It’s time to finally unveil the winners of our massive BioShock Infinite PC Gaming Giveaway!

With 240 entries, we had to take our time going through them all — imagining them in action, doing Photoshop mockups, running around the room making “zap!” noises and generally thoroughly making sure that we made the right choices. But now, we’ve had to choose just two people to walk away with these most excellent prizes.

Those people are:

FIRST PRIZE: Hobomaster

MAGNETISM

Skyline Superiority
Your SkyHook(TM) may be a terrific tool, but sometimes the power of those magnets doesn’t quite give you the pull you truly desire. For a minor expenditure of salts, your problems can be solved! Any skyrail is accessible from any distance, provided you have a clear line of sight. Not only is this convenient, it can save you from a nasty fall, if you’re quick with your fingers!

Hobomaster walks away with:

• SAPPHIRE HD 7970 3GB GDDR5
• BioShock Infinite PC Ultimate Songbird Edition (Completely sold out in Australia, no longer available to the public)
• The Ultimate Songbird Edition includes: a PC copy of the game, a Songbird Statue, art book, Handyman figurine, lithographic print, a ‘Murder of Crows’ keychain, downloadable content – including the soundtrack – and three pieces of in-game gear
• Replica Skyhook (Do not insert it into the faces of your enemies)
• BioShock Infinite action figure
• 2 x BioShock Infinite T-shirts

SECOND PRIZE: doublefrost

Introducing, ‘Dustman’:
Flavour Text: ‘No Palm Without Dust’

Hold: Booker siphons every hotdog, booze-bottle, and silver dollar from his surroundings into a swirling vacuum of trash. All items in the area will be torn free of their moorings and whisked away into his waiting coat pockets.

doublefrost takes home:

• SAPPHIRE HD 7790 1GB GDDR5
• BioShock Infinite PC Premium Edition (Completely sold out in Australia, no longer available to the public)
• The Premium Edition includes: a PC copy of the game, art book, Handyman figurine, lithographic print, a ‘Murder of Crows’ keychain, and downloadable content, including the soundtrack and three pieces of in-game gear
• BioShock Infinite action figure
• 2 x BioShock Infinite T-shirts

Please join me in congratulating Hobomaster and doublefrost on their win!

But that’s not all!

Runners-up

Unfortunately we only have two prizes to give away, but there were some great entries that deserved to be shared.

tin-snips

Introducing the ‘Stooges Vigor’.

When using the Stooges Vigor, enemies will drop their weapons and act like they’re in a routine from The Three Stooges. They’ll poke, slap, punch and brawl themselves to death for your amusement! A handy trick when you want to explore a level unmolested, or just need a little entertainment after all of those near death experiences.

Tracer

The Higgs Vigor manipulates the Higgs Field around any object, decreasing or increasing it’s interaction, effectively meaning you can increase (primary mode) or decrease (secondary mode) mass. This changes the effects of gravity – enabling levitation or the reverse, including crushing bones and pulverizing objects. A particularly strong Higgs Vigor could possibility effect the interaction of celestial bodies, although no-one capable enough to make such modifications has ever survived long enough to harness this power.

A number of side effects occur when using the Higgs Vigor. Since all bodies without mass essentially travel at light-speed, it is also possible to increase or decrease the velocity at which an object and/or person can travel. The immediately practical outcomes are bending time (the theory of relativity) and manipulating light (increasing light particle mass to the point where it effectively stops); plus any other creative manipulations the user can dream of. Mastery of this Vigor requires significant practice and patience, something oft ignored leading to the downfall (and death, more often than not horrific in nature) of many ambitious users.

Kinky Kel

To assist in the need for a less violent and more infiltration based approach I’d set my Doppelganger Vigor to good use. Upon use of power on an enemy it would transform them to look like Booker so the enemy would spend time chasing and capturing them, allowing me easier movement throughout the city. Affects up to two people at one time. Duration lasts for 5 mins.

A side effect of this vigor sends a panic into the mind of the person changed causing them to run, thus creating a ‘chase’ for the authorities. Two levels of upgrades simply allow it to affect double the original amount affected and the second increases duration.

caitsith01

Enlightenment – unlike possession, which temporarily overwhelms the mind, enlightenment opens it and allows Booker to permanently recruit followers to his cause. A quick blast of knowledge instantaneously reveals the error of their ways to them, leading to a moment of epiphany. Naturally, as the deliverer of enlightenment the newly intellectually free citizens will follow Booker in his quest.

Using similar AI to Elizabeth, they will choose to fight by his side in increasingly huge mobs, reminiscent of the results of using the persuadertron in Syndicate. Booker can use his leadership to develop tactics for his new followers – such as asking them to take and hold a position, or create a distraction – adding significant complexity to the game. He can even ask them to use their apparent (to other citizens) normality to carry out actions which he would be unable to carry out without being attacked.

Timmy_Tim

My Vigor would be ‘The Vortex’. You may simply launch a small purple projectile at any direction which would have a momentary force explosion, pushing and stunning all those around it. This would affect both people and objects.

The wielder can choose to utilise this ability more cleverly. You can use this to collect enemy projectiles flying at you, or push victims into dangerous locations filled with traps.

manutd58

The “Spare Parts” Vigor. Depending on your location within the game:

Hold Click: Your arm mounted device will power up, the heat is almost too much to stand but just before it becomes too much a pulse wave is unleashed from the device, all hostile weaponry is stolen from your foes and turned into simple compounds (a Dust of some-kind) that integrate into your arm mounted device and superchargers the damage output for 3 seconds.

Yurtles

Twister: Unleash a miniature tornado that wanders the area at its own whim. The closer anything gets to it the stronger the pull. Bullets fired directly at it will be consumed, but further out it will apply a bend to their trajectory if they’re passing by it.

It’s deployable cover, crowd control, damage dealer and area excluder all at once. But beware, the power of the tornado is only exceeded by how exceptionally double edged it is. Make sure you’ve got a plan before letting one (or more?) of these loose.

xanarax

Bullet Magnet: When cast upon an enemy your bullets will always arc into them giving you 100% accuracy. Hide behind cover and fire your bullets out on a parabolic arc, stay hidden and stay safe.

As for it’s trap, drop it on the ground and fire into it, it will absorb all bullets and when an enemy stumbles into it the bullets will fire out in a large explosion of hot lead death, while the person who steps into it now becomes the bullet magnet.

