BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea - Episode One Reviews
Burial at Sea, Episode One is good but not essential - the only piece of BioShock story content you could say that about.
In the end, Burial at Sea - Episode One is only a passable experience due to its length and the amount of content found within. With that said, it still has me wanting to play the next few episodes of DLC immediately. And, at the very least, it reunited me with some old friends, like Booker and Liz, as well as some even older enemies.
It's been a long wait for the Burial at Sea DLC, but will our patience payoff and will it be worthy of another venture into the submerged city of Rapture?
A satisfying return to the city that started it all. It's a strong piece of DLC with some niggling issues that will hopefully be ironed out when the second part rolls around.
Will this smaller story set in Rapture incite discussions over things like ludonarrative dissonance or how out of place the overly violent protagonist has gotten as video game storytelling evolves? I doubt it. It will, however, return you to Rapture and reference the events of Infinite, reminding you for a couple hours how damn awesome both of those things are. And for me, that's worth the price of admission.
It's definitely a worthwhile purchase and I'm already itching to play Episode 2 which promises to turn the formula (and series) on its head, but it's entirely up to you what price you pay for it. Xmas Sale starts a month from now, just to let you know.
Burial at Sea might be a challenger for the best-ever narrative-based DLC yet presented to the gaming community at large.
Ultimately, the recreation of Rapture is work worth doing, and Irrational Games deserve the credit for the sweat of their brow. Anyone thinking of playing this already has a sunk cost in BioShock Infinite – if three hours of the upper quartile of that game's level of world-building and combat justifies the expense, you should not be disappointed.
The mystery of how these characters fit into this setting is the big draw, but don't expect a complete answer until the second (and final) episode hits
Overall the story expansion was a welcome addition to Infinite's story line, but the changes made to it are just not enough to characterise it into the wholly different game that some of us were expecting it to be. Seeing a refreshed image of Rapture was undoubtedly awesome, but there just aren't enough opportunities to explore it fully. The stage for the game in the first 30 minutes or so is set like a show that is played in front of you and although you will be mesmerised by it, it is out of your immediate control. The changes made to combat are good but, again, there are just too many things that are the same. The plot of the DLC is to be concluded in Episode Two having been left on a cliffhanger that will have you wishing for more. The expansion will surely be an enjoyable experience for the series' fans, but it also has the potential to become stale for those who have started to tire of the Bioshock formula.
The first half of Burial Sea is that rare bit of DLC that manages to add to an experience without feeling like it was stripped out of the original game.
There's a sadness to that as much as there is to our limited time with a fully-operational Rapture, but at the same time Burial At Sea is extremely effective at posing big, gnawing and dramatic new questions to a riddle we thought answered. I am so very hungry for part two, but I do hope it gives us more Rapture-in-light as well as answers, self-reference and metatextuality. Burial
The first narrative addition to the BioShock Infinite delivers everything it promised – it's an affectionately crafted homage to the first game, retroactively building on the grim story and Ayn Rand-ian themes, galvanising them with a fresh perspective whilst simultaneously tying Rapture more wholly into the Columbian narrative. It's intelligent, indulgent and nostalgic in equal measure, left dangling on a transfixing narrative hook. It's everything we love about BioShock, condensed.