By popular demand, BioShock Infinite’s DLC takes us back to good ol’ Rapture. What sense does it make to return to the franchise's original place of intrigue in a game set three decades prior to its inception? Well, with the new dimension-hopping tear plot device, anything is possible, and I mean that quite literally. The plot of the base game was almost completely ruined by Ken Levine’s liberal use of manipulating the fabric of time and space and the structural foundation of Infinite’s story and characters by proxy. At this point, I’m taking the Burial at Sea DLC at face value and am trying to enjoy the ride. I’ve spent all this time asking why when the game obviously wishes for me to revel in the “why nots?” Therefore, I will try my best not to criticize Burial at Sea too harshly, unless something truly absurd occurs.

The first of two chapters in Burial at Sea is set entirely in an alternate timeline to the base game of Infinite, which is why both Booker and Elizabeth exist in 1959 at the same ages they were in 1912. Booker is still the gruff private dick he was in the former half of the 20th century, but Elizabeth is practically unrecognizable. Here, she’s a sultry femme fatale with that fierce, cunning sexuality associated with the role. Unlike her demure self in Columbia, she’s got experience with the outside world and then some. She sashays into Booker’s office in the typical film noir fashion with a job to rescue a little girl named Sally from Rapture’s Little Sister Program, and Booker is highly invested in this job on account of her being his adopted daughter in this reality. Just roll with it.

Given that Burial at Sea takes place a few years before the ultimate fall of Rapture, Booker and Elizabeth arrive at the tailend of the city’s prime. Seeing Rapture in its state of regal prosperity that we all only heard of through audio diaries and other lord pieces is a succulent treat for every fan of the first two games. If Rapture is a wondrous spectacle as a darkened ruin, imagine how it looks with the lights still on. Rapture resembles the swanky, elegant, mid-century aesthetic seen by the billboard advertisements and general furbishing of the city. From the looks of the plaza on High Street, Andrew Ryan’s actual goal for Rapture was to surpass the scope of the surface world’s gallant balls. Imagine the New Year’s Eve photo from the end of The Shining but located at the aquarium at night. Elizabeth distracting the various shopkeepers from Booker stealing a bunny mask as entrance to Sander Cohen’s ongoing exhibit subtly gives the player a chance to bask in Rapture’s refined form. Oh, and seeing Sander Cohen again before he was TOO far gone from sanity is also a nice piece of fan service as well.

As Sander Cohen sends Booker and Elizabeth on the bathysphere set to Sally’s location after a fit of impassioned artistic rage, we are reminded that Rapture’s downfall was a gradual outcome of persisting corruption. We are also reminded that we’re still playing BioShock Infinite with its FPS-intensive gameplay mechanics. However, in order to keep this DLC section from becoming a Splicer bloodbath, ammunition for every weapon is incredibly scant. Booker can only blow through a few bullets of a select few weapons from the base game before his defenses run dry. Hope you got well acquainted with the sky-hook melee strike attack in the base game because Booker will have to resort to using it in lieu of the now-scarce resources. I’m glad the developers chose to approach combat like this because it makes Booker feel less capable in the more claustrophobic setting of Rapture as opposed to the sprawling skies of Columbia, retaining the effectiveness of the setting. EVE is still abundant, but the number of plasmids has been reduced along with being forced to use some for means of traversal. It’s fairly interesting using “Old Man Winter”, a stronger version of the “Winter Blast” plasmid, to freeze running water to make it into solid platforms. Also, the explosive laser Radar Range weapon is a thrilling new addition, but its use is hindered by the fact that it is unlocked so late in the chapter.

