Normally, when playing a videogame with a well-established 'plot', my usual defense mechanism is to play the first 15 minutes or so, make up what the game is actually about, turn off the sound, ignore all dialog prompts and run with that mindset as far as I can.
For some games, this works beautifully. Resident Evil 4? Actually the story of Leee-awwn S. Kennedy, rogue INS agent, using the power invested in him by Texas and the other 49, lesser states to evict all the Mexicans from Mexico.
Bioshock? Hobo-Thor goes on a rampage.
Silent Hill 2? Thanks to my girlfriend: Drunken James and his acid-fueled bender in Detroit.
But now I've started playing Bioshock: Infinite (yes yes, the only PC game I've played within a decade of its release date.) And . . . so far I'm not sure I need to do that. The story is all well and good, but so far it looks like I'm just a serial killer / terrorist / anti-christ figure on a particularly bad day. I started the game with a spree-killing at a festival, kidnapped a girl, murdered rather a lot of the local police, and then killed a military officer execution style for sassing me. The game seems to be backing me up here, since all I've seen so far is that Booker is more or less a regular drunken asshole who only agreed to the kidnapping to wipe out an old gambling debt. So, for the first time . . . I think I'm the bad guy.
And if the game is going to let me, I am going to kill every last NPC in this game with fire and steal their things. Because I have a claw-hand and really poor impulse control.
