Bioshock Infinite - the $200 million 6 hour literally on rails interactive movie with guns thread

[Gelbvieh]

Initial impressions (not even past the intro part):

• Also, who wants to bet that Elizabeth ends up being sacrificed in some sort of plot by Comstock to wipe out the sin on the surface world (as seen in that invasion over New York dream sequence), effectively becoming a Jesus Christ figure? Seriously, if that's it I'm gonna laugh my ass off, the amount of foreshadowing and allusion is laid on so heavy that I can see it already. Bonus points if she gets crucified at the end of the game. If this is their big twist, their "games are art" meaningful story then they really must think their entire audience is moronic. And Ken Levine is a hack of George Lucas proportions.

It's not that.

 

[Metro]

It's infinitely worse.

 

[Gelbvieh]

Don't read back through the thread, pretty sure someone spoiled it already.

Someone spoiled it infi- nevermind
Since you were wrong, the possibilities for other endings are now infinite!

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Art assets: the video game is my thought so far.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Just tell me this:

Is the game's equivalent of the whole 'Will you kindly' thing from Bioshock NOT just a ripoff of FEAR (or some other game this time round)?

 

[aris]

Just finished the game. Definitely overall the best AAA-FPS since HL2. Ending is good, and ties pretty much everything together that hasn't been tied together yet.

Mouse lag is horrendous.

turn off mouse acceleration.

• Serious, serious Half-Life 2 flashbacks going on here. It's literally just Valve's playbook copy-pasted into a different setting.

agreed

Spoiler

I didn't quite understand just what the debt that he was supposed to wipe away though... for his actions in the war?

 

[Gelbvieh]

Just tell me this:

Is the game's equivalent of the whole 'Will you kindly' thing from Bioshock NOT just a ripoff of FEAR (or some other game this time round)?

do you mean

Spoiler

the 'creating his own memories' part?

If it's that, that's just fairly standard for the genre (pretty sure I've read similar stories a few times).

I'm disappointed the game doesn't 'say' more. BS1 had the imo excellent meta-twist where you thought you were playing the game, but actually the game was just making you play it. If there's anything similar in BSI, it's

Spoiler

"there's always a man and there's always a city" which I took (if anything) as Ken Levine admitting that yes, he is indeed only capable of making one game.

 

[Jaesun]

It's like a bunch of Take2 Alts are trying desperately to make this sound like the greatest game EVAR.

Await more actual codex opinions....

 

[Azrael the cat]

Or, I don't know, show - don't tell? But that would require some actual storytelling talent.

Some serious fucking talent, you mean. Telling a reasonably complex story without text (no logs) or dialogue (no survivors to talk to) is hella hard, not just a matter of "show, don't tell".

edit: type slower plz

Which does make me respect that aspect of HL2. For all its flaws, they nailed environmental storytelling. I'd back them to do about 60% of the info in Rapture's audiotapes through visual cues, messages on walls, etc. which wouldn't eliminate the need for audiologs, but would cut the number back quite a lot.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Really, the only good time travel stories I've read kept the actual time travel relatively simple and straight-forward (i.e. The City on the Edge of Forever, and even that runs into fairly basic plot holes almost immediately). Try and make it too complex and you'll immediately start running into problems, inconsistencies, and other assorted issues.

In all seriousness, if you want a time-travel film that takes into account (and is largely based around) all the possible holes and inconsistencies of time-travel stories? Watch Primer.

Seriously. Get the fuck off the Codex and watch Primer.

Now.

(it's the one film where I won't call you a retard if you have to end up looking up the wikipedia page to work out what the fuck has happened....every time someone goes back, it can change what's happened, which means that what you've alread seen has already been changed, which means that when someone goes back....etc. No that isn't a spoiler, I'm just saying that they take all that stuff into account. And more, lots more...)

 

[Sranchammer]

Metal Gear Solid 5 has already relegated this to #2 All-Time. What a trailer!

 

[agentorange]

Really, the only good time travel stories I've read kept the actual time travel relatively simple and straight-forward (i.e. The City on the Edge of Forever, and even that runs into fairly basic plot holes almost immediately). Try and make it too complex and you'll immediately start running into problems, inconsistencies, and other assorted issues.

In all seriousness, if you want a time-travel film that takes into account (and is largely based around) all the possible holes and inconsistencies of time-travel stories? Watch Primer.

Seriously. Get the fuck off the Codex and watch Primer.

Now.

