In which we meet old friends, older friends and the plot twist.

We move around the Rapture on Ice-hall, and Elisabeth starts nagging. We better remember why we’re here and stop looking around. This is ridiculous. I know what I have to do, but there’s loot lying around. Ammunition I badly need.
We stand before the cabinet containing the Old Man Winter. We open it. It is empty. Of course it is empty. But Elisabeth can help us: she opens a tear, puzzling DeWitt, with a brand new bottle behind it. Let’s have a drink and shoot our way back downstairs.
No, we cannot just jump over the balcony to get down, we’re just getting placed back onto the upper floor. We don’t even get a death animation. This might make sense when stepping off a ledge in Columbia, but here they could just have let me hit the ground. So, more shooty times. Nothing of interest.
Wait. Something of interest. We’re shooting at splicers here. Fontaine’s people, driven mad by ADAM, and usually attacking on sight. Fighting them feels better – for me – than fighting the Founders at the beginning of Infinite. They’re not just a foe for the sake of the story, as they would attack most strangers coming down here.
We also get to open tears from the moment Elisabeth gives us access to Old Man Winter. Interestingly, we can summon mechanized patriots in Rapture, outside the Rapture on Ice-hall in the form of a samurai. I have no idea why, but due to the inherent awesomeness of samurai, I don’t even care.We shoot our way back, freeze the water, get into the tram and move over to the housewares department.
Upon our arrival, we see a girl climbing into a ventilation shaft, harassed by several splicer. After finishing them off, we take a closer look at the vent. Elisabeth grabs a conveniently placed map of the store’s ventilation system and informs us that there are six points of entry in the area. Five after closing the one in front of us. We want Sally? Easy: we seal every entry, turn up the heat and flush her out of the main vent, because what could possibly go wrong.
We move through the stores, thinning out the local splicer population and closing vents. And we find some more audiologs: Suchong talking about the tears, and a mother’s fear of loosing her child due to her inattentiveness. Her doctor prescribes her a plasmid. Mommy’s Little Helper. I don’t even want to know how many references I don’t get in this game.
On our way we pass a bridal store with a turret and some splicers before it, discussing that “he” is inside and that they’re not sure their fortifications will hold. I first thought that someone or something would be in the store, but I missed the obvious.After closing all the vents, we move to the toy store. The last exit and the maintenance room with the heater control are here. There’s also a tear revealing a MECHA-WASHINGTON!, and seriously, what? Why? How? Is there a Columbia-version of Rapture, where the founding fathers are worshipped? Or why is this here? If the official answer is “because MECHA-EFFIN’-WASHINGTON”, okay. If it isn’t, it better be good.

No one is coming out of the vent, so we have to turn up the heat. Elisabeth wont shut up about it until we’re in the maintenance room, and she even offers us to do it herself if we wont do it. I would have, but the game says that DeWitt doesn’t – Elisabeth turns the heat up to over 100 degrees, so I’m pretty sure this is in Celsius. I would expect nothing else from the scientific culture of Rapture.With the heat up, we run back towards the vent where a small girl struggles to get out. Booker wants to help her, but when he grabs her and pulls her out, we look into the shining eyes of a Little Sister. A Little Sister who really doesn’t want to be dragged out of the vent by DeWitt. A Little Sister calling for Mr. Bubbles… We have to fight the Big Daddy, and I’m really happy to have Mr. Washington and his good friend Sir Crankgun with me. And yes, he is shooting his drill at us.
When we’re finished with Mr. Bubbles, we try once more to get Sally out of the vent, but she still isn’t cooperating, even as we try to get her out using the head of her puppet. Then the flashback sets in:
Comstock is trying to kidnap Anna DeWitt, but this time, something goes very, very wrong. Instead of losing the tip of her finger, Anna get’s beheaded by to closing tear. Comstock can’t cope with it and asks the Lutece siblings to find him a place where he can forget. Comstock shaves his beard, tattooes AD on the back of his hand (where Protagonist DeWitt had the scar) and opens his office in Rapture,
Comstock, according to Elisabeth, never took responsibility for his actions and always looked for another life to own. Comstock says he’s sorry, but she doesn’t believe him – but he’s about to be.
Mr. Bubbles rams his drill through Comstock.
End of Episode 1. This was enjoyable. This was GREAT! This did so many things so right. And everyone recommends Ep.2, so let’s get to work.