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OK, I await the analysis then.
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.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.
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.
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.
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