Personally, I think the gunplay in Infinite is solid. I have other criticisms about the weapons.
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Personally, I think the gunplay in Infinite is solid. I have other criticisms about the weapons.
I should have clarified: I was talking more about level design than player abilities.Quote:
Originally Posted by sleeve
I love immersive sims and almost no one is making games like that.
Ehhhh...I'm kinda conflicted about the whole game. Played it, finished in two days, rings true of BioShock 1 in at least one regard - it's the best experience you'll ever play once. I find it hard to justify going back through since the actual playing part is a bit boring. If we're talking games-as-games, I think Bioshock 2 was the best, giving players large situations that they had to control, and plenty of tools to do so in unique and interesting ways.
As far as story goes...again, conflicted. And since I don't want a black wall of spoiler text, I'll just ruminate on it some more.
Some neat alternate game covers just released!
http://www.bioshockinfinite.com/media/#8f3XJePYPpo
Man, I think this game is Jesus, and I think everything sucks.
Y'all are hard to please.
This guy fucking nails it. Seriously, he completely nails it. I wish he didn't say "The thing about Bioshock Infinite is..." fifty times, but he's completely right, and it's very well said.Quote:
Originally Posted by FirstBlood
The trailer Almaci posted was the one that hyped me up for the game and it completely underdelivered. Bioshock 1 was better overall, I think. But Infinite was very good!
I'm glad that I didn't watch that video until now.
It's already cool not to like this game?
It's a good game. Just not a great one. What makes it a sin is it's obvious potential for greatness, but along the way it had the unfortunate problem of having to become a pretty standard videogame. I'm going to say something crazy, but I think it should have played like Bulletstorm.
It's important to be able to step back from something so great to identify its shortcomings.
I think that's true, just like finding out why something is so good is a better discussion than saying "it's great" and leaving it at that. Analysis leads to better appreciation of things.Quote:
Originally Posted by FirstBlood
OK, I await the analysis then.
Does that mean Nintendo games now require pontification beyond the "it's fun" defense?
Mario 3 buys a lot of 'fuck you'.
Yes, but 1990 was also a lot of years ago.
Don't you still go on about Konami like they still count?
Now? Hell no. They have to outsource to make a game I care about now. But they beat the living shit out of Nintendo on Nintendo's own hardware.
Contra 4 is magnificent, that's true.
Well, with me and Bioshock Infinite, I think the biggest issue is what it sets to do as a game is not as interesting or entertaining as other games that came before it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joust Williams
I like that it continues with powers/weapons as a means to come up with solutions on the fly to changing situations. Yet it limits itself in comparison to the past games by bolting you into very strict combat conditions. There's a lot of weapons, but you can only carry 2 at once. Elizabeth can create tears for better tactical advantages, but those are static factors that will always be what they are. I do like that they balance tears with a one-at-a-time limit, which means some choice is happening on which tears to use and when, but it falls short of the more open control Bioshock 2 had in a combat setting.
It's not that I don't think combat was without its moments. There were a few points where running down a street, gunning down a Vox, latching onto rail, and taking down another while opening a tear for air support that were exciting. However it wasn't the same feeling as Bioshock 2's tension in battle from start to finish.
Story-wise, I still don't want to say much, but I think a lot of what could be considered great has to be inferred by the player (which I think is a good thing), but the actual meat of what is implicitly said and done is kinda trite in its own way. That a man of some semblance of faith is an amoral monster, and leave it to the no-good vagrant to right that man's wrongs. Again, there's a lot of subtext that can be inferred or argued.
Such as how Elizabeth remarks that this has been done countless times. This made me believe that there could be an infinite number of realities where Booker takes a baptism and doesn't go whacko, but it's never specifically stated. Or an infinite number of realities where Booker never gives up Anna. Again, never stated. Yet the crux of the conflict is always Booker vs. Comstock, with the religious version of the man always cast as the racist monster.
