating. 

Debating with certain idiots on the forum, people claimed that Trayvon had "bigger balls" which is why he dared to take on Zimmerman. Bravery or not, this is the kind of stupid thinking that gets people killed. 

Having bigger balls means one would dare fight a Grizzly bear unarmed. Having bigger balls doesn't mean surviving the encounter. If Trayvon made no attempt to flee, then he had what was coming to him. 

But what if he did attempt to escape?

Forensics suggests not. Remember how Trayvon was shot at close range, that the gun was practically touching him? If he was that close to Zimmerman, that means he made no attempt to escape. 

Not convinced?

If you've followed enough forensic shows and stuff, you would notice the forensics people throwing around this term entrance and exit wounds. The wound the bullet leaves when it enters a human body is different from the one when the bullet leaves the body. 

So if Trayvon ran and Zimmerman shot him in the back, the police would have known. Instead, he was shot at point blank, right in his chest, suggesting that Trayvon put up a fight. 

Another thing. If you listen to the audio recordings of all the phone calls made to the police while this was going on, you would notice Zimmerman went a long way of describing to the police the scenario and leading them towards the neighborhood to try and handle the situation first. 

Yeah, he's a dickhead for trying to be a hero which ended up in someone getting killed but if he had every intention to kill Trayvon from the start, he should have called the police after, not before the event started. 

But what if he carefully planned and orchestrated the whole thing all along? 

That would make him a pretty smart guy now wouldn't it? 

However, as smart as he can be, all of it would have been foiled if Trayvon knew how to use his brains. Assaulting an armed man without any weapon, even the drug cartel dudes would say that's loco. 

If you Google Trayvon Martin and look up all the images online, it's hard to see Trayvon as some innocent child. What you see instead is this shirtless young man sticking middle fingers while posing for the camera as if he's some hot shot unstoppable gangsta wannabe. 

This guy ain't no Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. 

As logical as I'm trying to be with this, even ignoring Zimmerman's degree in criminal justice, the fact that Trayvon's only witness was lying in court on the account of so many things and Zimmerman's injuries (assuming he did that to himself), it's getting harder and harder to side with this poor 17 year old boy who was so unfairly taken from this world. 

Many years ago, they gave a 16 year old Black kid life in jail for killing his neighbor while practicing wrestling moves. Teens can be really stupid and sometimes their stupidity results in their own deaths. 

So what actually happened?

Giving Zimmerman and Trayvon the benefit of the doubt, I guess shit happens. I think it was an accident. People can argue that Trayvon was gonna break into someone house and Zimmerman stopped him but he still wasn't caught "breaking in" yet. 

And if no one can prove Trayvon didn't fight Zimmerman, then I guess the self defense plea still applies for him. 

And the moral of the story?

Don't fight a man with a gun. It's stupid. Just do what he asks you. Imagine the situation if Trayvon didn't fight and just curled up into a ball in a fetal position on the floor when Zimmerman confronted him. It wouldn't be his bravest moment but I'm damn sure he'd still be alive today. 

But nooooooo.... his balls were too big for that. 

The Last of Us Review

It's been seven years since the launch of the first Playstation 3 and over the past couple of years, many owners of the trusty console have been great exclusives such as God of War, Uncharted, Heavy Rain and many more titles. Though the debate of which console did better is still a subject of strong debate, it goes without saying that the games (especially the exclusives) that define the console itself. 

However, in spite of the vast number of PS3 exclusives out there in the market, The Last of Us is probably the defining moment in the PS3's era in this console generation. 

At first glance, The Last of Us does not come off as a very original idea. Essentially a zombie game, human civilization is destroyed by a fungal disease that turns humans into rabid infected creatures, spreading their disease by attacking anyone on site. To make matters worse, the remaining and constantly dwindling human population is policed poorly by The Authority which show little regard for human life. A resistance group emerges known as the Fireflies who fight back and... I think you'll probably know where we're getting at from here. 

Throw in a couple more bandits who attack anyone on sight and there you have it, you have your run of the mill zombie survival story out there. 

While the overall plot doesn't score much points for originality, it makes up for it in terms of it's execution. 

