I think that I’m alone in that I didn’t think that the first Bioshock was the best thing evarr and took the first person shooter to a whole new level blah blah. I thought it was ok – I liked Rapture – the city itself, with its art deco design, and the ambience of a once-thriving-and-vibrant-but-now-mostly-dead city. But everything else about it was tepid. The shooting was tedious, made interesting only by the plasmids, which (in my mind, at least) never realised their full potential, and the story, and ‘philosophical’ elements, such as they were, weren’t nearly as fantastic as people kept saying they were. Perhaps I played it through too late, the words ‘Atlas Is Fontaine’ ringing in my ears after another one of my friends had told me for the zillionth time. As for the philosophical elements, the consisted primarily of some reheated bullshit – Ayn Rand-style objectivism, to be precise, and … I’ll be honest, I have very little patience for Ayn ‘Any’ Rand. When I was 15, I tried to read Atlas Shrugged. I didn’t finish it, not because it was too challenging, or the ideas were too radical, but because it was really really boring. A bunch of people spending most of their time telling each other how great they thought lassaiz-faire capitalism was. If you think The Overton Window lays it on a bit thick, Atlas Shrugged is like wading through a bloody swamp. I’m not joking. All the characters seem to have conversations and inner monologues essentially about why Objectivism is great. At least Bioshock has the sense to show what would actually happen was this objectivist nonsense ever to actually come about (i.e. chaos, murder, and people in bunny masks trying to steal children). Sorry. Brief diversion there. In essence, I’m not rightly sure why games journos got themselves in such a lather about the game. I mean, it was good, but not that good. Bioshock Infinite on the other hand, looks pretty cool. I like the idea of a flying city as a setting, and the exploration of the themes of American exceptionalism could be jolly interesting. Sorry, was most of this my moaning about how little I like Ayn Rand and how much her books and objectivism in general wind me up? I suppose that’s to be expected. Anyway, the idea of superpowered plasmids, a new setting, giant robots with human hearts (from the trailer) and perhaps we’ll have some moral quandries more subtle and nuanced than DO YOU SAVE THE LITTLE GIRL OR KILL HER? It also looks like it might be sunny, what with it being up in the clouds, rather than the squalid dark hues of Rapture. I don’t know, perhaps I haven’t best articulated my problems with Bioshock, or why I hold such high hopes for Infinite. I have a feeling it has something to do with the steampunk-y city in the clouds. I’d also recommend you watch/read some interviews with Ken Levine. That man knows how to sell a game. That’s all for now, see you tomorrow!