Episode 2: Burial at Sea Episode 2 happened. Sadly. OK, the opening is beautiful and amazing. Right off the bat we see this is not like Episode 1, this game will be surprising and add something substantial to Bioshock canon. Loved it. But then the things go off-rails. Sure, the gameplay is considerably different and the dlc overall is much more fleshed out, adding to the feel that BaS 1 was a stop-gap and this one was one of the originally planned dlcs. It feels like an actual meaty dlc. Stealth was an interesting idea, even if at times the implementation was sorta hamfisted (why can you run up to the enemy and knock them out before they see you!?). Peeping Tom was op, and the game didn't reward you in any way for using stealth, or punish you for simply annihilating everything in your path. I enjoyed the decoding scenes. Visually they were interesting and made BaS Ep. 2 stand that much out compared to BI. They were cool and improved the game, is what I'm saying. But the story. Oooh, the story. Ugh.
Elizabeth's existence: First, after the wondrous opening we get an explanation why we're not playing as an omniscient, omnipotent being. So for whatever reason Liz is killed by Big Daddy and due to plot she can't teleport. Or she foresaw she has to die in order to succeed or something. So in order to return to the land of the living she can choose to collapse all other Elizabeths into one that is still alive, though lacking powers. Why, how? Plot reasons. I understand it was done as not to break gameplay, it wouldn't make sense to play Elizabeth that knows everything that happens and can open any tear she wishes at a whim. But the way it was done was the very opposite of elegant. Why are there still Elizabeths around? Why are there more than BaS Ep 1 Elizabeths? This is not only stupid, but it's also the first time Ep 2 takes a jab at diminishing the importance of Infinite's story and it's ending.
Columbia's existence: Then of course we return to Columbia. But wasn't Booker's drowning means to end Columbia's existence across every possible reality? It's not some random Columbia either, it's exactly the same Columbia which we visited earlier and played through in Infinite! That means the ending of Infinite had no discernible effect on the timeline. The diminishing of the ending continues since now it's meaningless. Sure, maybe you can apply casuality in here, but wasn't Comstock's drowning at baptism supposed to end him and Columbia everywhere, across every timeline? Infinite's plot had no sense then, we didn't achieve anything, everything's as it was before and we can't do anything and it's not something that had to be included. It's not the way it was supposed to be. It makes the game the more non-important. Thanks Ken.
Fitzroy retcon: While we're in Columbia another shocker is dropped on us. Daisy Fitzroy's death was actually instrumented by the Luteces! She had to die in order for Liz to be become a woman. Because killing someone is what makes a girl a woman. Right. So now Fitzroy's turn in Fink Manufacturing timeline is made the less shocking because she didn't actually turn, she was forced to act like a villain and go as far as she can for Elizabeth to kill her. This is completely forced and included only as an apology to those who felt her change in attitude abrupt. I thought it made sense in the context of Infinite narrative's. I kinda thought it as some spin on "revolution devouring it's own children" (the quote probably came to my mind due to Elizabeth's happy-go-lucky "It's gonna be like Les Miserables ~♪" not short before). Nope, Luteces made her evulz. This at the same time cheapens Elizabeth's character development and one of the shocking moments in the original game. Daisy's death wasn't truly our heroine's decision, she was forced to do it, instrumented to do it. A man chooses, a slave obeys, Liz didn't have a choice, she had to obey. Once again, thanks Ken, great job developing Infinite's ongoing story.