For most of the game, you play Joel, mentally destroyed by the losses of everything that was important to him. Soon after, he encounters Ellie, a fourteen year old girl where he's trusted with to deliver to the Fireflies for reasons I believe you guys can easily figure out. 

In spite of it's hackneyed plot, the Last of Us focuses instead of the human story of survival, sacrifice, loss and bonding. Instead of focusing directly on the objective of where the characters go and what they need to do next, the strength of the game's narration lies in its subtitles. 

Joel, jaded and hardened by his traumatic experiences and Ellie, never really been outside in the real world beyond the quarantine zones that keep the humans safe from zombies, known as Clickers. The interesting relationship they develop as Joel escorts Ellie prompts up many insightful conversations about the world as we know it and more often enough invokes deep emotions within its audience without the need to collapse a corporate building in your face. 

The story does take it's time and it is within that time spent with Joel, Ellie and the other interesting characters they meet along the way that players will find themselves being profoundly attached to this game world and its populace. 

Within this very emotional and engaging story lies a game as well. Numerous times along the way, Joel and Ellie would encounter resistance. The infected are divided into several types, namely runners and clickers. Runners, who still look human, are quick to charge and attack any target on sight but can be handled easily in smaller numbers. 

Clickers on the other hand are fully mutated infected that have no sense of vision given that their heads are completely enveloped by some gnarly fungal growth. They use sound instead to detect potential victims using a clicking noise, hence the name. The most interesting thing about them is that if one gets to Joel, it's a one hit kill which really creates urgency in either killing them first or stealthily avoiding them all together. 

Aside from the infected, there are also human resistance, most of the time bandits and looters but occasionally a bout with the Authority as well. Unlike the gung-ho charging tactics of the infected, the human AI does what you come to expect of it. Taking cover at the right times, flanking you if you stay in cover too long and even timing their precious shots, the human AI hammers you with all sorts of weapons ranging from pistols, shotguns and even molotov cocktails. 

In all of this, resources are scarce where players would often have little to no bullets in their guns. Scattered all around the game world are equally scarce resource items like cloth, and blades where players can craft into useful items such as shivs, health packs and nail bombs even to help Joel and Ellie persevere. 

Though The Last of Us is supposed to be played as a stealth game where the players are often punished for detection, the violence in the last of us is one of the most horrific, gruesome and visceral in a realistic way. Armed with a lead pipe, Joel would desperately bash an enemy's skill in before smashing another enemy's face in with a brick. 

And no matter how justified the violence is in the context of the game, one does not feel any positive merit or reward from killing someone else. No doubt this game would be a focal point of discussion about violence in videogames and how it affects us as consumers of this interactive media. 

In other words, killing someone in this game feels messed up, like how it should be in real life. 

All this ties in very well with the overall story of desperation and survival where gameplay and narration are one instead of gameplay being a disjointing factor in the overall experience. 

Visually, the Last of Us is a stunning looking game with little to no flaws whatsoever. The only complaint I would have against it is the lack of anti-aliasing but seeing how the PS3 has been really pushed to its limits, the fault lies in with the system and not the game itself. This makes me wonder how the game would have looked on PC without being overburdened with the PS3's soon to be outdated specs. 

Aside from the level of visual fidelity, the art style of the game is something quite amazing. Taking place in a very realistic universe, the art direction still manages to shine with abandoned buildings and structures aplenty being reclaimed back by nature and the new terrors of the world, leaving behind small relics of our previously thriving species . 

Cutscenes are beautifully rendered, creating believable moments between characters as they bicker, argue, fight and bond with some very intelligent editing which always knows how to keep the audience on the edge of their seats and guessing in spite of some very cliched moments. 

A special mention also goes out to the people who worked in the audio and music composition of the game which really sets in the tone and atmosphere of the game. The plucking of the guitar, playing to a very sentimental American tune that feels so apropos. 

There are a thousand more things to be said and discussed about this game and unlike Sim City, Diablo 3 or Mass Effect 3, every discussion about it would most likely be people showering their endless praise for this game and honestly, it deserves no less. 