Xebozone

RE-ANIMATION SALVATION! (That second chance to say goodbye)

[Target disintegrates into bones/ash after use]

Winners, look out for a PM from me shortly to grab your details. Congrats to everyone who won, and thanks to everybody who entered!

Look out for a new competition later in the week!

Did you know we are running a massive BioShock Infinite competition? Where you can win not only limited editions of the game but also stuff like the replica skyhook, which aren’t even available for sale anymore?

The first prize even includes a SAPPHIRE HD 7970 3GB GDDR5 card, so you can play BioShock as Irrational intended — at maximum settings.

Head on over to the competition page and enter! You’ve got six hours!

You’re a hard act to follow, Elizabeth — but that doesn’t mean the lovely people over at Irrational Games won’t give it a shot, though. According to the LinkedIn profile of a 2K senior artist, of late he’s been working on “providing animation and R&D for a new character” in Bioshock: Infinite‘s DLC.

The relevant information on the artist’s profile has since been removed, which in Internet terms is almost as good as slapping it with a big ol’ rubber stamp that says “rumour confirmed”. It hasn’t been confirmed, however and we’ll probably hear more as details about the story DLC begin to emerge.

In the meantime though, speculation: go! Who or what do you think could be our new companion? This reporter hopes desperately that it might be a little pint-sized Songbird, but that seems less than likely. A handyman? A patriot? A Slate prequel? The possibilities are, dare I say, infinite.

Source: Eurogamer

THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED. Thanks to everybody who entered! The results are online here.

games.on.net and 2K have teamed up to give away two incredibly mad prizes, right here on this very website. That’s right — to celebrate the launch of BioShock Infinite, we’re giving away two awesome prize packs to get you up and running with all things BioShock in the proper PC gaming fashion. Check this out:

First Prize

Our first prize winner walks away with:

• SAPPHIRE HD 7970 3GB GDDR5
• BioShock Infinite PC Ultimate Songbird Edition (Completely sold out in Australia, no longer available to the public)
• The Ultimate Songbird Edition includes: a PC copy of the game, a Songbird Statue, art book, Handyman figurine, lithographic print, a ‘Murder of Crows’ keychain, downloadable content – including the soundtrack – and three pieces of in-game gear
• Replica Skyhook (Do not insert it into the faces of your enemies)
• BioShock Infinite action figure
• 2 x BioShock Infinite T-shirts

But that’s not all!

Second Prize

Our second prize winner will receive:

• SAPPHIRE HD 7790 1GB GDDR5
• BioShock Infinite PC Premium Edition (Completely sold out in Australia, no longer available to the public)
• The Premium Edition includes: a PC copy of the game, art book, Handyman figurine, lithographic print, a ‘Murder of Crows’ keychain, and downloadable content, including the soundtrack and three pieces of in-game gear
• BioShock Infinite action figure
• 2 x BioShock Infinite T-shirts

Dang!

Dang indeed. You can win these delightful prizes for yourself, simply by leaving a comment on this article that answers (in 200 words or less) the following question: “What new Vigor would you add in to BioShock Infinite, and how does it work?”

(For those of you who are confused, a ‘Vigor’ is identical to the ‘Plasmids’ from the first BioShock — or if that still doesn’t help, think of them as magic powers you cast out of your hand through science somehow.)

Remember! 200 words or less. It doesn’t have to be serious, or even fit in with the theme of the game, but we’ll be trying to imagine how it would work in game and judging accordingly. Feel free to describe how it works, if there’s a separate effect when you hold-and-release rather than just click, that sort of thing. It’s up to you.

The best entries, as judged by us, will win the prizes.

What else should I know?

This competition is open from now until 11:59 PM on Monday 6 May, and is open to Australian residents only. It is governed by the Terms and Conditions listed on this page.

Get cracking! If you’d like to see our video review of BioShock Infinite, click here — or for a bunch of hi-res screenshots showing why playing the game on PC is the only way to play, click here instead.

Those of you who didn’t like the final choice of cover art for BioShock Infinite — and there were a whole lot of you, if the internet is to be believed — can now download and print out the cover art of your choice. Irrational Games have made the alternate cover artworks available as super high-resolution PDFs, and you can find them at the bottom of this page.

I’m a pretty big fan of the ‘falling art’ one myself — grab yourself some glossy paper or maybe head down to your local print shop and make it happen, people. There’s printing instructions here that Irrational suggest you read first.

Source: Irrational

When Rod Fergusson left Epic Games in August last year to join Irrational, not many expected him to then up and depart a mere eight months on.

With BioShock Infinite under his belt, Fergusson has now decided to depart the studio for unknown pastures. “During my departure from Epic, I learned that Irrational was in need of a ‘closer’ to help finish BioShock Infinite,” Fergusson said to Polygon. “I’ve been striving for better storytelling in the games I’ve worked on and I saw this as a great opportunity to learn from Ken and his team on how to build a truly story-driven game.”

“I am very proud of the work that I did and of the team and what they were able to accomplish on Infinite. Now with the game shipped successfully, I’ve done what I set out to do here and now I’m looking forward to the next chapter in my life and career.”

Fergusson was responsible for one of BioShock Infinite‘s delays, after observing upon his arrival that the game could stand a few more months of spit and polish. That decision seems to have paid off in spades, however.

Source: Polygon

Bioshock Infinite changed a lot of mainstream perspectives when it popped the cherry on 2013′s Game of the Year contenders because — outside of featuring an undisputed display of gorgeous visuals alongside a riveting story — it took great strides to slow down the pace of exposition. Most shooters make it their intention for you to be barrelling along at 600km/hour, constantly pointing out this new threat and that old threat, lobbing both physical and metaphorical grenades at you and praying that the player won’t quit out based squarely on the sheer exhaustion from sensory overload.

This is, primarily, why we have those awful turret/chase levels, dreadful QTEs and the plethora of world exploding possibilities that only you, dear player, can prevent. Lazy game design is also arguably successful game design — if you look at the sales figures for the large majority of the modern military shooter staple that we’ve been playing for the last ten plus years.

There have been plenty of other titles that have taken strides to steady the pace of play and allow proceedings to continue without combat. 1999′s Metal Gear Solid on the PSOne is a stellar example of creative pacing and combat avoidance, allowing for the actual development of non-player characters rather than simply blowing them up, while sparking the synapses of the player to develop non-violent or stealthy solutions to avoid certain situations. Sure, there were boss fights, but even those were quirky and clever and were woven into the story in a manner that invited their inclusion. Hell, you didn’t even have to kill them if you didn’t want to. For many people it was the PSN cult favourite Journey which demonstrated that experiences didn’t need to involve violence in order to be clever, interesting or fun.

