BioShock Infinite

****BioShock is a descendant of Deus Ex, which in turn grew out of System Shock. All those games were First Person Shooters, but they put on a layer of inventory management, skill sets, “spell casting”, and level based puzzle solving.

BioShock’s big acclaim was the setting and world building – a sunken city decked with the trappings of Ayn Rand’s objectivism, lost beneath the waves. The player saw the results of the civilization, how unchecked greed and bioengineering led to a drowned hell. Big Daddies and Little sisters were probably the biggest gameplay innovation. Kill the “helpless” mutant girl to collect a large dose of ADAM and you’ll have to face the rampaging Daddy. Narrative was intertwined with gameplay in a way that improved both

Infinite takes the same spiritual DNA of its predecessors and evolves into something new. We have the fantastical dystopia – this time a city in the clouds, led by the charismatic religious leader Comstock and his zealous flock. There’s an equal mix of racism and beautiful neo-classical architecture. The color palette is big and bold and full of light, like a carnival on a perfect summer day.

Unfortunately, the carnival aesthetic is extrapolated a bit more than it should be. The entire game feels like a ride at a fair. You walk into a new area, floating buildings and zeppelins docking together, glorious sunshine beaming down, illuminating a huge statue or poster of religious or racist iconography. You walk around for a minute, marveling at all the detail built into the world (flushing toilets! Ice cream vendors!). Then some guards recognize you and there’s a quick and bloody battle, employing a variety of weapons and “spells”. You might jump onto the skyline, a sort of by-the-rails grappling hook. Then visit the vending machine to buy some upgrades or ammo.

The big narrative conceit of the game is Elizabeth, a wonderfully animated companion who you are rescuing/kidnapping throughout the plot of the game. She has big innocent eyes and Disney-caliber voice acting. And for an escort NPC, she’s surprisingly good at keeping up (she runs out ahead of you), and holding her own in a firefight.

But having Elizabeth at your side breaks the pacing and feel of what made BioShock, Deus Ex and System Shock great. No longer are you uncovering a decaying world at your leisure. You’re running an escort mission, racing through zones and enemies and plotlines. The game suddenly feels linear, as stuck to the rails as the skyline.

From a technical standpoint, BioShock Infinite is impressive. The graphical style is reminiscent of Dishonored (neo-Victorian, Steampunkish, World’s Fair 1910s). But the game suffers from Call of Duty syndrome – in the places of the most impressive action, the player’s utility is reduced and you simply see your avatar execute some animated acrobatics. The first time you jump on the skyline, or escape a crumbling statue: the game becomes a cut scene.

This is probably the biggest sin in my mind, aside from all the pretentious moralizing over turn of the century racism, or religious cults, or American mythology.

A few other annoyances: the game is so bright and colorful that the actual gameplay element (enemies, pickups, etc) are hard to discern. So you end up staring at the indicators (press X) to determine what can be interacted with. This leads to a sort of tunnel vision. In addition, the HUD clutter is horrendous (flaming hands, personal shield, checkpoint popups, press X) and fills the screen, almost to distraction. So you’re caught between a glorious world without and then all the video game clutter in the foreground. It’s claustrophobic.

BioShock Infinite is getting rave reviews from tons of game journalists, thinking that it pushes the boundaries games as art. But I was left feeling a bit nauseous, like I’d eaten too much cotton candy and ridden too many roller coasters at the fair.

Cart Life

I hadn’t heard of Cart Life until it won the IGF this year, which goes to show that awards shows have some utility.

It’s constructed with the darling elements of indie gamedev (chiptunes, pixel art), but brings enough of its own style to stand out. The palette is as monochrome as newsprint, the PCs are right out of a gritty 80s urban novel. The premise: sell newspapers or coffee for a week to try to eke out a living. There’s some backstory for each of the three playable characters that’s nuanced and compelling. I played as an Ukranian immigrant who’s trying to start his life over in America, selling newspapers. He translates poetry, is addicted to cigarettes, and takes care of a mangy cat.

The actual gameplay sits somewhere between old school Sierra adventure and modern Sims. You walk around the city and visit different neighborhoods, talking with various people, buying food, cigarettes, equipment.

Running the stand is actually stressful work. To sell newspapers, for instance, you have to type “Folding Newspapers. Stocking Newspapers” exactly. Mistype a word and you lose a paper. Then you have to mentally calculate change, pulling out dollars and quarters from the till to break a 20.

A full day takes about 30 minutes, and then you go home to feed your cat, brush your teeth and fall asleep to troubled dreams. A screen tabulates your profits. All that hard work and you made $4.50.

Most video games give the player agency in order to instill a feeling of power. Defeating a difficult boss, solving a challenging puzzle, landing a tricky jump: all of these actions are balanced to push the player to the edge of their skill, and then reward them when they succeed. This creates a positive feedback loop.

Cart Life does the opposite. It gives the players video game-esque challenges, and even if they succeed, it doles out paltry rewards (a few dollars) and tidbits of depressing narrative. There’s a feeling that the game is unwinnable.

Modern games give players everything. You can sleepwalk to the ending, and the most exciting narrative events are essentially cut scenes.

But unwinnable games were actually pretty prevalent in the past. Most of my fond memories were of games I never actually “beat”. Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, Nethack, even something like Oregon Trail. Everyone remembers fording a river or shooting a bear, but who actually made it to Oregon?

Cart Life is that same sort of game – endlessly replayable, difficult, perhaps unwinnable.

Deeper meanings are there too: life without a safety net, the false optimism of capitalism, immigrant stories, addiction. But these aren’t hammered home as they are in other “art” games, and they’re communicated via gameplay elements, instead of just window dressing.

Cart Life isn’t fun to play. It’s frustrating and depressing. But it’s innovative, visually original, and well deserving of its accolades. And it makes you think.