Many games make the engage and stimulate players by making or breaking big things in their face or sometimes with dynamic characters with eccentric personalities and what not. The Last of Us instead makes us look inward instead. While there is much to see in other games, there is much to feel in the Last of Us. 

7 - DIAMOND

Bioshock Infinite Review

After five long years, the sequel to 2K Marin’s critically acclaimed Bioshock finally sees the light of day. Dubbed originally as the “thinking man’s shooter”, the original Bioshock was heralded for its intelligent and mind-bending story, told through its unique setting.

For the sequel to be a success, it needed to best the city of Rapture of its predecessor. Rapture was a feat of graphical wonderment housing the brilliant and enigmatic minds of the unforgettable Andrew Ryan and Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum, resulting in one of the best plot twists in videogame history. 

Bioshock Infinite achieves that same level of quality with an entirely new setting and characters without going on the expense of riding the original game’s success like Bioshock 2 did. That effort received less than stellar reviews.

Taking place in the city of Columbia, you step into the shoes of Booker DeWitt, a 20^th century former soldier and Pinkerton cop with a deeply troubled past. Crippled with debt caused by a [from his] gambling addiction, Booker is tasked with travelling to the floating city of Columbia in search of a special girl named Elizabeth in exchange for his debt. 

After a short sequence in the community fair which causes every single denizen of Columbia to viciously descend upon Booker, you soon discover Elizabeth and realize that she’s no ordinary girl. Trapped in a tower by the megalomaniac Father Comstock, apparently gifted with powers of prophecy with a penchant for destroying the United States, players realize that liberating Elizabeth and wiping away the debt to be no easy task.

Amidst all the chaos and beauty of a living, breathing city in the sky lies a strong undertone of racial bigotry and religious fanaticism. Players can learn this through scanning the beautiful and well-crafted environment. Hidden Voxophones act as collectible audio logs that flesh out the backstory of the escalating tension between Father Comstock’s followers known as the Founder’s and the ill-treated Irish and Black immigrant rebels known as the Vox Populi.

Gameplay wise, Bioshock Infinite may resemble a traditional FPS at first glance, it plays almost nothing like what contemporary shooters have to offer. Booker is given access to a decent range of weapons notably pistols, shotguns, machineguns and grenade launchers.

However, where Bioshock Infinite truly differs from other games is the use of its special powers, this time known as Vigors. Similar to the plasmids of the original Bioshock, Vigors allow Booker to cast a wide variety of spells towards his opposition like throwing balls of flame, firing electric bolts or even suspending groups of enemies into the air for an easy kill. 

Unlike the original Bioshock, Vigors have been made more accessible and easy to use. Vigors can be casted simply with a click of the right mouse button or held down longer to be thrown as traps for enemies to stumble upon. Though some may argue that this limits variety and makes the Vigors less dynamic than it should be, it also does allow for players to familiarize themselves with new Vigors much faster. Most intermediate players will find a combination of Vigors and weapons that suit their needs throughout the whole campaign without needing to alternate to other Vigors. Advanced players on the other hand, could find themselves dominating the opposition by firing off a variety of Vigors and traps using while swapping through sorts of weapons.

Like most modern shooters, players are allowed to carry two different weapons at any given time and alternate between two different Vigors. Like Dishonored, players can access a Vigor wheel that allows them to select all the different Vigors they’ve come across along the way. Players can also find and equip up to four pieces of “Gear” which serves as perks like in recent Call of Duty games.

Outside of standard shooter elements, Bioshock Infinite brings something new to the table via the Skyhook sessions. Littered around certain sections of the game are skylines that attach the various floating islands together. Upon receiving the skyhook early in the game, players are allowed to ride these skylines, creating an effective means of travelling and combat. While riding the skylines, players can easily dismount by pointing towards where they want to land or better, target enemies and leap towards them which could either stun them or knock them off the floating islands and to their doom. 

Elizabeth also brings something to the table with her own distinctive contribution to gameplay. Throughout the entirety of the campaign, Elizabeth seldom leaves your side and while in combat, she’ll throw Booker ammunition, health packs and salts to keep you in the fight. Often Elizabeth will offer these items at the most important times like when you’re running low on ammunition or running out of salts to power your Vigors. 