But lets face it – BioShock Infinite still has combat. It has quite a lot of it actually, and most of it is extraordinarily violent and confronting. This isn’t a bad thing at all, since much of the game’s central themes revolve around protection, courage and redemption thus making violent confrontation an important element of Booker and Elizabeths’ story. A recent Kotaku interview with BioShock Infinite‘s lead man Ken Levine has him calling it “a limitation of the medium”, where people expect to have their existing skill-sets (shooting people in the face) stretched and exploited because, well, it’s easy. Why put together risky, complex, alternatives when the status quo for the last 20 or so years has worked so well, and reliably for everyone? Please take careful note to realize that I’m not being in any way sarcastic or ridiculing what Ken said, because he’s right. The status quo is working.

But are gamers already pre-wired to accept nothing but shooting mechanics in order to test their mettle in first person environments?

Why can’t we change up the dynamic? Instead of creating arbitrary firefights, especially in areas when they aren’t necessary (a good example is that “empty” section between one objective and the next – the long path of death), just allow the player to explore their environment and appreciate it. Create more in-game cut-scenes, more conversations between the protagonists, or locations where players can explore the story outside of the main direction.

The Fallout series does well here, in particular making certain combat situations so difficult or downright awful that the best way out is to avoid them altogether, or allow the player to use previously acquired intelligence or charisma to simply talk their way out of a confrontation — as most people would in real life! Some of my most revered victories have not been when I shot some dudes a bunch of times, but when I outsmarted them, snuck around their obvious traps and overwhelming army, or simply used my wits to present a more appropriate outcome for both parties.

Life or death combat tends to present a very one-dimensional ending to a situation. Your nemesis generally hates you, so he wants you dead, or vice-versa. You kill them and things go on. Much of the now-famous dribble that was Far Cry 3‘s campaign was a victim of this dilemma, where the protagonist is being shown as an innocent with their back against the wall, but their actions — your actions — tell a completely different story. I’m sure if everyone on the island in Lost thought the same way as the protagonists in Far Cry 3, there probably wouldn’t have been more than a single season.

Here’s the thing: why not make combat, which is actually a very real and very final part of life, a rare and special event? Design the game around these eventual events, building actual anticipation and stress, actually allowing us to think that the avatar we are controlling actually has a conscience, can feel fear and regret about bloodshed, and isn’t just another mindless killing machine desperate to blow holes in everything that moves. Build us a climax.

When we get there, do we have to kill or physically disarm our foe? Does this person not have any weaknesses that can be exploited, where we can simply capture, bribe or manipulate? Why not develop a system or puzzles or build a set of social dynamic skills that allow us to work through a confrontation – we’re all used to having long, winding conversations with NPCs thanks to BioWare, so why not leave a bullet to the head the worst possible outcome? You can do it, but it’s like winning via a kick to the crotch. It’s a coward’s win.

There are consequences to killing people outside a game, and as games become more dynamic, realistic, and gritty — why are those consequences not reflected? Why don’t the family or friends, or hell, even your companions, care when you maim or kill another person? Shouldn’t that affect how the entire world thinks of you, since after all, you’re now a murderer. Take Dishonored as another brilliant example of alternatives; You have intrinsic choices on how you deal with people, and those choices effect the outcome of not only the major events of the city, but how people deal with you and how your public image is developed.

I’m sure I’ve lost many of you after the last few paragraphs, and I’m sure most of those people were yelling at their screen about the fact that, well, shooting things is fun. I’d agree – it is. I adore playing Battlefield, Call of Duty and other mainstream military shooters because, well, killing virtual soldiers is a blast. But when we’re expected to believe that Nathan Drake’s only course of action — especially when he has such a smart mouth on him — is murdering the entire henchmen population of the various locales he visits has zero consequences outside of his love interest getting ‘a little lippy’, is ridiculous.

My point is that it’s getting a little old wondering when developers will stop using combat as a crutch to connect various aspects of their game together, to relieve boring or “filler” elements, or simply get players excited. There are numerous other ways to get people going — hell, a good score and some passionate conversation is enough to get me riled up. At one point in BioShock Infinite, I spent an entire section walking through a meticulously well designed scene with my gun pointed down, as a massive story arc made itself known. But I couldn’t enjoy it. Because, like in every other game of its kind, eventually my gun would need to be used again, and it would be time to thoughtlessly kill even more people.

Sadly, I didn’t have to wait that long. But hopefully one day, I won’t have to see that gun on-screen at all — unless there really was no other choice.

Everyone’s all gushing about how great BioShock Infinite is, but here at games.on.net, we’re not buying into the hype. We’ve turned away the Doritos delivery truck and poured our Mountain Dew down the sink. “No more!” we said loudly. You see, we recognise that games need to be ruthlessly criticised and nitpicked and torn apart, especially ones like BioShock which just don’t get it. So here’s the top ten reasons why gamers should stay far, far away from Irrational and 2K’s latest creation.

1. It’s not even set in the real world

You’re looking at BioShock. You’re looking at the screens. You’re thinking “A city in the clouds? What the hell warzone is this?” Well, don’t be fooled my friends. This game doesn’t take place in some craphole Thirdworldistan. It’s a city in the sky, dude. It’s weird. How do they even float? Do birds poop on them up there? It doesn’t even make sense. And then you think — wait, it’s an American city, right? So some random middle-easterners are going to invade it? Get all terrorist up in that? Doesn’t happen. Just doesn’t happen. Zero terrorists. Un-be-goddamn-lievable. Who are you supposed to shoot if not terrorists?

2. Your AI companion doesn’t even need your protection

Ugh. We’ve spent years playing games with dumbass AI companions who need to be nursemaided through every combat scenario. We’ve spent hours preparing, training to get our stupid AI squad buddies into the right place just so we can pass a scripted set-piece battle. Then BioShock Infinite comes along and gives you this AI companion who, what? Runs around with you in a believable fashion? Looks around and interacts with the world? Stays out of trouble when the fighting starts? Makes you feel things?

Jesus, doesn’t anybody else remember when you’d be playing GoldenEye 007 back on the 64, and Natalya would just walk in front of your bullets and you’d end up shooting her right in her stupid face and you’d be like “ARGH YOU STUPID IDIOT” and fling your controller at the cat? Doesn’t anybody else remember those days? Thanks for TRASHING MY CHILDHOOD, Irrational.

