Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episode Two review: a drop in the ocean

That's how I closed my review of the first episode of Burial at Sea, and I wish I could tell you that my optimism was well founded. After playing the second half of Irrational's swan song (at least in this universe), I can safely say that it was not.

Burial At Sea's second episode is lovely to look at and sports some surprisingly enjoyable sneaky combat, but both are used to tell a story that, without flowcharts and some seriously generous apologetics, is convoluted to migraine-inducing degrees.

The good news? There's a method to this madness, one that, if you're willing to grant it more than a little leeway, ties the infinite world of BioShock together in ways that are interesting if more than a little inelegant.

If you want the setup for Burial At Sea, I laid it out in my review of the first episode. If you want an explanation of the first episode, ask someone else, because I'm still pretty foggy on it and I played the thing twice.

Here's the important bit: In the vast ocean of despair and depravity that is Rapture, you're attempting to rescue a single soul, a newly-minted Little Sister named Sally. She's held in captivity by Atlas (née Fontaine) and only by returning him to Rapture and kicking off the events of BioShock will he agree to release her.

Also: You play Elizabeth! That's new. Only this particular Elizabeth has been stripped of her extremely useful portal-opening powers and omniscience and must rely on the shadows and some light weaponry to stay alive in Rapture.

The stealthy approach never felt quite right in Infinite, perhaps the idea of sneaking around was just beneath a man who could shoot crows out of his goddamn hands. But it's a nice fit for Elizabeth, who's able to sneak up on enemies (provided she avoids noisy surfaces like broken glass and water), see through walls and turn invisible with the aid of the new Peeping Tom plasmid and take out splicers with a single thwonk if they're unaware of her presence.

My time in Episode Two was marred only by the persistent, suffocating suspicion that I at no time had a solid idea of who I was, what I was doing or why I was doing it. As long as I stayed in the moment and focused on immediate goals I could keep up, but the second I attempted to question the story even a bit more holistically, my eyes started to water and my nose started to bleed (metaphorically speaking).

The literary Pandora's Box of multiple realities runs the risk of undercutting drama (how do you stay invested in the fate of a person that's just one of infinite copies?) or convoluting the story beyond comprehension. Burial at Sea fell into both of these traps in Episode One and spends Episode Two digging deeply enough into them to provide comfortable summer housing for Bilbo Baggins and his entire extended family.

I'm not a MENSA candidate by any means, but I also don't think of myself as a dumb man. So if I finish a game and can't tell you if I was a ghost the whole time and if so whose ghost, something has gone awry. I'm not saying no one will be able to make sense of the thing with enough time, patience and graph paper, but it was difficult to invest in the story as I was experiencing it.

This is Irrational's last BioShock tale, and rather than sucking the player in and providing the kind of closure that puts the whole journey in perspective, you're kept at arm's length by mysteries tacked onto twists entwined with enigmas.