Or that an audio log reveals that in one reality, Booker was an instigator for a revolution, pitting him in the seat of a remorseless antagonist, using the Vox so he can get to the tower. This coupled with the revelation that the Vox are just as ruthless as Comstock and his men at least sheds an overall narrative that there are no "right" sides in a conflict. Just people with self-interested motivations with the power to do something about it, and all the citizens who get caught in the middle. However the reveal that Booker would just as likely use and abuse people to get what he wants, God or no, is hidden away in an audio log that could be easy to miss.
Yet what's told implicitly to the player is that Booker is protagonist and the Prophet is the antagonist. While someone could infer that Comstock perverts religion and can't be a symbol for the team's outlook and condemnation of all religion (or Christianity specifically), that's something that a player would have to see by reading between the lines. Even then, that means anyone could take the story any number of ways (which is interesting), and that what they see isn't specifically what's intended by the authors. What's told directly is something that many game devs do in their stories. A religious man (and not even that religious, just using religion to gain control of power) is The Bad Guy, and the conventional bad guy is the good guy. Whether that fits your own worldview or not isn't something I would condem or condone, but it's not exactly a groundbreaking premise, in games or any medium really.
I think the other thing I have issue with, by no fault of the game though, is the culture of hardcore gamers that insist that story is better (if not more important) than anything else in a game. If a game has story they deem good, then a lot of mechanical issues, repetition, and other sticking points of a boring game are set aside and ignored so that the story can be praised. They will use Infinite as another marker of where games should be going, ignoring, oblivious, or willfully hiding its technical shortfalls.
Gamers will latch onto narrative as a beacon of what games ought to be, or true art in games, and it serves as a boon for those people to miss the point of gaming. As a medium, gaming offers a unique opportunity for player agency and in those moments, players begin to be their own story tellers. To me, there's a satisfaction in swapping Dark Souls stories, Minecraft mishaps, and other assorted gaming experiences that can't be replicated in reading a book or seeing a movie. Those things are, at least on the surface, something very static. It's up to the audience to search for subtext (if there is any) and engage one another about it. However games have the chance to create discussions, stories, and unique experiences for the individual on a ground-level, meaning that one person's experience of a game can be far different from another without reading between the lines to find it.
I like that idea, and when players latch onto something like Bioshock Infinite as the definition of gaming itself, it makes me think they're missing the point & pushes the medium in a direction that I'm not interested in. Now, that's not the game's fault specifically, and there's some stuff that makes the game interesting enough to experience at least once. Yet a great game by the nuts and bolts of it? Something remarkable, revolutionary & game-changing for the medium? Not so much. Not for me, anyway. It's a decent enough game with some interesting notions, combat that I liked less than 2, and am hard-pressed to go through again.
I actually think I could describe why I like the Nintendo games I do, in a way that encapsulates why it has the "it's fun" effect on me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
But knowing you, I could do all that and you'd still dismiss it, because you're already set in how you feel about it. Nor do I think that any game requires pontification. I do think that the more you analyze why you do or don't like things though, the deeper appreciation you can have for those convictions. If you share 'em, if others agree or disagree, that all adds another dimension of analysis. Not "required" though.
The problems with combat were that a)you have a shield and b)you have an open environment; which basically results in you to take the easy route of taking cover and making potshots; in Bioshock you had mostly confined corridors and fixed health so you had to get creative. In this game you're provided the tools for amazing combat but you NEVER have to use them, even skyline combat I found myself either slowing down and sniping or waiting for an enemy to zip past me so I can batter them into oblivion (it's stupid the button to Melee in the air is not the Melee button but to press the skyline button again).
But on second thought, wasn't this the whole trouble with combat in bioshock as well, you expected to create elaborate traps for big daddies with trip wires and stacked gas bottles, but in the end you just made them do the "electric buck dance" until they died.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hero
I don't think anyone is doing that. I agree with Astroblue.
Yeah, and I think that's why I liked Bioshock 2 over 1. There were a lot situations where they forced you to get creative. It was really hard to find one way to beat every fight and stick to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by AstroBlue
I hadn't thought about shields and the openness in Infinite, but it does explain a lot. I agree, the way encounters are handled, it's an easier thing to hide and take potshots than be crazy inventive, and that the restrictive environment if Rapture was a good thing for gameplay.