3. You’ll want to pay attention to what’s going on

So you get home and you sit down and you just want to switch off, right, because you’ve had a hard day at the office and the boss says you have to stop peeing in the women’s bathroom and yes, this is your final warning. But you can’t switch off when you’re playing BioShock Infinite, because somebody had to go and made a plot that’s actually worth paying attention to. Suddenly, it’s all “I care about Elizabeth this” and “I wonder what happens next that” and then BAM! Suckered in like an idiot. That’s what you get for playing a game with a story. NEVAR FORGET.

4. You’ll have to think about the ending and share it with your friends

When was the last time you finished a military shooter and wanted to talk about the ending with your bros? Never. That’s goddamn right. You finish that up and you drop it like a hot potato. Next time you see your bro, you won’t be all like “Man, remember that ending when I totally beat the terrorists?” Hell no. But if you play BioShock, you won’t have a choice. You’ll be all swapping theories and drawing diagrams like some kind of nerd. Is that what you want? Is it? Of course not.

5. There are no quick-time events

Oh my GOD, Irrational. What were you thinking? Going against years of accepted industry wisdom? Even Tomb Raider had the good sense to put in quick-time events, and you didn’t put a single-one in your entire goddamn game? I think the closest you came was maybe one time where I had to press E to mangle a dude’s face with my weird motor arm? I don’t know about you my friends, but I love quick-time events and I’ll be mashing buttons until the day I die. This is an absolute deal-breaker for me. Disgusting.

6. There’s not a single US marine

Do I even need to explain this? Is a game even worth playing if you can’t play as a US marine? Of course not. Jesus.

7. There’s not even a single driving or turret sequence

I played this stupid game from beginning to end and didn’t see a single god-damn one. Is that even allowed? Are games allowed to do that? Thanks a lot, Obama. You know I don’t think I even saw a jeep. Not even one. I thought this game was supposed to be about how great America is?

8. There’s no dubstep

How am I supposed to enjoy a bloody shooter if I can’t have my dubstep. Those two go hand in hand. Dubstep and guns. It’s like the holy trinity or whatever, except there’s two of them. And you know what there is instead? Songs like Tainted Love! Tainted Love. What were the losers who made this game even smoking? BioShock Infinite is set in 1912 and Marilyn Manson didn’t even write Tainted Love until 2001. Check your facts, Irrational.

9. Where are the boobs

I’ve been through this game with a fine-toothed boob-comb my friends, and here’s the facts: I didn’t see a single boob. Sure, I guess Elizabeth’s got a low-cut top or whatever but you can’t see anything, so that doesn’t count. Then there’s this scientist chick who shows up a whole pile — no boobs. Some random girl enemies come at you dressed like Columbia — no boobs there, either. And there’s this Daisy Fitzroy chick there, too, and she KEEPS HER SHIRT ON FOR THE WHOLE STUPID GAME. There’s not a single goddamn boob anywhere in this boob-forsaken game. It’s like Irrational don’t even respect women.

10. It’s just so weird and different

I’m sure some people like to play their stupid weird games where there’s no biological weapons or terrorists or whatever, but I’m not one of them. I know what games are supposed to be like, and buddy, this isn’t it. I don’t want to be thinking while I’m playing, or sympathising with some well-written and interesting NPC, or stopping to look at the stupid view because it’s just so bloody gorgeous or whatever. That’s not what gaming is about. So disappointed.

You can watch our very scathing BioShock Infinite video review right here.

NVIDIA have released GeForce 314.22 drivers for you to download, claiming a boost of up to 41% in BioShock Infinite and an astonishing 71% in Tomb Raider.

“Other highlights include single-GPU and SLI performance improvements of up to 30% in Civilization V, 22% in Sniper Elite V2, and 12% in Sleeping Dogs,” reads the announcement. “314.22 WHQL also includes SLI profiles for Dungeons & Dragons: Neverwinter, Resident Evil 6, and Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army; 3D Vision profiles for Brutal Legend, MUD, and Tomb Raider; and a NVIDIA Control Panel Ambient Occlusion profile for BioShock Infinite.”

Head on over our file library (or to the GeForce website) and grab them for yourself.

Source: GeForce (Thanks, PalZer0)

Our video review of BioShock Infinite doesn’t quite do the graphics justice, so I’ve rounded up a few of the best screenshots from the 180+ I took while playing and dumped them here for you, so you can see what the game looks like on PC with everything turned up as far as possible.

The below shots are taken on a GeForce GTX 670, which had absolutely no frame drops or lag whatsoever and pulled a smooth 60FPS through the whole game.

There’s very little to say about BioShock Infinite that you haven’t already heard — other than “well, how does it actually play then?” After spending the last few days with the game, we’re ready with our thoughts in this video review below. Take a look.

You can download this review in HD from our file library, or stream it below. A YouTube mirror is also available.

Good:

• Staggeringly well-realised world, full of life and detail
• An engaging storyline with a genuinely compelling ending and a great cast of characters
• Finally, an AI companion that doesn’t make you want to track down and murder the developers
• Meaty, satisfying combat with plenty of tactical options
• Skyhook and skylines make for awesomely dynamic movement, especially during combat
• Superlative PC support with impressive range of options
• No awful boss battles

Bad:

• Enemy AI seems occasionally reluctant to engage
• 10 – 15 hours is too short a time to spend in Columbia

You can buy a Steam key for BioShock Infinite for a tidy $52 through our partners at Green Man Gaming. Product for this review supplied by 2K Games.

You can never have too many BioShock: Infinite trailers, they say, where “they” is 2K’s PR team – and also everybody else, probably, as long as there are no spoilers. Today’s visit to Columbia talks about Elizabeth, whom you’re going to see a heck of a lot of. Happily, Irrational Games took her creation very seriously, roping in four women to bring her to life – voice actor, motion capture performer, writer and face model. Only a few more days to wait.

A whole bunch of new BioShock: Infinite videos have dropped recently. Right here in this very news article I’ve dropped in a TV spot that will do very little to ease your burning need to consume everything Skyoshock. However, what I’m also going to do is link you to two videos in which creator Ken Levine narrates a couple of sections of gameplay for IGN, dropping spoilers left, right and centre. I haven’t looked at them, except to verify that they are real, because I want to remain pure. You should, too. But if not: Here’s Booker’s arrival in Columbia, and here’s a carnival and vigor demonstration. BioShock: Infinite releases on March 26 which is pretty convenient for the coming long weekend, no?

