Bioshock Infinite

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Originally Posted by Joust Williams

It is GOTY so far though.

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Its not even game of the year so far, let alone of this generation like some claim.

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Originally Posted by The Gas

I think that's kinda the point. As "would you kindly" was Bioshock's meta-comment on the form, the choices with only very minor consequences are Infinite's. Of course, just like the political commentary, it's way less central this time around; you could even argues it's just there because it's something a Bioshock game is expected to have.

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Thats the thing, you do not have choice in this game.

You just roll along with whatever happens next.

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Originally Posted by Almaci

Thats the thing, you do not have choice in this game.

You just roll along with whatever happens next.

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And that's part of the point of what the game is saying. What is hard about this?

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Originally Posted by Diff-chan

in 2 years everyone will say, "nah it had problems but was good overall."

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I'm ahead of the curve then!

I don't think I should have played 1999 mode. I had been on a media blackout from the very beginning so I had the mistaken assumption that Infinite would lean closer to System Shock 2 which works perfectly with limited resources and development decisions. ..but it's basically a corridor shooter with fucking pristine hallways so the ridicuous difficulty spikes and never-ending candy bar hunts only distracted me from the focused narrative and setting.

It's Bioshock 1 all over again; a good game that's disappointing when compared to System Shock 2. I expected more from Infinite after Human Revolution and Dishonored, though.

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Originally Posted by bbobb

And that's part of the point of what the game is saying. What is hard about this?

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Considering that in Bioshock the only choice was a beat-you-over-the-head of saving orphans or slaughtering them and raping the corpses, the entire concept of there not being a real choice in a corridor shooter was about as insightful as saying that about Doom. It's not like the game had multiple pathways which always culminated in the same thing, it was one path with one Bioware-style choice. So if a real decision is never offered to the player, how can you effectively say anything about the illusion of choice?

There were several occasions for choice. Throwing the baseball, the necklace, killing slade, stealing things or not. But none of them made a tangible difference on how the story unfolded. They were all variables, the story itself is a constant. Hence the illusion of choice when there never really was one

In fact infinite did a better job with the illusion of choice. In Bioshock your choices on the little sisters had a real effect in deciding the endings. In infinite no matter what choices you make it always ends up the same

I really wouldn't say either created an "illusion" very well. It was very clear that in Infinite your choices were just the traditional binary "choose A or B with the same outcome".

This isn't the Walking Dead we're talking about.

Mario 3's world map is commentary on fatalism. We can pick whatever stages we want, but we all end up at the airship.

Does stealing things truly alter the game? Do you then become a hunted criminal for the rest of the game or get access to different characters/pathways? Is it an actual choice or the usual videogame execution of an alarm goes off and then everything returns to normal in two minutes?

The choices have to drastically alter the way the game is played and/or be tough moral decisions or it just doesn't work. This isn't a movie, the entire point of games is that the player is interacting. If the point is to demonstrate that player actions are ultimately pointless then the player needs to be convinced that they are making a difference until that reveal, otherwise it's just a thinly veiled excuse for using generic videogame design philosophy.

Ultimately what I'm saying is that the story has some great ideas but has nothing to do with the game proper. It's disappointing because the story is a perfect chance to explore and bring to life a series of statements about the industry that could be done by using the medium in exactly what makes it different from being just writing or a video, but instead we have the standard execution of story which is totally separate from the standard execution of gameplay.

TLDR; what FB and ARBM said.