Links to Bioshock 1: Finally, the big one. Elizabeth is instrumental in bringing Jack to Rapture and setting in motion the events of original Bioshock! This is so bad on so many levels. This lessens the impact of Bioshock Infinite's plot, it's setting, it's ending, it's characters, those character's development, pretty much everything about Infinite. This game wasn't it's own standalone story, it was a stepping stone so that Bioshock might happen and Jack can rescue Little Sisters. Adding insult to injury. I've got three monumental problems with this one. First of all, these games needing to be that closely tied together. It's ok that they exist in the same universe, but they don't have to ultimately lead into one another. I kinda feel like Ken was so enamored with his original creation in Bioshock and it's Rapture he couldn't let Infinite, bearing Bioshock's name, be too disconnected from it and to be lost among the infinite timelines presented in Infinite's final chapter. It doesn't add much to Bioshock at this point and it only detracts from Infinite's impact. Second, the story. Bioshock was the story of Rapture, the fallen utopia that has gone to hell. That was ultimately what made Bioshock stand out. The actual story, the plot, the events that transpired in the game were rather weak and not really of note. It does not stand out, it's there and it's mostly used to show us different faces and aspects of Rapture. Otherwise we're just travelling through the city guided by Atlas/Fontaine and there's not much to it apart from Would You Kindly. Especially since after that point the story goes to being really bad, the villain gets dumb and the ending as we all know was disastrous. The plot of Infinite was infinitely better which means retconning it to be instrumental to bring about Jack's trip through Rapture all that more insulting. Third, the characters. Eugh. Infinite had a great cast. Booker and Elizabeth, the Luteces, maybe even Comstock once we realize he is Booker and we can think about what made him so much different from Booker. The story in Infinite was much more personal and about the characters, which were interesting, intriguing, mysterious (Luteces!). Bioshock had... Andrew Ryan? Sander Cohen was one creepy goosebump-inducing madman and I guess Tenenbaum and Suchong were there, but they weren't terribly noteworthy and not much more than hands pulling the great chain, instrumental in development of Rapture. Our protagonist was Jack. A brainwashed mute in a white sweater with the most common name imaginable. He was ok for a player character in the game and perfect for Would You Kindly twist, but he wasn't any sort of interesting. Vessel to show us through Rapture. Let me take one brief moment here to rant about Frank Fontaine. I hate Fontaine. But I hate him not because he is a terrible human being, but because I consider him a bad character. We're told in the first game Fontaine is this cruel genius that rose to power as head of Fontaine Futuristics. He is also a man with vision (as Ryan himself notes) that managed to gather a following among splicers. I just can't reconcile how this man is supposed to be that idiot bloke that we meet repeatedly throughout the series (sure there were many political leaders that weren't the brightest bunch, but often they stumbled into power or were charismatic, which I don't see Atlas as to be honest). At would you kindly he gets hit with an idiotball hard and throughout the third act of Bioshock he is acting like a ridiculously over-the-top cliche-to-the-max villain. Final fight of the game doesn't help much. Ugh. Again through Episode 2 I went on hating him because I hate how he is presented as Atlas. I just can't. In my head he doesn't fit at all with what he is supposed to be like in the universe. It's jarring. He is not much more than a cruel (lobotomy scene or not, ugh that was disgusting, I had to look away from the screen jesus) run-of-the-mill mob boss. And Elizabeth, the best developed character of the series that we watched grow in Infinite as a character crash and burn in front of us. She is sacrificed for the non-character Jack. Killed by that despicable idiot Fontaine. To make way for the average story of Bioshock and it's horrid, horrid ending. In one sweep a ton of what made Infinite unique is undone.
Random musings: One more word about answering questions and retcons. I disliked that they tried to answer questions that didn't need answering, didn't go far enough with some of the explanations and didn't have to retcon that much. I already wrote about Fitzroy, the retcon most likely made to mend some of the Internet backlash about her turn to the villain. Unnecessary. Same with Liz existing in Episode 2, some flimsy explanation about collapsing other versions of the character into one that is alive and mortal. The same is done to Luteces. Episode 1 ending teased us with Luteces, implying they will be involved in the plot of Episode 2. After that we see them once more only I think to deliver the Fitzroy retcon. Otherwise, somehow they managed to for some plot-no-jutsu reason become normal mortals again. Done. Unsatisfying, unnecessary. Songbird. Irrational went far enough to tell us about Songbird's origins with that weird lion with a thorn in it's paw logic, but stopped just at the end before everything would be revealed. Answering questions done wrong. Just do it, if you went as far as explaining how Songbird came to be just reveal it, you're seemingly not touching the series ever again anyway. Cheap, stupid. Connected to that, I don't know about that deal with imprinting and Big Daddies. It felt like Ken/Irrational went out of their way to retcon Bioshock 2 and Minverva's Den the hell out of existence. Which is made worse by the fact that Bioshock 2, and especially Minerva's Den were far more tasteful and respectful to source material and managed to enrich Rapture (I guess Bioshock 2 might be arguable to some, but Minerva's Den was great). None of which Burial at Sea is to Infinite.
So, to sum up. Mechnically, it's a good, meaty, meaningful dlc that presents us with a neat twist on the gameplay of the original. However, I wish I could just forget it. I wish I could just treat it as fan fiction but I can't. Infinite was a self-contained story that worked wonderfully. This right here. It's like that Spiderman 3 gif. Burial at Sea makes Infinite worse than it actually was. Which is a terrible thing because I loved the game. I'll always have Infinite but... I just wish I could erase Burial at Sea from my memory. It would be better that way.
