BioShock Infinite - Burial at Sea: Episode 1

With an incredible story and mind-blowing ending BioShock Infinite is easily a competitor for Game of the Year. Burial at Sea Part 1 is Irrational Games first attempt at a story-driven DLC. Attempting to replicate the experience from the original story, with a time constraint of 1 to 2 hours, but it doesn’t work well. Burial at Sea Episode 1 uses fantastic sights and a nostalgic setting in order to bridge an incomplete story.

You take control of Booker DeWitt in this alternate timeline. It’s New Year’s Eve in 1958, just before Andrew Ryan’s city falls into calamity, but before that happens, a new version of Elizabeth commissions the private detective in finding a little girl named Sally. While Booker maintains his original persona, Elizabeth is now confident, older, and devoid of the innocence that she possessed in the original campaign. While revisiting Rapture, with its graphical update is amazing, the sense of horror that was present when Jack traveled these same streets is gone. I was completely aware of the dark secrets that were hidden within the walls of this failing dystopia.

Familiar sights and characters had me reminiscing about past BioShock titles, but the real appeal came when BioShock Infinite’s mechanics were introduced. While combat situations are similar to Infinite’s campaign the different enemy varieties add new excitement. Stapling the blade of your Sky-Hook into the head of a Splicer is still brutal and getting pulled by a Big Daddy’s grappling hook from a skyline reminded me how powerful these creatures are. Infinite’s weaponry of vigors and firearms are just as effective as anything from Rapture.

Irrational Games introduces a new vigor and weapon in Burial at Sea. Called the Radar Range, this wonderful device uses microwave radiation to cause your enemies to explode, damaging anyone caught in the explosion. Unfortunately the vigor, called Old Man Winter, is simply the plasmid Winter Blast from the original BioShock with a new name.

Just like BioShock Infinite, I expected an inevitable twist and cliffhanger from the beginning. Burial at Sea Episode 1 ended with me wanting more, guaranteeing that I would purchase Part 2. The story isn’t ruined for relying on the same concepts and knowing what is to come didn’t diminish the effect it had. You won’t see it coming but everything will make sense.  

The ending of BioShock Infinite implied that an endless amount of universes exist, each containing a lighthouse and a man. Burial at Sea is an interesting what-if scenario that attempts to construct a reality centered on Elizabeth’s speech at the end of the original campaign. It’s a shame that Irrational Games attempts to condense everything into a small DLC package. Until Episode 2 is release Burial at Sea Episode 1 is an incomplete experience yearning to be whole.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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