Bioshock Infinite gets the thumbs up

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be one of the first people in the country to play the first few hours of code of Bioshock Infinite.

Not wanting to brag, or anything, but it was pretty damn cool.

To put the game into perspective, it isn’t a direct sequel to the other two Bioshock titles. Or it might be; no one seems one hundred per cent sure if it is or not.

It’s clearly set in the same universe, but instead of being underwater the first part of the story takes place somewhere as far removed from that aquatic atmosphere as possible: Columbia, a city in the sky.

So, I sat down at my computer and fired up the game, which begins in the middle of the ocean. Your character, Booker DeWitt, a private eye, is dropped off at a lighthouse where, after being thoroughly creeped out by Biblical references all over the place, you are strapped into a chair and shot up into the clouds in Willy Wonka fashion.

From there, you’re quite quickly thrown into battle. You enter Columbia after being baptised, once again extremely creepily, and it soon becomes clear the city isn’t as idyllic as it appears. That’s all I’ll say about the story so far.

The gameplay is pretty much what you would expect from this game. You obtain a melee weapon which allows you to punch people’s heads off (awesome) and also lets you ride around on the gondola rails that are present all over the city.

In the few hours of code I played, I obtained four different guns: a pistol, a shotgun, machine gun and a carbine rifle. All fairly standard, but it seems safe to assume there will be enough different pieces of weaponry to keep things interesting.

If you played the previous instalments in the series, you’ll be happy to know the psychokinetic powers are back in the form of “vigors”, which you can collect more of, usually from dead boss characters.

These include the ability to possess people, cause enemies to burst into flame and have them attacked by vicious ravens, which is strangely satisfying.

From what I’ve seen of the game so far, it’s certainly not going to let the series down. Visually it is stunning, with enough mystery to keep you playing and enough action to stop it from getting boring.

Are you looking forward to Bioshock Infinite? Let us know what you think it’ll be like in the comments. It’s out on March 26.