The world forms around you. You enter a familiar place but it is still very new, dropped into a preloaded consciousness. You had a job, you knew why you were here, simply follow the instruction and the goal will be complete. You’re lifted into this futuristic utopia high in the clouds, where so many are so happy to go about their day but there is a dark brooding, uneasiness to it all. It can’t be that perfect, a distrust. There are sins too foul to wash away.
You explore, hearing much about the status quo and the rebellion trying to gain traction. Rights, choices, and the desire to live without restrictions. The story is uncovered over many areas, a hint here, discussion there, code books, flashbacks all come together in one giant dataset that just needs to be analyzed. The one side saying all should be be free, the ones in charge are for the preservation of only those who are pure of spirit and white of skin. The factories disagree, you should be working! They may say you’re not worth anything, but down here you can provide for your families. Two different strategies, both to the end result.
You learn about the Prophet, you learn about the Resistance but that just doesn’t seem right either. Daisy leads the resistance in a very totalitarian way. You rescue the girl, but that only complicates things. Universes start opening to parallel dimensions of here, times, constants and variables — all different, with all the things that have happened, are happening, and that will happened. You tear between them to get what you need, but to truly find your way home it’s all about finding the right sequence of events, you have to get to the beginning, where it all started and change things once and for all.
Ending (no spoilers)
I started playing like any other game. I look around. I set my display options, I make sure the SLI is on for the two video cards, normally after updating to the latest driver. I didn’t get to play until Thursday this time, so knew I had some catching up to do. I fired it up, I was comforted to see the lighthouse. I remembered it from the first game. It was different though, like actually in use as a lighthouse and not just the entrance to some large underwater city.
That’s about where it stopped. There were religious applique around and as I went up the stairs I was reminded of my current “deal” to rescue the girl from the tower to clear my debts. Dead guy at the top, sequence of keys to press… and lighthouse becomes rocketship. Strap me in and shoot me to the city of columbia, originally settled so they didn’t have to worry about all that pesky slave business – they succeeded up to the clouds above to live the ideal perfect eutopia (almost heavenly) promised by their Profit Comstock.
This is where I started looking around, I mean really investigating the people, the bushes, the flowers, the textures on the rock, buildings, steps, I loved the world but it was missing something. Definition. I play on 1980×1020 (120hz) but I do have a 2560×1600. For games that support it I do run them on the 2560×1600 – this game appears as it supports it, but half the textures were not even HD class on the 1920×1080
Bodies do not stick around either – actually handy later on in the game, instead they become a lockbox. Was this really to keep the floor tidy or would leaving too many bodies around complicate things for the consoles? Any computer playing this game shouldn’t have any problem keeping extra defeated soldiers all around. With such a high limit you shouldn’t ever have to see the lockbox, but you need to draw a line somewhere.
I’m not a fan of the stylized character models, much like dishonored. Large shoulders and hands makes me think Quasimodo though I wouldn’t have had the Handymen any other way. I enjoyed the gameplay overall, it changed all the time, it promised storytelling and it delivered, in between giant flaming firefights with many manageable enemies – almost too easy in places. I only ran into difficulty later on where I was attempting to take down a fireman and I could not get my other abilities. I had chosen poorly and was stuck with two ineffective ones. I had not yet seen the tip for [Hold LB for all] to get the whole list… and even with that handicap it was still pretty easy. Once the vigors came online and I changed around the clothing to favor salts, and anarchy was upon me. A quick melee duke could turn someone against their friends, some others I would possess to fight among themselves. Drop an electric trap nearby as they’re fighting, then possess a giant auto gun. Nowhere to run but into the trap. Fall like dominos. I loved the many options I had to take care of the enemies while still watching my back – but they are not as gullible for traps as they’ve been in the past, nor as much as I wanted them to be. I had much fun during the long drawn out battles knowing where the mechanized patriots would fly in from and dropping electric traps to keep them still while I reloaded, got more ammo, health, etc.
It was excellent gameplay, and the story was amazing, if not a bit heavy. You’re talking through true sociological issues and it’s all relevant to everyone, every day, right now. It’s a lot to take in, but it is an amazing ride.