Kotaku has quite a few articles/readers commenting with a tone of "is this Game of the Year, Game of the Decade, or Best Game Ever" as if there really is a consensus that gamers believe this to be one of the greats, and just how it stacks up in the longview is the debatable part. The usual argument for that belief is tied to story and very rarely covers gameplay, or does so while excusing its shortfalls.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joust Williams
Bird or Cage?
Choose wisely knowing that your choice matters not at all.
It is GOTY so far though.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by Almaci
Maybe I'm just old and have seen everything, but I knew these articles and comments were coming months before release.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hero
In six months everybody will hate the game, in 2 years everyone will say, "nah it had problems but was good overall."
Actually the choices fit clearly into the games point that there are constants and there are variablesQuote:
Originally Posted by The Gas
Sure, but they're a very small part of making that point. You could take them out completely with no real impact as it is made so much more strongly elsewhere. Not to mention that point... isn't even the point. Bioshock was ABOUT Objectivism and the illusion of player agency in videogames; Infinite USES American exceptionalism, the illusion of choice in branching-path stories, and quantum physics sci-fi WTFery as backdrop elements in a story about personal regret and redemption.
That's not true though. Yes the story of the game is about personal regret and redemption but its a Bioshock game in name for a reason. It follows the same themes and one of them is the illusion of player choice. It doesn't matter what you do, what you choose it all still ends the same. The whole idea of constants and variables is a commentary on that exactly. You can play through a game any way you want, there's infinite numbers of ways to play (hence the name Bioshock infinite) but it doesn't matter, it all still ends the same.
Its not even game of the year so far, let alone of this generation like some claim.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joust Williams
Thats the thing, you do not have choice in this game.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gas
You just roll along with whatever happens next.
And that's part of the point of what the game is saying. What is hard about this?Quote:
Originally Posted by Almaci
I'm ahead of the curve then!Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
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.
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?Quote:
Originally Posted by bbobb
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.
Infinite doesn't do the illusion of choice because there is no illusion. It's obvious from the start these 'choices' are completely meaningless, and instead of being there to drive home the point of a larger narrative, they exist as vestigial remnants of Bioshock Infinite as it was originally planned and presented.
I knew almost nothing about this game when I started it up and I feel the same way.Quote:
Originally Posted by AaronChance
Has any game delivered what the Fables and Bioshocks promise better than Deus Ex 1?
I loved this game. probably my fave shooter this year(halo4 was boring).
The racism and classism of Columbia wasnt nearly as bad as i thought it would be. i mean it was there and pretty damn accurate to the way things where. but it wasnt has violent as it was. i mean, the couple in the raffle, they would have just been lynched. the only real issue i had was the lackluster gear, and the sorry excuse for upgrades your guns got. and the vigor upgrades were damn expensive to get. other than that, its awesome. I started calling Fitzroy, Peaches after the Nina Simone song.Wish they did more with her. And even though the vox was doing as bad if not worse shit than the fink and comstock people, i still wasnt as mad as them because i understood exactly where all that violence came from.Oppresion does that
No, Deus Ex is still the best ever.
Probably some Eurojank RPG that crashes every five minutes and has combat like The Witcher On Ice.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Robot Bit Me
Ed probably knows the title of a game actually just like that.
If you ask the teller for a ticket you get a bloody bandage on your hand for the rest of the game.Quote:
Originally Posted by bbobb
If I get this right you guys basically are claiming the game deliberately sucks and thats why it's so awesome.
It is linear and crap to make a point.
Got it, it's still shit though.
They're not wrong. The Lucetes are constantly making you make pointless choices to determine your outcome. You have gone through the game 122 times and died every time before this game takes place, according to the coin flip tally at the start of the game.
OK so its linear shit, thanks for confirming.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
Thanks for reading Bbobb's posts and attributing them to TNL as a whole even after we all responded to him saying that the game didn't do a very good job of conveying that idea.
God you're the worst.
