Infinite is more of the same braindead pew-pew crap gameplay as the original Bioshock, but instead of objectivism and libertarianism it's got Ken Levine's strawmannified takes on American jingoism and race relations and time travel and parallel universes and dehumanization that never actually takes a firm position on anything; after all, every true artist (and their publisher) will tell you that diluting any hint of a message until it's unrecognizable is a small price to pay for just a few more sales. And it's all brought to you at the cost of his company and hundreds of his coworkers' jobs and well-being because the gaming press has hyped him up as some infallible heaven-sent visionary for so long that he's started believing it himself. (Ironic, then, that he sees absolutely no parallels to himself and his story's villain, a normal guy who becomes a self-proclaimed prophet so he can exploit people for personal gain.) But I will admit, 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 goddamn 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 thing is just an overstuffed, completely boring waste of time. Too overblown, obnoxious and in love with itself to realize it's not saying anything novel or even intelligent, Bioshock Infinite is the gaming equivalent of Ricky Gervais.
Developer: Irrational Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Released: 2013
Platforms: XBox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, Mac OS X, Linux