(it's the one film where I won't call you a retard if you have to end up looking up the wikipedia page to work out what the fuck has happened....every time someone goes back, it can change what's happened, which means that what you've alread seen has already been changed, which means that when someone goes back....etc. No that isn't a spoiler, I'm just saying that they take all that stuff into account. And more, lots more...)

Primer doesn't really do that though. It just takes a less fantastic view of time travel, an almost documentary approach, and let's the time travel be as confusing as it really would be if it were to exist in reality. It certainly doesn't wrap up all the loose ends it creates and it's still fucking ridiculous at points.

Edit: Actually, re-reading what you wrote, I think I just rephrased what you said?

 

[DalekFlay]

Highest possible FOV still feels really small, like 75 or so. Blech.

It's 85 actually, and you can make it higher in the ini file. Though honestly like most modern games the assets and framing are so designed for the default FOV anything above that looks weird and fisheye to me.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Seriously, if that's it I'm gonna laugh my ass off

It's not.

And everyone's a religious nut due to both choice by Comstock on who he brought up, and the fact that he is actually prophesying things that come true which reinforces their nuttiness.

@Multi-headed Cow Can I assume you are a person that has played classic FPS like say Hal-Life, Unreal, DOOM etc....?

God yes. Played HL1 and both expansions, Unreal, Doom 1 and 2, RotT, Duke3D, Blood, Shadow Warrior, NOLF, Catacomb (Of some flavor, honestly can't recall which one), Heretic, Hexen, AVP, RTCW, Wolfenstein, Blake Stone Aliens of Gold, System Shocks 1 and 2, Quake 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, Unreal Tournament, Unreal 2 (God help me), SWAT 4, Wheel of Time, etc etc etc. I mostly ignored CRPGs for years, but while I was ignoring CRPGs I was playing a lot of shooters and platformers. Even though I've played an absolute assload of shooters and still think Doom 1 and 2 are the best of the lot I'm getting a kick out of it, but I'm mostly easygoing when it comes to shooters.

 

[DalekFlay]

The idea of enjoying Bioshock: Infinite meaning your experience with Doom is in question is typical Codexian masturbation. The simple fact is a lot of people have gradient enjoyment scales. We can think Doom 2, NOLF, FEAR and whatever other PC-focused shooters are better yet still enjoy modern ports like Bioshock. Not every movie I watch is as good as Blade Runner but hey, Looper was fun for 2 hours.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Looper WAS pretty fun!

 

[MicoSelva]

AtomicGamer 03/27/13 10 out of 10 100.00%
Gameplanet 03/26/13 10 out of 10 100.00%
Giant Bomb 03/25/13 5 out of 5 100.00%
The Escapist 03/25/13 5 out of 5 100.00%
Polygon 03/25/13 10 out of 10 100.00%
Joystiq 03/25/13 5 out of 5 100.00%
GamesRadar 03/25/13 5 out of 5 100.00%
gamesTM 03/25/13 10 out of 10 100.00%
Game Informer 03/25/13 10 out of 10 100.00%
Eurogamer 03/25/13 10 out of 10 100.00%
Destructoid 03/25/13 10 out of 10 100.00%
AusGamers 03/25/13 10 out of 10 100.00%
NZGamer 03/25/13 9.5 out of 10 95.00%
GameTrailers 03/25/13 9.4 out of 10 94.00%
PC Gamer 03/25/13 91 out of 100 91.00%
Edge Magazine UK 03/25/13 9 out of 10 90.00%
GameSpot 03/25/13 9 out of 10 90.00%
GamesBeat 03/25/13 89 out of 100 89.00%
VideoGamer 03/25/13 8 out of 10 80.00%

Marketing budget is indeed high in this one.
2K Games shock troopers are already storming VideoGamer HQ .

 

[Zed]

How can anyone think this is better than Dishonored?
In any way?

 

[Jick Magger]

I don't enjoy anything, so there's that.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

How can anyone think this is better than Dishonored?
In any way?

Well, Dishonored is ridiculously easy and Bioshock Infinite isn't, for one. I played Dishonored on hard and did it nonlethal, and even the few times I decided to mess around and charge a room full of guards and fight them I'd win pretty easily with no combat upgrades whatsoever. Even without stealth you could just slaughter everyone with impunity. Killing things in Bioshock requires more effort in 1999. Still not too ridiculous but a damn sight better than Dishonored.

Bioshock's also a prettier game. Dishonored's not too bad, but you get big muddy textures more often and stylistically I prefer Bioshock as well. To be fair I believe Bioshock's running a newer version of Unreal engine so it may have an edge from that.