It's linear shit that doesn't pretend to be anything but linear shit and tongue in cheek tells you "I'm linear shit". I don't get whats offensive about that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Almaci
Not sure which would be worse, the people that think it's the best game ever or the people that try (and fail hard) to prove how smart they are by calling certain things into question when it's obvious they don't know shit.
The fact that they first promised this incredible universe where your choices would determine what happened. This incredible universe where gameplay would be king.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
Your fault for getting fished in. It's a first person shooter for fucks sakeQuote:
Originally Posted by Almaci
The result of the coin flip is actually randomized each time you play. Try going through that section again, it might change.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
Judge it based on what it is, not what it isn't or what you had built up in your mind. It's a pretty amazing linear shooter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Almaci
No its not, Doom in its day was a pretty amazing linear shooter, the Half Life games are pretty amazing linear shooters with awesome narrative.
This is pretentious trite and the shooter mechanics/gameplay seriously suck.
Doom and Half-life are also two of the five best games ever made.
Bioshock's shooting mechanics are actually pretty good.
Half-Life 1 is good, HL2 is the most overrated game ever.
Nope. What booker calls is randomized. The coin flip always comes up heads. It's a constantQuote:
Originally Posted by bVork
And for the record I think the game is good, I think it does a better job with its themes and story then the other Bioshock games have. But at the same time I can definitely say its not GOTY either as the combat gets pretty monotonous
Why is the fact the game is linear a bad thing? How many non linear games actually end up being good games? 1 or 2? I mean seriously. A game being open world is 99% confirmation it's going to be shit. I don't get how "there's a clear path and story from beginning to end" is a bad thing. It's not like the game is linear to the point that you are on rails. There's exploration to be done if you want to
I don't think the ratio of bad to good is any different between the two, taking into account that there are 100x more linear games.Quote:
Originally Posted by bbobb
The linearity only disappoints me because Levine also led System Shock 2, and those kinds of games are a lot harder to come by than another action FPS.
Yeah. That's what I meant. Something got lost between brain and keyboard.Quote:
Originally Posted by bbobb
I knew it was going to be more like Bioshock because that one made money.Quote:
Originally Posted by epmode
Did people really think this game was going to be more than an iteration on Bioshock?
Levine made a few comments about how Bioshock was a gateway to more complex FPS design and implied that his next game would go in that direction. But that was shortly after Bioshock's release and I didn't read anything about Infinite once it was revealed.
I'm sure he had grand plans for this game, but instead spent six years figuring out how to Elizabeth work as a companion, which they ended up doing - so that's nice and kind of impressive I guess even though HL2 did the same thing a decade ago and if youmotherfuckerssayonebadthingaboutHL2againI'llfuckingmurdereverysinglelastoneofyouho wthefuckcanyounotlikethatfuckinggame
Do you believe everything that game designers say about their new games?
Have you played video games before?
Nothing matters until you see someone playing the game in real time.
We had this discussion a week ago. I forgot who was going completely apeshit over--oh, it was James. Never mind.
Not Almaci. I think I know why he's upset though.
^Pretty much this, as opposed to all the BioWare, Bethesda, Molyneux etc games that are just as linear shit while vocally pretending not to be.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by epmode
LOLQuote:
Originally Posted by epmode
How the fuck are BioWare or Bethesda games linear? Quest lines certainly are, but I'm not sure how you'd avoid that and have a coherent story.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Gas
Better yet, what is an example of a nonlinear game for you?
I think he's talking about how the big decisions* rarely have a significant effect on the game.
*Save the Rachni or let em die?
I just finished up 1999 mode and 1000/1000 this bastard. Difficulty was not bad at all since I kind of cheesed my way through it. Winter shield helps a lot. Jump on and off sky hooks/lines for limited invincibility = easy handyman fights. the first handyman got glitch stuck, the second just fell to his death and the others I just cheese dicked winter shield. The siren bitch I used the charge move with the gear that gives 50% damage after melee and the fire melee and she dropped in like 20 seconds each time. Also a leveled up charge gives more shield after attack I think. The only part I died more than twice was the battle at the end. Just exploit skylines again and use songbird on patriots helped a lot. Shield vigor helped to protect my ship, but it still took a few tries.
