On April 01 2013 23:53 heishe wrote: The game has things to say about religion, racism, nationalism, the human nature of choices and the resulting troubles that plague us sometimes for the rest of our lives (I know I've had one of those before, probably not different for you), and other things.
The problem is that these things are too in your face, to the point where everything becomes ridiculous and overly-exaggerated (the cheesiest scene that makes me facepalm comes to mind: a woman, looking at a huge statue of Comstock, says to someone something along the lines: "Do you think this does justice to Father Comstock? I don't think it's a match for his divinity!") . Not to mention the fact that if you pay attention, the themes are only touched on at a shallow level, sort of like: "Oh, look at this, racism and religous extremism is bad!". To me it seems like the game doesn't really have anything to say so it just chooses the easiest way of making it look meaningful: point some general flaws that many societies have, exaggerate them a great deal so everyone spots them and goes like: "oh, this game is so smart!" and then add one of the go-to narrative choices to make the story complicated enough that it covers its intrinsic lack of essence: parallel universes. Add the general cliches that go with it and you can call it done.
The sad part is that this is enough for the game to be revered due to the low standards set by AAA games story-wise. The story lacks depth, the dialogues are forgettable at best, cheesy at worst, all it has going for it is a carefully crafted environment, which still shoves the game's simplistic messages down your throat perhaps too often. I can't believe this is seen as some kind of an example of what games should be narrative-wise. I'd recommend Planescape: Torment or the best game I have ever played when it comes to story, Pathologic if you want to see just how much better game stories can be. Bioshock only seems like a Hollywood blockbuster if you compare it to games like those.
If the takeaway is religion and extremism in the form of racism, then you missed the point of the game. This is meant to be shallow, since racism and religious extremism are shallow. The meat of the story comes in the relationship with Elizabeth and the revelations as the game moves forward.
The point is the way the game criticizes those is shallow, not how those things are themselves. I don't consider simply pointing to a problem in a simplistic way makes your work deep, otherwise anyone could do it. And I only brought racism and religion up as a response to a statement that made it seem the game touches upon these aspects on a higher level. Regarding Elizabeth's story, I was disappointed as well. To say it in a few words, I felt it was too far-fetched and filled with cliches at certain times, to the point where I didn't even care about the final twist. With that being said, my general experience with the game as a whole was positive but I didn't see it as much more than a decent shooter trying to excel with its story but not succeding. I just don't understand why it is hyped so much.
Man I just finished this game today and it left me emotionally crippled, kinda funny because I wasn't in the game's world more than 10 hours. The game was amazing to me, and I feel so sad that it's over. I don't think I'm going to want to play other games in a while because this one set the bar into the stratosphere.
I hope there will be some DLC content updates to fill the void that this game left. Or perhaps I'll have to try out the previous Bioshock games.
first bioshock was far better, combat was more fun and the story was better. I felt like the entire middle of infinite was just a filler with boring combat (i played on hard if that means anything). For how hyped the game was i was expecting it to be ALOT more enjoyable. It was a decent game but defiantly doesn't deserve a 10, id give it a 7.
On March 30 2013 15:41 motbob wrote: Someone said earlier in the thread that the combat system was shallow, and I don't understand that perspective. I got through the entire game not really using vigors at all, but instead feeling out the benefits and drawbacks of each weapon. Spamming Possession after getting the upgrade seems like it would be a simple way to brute force 1999 mode, but I dunno. I don't have any desire to find out; the next time I'm gonna play the game is in five years when my computer is powerful enough to run everything on high at 60 fps.
I have such huge respect for the way the story was constructed. One bit that stuck out to me was the middle of the game, where tears start being used more often and once you're done messing with them, the whole city has gone to shit. The writers had to find a way to realistically bring the city from one state to another in a rapid but believable way. It used existing story elements to achieve that goal. It didn't really have to pull anything out of its ass, the way HL2 did in solving the same problem in a similar fashion.