You remember how Green Man Gaming were offering free copies of Civilization V or The Darkness and other games when you pre-order BioShock Infinite? Well, now you can not only get those games, but a free copy of XCOM: Enemy Unknown as well.

Keep it for yourself! Give it to a friend. Give it to me! Any of these things are possible.

Head on over to the Green Man Gaming site and see if you’re tempted — it’s only $52, and you’ll get BioShock Infinite, the original BioShock, XCOM: Enemy Unknown and another title of your choice. That is some pretty mad value, by anybody’s reckoning.

You have until 4:00 AM AEDT on Wednesday 27th to put your order in to qualify for these bonuses.

Irrational and 2K have asked us to pass on that the following video does contain a few sequences designed for the game’s MA15+ audience — up to and including an unfortunate meeting between a man’s face and the skyhook tool used to travel around in the game. If you don’t enjoy violent content, perhaps this is a trailer for you to skip!

For all that, though, it’s another excellent look at the game and shows off why I’m very, very excited to get my hands on it. It launches on Tuesday 26, too — so not very long to wait.

At a recent BioShock Infinite showing, games.on.net had the chance to sit down with Irrational’s Bill Gardner, User Experience Specialist on the upcoming game. We spoke to him about all things PC, including Irrational’s dedicated PC support team, how DX11 is improving their experience, and the difficulties in making characters like Elizabeth interact well with the player. Take a look below, or download the video in HD from our file library.

A YouTube mirror is also available.

Excellent news this morning from our friends at Green Man Gaming: pre-purchase BioShock Infinite from their store, and not only will you get the game itself but you’ll also get the original BioShock and another free game of your choice from 2K’s catalogue.

Free games on offer include The Darkness II, Mafia II, Spec Ops: The Line, BioShock 2 and Civilization V. Click here to check out all the available bundles — you could end up saving yourself a whole bunch of money. Personally, getting all the BioShock games in one click seems like a pretty sweet deal to me.

If you’ve already purchased BioShock Infinite from GMG, don’t worry! They’re backdating this offer so you don’t miss out. Look out for an email from them shortly with the details of how to claim your free games.

Finally in sadder news, 2K have noticed that Green Man weren’t price-gouging us on the BioShock Infinite DLC Season Pass and asked them to up the price for Australians — but don’t worry, as the ANZ discount voucher now works on it. Drop GMGAU-3J9MF-MUINW on that sucker and knock 30% off the price.

We’ve received word from overseas that 2K will be launching a BioShock Infinite DLC Season Pass, which — as is the custom in this day and age with AAA releases — can be purchased up front to save you around 30% on the cost of three, further individual DLCs.

Information on what the three pieces of DLC you’re buying access for will be has not been detailed, but our press release from the UK indicates that purchasers of the Season Pass will receive the ‘Early Bird Special Pack’ for free, which contains “four pieces of exclusive gear, a Machine Gun Damage Upgrade, a Pistol Damage Upgrade, a gold skin for both weapons and five Infusion bottles that allow players to increase their health, their shield durability or their ability to use Vigors by increasing the quantity of Salts they can carry.”

UPDATE: Thanks to PalZer0 for pointing out the DLC Season Pass is now available on Steam to Australians for $30. Given that we’re being gouged another $10 for having the temerity to live in Australia, games.on.net officially recommends that you purchase your Season Pass through Green Man Gaming instead, where it is only $19.99 (before 2K raises the price).

As we ramp up to the launch of BioShock Infinite next month, more and more trailers continue to appear out of the ether. Today, we see the ‘Lamb of Columbia’ trailer, starring Elizabeth — a small girl who is a lot more dangerous than she appears. As we saw in our massive preview, Elizabeth has the ability to drag elements from parallel universes into this world, changing the environment around you. Presumably, her abilities also go a lot deeper than that. Take a look below.

At a recent preview event, games.on.net had the chance to sit down with Bioshock Infinite’s Bill Gardner, Director of Design at Irrational Games. We spoke about gear customisation, linearity in gameplay, how to handle the colourful racism of the 1920′s, and striking the right balance between ‘gamey’ and immersive.

Click here to read our enormous game preview.

GON: What we’ve seen so far is the start of the game where it’s obviously a little more linear. As the game progresses, is it going to be more like the previous Bioshocks where you have hub areas from which you head off and then return?

Bill: To some degree yes, absolutely, the game starts off where there’s just a tremendous amount of stuff to get across. Like, way more than in Bioshock 1. Just the depth of the world, the narrative we’re trying to tell, and trying to sell Booker’s backstory, and set up Elizabeth, and Comstock, and the [rebellious faction] Vox Populi.  The amount of stuff we are throwing at you, Bioshock 1 pales in comparison. And then, obviously, there’s a much wider range of systems like the skylines and these are completely alien, I’ve never seen anything like a skyline in a game, so, teaching that is a lot more difficult than you might think. So I think it does tend to come off as a little bit more straightforward. But, yes, absolutely, as you get into it and as people start to master the systems and understand enough of the story, it absolutely opens up quite a bit more. It’s by no means an open-world, but you do have the Bioshock-level of choice as to where you’re going.

GON: I was surprised to discover with the skyline that you actually have a certain amount of freedom to change directions and jump off at any time. I was just expecting it to be ‘click to get on here; click to get off there’.

Bill: I can definitely see how people would draw that from what we’ve shown. But, yeah, it was an important goal for us for people to use it as a tool. It’s not just a ‘Point A to Point B’ thing. It’s about letting the player get tricky and use the environment in interesting ways, to close in on enemies really really fast but also to use the space vertically and hop off at any time. You might be getting pelted by a flak cannon enemy, with a massive explosive radius, so you can use the skyline to close the distance and avoid damage there. So yeah, it’s a whole new tool.

GON: It seems to fit with the world you’re building as well, as an open-air, island-based world.

Bill: That was another core goal when we started building the game. We wanted to make good on the fantasy of being in the sky. To be perfectly frank, we were a little disappointed with the way we didn’t really embrace the ocean as a mechanic [in the previous Bioshock games]. Certainly, as a ‘mood’ piece, it was something that set the atmosphere as claustrophobic and dank. As a dying environment it was spot on. But it didn’t mean much for gameplay. The skyline, this time around, is one of the ways we make good on this fantasy of being in a city in the sky. And closing that huge difference in verticality. And creating that feeling of flight, that visceral feeling of falling, without all the annoyances of actually flying.

