SCREENSHOTS – BioShock Infinite

BioShock Infinite is one of those games where it ends, and you sit silently in awe while your brain digests what just happened. From start to finish, you play as Booker DeWitt, a man who seems to able to handle his own except he's in debt to the wrong people and you start the game with their vague mission to you: "Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt." You soon find yourself in Columbia, a flying city and spacious utopia with inextricable patriotism and religious zeal. Then you locate the girl, Elizabeth, and then everything goes sideways. Sometimes literally. The rest of the game is you and Elizabeth escaping Columbia, occasionally fleeing by tumbling through the city's Sky-hook system (that's when your body goes sideways), and sometimes by forcing into alternate realities (that's when your brain goes sideways). In the closing act the story throws you for one last loop, "a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff," as the Doctor would say, and you are left in awe.

Like most games I post about, the visuals are great. Not only that but the design of the world is one of the best. In some games, the world feels boxy, and you can clearly delineate edges between objects and the boundaries you're supposed to stay in, but in BioShock, the edges blend and the world feels organic. 

Having seen the ending on the first playthrough, I had to play again to understand the subtleties of the game's plot. Narrowing down screenshots from two cinematic playthroughs was difficult.