The best twists are those where you feel like they should have been obvious all along. It's hard for a movie to do that; you can probably count the movies that have had truly great twists on your hands. And video games historically haven't tried, but when they have tried they've been awful at it. The only exception I can think of is Bioshock 1. And now this game.
Everything matters in this game, story-wise. I could go scene by scene. The Hall of Heroes stage is critical for establishing Booker's past mistakes, which is a big part of what makes the ending work. Yet, the level does so much more than fill that purpose. We get plenty of world-building, the most awe-inspiring areas of the game (IMO, anyway, especially the final Boxer room), and that wonderful choice at the end, a truly moral choice, so rare in video games.
Over the first few hours, I was annoyed at a lot of little things in the game. I couldn't interact with this or that item; there was an invisible wall where there really didn't need to be one; the lettering used in the little movie boxes looked like a computer font and not something that would be used in 1912. But after a few hours, all my complaints melted away. I can stop playing single player games now. I've played the best there ever could be.
10/10
Completely and utterly agree.
What is the choise you talk about at the end?
Edit: This game will be the first single player game where I acutally cannot wait to play it throw again to get and understand all those little references the dialog and history which you will only understand once you know the entire story. I'm just so impressed with this game I now have a void, which I previously only have experienced with a few of the best books I've read.
I decided to ignore all of the hype (trailers etc...) other than the opening trailer, obviously, and was blown away by the character work, the games ability to portray emotions and thus impact me on an emotional level, as well as the entire narrative and product as a whole. One thing i found interesting the the amount of so-called revelations at the end. It was almost as if they wanted them to happen at a speed that would prevent the player from directly predict what was going to happen, as in a video game, unlike in a book, you are not going to pause in the most important section to stop and think. It felt very similar to bioshock, but had more organic, natural feeling shooting as well as the other mechanics. This is what a story driven first person shooter should strive for in the future.
I appreciate where some peoples complaints are coming from, the combat wasn't anything brilliant. Certainly it wasn't bad but from some of the things I read I was expecting half life-esque gameplay.
A day ago I would have thought this to be a somewhat damning critique of a first person shooter yet pretty much every other aspect of this game is, I feel, so sublime that it essentially ceases to matter.
I cant remember the last time I enjoyed a single player game this much.
I just finished the game. I really liked the ending, but it could've been a bit more clear what happened. I wasn't sure on some important details until I actually looked them up -_-.
The story overall was really really interesting. It stretched a lot of things, but it was still a blast just to move through it.
I loved EVERYTHING about the game's art design. Columbia is absolutely incredible. The attention to detail and execution of the idea overall was just spectacular. I'm so glad this game came out just because of how fun it was to just move through the game. I explored EVERY place I possibly could in this game.
The gameplay itself was eh. I'm not sure there was a difference between using ironsights and not, but I didn't use them for more than 90% of the game either way. Regardless, the combat was basically like the first Bioshock, but with the Halo rechargeable shield and the option to use ironsights (again, I don't think they actually increased accuracy, which is nice).
The enemies consist of the same variety you see in any other shooter. The one thing that did annoy me is that their difficulty went up simply by increasing their hit points. The harder enemies were only marginally more dangerous than the weaker ones, but took many, many more shots to take down.
I don't see why people didn't like Elizabeth as a combat mechanic, calling it "easy mode" or whatever. She literally does nothing. The hp, salts (mana), and ammo she gives you is stuff that's already there. If you kill someone and he drops ammo, at some point she'll pick that up and throw it to you. She doesn't generate it out of thin air and keep you supplied (this is on hard. It may be different in normal and easy). If there's nothing left in the area you're in, you're out of luck, and she's completely useless.
That's kind of another annoying part. She's a complete non-issue at all in combat. Enemies ignore her, and she just runs in circles around you as you fight. Aside from picking up stuff and tossing them to you on occasion, she does NOTHING. I think it wouldve been interesting for there to be some more mechanics and deeper interaction there, but oh well. At least she wasn't annoying and didn't get in the way. That would've crippled the game.