Originally, we were talking about ways to capture that. And, on paper, it’s like, “Yeah! I’d love to be able to fly!” but, yeah, you really don’t. In first person, it’s just a bit of a mess. It’s not really a solvable problem and, quite frankly, I think the skylines were a better opportunity because you’re jumping between lines and it’s a lot more interesting. Anyway, long story short, that’s our attempt to make good on that fantasy.

GON: Did you consider grappling hooks at all?

Bill: Of course! I’m a huge Tenchu fan… But, I think, again, the grappling hook doesn’t quite create this same visceral feeling that a roller-coaster in the sky gives you.

GON: It keeps you, quite literally, on rails, but also gives you quite a bit of freedom. Related to the world-building aspect of that, how much harder was it to build a city that was still functioning, as opposed to Rapture that was already dead?

Bill: It was a huge departure from what we’re used to. I think there’s a tendency when you’re creating something to go with the same thing, to go with what’s familiar to you and initially when Ken [Levine] was like,  “Oh, it’s going to take place in the sky, it’s going to be a bright, full sunshine, gorgeous blue sky,” immediately I was like, “Oh man. I’ve never done that before. What the hell?” So you go in thinking you know how to do something, and you’re very familiar with that something. So there’s that fear and apprehension [of doing something new].

But then, slowly, as you start to get the content of the people in the world, you get their audio recordings, you start to hear their conversations, you start to get Booker’s and Elizabeth’s reactions to them. You start to get all these things, and you build up the world with all these details and you think, man, we need more space. And the world gets bigger and you add more detail and before you know it you’ve got a world that is far more rich than Rapture. I think there was definitely apprehension, but we’re always looking to challenge ourselves. We had a very specific story to tell so having the populated world was a huge part of that, a huge part of that idealised vision of America in flight, and to just be able to watch that decay as Booker and Elizabeth make their way through the space and go on their journey and watch how they change and how things change around them.

GON: It seems to be really committed to that idea of environmental storytelling.

Bill: That’s very important to us. Going back to System Shock 2 and, by extension Thief as well. Like, Ken, at his Looking Glass days—that was something he helped pioneer, that style of storytelling. It’s something he’s very passionate about, and every person we bring onto the team has to be given a bootcamp into how these things work. Obviously we have the examples, like Bioshock, but it’s very tricky to get that stuff right. There’s a certain level of art to figuring out what you’re trying to tell and how you’re trying to tell it. Frankly, with Bioshock 1 and Rapture we are very proud of it but when you think of it, the story is a lot more limited than what we have in Infinite.

We have Booker and Elizabeth and their back-and-forwards and interactions, that’s a whole new toolset that we have. We have all these different ways of expositing information and immersing you in this world. It’s very different. But at the same time we have the vignettes, the mise-en-scéne. You come into a room and you see the people that shot each other up or you piece together what happened. In a lot of ways, this is the evolution of that storytelling, and we’re introducing all these new themes and all these new methods of storytelling into that formula.

GON: Was that largely what was behind the choice to have a speaking protagonist in a first-person game? A lot of games seem to be doing that recently.

Bill: That’s true, games are doing it more, but for us… well as I said before, Ken is always looking for new ways to push narrative, and right from the get-go he was looking to very specific ways in his head of merging our style of gameplay with our style of narrative in new ways. We had done the silent protagonist thing quite a few times, and we wanted this vibrant, alive world. Just having a mute go through that space wouldn’t work. More importantly, we knew we wanted this character Elizabeth, we wanted this companion character, to push those narrative boundaries we’d established for ourselves, and to push players as they go on this journey with Elizabeth and Booker.

These are two characters that should not be together by any means because they are just from completely different walks of life, and we wanted the player to just watch them come together and have to walk between these extreme factions as they change. So Elizabeth starts off in this tower and she is completely cut off from the world. She has been there most of her life. She’s up in this tower with her books. Imagine how she is going to gel with a former Pinkerton Agent with a shadowy past. They have to come together and go on this journey together. So you watch her evolution and his evolution as well as they try to come together to overcome these odds.

GON: So essentially it’s good to have someone to speak back to Elizabeth so she’s not doing the rhetorical question thing that so many companions have to do.

Bill: That’s exactly right. It would be kind of weird. But that’s difficult in itself. Not just to get Booker and Elizabeth’s interactions right, but also to give Booker his voice, to figure out how frequently he should be talking, what he should react to, and making sure he isn’t stepping on the player’s toes. Because, I think, in some games I play the character your playing tends to voice exactly what the player is thinking, and it’s kind of alienating. I’m like, “That was my line”. If you’re going to have a character, you want them to provide something, to bring something to the table. And that’s what Booker does. He has his own very unique worldview, his own perspective. And you get that. It’s about revealing more of his character.

GON: That’s really interesting because a lot of first-person games—or nearly any game with a voiced protagonist, really—seem to attempt to do the opposite, to get the character to say what the player is thinking.

Bill: Right. Which is odd because if you disagree with that, that’s odd. So speaking for the player is never good, but speaking for the character, for Booker Dewitt who you’re trying to get the player to inhabit, is useful. That’s where you’re trying to get the player saying, ”What would Booker do?”.

GON: So if from the outset you say, “This is Booker” it is less alienating when he is saying things that are clearly not the player’s thoughts.

Bill: Absolutely.

GON: Obviously, Colombia is a white supremacist kind of society.  Are there any concerns of either more-conservative, white Americans being offended by the game? Or, on the other hand, of people being offended by the clearly intentionally overly racist caricatures of non-white ethnicities? Obviously it is done for a reason, but it’s a sensitive area.

Bill: It’s definitely done for a reason, being that we’re trying to be true to the time period [1912], and the spirit of the time. We’ve talked about it a lot and Ken has always said it would be disingenuous to avoid these issues if you are trying to really immerse players in the world of this time, it would be dishonest and disingenuous to skirt around these things. It is part of the world and part of the story that we’re trying to tell. If that [historic depiction of America] makes people uncomfortable, well that’s unfortunate, but ultimately we have a very specific story we want to tell and I think it is pretty clear that we are uncompromising.

But the one thing I will say is that when contextualised, people should and hopefully would understand that this is the way the world was. We are trying to pose these questions and let the player decide how they feel. It would be very different if we said that this would be the only perspective we’ll provide. We have counter points. We have Fitzroy and the Vox Populi in opposition of this racist, xenophobia perspective. So, yeah, I’m curious to see how this stuff plays out. I might be a little apprehensive on my end but ultimately I’m confident that we’re not going for controversy; we’re just trying to be honest.