I used to think that it was me that had the bad taste in games but after reading all of you assholes shitting on Bioshock Infinite I now know that YOU motherfuckers are the ones with bad taste.
Bioshock Infinite was one of the best story-based games ever. I really enjoyed it.
Gotten over your distaste for using hyperbole, I see.
And most of us did too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Korly
Doesn't mean we should ignore its glaring flaws.
This is exactly what I did. It's basically infinite invulnerability. Game broken.Quote:
Originally Posted by SamuraiMoogle
I died I think twice in the whole game...until the last battle. Took me three or four tries. I didn't die, I let the thing explode. Took me a while to get the rhythm.
You must be some kind of FPS savant. I'm playing 1999 mode and I've died plenty of times. Plenty.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowutopia
I padded the reactor with Return to Sender shield blobs, invincible from bullets :)
With the Siren I used the Storm hat and dropped fire bombs on clusters of guys to cause massive damage to her while killing them, Blood to Salt to keep my salts up. Then I Charge melee'd whenever my shield was down to recharge it or I needed health from Vampire's Embrace.
Handymen I just used a combination of Shock Jockey stuns, Carbine/Handgun shots to the chest trying to hit heart, Charges when my shield was down; and lots of running backwards.
Sure, you can do the quests in whatever order you like, but they're always the same quests. Occasionally you can do the good thing or the bad thing, but you'll still end up killing the big bad guy and saving the world. Choices get you a different two-minute cutscene along the way and then never matter again, and the basic shape of the narrative is the same for everybody.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoshi
Dungeons and Dragons, GURPS, Rifts, Vampire: The Masquerade... but in videogames it's basically impossible.Quote:
Better yet, what is an example of a nonlinear game for you?
...
The Gas, ladies and gentlemen.
Robot George Washington and Robot Abe Lincoln......... with chain guns. GOTY for this alone.
Nah I just abused easily abusable game mechanics.Quote:
Originally Posted by sleeve
Rented this from Redbox for a couple of days.
It feels exactly like Bioshock but with less to do, a worse location and worse characters.
Kind of got bored with it and stopped playing. I'll probably pick it up sub-$20 someday.
Just check out the ending on youtube. You won't have missed anything but way too much combat.
I really like the setting so I'm not sure what Mzo's on about. I guess it's technically less interesting than Rapture but it's still a billion times better than what we get in virtually all big games.
It feels like they wasted the setting on a mostly linear FPS though.
Most of the interesting bits about the setting are up front anyway. The rest often feels like dressed up combat arenas.
The best parts are before you get your guns and plasmids vigors, the stretch where you can't use them, and when you're done using them. :-/
Columbia > Rapture
Fuck water
Columbia is a surprisingly dull place for a floating city. The skyrails are neat, but they don't play into the gameplay nearly as much as I expected. Sure, you can shoot enemies, but you have to slow down to do any real damage, and that means you'll just get pelted. While handimen can shock you right off of it. Otherwise, it might as well be Call of Duty with airships in place of helicopters and UAVs.
The reveal of Columbia was nowhere near as cool as the Rapture reveal. The jump from exploration to mass homicide is so instant and jarring, Darmonde and I were both like "what the fuck just happened?"Quote:
Originally Posted by epmode
I'm just gonna assume they're pulling an MGS2 by making the game so similar to Bioshock. I kind of hope all the things that I think are dumb are somehow part of a really clever plot reveal later, but who knows. It got boring pretty fast.
Also regenerating shields and only two guns, fuck you so much. I can't wait until we leave that shitty fad behind.
The best bits of Bioshock Infinite are all at the very end and the very beginning. The middle is kind of a meh shooter.
Even though I agree, I *really* like the "Ascention... Ascention... Hallelujah" part.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mzo
Yep! That's what I'm talking about when I whine about it being a shooter. I think the presence of so many harmless NPCs has a lot to do with this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mzo
Once you get over it, the story picks up towards the end.