BioShock Infinite Washington Motorized Patriot

When we first gazed upon BioShock Infinite in an epic gameplay trailer from Irrational Games, our first sight wasn't of a horde of enemies getting swept away by a racking fireball, a bell tower collapsing at our feet, or a panorama of Columbia's stunning skyline. No, that came later.

One of our first glimpses of BioShock Infinite, rather, was a painted wall mural depicting an idolized George Washington - a notice to the citizens of Columbia to always be on guard against the "foreign hordes." Little did we know it would mean crossing paths with our Founding Father himself - and that as a Stars-and-Stripes-winged, Gatling gun-wielding, mechanized "heavy hitter" more resembling of Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, he'd quickly become one of the most lethal enemies in the game.

Kicking off a new series of  BioShock Infinite developer diaries, Irrational Games creative director Ken Levine and the rest of the team explain how one of their focuses for Infinite's combat was to create deeper enemy variety (a need we noted in our BioShock 2 review). The result: the aforementioned heavy hitters that Booker and Elizabeth will cross paths with in the game - one of which is the petrifying porcelain-faced Motorized Patriot:

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According Levine's description in the video, this Washington doppelganger is, indeed, a "clockwork Terminator." Mocking death more than he mocks King George III's taxation policies, the Motorized Patriot acts in total disregard for his own well-being and relentlessly attacks his opponents with a Pepper-Mill Gatling gun. Booker can use the Gatling gun as a heavy weapon in the game - but only after prying it from the Patriot's dismantled robo-corpse.

We don't know all of his back story yet, but the Motorized Patriot was created as the embodiment of the Founders' (Columbia's Founders, that is) political and moral beliefs. We can't wait to see what other heavy hitters are out there for us to face; and even though Infinite's dynamic enemies were apparent to us during our E3 coverage of the game, it will be interesting to see how this twist factors into the war between the Founders and the Vox Populi.

Your move, Assassin's Creed III.

BioShock Infinite releases on October 16, 2012 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.

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