GON: You’re mentioned trying to ‘immerse’ players in the world. When I started fighting people I noticed the numbers popping up every time I shot someone. That seemed like an interesting design choice. It seems like it would fit in a more ‘gamey’ FPS like Borderlands but in a game that’s trying to produce a more diegetic world it seemed like an interesting choice.

Bill: Every part of the game goes under close scrutiny, and we try to figure out how it fits into the world and game. Everything is weighed against Ken’s vision and the vision of the team and how everything fits into place. With the numbers, we have this tremendous depth to this game, way more than we had in Bioshock 1, so we wanted to represent clearer feedback in terms of how you are progressing as a character. So we felt it was important to put that in. But we also thought that some people might have an issue wutg it so we’ve provided an option to turn it off. I think we do our best to make sure that people can play the game in the way they want, so that their vision can come together with our vision and basically become something they’ll enjoy.

We had a very similar debate internally about adding health metres above enemies in Bioshock 1. At the time, no other games were really doing that, and that was really contentious in the same way. We had this immersive world and we’re trying to tell this story and it feels very ‘gamey’ [to have health bars]. But we did it and, personally, I think it was the right choice, especially when you’re fighting the Big Daddies so you can track your progress. Ultimately, it will always be weighing the game against the narrative and the immersion. So as long as we give people the option, really.

GON: There seems to be quite a lot of different ways to customise Booker as the game progresses. Can you speak a bit to that?

Bill: Gear is one of the main ways you have to customise yourself. Gear is, in a lot of ways, similar to the tonics in Bioshock. The differences here being that there are clearer paths, clearer classes, if you will. You can customise your load out in different ways that suit your play style. So if you really like the skylines, you can get yourself enough gear to make yourself more catered to skyline combat. or you can change those things out, maybe make yourself more of an explosive guy or whatever. So, yes, there is quite a lot of depth in that system. There are also pieces that will give you different abilities to give you buffs or skills, like if you punch a guy he might catch on fire, things like that. So the way these things combine with our other growth systems. We have the upgrade systems for the weapons and vigors.

With the vigor upgrades, for one thing you have multiple uses for each vigor. Devil’s Kiss, for example, you press to throw a fire grenade, but if you hold it down you can set a trap. And then there’s an upgrade so that it bursts out into separate explosions and things like that. So there’s qualitative and quantitative growth for most of the systems in the game. Weapons, vigors, etc. There’s a ton of customisation. It’s really about empowering the player’s play style.

Thanks to Bill for chatting to us!

Settle down for the second episode of Columbia: A Modern Day Icarus, a series which aims to separate truth from fiction in the world of BioShock: Infinite. The first episode was pretty great, but this one features the Songbird, so it wins hands – or rather wings – down. BioShock: Infinite will finally be ours on March 26.

Bioshock: Infinite starts, much as Bioshock starts, atop a stormy ocean with the player approaching a lighthouse. This time, though, we aren’t descending into the deepest, darkest bowels of the ocean. Instead, as we’ve all known since that fish tank was symbolically smashed in the first Infinite trailer, we are ascending into heaven.

A Brave New World

The game’s opening sequence, then, as the actually vocal playable character Booker DeWitt ascends from the water to the sky, is both a deliberate nod to and reaction against the original Bioshock. Infinite acknowledges its roots, then literally catapults the player away from them. Bioshock: Infinite is very much a Bioshock game. It’s starting from the same place, and it might even be going to the same destination, but it’s taking a different road to get there.

The flying city of Colombia and its leader, Father Comstock, complement Rapture and Andrew Ryan — a Yin to the other’s Yang. To Ryan’s secretive city, hidden in the darkness, Comstock’s city proudly floats over and looks down on the “Sodom” below. To Ryan’s ideology of individualistic objectivism, Comstock’s ideology is an embrace of manifest destiny (“It is White Man’s burden to care for the rest of creation!” he tells us at one stage), complete with all the xenophobia and racist imagery of the time. Each visionary takes the promises of the American dream down a different, delusional road to the same destructive ends.

The state of the cities as the player engages with them are also complementary. Whereas Rapture had torn itself to shreds years before the player submerged to its streets, Colombia is still alive. As the player first enters its streets, there is a chaotic life to the city. There is so much happening—so much to hear, so much to see. The vista of the towers floating among the clouds, with the sun casting glowing halos over angelic statues, is truly jaw-dropping. Closer, airships chug between towers and buildings dock and undock with each other. On the street level, children are playing; women and men stand on corners and discuss politics. Yet, the disorientation I feel, the sheer saturation of sights and sounds, is almost exactly like I felt when taking my first, confused steps into Rapture.

It was a good twenty minutes before I touched a weapon, but this is hardly a complaint. Infinite doesn’t push the player along; it wants the player to get to know this new world before they start tearing it apart. It wants the player to feel — as so many recent games do — partially responsible for what is going to happen here. And partially responsible the player indeed is. It is Booker who tries to throw the first stone (a baseball, actually. You’ll see.), and from there, everything goes down hill.

Right To Bear Arms

Once you do finally obtain a weapon (the wrist-mounted skyline tool that doubles up as wrist-mounted spinning blade, shortly followed by a pistol), combat is very much in the mould of the earlier Bioshocks with gun in the right hand and plasmi- uh, “vigors” in the left hand. There’s a satisfying weight to the guns that the first Bioshock lacked — a sturdy chunkiness and, like most recent shooters, a dependancy on iron sights.

Another compromise to modern tastes, one that will surely raise more eyebrows than a need to use iron sights, is the implementation of a two weapon limit (plus melee which now, thankfully, has been given its own button). This seems to work against the standard set by the previous games, which asked the player to constantly change between weapons to experiment with their environment. At various times, I found myself walking past specialist weapons like RPGs as I was too wary about dropping either my machine gun or my shotgun.

This weapon limitation aligns with what seems, from these opening hours, an overall more straightforward approach to combat. Hacking is nowhere to be seen in the opening hours of the game that we played (though a vigor is acquired early on that allows the player to remotely turn gun turrets against their own), and the lack of any kind of stealth options feels disappointing, especially in the areas that are peaceful until the player fires the first shot.

The opening skirmishes are much more straightforward run-and-gun than Bioshock 2’s open areas that often asked the player to set traps and use the environment. As the game progresses, though, the world does open up somewhat into the hub-like areas similar to the previous games, and very rarely does it actually feel like you are being pushed down a single, narrow corridor.