Bioshock's story is better. "Oh man I hate poor people, I'll kill them with a plague. Whoops, now the queen is about to find out, I better kill her and take over. Now I'm regent and I can kill all the poor people with rats I want to! Good heavens the rats are overrunning the city! I REGRET NOTHING!" is pretty goddamn shit. You can definitely argue that Infinite's story is pretentious time jumping wankery but I would have a hard time believing you'd think Dishonored's was better.

Level design is less linear in Dishonored, so it has that. It's not particularly important since you're a god walking around and can just charge the front gate with ease, but it's there.

Setting is more interesting in Bioshock. Dishonored's setting was alright but they didn't pay terribly much attention to it. Sorta like the City in the Thief series it's just there and not really explained or really fleshed out in detail. Columbia's (Mostly) explained in game.

Come at me bro.

 

[abija]

you are officially FULL OF SHIT! HOW THE FUCK do you beat the last wave in the good time club, where you at first have to fight against two turret missiles, and one walking turret missile with infinite health and then two FUCKING BALLON TURRETS at the same time as you lower the health of the walking missile turret, killing you in ONE second if you expose yourself to fire, which you will because it is impossible to find cover fucking ANYWHERE. Seriously, show me how you beat this "ridiculously easily", upload a fucking video. Or you will be forever known as a twatty liar. I've user 10 lives and have had to reload 4 times by now, doing the entire fucking longass fight over and over again, and I am FUCKING PISSED

The fuck were you on when you wrote this? Ignoring the fact that you can trivialize the fight with the control spell, how can you find no cover in that room?
Also, you fight that exact combo (with random soldiers instead of the static turrets) just a bit before on the docks without a stash of medkits laying around.

 

[Zed]

Multi-headed Cow
XTION in Infinite: All magic works like this: Left click to shoot, Hold to plant mine. Give it ~4-5 variations and that' all the spells in Infinite besides the "turn robot" ability. The guns lack impact.
XTION in Dishonored: The abilities are overpowered but varied. Guns have more of an omph when shooting.

Setting in Infinite: boring supermario cloud world. looks the same everywhere. can't interact with the populace, feels fake and rigid. loot = gold and ammo.
Setting in Dishonored: victorian steampunk. seafronts, sewers, mansions, rooftops. also little interaction with NPCs but more so than Infinite. loot = all sorts of things.

Structure in Infinite: follow the arrow, shoot hp-bloated badguys. tons of cinematics interrupting the game.
Structure in Dishonored: mission objectives, choose between at least 2 ways to approach. more variety in gameplay. few cinematics interrupting the game.

Sound in Infinite: some of the worst I've heard. the positional audio is very bad -- I could do better. just listen to the sounds from the bands playing in the city (all sounds from one source).
Sound in Dishonored: not fantastic, but much better positional audio. sound actually a part of gameplay.

Graphics in Infinite: hidden behind tons of flares and layers of spectacular lightning are relatively unimpressive graphics. just looks at booker's hands, or any character model.
Graphics in Dishonored: about the same as infinite, but less rendering bullshit trying to cover up stuff.

Story in Infinite: one singular storyline. I haven't finished it and I won't be able to for at least a week, but from what I've seen from ~4 hours, it's pretty straight-forward with an incoming predictable twist. non-reactive world.
Story in Dishonored: layered, with many missions taking on new concepts and side-stories. reactive world.

Bioshock Infinite: 6/10
Dishonored: 7/10

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Wrongness

But everything you said was wrong! WRONG! Even using a out of 10 scale instead of out of 5 is wrong! How can one man be so wrong, Zed!?

 

[Ulminati]

Wrongness

But everything you said was wrong! WRONG! Even using a out of 10 scale instead of out of 5 is wrong! How can one man be so wrong, Zed!?

Sweden.

 

[MapMan]

Let's do another Codex top RPG's list Jaesun. Based on the comments in this thread looks like this is the best RPG since mass effect 3 and will easily reach top 10! r00fles!

 

[Zed]

Wrongness

But everything you said was wrong! WRONG! Even using a out of 10 scale instead of out of 5 is wrong! How can one man be so wrong, Zed!?

r00fles.
you can't handle the truth?

Sweden.

r00fles.
go make some potato pizza so you can speak proper dough-in-mouth danish while you play LoL with the other zynga fanboys.

r00fles I just keep on delivering cold hard-to-handle truths.