Game WQ : BioShock Infinite

BioShock Infinite takes place on the steampunk air-city of Columbia.

The primary setting of BioShock Infinite is a city suspended in the air by giant blimps and balloons, called "Columbia", named in homage to the female personification of the United States. Unlike the secret development of the underwater city of Rapture used as the settings for BioShock and BioShock 2, Columbia was built and launched in 1900 by the American government to much fanfare and publicity. The city was meant to symbolize the ideas of exceptionalism; the reveal trailer for the game alludes to the 1893 Worlds Fair which is historically considered to be the emergence of American exceptionalism. On the surface, Columbia appeared to be designed as a floating Worlds Fair that could travel across the globe; however, some time after its launch but before the game's events, the city was revealed to be a well-armed battleship, and became involved in an "international incident" by firing upon a group of Chinese civilians during the Boxer Rebellion.
The city was disavowed by the United States government, and the location of the city was soon lost to everyone else. The city became, as described by Nick Cowen of The Guardian, "a kind of roaming boogieman moving from place to place and imposing its will on people below".
As a result of the city's isolation, a civil war eventually broke out on Columbia between different factions of citizens, each trying to seize control of the city from the powers-that-be. At the time of the game's events, only two main factions remain. One group are the Founders, the remnants of those retaining power over the city led by Zachary Hale Comstock. This is the city's ruling class, which seeks to keep Columbia purely for American citizens while denying foreigners the same privileges. The other is a group named Vox Populi (Latin for "voice of the people"), a rag-tag resistance group, led by Daisy Fitzroy, opposed to the ultranationalists. Vox Populi is formed from several factions with similar ideologies that fought to seize control and restore the rights of Columbia citizenship to all. However, years of war and struggle have driven Vox Populi to fight the powers-that-be solely out of blind hatred, resulting in more violent and brutal methods and leading to subfactions in the group.
Like Rapture, Columbia is considered a dystopia, but with signs present suggesting a theocratic government taking control at some point, and similar racial-purification concepts such as Nazism, jingoism, and xenophobia. One of the items in the press packages for the game included a tag that would purportedly be worn by immigrants aboard Columbia, requiring those of non-European descent, which includes Papists, Gypsies, Irish and Greeks, to list out numerous details, including religious affiliation and data relating to eugenics; another item was a Columbia propaganda poster that warned "We must all be vigilant to ensure the purity of our people." Columbia has been compared to a cross between steampunk and the Star Wars Bespin cloud city, as well as the airships of Final Fantasy settings though Irrational's Ken Levine has compared the weaponized city to the Death Star.

The events of the game take place in 1912. The player assumes the identity of Booker DeWitt, a disgraced former agent of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, who was dismissed for behavior beyond the acceptable bounds of the Agency. He is hired by mysterious individuals, aware of Columbia's location, and tasked to infiltrate the air-city and rescue a young woman named Elizabeth, who has been held aboard the air-city for the last twelve years. Though Booker finds Elizabeth easily enough, he quickly discovers that Elizabeth is central to the civil war raging in the city, her rescue being the start of the chain of events that ultimately lead to Columbia's down-fall. Each faction seeks to use Elizabeth to turn the tide of the conflict in their favor; the Founders believe Elizabeth's powers can help end the conflict and place them back in control, while the Vox Populi would rather kill Elizabeth than allow the Founders to get their hands on her, believing a prophecy that if Elizabeth falls, so does Columbia. Booker and Elizabeth are forced to trust each other in order to escape. Elizabeth also seeks to understand the powers that she has been given, believing Comstock to be responsible, and refuses to leave Columbia until she learns the truth. To complicate matters, the pair is chased by Songbird, a large, robotic bird-like creature who had been Elizabeth's friend and warden over the last twelve years of her imprisonment. Songbird was designed by its creator to feel betrayal should Elizabeth escape, comparable to an abusive spouse, according to Hilary Goldstein of IGN, and Elizabeth notes she "would rather be killed than be recaptured by Songbird."

In addition to the internal strife, Columbia is ravaged by tears in the fabric of space-time. A strange shimmering effect as seen by Booker causes momentary changes to pictures, banners, and people, representing the nearby presence of a tear. The tears have brought seemingly anachronistic elements into the Columbia of 1912; for example, an early gameplay demo footage features a record player in a bar plays a woman singing the lyrics to Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World". 1UP.com's preview of the 2011 E3 game demonstration denotes that at one point, Booker and Elizabeth find themselves in 1983, evident by a movie marquee showing Revenge of the Jedi (the original working name for Return of the Jedi), a result of a misfire of Elizabeth's powers involving tears in the fabric of space-time when she tries to help revive a horse.
Though the game takes place before the events of the previous two BioShock games (occurring in 1960 and 1968, respectively), Irrational Games has not confirmed if BioShock Infinite shares the same universe with these titles; Ken Levine left the question of the possibility unanswered in an interview stemming from the game's announcement.