There is the promise, too, of players having more abilities to customise Booker’s abilities by equipping different kinds of gear, along with choosing different vigor and weapon upgrades. Gear acts somewhat like the tonics of previous games, altering the player’s abilities. In lieu of the environmental experimentation of the previous game, it will be up to the customisation and experimentation allowed by these load-outs that will have to keep the gunplay fresh.

Perhaps the most conspicuous addition to the combat is the Borderlands-esque numbers spraying off enemies with every hit, complete with “Critical!” hits in red, and “Vulnerable!” hits in yellow. This was a jarring and surprising addition, seemingly completely at odds with the game’s ambitions to build an immersive, living world. The logic behind this decision, I’m told, is to give more direct feedback to players experimenting with load-out customisation. Though, most crucially, it was stressed that these numbers, along with the red health bars over enemies’ heads, can all be turned off if the player desires.

Download this trailer in HD from our file library.

Picture Book World

That the combat seems like a largely straightforward affair is not necessarily a criticism, though, as the combat really just seems like a (completely competent) carriage for Irrational to tell the story they want to tell, and to throw the player into the world they want to show.

And throw that player into the world they do. Colombia is a place you want to understand. Really, you don’t have much choice. Bioshock: Infinite is a tour de force of the kind of environmental storytelling Ken Levine’s games are known for. There is hardly a place you can look without finding out something else about this world. It’s an unavoidable barrage of newspaper headlines, propaganda posters, overheard conversations, coin-activated mutoscopes. For the most part, it works, and rarely feels like convenient exposition. However, it does occasionally feel ham-fisted. After seeing the same slogans on walls and posters at least three times, I was then halted at a road between two islands as a street parade of airships with the same slogans on them passed, blaring them at me over their speakers, just to make sure I got the idea. Regardless, Colombia feels like a city and a culture that you can’t help but to learn about.

The still-living city offers unique challenges to the combat design, too. Sometimes civilians run off screaming when the firing starts, and sometimes they join in the skirmish with a horrifying, patriotic zeal. At other times, though, they seem conspicuously unaware of the airship that exploded not very far away. As the conflicts intensify and the city inevitably falls apart later in the game, it will be a challenge for Infinite to ensure that the city still feels convincing as a city, and not just a series of videogame areas.

But more than environmentally, Infinite has the advantage (and perhaps the burden) of speaking characters to enrich its world. Booker is very much his own character, and not just a voice trying to guess what the player is thinking. Once Elizabeth enters the game (shortly after an incredible dramatic sequence that put the biggest, stupidest grin across my face), she and Booker are regularly having conversations, about the world and about each other, adding to the world in largely organic ways. A constructive tension exists between their world views, allowing a range of perspectives to be brought up organically in each situation.

Elizabeth is not just a passive thing to be dragged around (though her ‘girly’ weakness is occasionally cringeworthy). She will often run around rooms searching for loot, offering to throw Booker health kits in the middle of a fight (or, less helpfully, flip him a coin). Fortunately, she can’t be hurt by enemies, and so the game avoids having the player frustratingly depend on an AI’s ability to not get shot.

Elizabeth’s biggest contribution to the gameplay, though, is her ability to drag elements of parallel universes into this world. From what we saw, this often comes down to simply deciding if we wanted a friendly turret or extra cover. Simple, perhaps, but a nice touch that fits with and reinforces the game’s narrative, while also making Elizabeth a more independent and interesting character.

Up In The Air

Another mechanic we’ve seen a lot of in trailers is the skyline. Though, I’ll be honest, I was surprised to learn that the skyline was, in fact, a mechanic at all. More than simply a “press A to watch travel cinematic” device, the player stays in full control as they zip around these impossible roller coasters. You can speed up, slow down, shoot, turn around, jump to other rails. Enemies can also be pounced on from the rail in dramatic and satisfying lunge attacks.

These abilities, along with other versatile uses the wrist-mounted device allows, means the skyline feels less like jumping on a train and more like relying on a magnetic grappling hook.  It feels less like effortless flying and more like constant, perilous falling. It gives an important sense of verticality to the world while, importantly, keeping the player aware that you are just a mortal human and with one false move you will be falling for a very, very long time. The sky can eat you up with about as little effort as the ocean.

It reinforces the extravagance and the absurdity of Colombia as a city, as everything in the game strives to do. And, really, that is Bioshock: Infinite in a nutshell. While both the underlying systems and the overarching themes might feel more like a refinement of the previous games than a revolution, Colombia as a place feels like somewhere completely and exhilaratingly new. Just as Ryan and Comstock took different paths to the same dystopia, Irrational are taking the player through a different world to the same, underlying, Bioshock — and it is a world I can’t wait to see more of.

Bioshock: Infinite is on the way, and the trailers are rolling out like crazy to prove it. We have a new trailer today, the ‘City in the Sky’ trailer, which shows us around Columbia a bit more. It’s all sort of wacky with a very dreamlike quality, carnival sideshows and suspicious potions to drink.

And people. People! Perhaps I’ve been blind up to this point, but I just assumed Skyoshock was going to be like the original Bioshock games where all its people were either dead or crazy. To see real people, in a Bioshock game that aren’t coming at you with a kitchen knife? It’s simply unheard of!

Well, enough from me. You should check out the trailer and think your own things. Then form those things into sentences and write them in the comments section below! The future.

Green Man Gaming took one for the team earlier in the month and created a permanent discount code that would give 30% off to all games where publishers had forced them to jack up their price for Australians. Now they’ve just sent word that BioShock Infinite has been added to the list of games where the 30% off coupon will work.

So — if you want BioShock Infinite for $55 instead of the $80 you’re being slugged with on Steam, head over to Green Man Gaming and pop in the code GMGAU-3J9MF-MUINW to give yourself a nice handy discount.

The code is also valid on other price-jacked games, so if you want Borderlands 2 or its DLC Season Pass, or perhaps Spec Ops: The Line, Civilization V: Gods & Kings, or XCOM: Enemy Unknown, then the code will work there as well. Enjoy!

BioShock Infinite launches on March 26.

A new documentary has been made about Columbia and its secession from the Union, called “Columbia: A Modern Day Icarus?” Okay, well, it’s not really a documentary, it’s actually just a trailer for Bioshock: Infinite, but it’s very well done and presents itself as one of those retro-as-hell documentaries you probably watched in science class.

“Columbia: A Modern Day Icarus?” gives us some insight into what our setting for Bioshock: Infinite is going to be like, as well as a bit of a peek into the mind of our main protagonist. Make sure you check it out below, it’s nicely done.