Postcard from E3 2011: Irrational Declares Grey the Color of Girly-Men

The way I figure it, there are are two major advantages to working at Irrational. One, you get to create great games like BioShock and BioShock Infinite; and two, you transform into a paragon of physical human perfection. Seriously, check it out sometime. Pretty much everyone who works at Irrational is some kind of golden god with crazy muscles and an affinity for tight shirts. Well, except the ladies, who go easy on the muscles but enjoy certain other traits that are handily highlighted by the aforementioned tight tees.

Even so, when Irrational boss Ken Levine stepped out on stage tonight at Sony's E3 press conference to talk about Infinite and the upcoming BioShock title for the Vita handheld, I wasn't admiring his Adonis-like beauty. I was far too busy gaping over the gorgeousness of his game. BioShock Infinite isn't the most beautiful or technically impressive game I've ever seen, no doubt about it. What it is, however, is one of the boldest and brightest first-person shooters around.

In a genre dominated by muted greys and dreary earth tones, Infinite stands out by employing lots of bright, primary colors. Not in a garish way, merely a colorful one. The original BioShock was set beneath the ocean in the 1950s, and its art style reflected the nature of the city of Rapture with lots of muted blues and warm-but-dark brassy tones. Infinite is set at the turn of the 20th century high in the sky, so its visual palette is markedly different to reflect the change. It's canny design, but it's also a much-needed antidote to the grimy bleakness of the shooter genre.

One gets the impression that so many shooters feature nothing but grimy shades of dirt and concrete for fear that anything resembling actual color will seem too cartoonish. Too sissy. But I dare you to take one look at Levine's biceps and tell me that man is a wimp. Nope, real men aren't afraid of a little color saturation. From now on, my measure of a shooter's manliness will be to compare the game's graphics to its creator; if the creators' real-life palette is more colorful than the game's fantasy palette, you can be pretty sure they're trying too hard to impress you. Don't settle for grey. Demand some macho, bright primary colors in your shooters!