I was having fun with all of Burial at Sea’s new stipulations until the ending, and it’s when I can no longer reserve my vocal critiques on Ken Levine’s convoluted tomfoolery. To Booker’s dismay, poor little Sally has transformed into a Little Sister and is hiding from him in the sinuous Little Sister vent network. Booker’s solution is to force her out by cranking up the heat in the pipes, but Sally is a stubborn one. She sics a Big Daddy on Booker who serves as this chapter’s final boss, and it’s where the parsimonious ammunition system does not bode well against a burlier enemy. When Booker finally defeats the brute, Sally still won’t emerge because of Elizabeth. In this timeline, Booker is an amnesiac Comstock who regains the memory that he transferred to Rapture after he couldn’t shake the guilt of losing Anna/Elizabeth. Elizabeth doesn’t forgive him, leaving the Big Daddy to eviscerate Booker’s torso with its drill and kill him. I chose to ignore the Booker is Comstock resolution because it still doesn’t make any fucking sense. “But have you seen Booker and Comstock in the same room together?” YES!! Now, the falling action of Burial at Sea forces me to digest it along with a new spree of nonsense plot points that make it even harder to swallow. What does Sally have to do with any of this? How is this reality’s Elizabeth still alive after we see her get decapitated through the tear instead of severing her pinky finger, and why is she especially vengeful here as opposed to in the base game? What does any of this matter if there are infinite Comstocks/Bookers? I’m supposed to be gut-wrenched by the result, but I’m even more pissed off at the throngs of twists and turns the game expects me to accept. I can’t believe this hacky writing came from the same guy who wrote the first game.

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Attribution: https://erockreviews.blogspot.com

Story wise this part makes sense, as it piggyback rides off the end of Infinite but gameplay wise this was a mess.

For one, it was super glitchy. I got soft locked out of certain areas several times when I tried exploring. When I picked up a new gun, the game would delete the old one I had, hard locking me into choosing guns that I picked up.

In terms of good things, the story seems so far to be giving more context to the ending of Infinite, the Rangefinder gun is really cool but OP as shit, Elizabeth’s new design in Burial at Sea is a 10/10 (I want to marry her) and like the base game, the environments and art direction is beautiful with Rapture being perfectly recreated.

Besides that, there isn’t much Burial at Sea really has going for it.

They tried making the gameplay more like the original Bioshock games by giving you small ammo pools and lower health and also making it so you can hold more than two guns.

By the way, this is a big problem I had. I’ve played through this DLC twice now and only now did I realize that you can carry multiple guns because the game never tells you that it's an added feature in the DLC. I found out by looking at a joke review on steam of a guy saying “Booker can fit more than two guns in his trousers.” and I got so confused.

The dumb thing is that with the base game, you get so accustomed to just using the mouse wheel to switch since it's a two weapon limit anyway so it would be safe to assume the DLC wouldn’t change anything since it says literally NOTHING to tell you that you can hold multiple guns.

Anyway, The gameplay was pretty difficult for the first hour or so because of the small ammo pool and health but as soon as Elizabeth starts giving you tears, it's still harder than base infinite but it pretty much goes back to easy mode again even in 1999 difficulty.

Burial at Sea suffered from almost all the same issues of the level design being too linear and suffocating and not rewarding the player very well for exploring.

On top of that, I ran into so many glitches. At one point, the game would spawn splicers directly in front of me and they’d appear out of thin air, I got stuck in an area where the airlock door would endlessly spin, when I looted, I could only collect all items and I couldn’t collect specific items like the base game and for some reason, pressing “E” while looting would switch my weapons.

Probably the biggest issue of all is the fact that this DLC is around 2 hours long AT MOST! You can easily beat the whole thing in one sitting and I was playing 1999 Mode!

Very disappointing, even more so than the base game. I hope Part 2 adds more onto this but I doubt it will. Also, you only fight one Big Daddy fight at the very end and it's okay I guess. I like how he can use his drill to hook you in, it makes it more challenging but still pretty eh.

Disappointing. This is more like a Burial at Sea: Prelude, rather than an independent episode. You experience the strongest element from the beginning, and that is wondering around the pre-collapse Rapture. Hearing the Npc conversations and viewing the unique shops really makes Rapture feel alive. I wish that sleuthing through the city, tracking down leads on Sally was the main attraction of this episode. Instead, you are briskly moved along to the combat. A lack of variety of weapons and plasmids makes you feel very underpowered. However, the game still expects you to play like you do in the base game. The feeling of desperation I think they were going for wasn’t achieved for me, since there is virtually no penalty for dying. The lack of variety is also present in the setting, going between uninteresting, dilapidated zones. Any potential flow is disrupted by unnecessary loading-screens. Also, the Big Daddy fight sucks, way too op with that grapple-gun-thing he’s got. At its core, this is still Bioshock. But probably the weakest experience of them all.