Like Bioshock, BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter with survival horror elements similar to the previous two games. As Booker, the player moves about the various structures of Columbia using a grappling hook, a series of railways connecting the buildings called the Skyline, and other transport means to search for Elizabeth. The player will gain weapons which can be used in numerous ways within the environment, including on the Skyline, to defeat enemies. Booker gains powers and abilities by using vigors and nostrums that are found through Columbia, the equivalent of BioShock's plasmids and tonics. Vigors grant activated powers such as telekinesis, electricity manipulation, or animal control (as seen by the manipulation of a flock of crows within the gameplay demo), while nostrums are passive abilities that can improve the player's strength or damage resistance. Unlike BioShock in which the player was able to use special Gene Banks to alter the loadout of plasmids and tonics they had, the choice to imbibe a certain vigor or nostrum is permanent and cannot be changed later in the game, placing emphasis on the consequences of the player's choices throughout the game. Infinite does not use EVE, the equivalent of magic points, for powering abilities gained by vigors or nostrums. Each container of vigor has a limited number of charges in it, and while more can be found around the game's environment, the player can only carry a limited number of vigors into battle, with more powerful vigors containing fewer charges. Nostrums are permanent changes to the character and cannot be removed once used. These come in two types, stable and unstable varieties, the latter referred to as "potlucks". Stable nostrums are more expensive, but the player knows exactly what effect applying the nostrum will gain them. Unstable nostrums are cheaper or can be found lying around the environment, but upon use, require the player to select one of four random effects to alter their character, an idea inspired by Heroes of Might and Magic according to Levine.
Once reunited with Elizabeth, who also has a set of such powers, the player must work together with her to escape Columbia. For example, Elizabeth can create a localized rainstorm on foes, which the player, as Booker, can then fire upon with an electricity-based attack, electrocuting the foes. The player will not be directly in control of Elizabeth, but instead she will react to the player and the current situation in a manner similar to the AI Director in Left 4 Dead, according to Levine. However, using Elizabeth's powers also harms her, an action compared to the choice of killing or saving the Little Sisters from the previous games.^[11] Elizabeth also has the ability to interact with the tears in the fabric of space-time, pulling objects from the other side to use within Columbia, escaping from battle through these, or repairing them. The player will need to protect Elizabeth, but will not need "to babysit and hand-hold" her through the game. Levine has stated about working with Elizabeth in the game that "in no way, shape, or form is this an escort mission", identifying that players reacted negatively to a late-game stage in the original BioShock in which they were tasked to protect a Little Sister.
Several different human forces are at work opposed to the player's progress within the city. Furthermore, the player and Elizabeth are chased by Songbird (sometimes simply referred to as "Him"), who is attempting to snatch Elizabeth from the player after being her guardian and companion for the last twelve years. A set of larger, mechanical enemies created by the Founders, dubbed "Heavy Hitters", act as mini-bosses through the game, demanding new tactics from the player. One type of these are the Handymen, so named for their large porcelain doll-like hands; they are robotic-like monsters housing a human heart and head, with the ability to jump large distances and easily throw the player- and non-player characters alike. A second class are the Motorized Patriots, once used as tour guides for the city, decorated in patriotic colors and wear a wax mask of George Washington, assaulting its foes with a "peppermill" automatic machine gun. The player will have several options of approaching the Heavy Hitters, such as by using stealth to bypass the encounter, or to hack into the machine and take control of it. The Boys of Silence are men in foppish outfits locked into a metal helmet with giant ears; the humans inside are blind but due to the helmet have super-human hearing, and act as Columbia's security system, requiring the player to chose to carefully between stealth and a direct assault, whereupon the Boys can scream to call in back up. Finally, the Siren is a mysterious, completely enshrouded female figure, based on the Spiritualism movement near the end of the 19th century, that can revive defeated foes during combat, requiring the player to decide whether to concentrate attacks on the Siren or the newly-revived enemies.
The Skyline is a rail-based system (originally designed for moving cargo around Columbia but later used for personnel transport) similar to the concept found in the Ratchet & Clank games and described by Levine as "a roller coaster, over another roller coaster, over another roller coaster"; players activate a wrist-mounted tool that Booker and enemies wear to jump and hang onto the self-powered tracks. Players can jump onto, off of, and between Skyline tracks at any time, and may face enemies that use the system to attack; the player can use weapons in Booker's free hand to defend the character. The freedom of movement along the Skyline allows for several varieties of combat, including flanking, cover, and area-of-effect attacks through creative uses of the system.
Irrational Games has stated that the game's set pieces are not heavily scripted; this statement was made in response to reaction to a gameplay preview video released during the week of September 21, 2010, which, within ten minutes, demonstrated numerous elements of the game. The development team called the game's pacing "like BioShock 1", and that while there will be some scripted set pieces, the developers want the player to be able to explore Columbia at their own pace. Unlike Jack or Delta, the silent protagonists of BioShock and BioShock 2 respectively, and who are guided by radio commands from a third party, Booker will be a vocal character, with dialogue designed to aid the player in leading Booker to complete his mission.
In addition to the normal game mode, BioShock Infinite will include a "1999 Mode", so named for the release year of System Shock 2, a game worked on by Levine and several other Irrational Games developers. 1999 Mode is a more challenging version of the game, requiring the player to make mutually exclusive specialization choices, such as choosing which weapon type that Booker is proficient at, which may make later parts of the game difficult to complete, and may require the player to reload from earlier saved games to manage their resources better.
At the present time, Irrational Games has not committed to including a multiplayer element within the game. While the team will experiment with concepts for a multiplayer component, Levine has stated that they would only proceed forward if it had elements not otherwise found in multiplayer games like Halo or Call of Duty.
During Sony's E3 press conference on June 6, 2011 creative director Ken Levine announced on-stage that BioShock Infinite will support the PlayStation Move. Though some reports believed that a new Move controller would be produced for the game based on information from Sony, 2K Games debunked these stories, stating that no new hardware is being developed for the game.