Infinite is more of the same braindead crap gameplay as the original Bioshock, but instead of objectivism and libertarianism it's got Ken Levine's strawmannified, both-sidesing takes on American jingoism and race relations and time travel and parallel universes and dehumanization that's too cowardly to actually pick a side on any issue it presents; after all, any true artist (and their publisher) will tell you that stripping out any hint of principle in your work is a small price to pay to score just a few more sales from that lucrative demographic of white supremacists. This tedious mind-dump of course only exists because the gaming press has hyped Mr. Levine up as some infallible heaven-sent visionary for so long that he started believing it himself, to the point where his laying off hundreds of the employees who helped make him a household name barely gets mentioned in puff pieces about him. (Ironic, then, that Ken also sees absolutely no parallels between himself and his story's villain, a pompous douchebag and self-styled prophet who exploits everyone he views as inferior for personal gain.) I will admit, though, that seeing a popup about how "not all confrontations need to be solved with violence" after an unavoidable shootout in broad daylight that left about 56 of my assailants dead was pretty damn funny; at least until I learned that it wasn't meant to be and it was an earnest attempt at incorporating "player choice" and "morality" into the proceedings, which - surprise - makes literally no difference to how the story plays out anyway. I also guessed the big plot twist about 20 hours before it came (seriously, we've all seen Fight Club by now, quit ripping it off) so the whole game is just a tedious journey to a giant pile of letdown. Ken Levine really is the perfect example of someone too in love with the sound of his own voice to realize he's not actually saying anything novel, intelligent or even interesting; just spouting hot air that sounds vaguely like profundity. His fanboys do too, practicing their faux-intellectual pomp on everyone they can all day long in hopes of one day becoming as big a successful hack as their messiah.
Developer: Irrational Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Released: 2013
Platforms: XBox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, Mac OS X, Linux