Bioshock Infinite (Xbox 360, 2013)

I took a break from my Zelda playthrough after Majora's Mask to play Bioshock Infinite.  As is the general consensus, it's a terrific game with a great story.  The Bioshock games, of which I've played the first and this new game (skipping the second, which changed developers and got mixed reviews), are about idealistic American "enclaves", set in the past but with futuristic technology.  They're also credited with bringing a philosophical outlook to the modern high-budget video game.  The first game focussed pretty heavily on Objectivism a la Ayn Rand.  This game hits even closer to home, showing the dark side of American exceptionalism, racial purification, and Christian fundamentalism.

I wanted to start out positive, because I really did enjoy this game.  In fact, since the designers did so much right, it's worth asking them what might be a pretty dumb question.  Why does this game need to be a first-person shooter?  Couldn't you tell a story just as good with a different gameplay mechanic?  I understand that Booker DeWitt is not welcome in the flying city of Columbia, and why its leader believes he is a threat.  I understand why he's willing to risk everything to accomplish his mission.  I don't understand why that means it's sensible to turn him into a killing machine.  These are not deformed "splicers", as in the first game, but quite real and healthy human beings that are dying by the hundreds.

Bioshock Infinite is an extremely violent game.  Now I play games with many degrees of violence, and to be frank, this usually doesn't bother me.  This doesn't have to be a moral issue, or an issue of children being desensitized.  Honestly, this is just a game that would be significantly better if it had ditched the guns.  Perhaps I wouldn't have felt this way when I was younger.  It occured to me when I picked up this game that I've played at most 2 or 3 first person shooters since Call of Duty 4 came out.  As I've gotten older, this is one genre I'm beginning to grow out of (and I still play JRPGs - go figure).  Clare doesn't like watching them, and they're finally starting to make me queasy too.

The sad truth with this game is that it would probably be impossible, at least in this era of video games, to make something so beautiful, something with such high production values, without forcing the main character to carry guns around and point them at things.  Perhaps someday there will be a Bioshock game that, without hypocrisy, will tell the gamers of the future about how America was once obsessed with firearms.