Anyway, I really liked the game, and I'm going to be thinking about it a lot for a while. I really hope we see more games in the future on this level. They're too few and far between.
Towards the end of the game, after Elizabeth gets recaptured by songbird and you're trying to free her. You meet the dudes with horns and masks for heads. The scary moment is here (also the best reaction I found on youtube):
My own reaction was to fire an entire clip into it and shout FUCK FUCK MOTHERFUCK FUCK at 2am.
Oh gotcha. Hahaha for some reason I thought it was pretty surprising but it didn't get that big of a reaction out of me. At the time, I didn't think that others would really feel particularly surprised/scared or anything for some reason =P
Towards the end of the game, after Elizabeth gets recaptured by songbird and you're trying to free her. You meet the dudes with horns and masks for heads. The scary moment is here (also the best reaction I found on youtube):
My own reaction was to fire an entire clip into it and shout FUCK FUCK MOTHERFUCK FUCK at 2am.
Oh gotcha. Hahaha for some reason I thought it was pretty surprising but it didn't get that big of a reaction out of me. At the time, I didn't think that others would really feel particularly surprised/scared or anything for some reason =P
Hehe that's a throwback to a bioshock 1 moment . I was actually wondering when they would do something like that during my playthrough.
The middle part (getting guns for Daisy) was a bad filler arc but I liked the game overall. It’s sad that they mishandled the time travel (well, people almost never get it right). It definitely grabbed me and I’m glad they didn’t make it hyper-complicated just to seem intellectual but as I said, the conclusion was very much ad hoc.
On April 02 2013 10:24 Zax19 wrote: The middle part (getting guns for Daisy) was a bad filler arc but I liked the game overall. It’s sad that they mishandled the time travel (well, people almost never get it right). It definitely grabbed me and I’m glad they didn’t make it hyper-complicated just to seem intellectual but as I said, the conclusion was very much ad hoc.
definitely agreeing with the ending, it just didn't fit the game. granted the other endings from the other bioshock games were just as out-of-the-blue, i feel infinite's ending was just way too disconnected from what happened during the game.
indeed it was these certain parts of the story that really detract from the overall experience whence you finish the game. if i were to score it, an 8.5/10, -1 for some unneeded long and boring parts of the game, -.5 for the ending.
Didn't we learn in the original Bioshock that only Ryan family members could use the bathyspheres? How could DeWitt and Elizabeth use them unless they were related?
Didn't we learn in the original Bioshock that only Ryan family members could use the bathyspheres? How could DeWitt and Elizabeth use them unless they were related?
Didn't we learn in the original Bioshock that only Ryan family members could use the bathyspheres? How could DeWitt and Elizabeth use them unless they were related?
Didn't we learn in the original Bioshock that only Ryan family members could use the bathyspheres? How could DeWitt and Elizabeth use them unless they were related?
Or am I reading into this too much?
They couldn't be used cause of a Lockout during/after the civil war, a war that may not have taken place in that dimension or played out differently, or they could be related or the same people. so yeah dont think too much into it
Didn't we learn in the original Bioshock that only Ryan family members could use the bathyspheres? How could DeWitt and Elizabeth use them unless they were related?
Booker is the 1 man like how Jack is the 1 man in BioShock. how Booker is related to Jack/Ryan, who knows but can just assume his genetic make up is close enough.
BioShock took place in 1960. Infinite takes place in 1912.
Didn't we learn in the original Bioshock that only Ryan family members could use the bathyspheres? How could DeWitt and Elizabeth use them unless they were related?
Didn't we learn in the original Bioshock that only Ryan family members could use the bathyspheres? How could DeWitt and Elizabeth use them unless they were related?
On March 30 2013 15:41 motbob wrote: The best twists are those where you feel like they should have been obvious all along. It's hard for a movie to do that; you can probably count the movies that have had truly great twists on your hands. And video games historically haven't tried, but when they have tried they've been awful at it. The only exception I can think of is Bioshock 1. And now this game.
EPT