Out of combat, Elizabeth finds and offers the player money while occasionally pointing of items of interest or even just to strike up a chat, making her the most reliable and believable companion NPC to date.

Aside from just throwing stuff, Elizabeth also has the ability to open up “tears” which creates a portal to an alternate reality. How this comes into gameplay is that Elizabeth can bring in certain things from other dimensions to the current reality like automated turrets to fight on your side or even a cache of health packs to keep Booker alive. 

While all of these powers may seem game breaking, Bioshock Infinite isn’t afraid to throw huge numbers of enemies towards you. Unlike the first Bioshock where enemies rush at you at controlled numbers, Father Comstock won’t hesitate to unleash dozens upon dozens of enemy waves towards you. While the Big Daddies from the original Bioshock are absent from Bioshock Infinite, new special enemies like the Handyman and the Motorized Patriots serve as challenging and frightening mini-bosses, making their presence felt with high damage outputs and very high health and armor.

Visually, Bioshock Infinite is one of the most stunning games in our current console generation. Making up for its lack of photorealistic graphics, Bioshock Infinite thrives in its surreal and engaging art and attention to the smallest detail. The city of Columbia feels real and believable with its floating islands in the distance and population running around, going about their own personal business.

When the game lets up from its action and allows the player to walk around the streets unharmed, it’s almost mandatory for players to explore the city and just watch as how life goes about in the floating city. Children splashing and playing around a broken fire hydrant while privileged white adults sit in cafes, gossiping about the immigrant workers who might or might not be working for the Vox Populi, and billboard and posters encouraging racial purity, Bioshock Infinite is not so much a game that it to be played but rather seen and experienced. 

Players who just burst through the game, rushing towards the closest checkpoint to advance the story will find themselves missing out greatly on what the game has to offer. Without giving away too much, the moment with the guitar is perhaps one of the most poetic and heartwarming scenes I’ve experienced in a videogame to date, which makes it scary to think that it wasn’t part of the main campaign to begin with.  

Speaking about guitars, Bioshock Infinite has perhaps one of the best music scores and audio effects ever produced for a videogame. The voicework for the characters are downright amazing especially for Elizabeth, the Letuce twins and Booker DeWitt. An interesting choice was made with Booker DeWitt’s design to give him a voice and personality, absent in previous Bioshock games when referring to their protagonists. With the script so well written and audio executed so perfectly, each collectible Voxophone was worth far more than standard in-game currency or ammo.

Regardless, the main star of the show is still Elizabeth and the story of her emancipation from this outwardly bright yet innately dark world of Columbia and Father Comstock. Wonderfully brought to life by voice actor Courtnee Draper, Elizabeth is without question easily one of the easiest characters to emotionally invest in given the believability and uniqueness of her personality and movement which is seemingly almost early Disney-like in design.

 

For those who are more acquainted with movies instead, Bioshock Infinite in many ways is the perfect hybrid of Disney’s Tangled and Quentin Tarantino’s latest Django Unchained.  

Without padding out this review too much, Bioshock Infinite is the culmination of what current generation videogames have to offer. If Half Life 2 was the pioneer of current gen games, Bioshock Infinite with its marvelous storyline, dynamic characters, gorgeous setting and satisfying gameplay is the reckoning before the next generation of Watch Dogs and Battlefield 3 sees release. While the technology in some ways still feels familiar and plays that way as well, the execution is done to perfection.

While players new to the franchise might find no flaw with it, advanced players familiar to the Bioshock franchise might find the experience too forgiving to which I encourage them to start the game on the hard difficulty like I did. Outside of that little road bump, a few rare bugs and one or two character models used repeatedly, Bioshock Infinite remains flawless in its execution.

The campaign is appropriately lengthy at over twenty hours and while there isn’t a multiplayer component to speak of, there is no way to criticize this game without nit-picking and sounding like an overly entitled gamer. While the resolution of the game might appear ambiguous to some similar to Mass Effect 3’s ending, the sheer amount of artistic vision and complexity to the game’s finality truly gives meaning to subtitle Infinite. 

7 - DIAMOND