A giant statue of the prophet Comstock welcomes you to the floating world of Columbia.

It’s time to explore a new utopia — a world in the sky that believes Abraham Lincoln was a demon and that worships John Wilkes Booth for assassinating him.

The previous Bioshock games took place in Rapture, an underwater dystopia aiming for a new world. Rapture was created by Andrew Ryan, a crazed man with such a social vision, so bizarre that he had to build an aquatic society to see them come to fruition.

Where Bioshock and its sequel both took place in Rapture after disaster brought the city to the brink of damnation, Infinite takes place on the floating island of Columbia during what could easily be seen as its golden age. Here you are the force tearing it down, bringing heaven back to Earth.

The games could theoretically take place in the same universe, but are most related thematically and in terms of gameplay.

Infinite deals with extremist views and utopian ideals. A culture of white supremacists that worships U.S. presidents as gods, Columbians were so extreme that the rest of America rejected them and so they floated off, disappearing from view. Columbia takes southern secessionism to unprecedented heights, both literally — given its skybound setting — and figuratively.

As lead character Booker DeWitt, not much is revealed to the player. All you know is there is debt you must pay to a mysterious someone. You will repay this debt by finding a woman named Elizabeth and bringing her to your unnamed debtor. For this purpose you are dropped off at a deserted lighthouse with only one option available: climb. At the top, you are launched in a small rocket pod into the sky and Columbia is revealed.

It is a city dreamt up by a man named Comstock who claims he can see the future. He also claims that your character, DeWitt, is the false prophet who is meant to steal the lamb — his name for the girl you were sent to retrieve.

I could go on forever on the biblical references and commentary involved, but to do so would reveal elements designed to be experienced firsthand. Just know that the story is rich and only increases in complexity the more you explore.

Those familiar with Bioshock’s gameplay will feel right at home. For those who aren’t: you’re equipped with an array of upgradable weapons and abilities. These abilities are fantastic in nature and come in the form of power giving drinks called vigour, which can be combined with weapons in unique ways during battle.

The way Infinite updates the previous two Bioshock’s combat makes this edition of the franchise stand out. Everything in Columbia feels fucked all to hell in a way that breathes new life into the stale, war-torn environments that usually plague first-person shooters. The events that take place when you are exploring the flying city blow everything the original game had out the water. Infinite uses its floating setting to its advantage by giving the player opportunities to hurtle all over the terrain in search of the best way to take out your enemy.

The biggest addition to the new game comes in the form of the much-talked-about Elizabeth, the player’s near-constant companion. She is one of the most well-realized characters in video game history and certainly sets a high standard for future games.

Elizabeth always feels like she is there experiencing the game with you. Although initially she seems like the damsel in distress, it becomes clear she is your partner. When you’re exploring, she grabs things for you and brings items of interest to your attention. A character this well-developed feels so real at times that it’s almost scary.

One of Elizabeth’s primary character traits, which is key to showing a lot of the disturbances within Columbia, is her ability to activate rifts — seams in space that open like a window into another world. These add to the chaos of not only the story but also the conflicts, since what’s behind these rifts is highly unpredictable.

Infinite takes the slower pace of the original and scraps it, adding endless opportunities in combat to the point of overwhelming the player. The amount of options available to take enemies out is staggering and can lead to indecisiveness while fighting. I’m always worried that I might be missing out on some exciting possibility I haven’t considered yet.

Bioshock Infinite is an incredible thrill ride of a game that transcends expectations and contains some of the most memorable environments and characters to date. It needs to be experienced firsthand to be believed.

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Photo: Photo: JBLivin/Flickr