One major aspect of Bioshock Infinite that I loved from the start was the narrative they built around the game. Dissimilar to Portal which dropped you into a cube and had the “figure it out yourself” feel, the beginning of Bioshock began with a story and put the player into a setting. Having this story made your actions in Bioshock feel impactful and gave me personally more motivation to keep venturing and exploring these different lands. A component that I found interesting was the religious aspect of Bioshock. As you continue on playing they address Father Comstock, the prophet, and claim that you, the player, is the “False Shepard that has come… to take our lamb”.

Although there was violence in the game, which at first for me was startling, because of the narrative of the guards being so cruel to these innocent humans tied up, the player’s action of killing them seemed justified. Having that said, once you advance in the game there comes the opportunity to kill civilians. Without recognizing who they were I mistakenly shot one of them. In a scenario like this, I don’t like that the accidental killing of an innocent civilian is even an option. Lastly, similar to the beginning scene with the man in a chair with a bag over his head and a gunshot wound, the gory image of the Chinese prisoner being attacked was not necessarily needed.

On another note, I thought the graphics of this game were very well done. I guess my judgment is bias because in Portal the majority of what we saw were gray rooms, but the creativeness of the different cities and lands were much more appealing. Particularly when you swung across on the gondola, you were able to notice just how detailed your surroundings were. This component of the game is what made exploring so interesting. Which leads me to gameplay. A major aspect of Bioshock appeared to be collecting items. Whether they were all to your benefit or not, collecting new salts and weapons was very fun. The salts in particular added more skills you could apply and made me think of different strategies to use. For example, the murder of crow. Although this isn’t a technique someone would ever use in real life, it was fun to experiment with how vicious birds could destroy enemies.