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

[Jick Magger]

I think the most disappointing thing about the game is that, judging from all the gameplay demos and trailers from 2011, combined with the rushed feeling of most of the last third of the game and introductions of gameplay mechanics that are either forgotten about (the whole sidequest system) or are essentially pointless (the tip to not go into every situation guns blazing, in the final game all the people in those area will go hostile anyway and your decision to pre-emptively shoot them down ultimately does not impact the story in any significant way), it feels as though I'm playing a great game that's been taken apart piece by piece and put back together and shipped as a popamole linear corridor shooter.

 

[DalekFlay]

it feels as though I'm playing a great game that's been taken apart piece by piece and put back together and shipped as a popamole linear corridor shooter.

It does feel roughly slapped together in a lot of ways. Flaw #438 that reviewers overlooked while they masturbated to the shiny pretties.

The Destructoid review actually used the term "almost perfect."

 

[Major_Blackhart]

The fact that it feels slapped together, not seamless in transition, with parts of gameplay wholly forgotten about later on, etc, only proves my point that Levine, with all that money and time, still sucked enough balls to ship what ultimately feels like an unfinished and lacking product.

 

[Gozma]

We prefer the colloquial terms of either guinea or dago, thank you very much.
Wops is an American term, meaning without papers.

DID YOU JUST FOLK ETYMOLOGY A BACKRONYM AT ME MOTHERFUCKER

 

[Dexter]

it feels as though I'm playing a great game that's been taken apart piece by piece and put back together and shipped as a popamole linear corridor shooter.

It does feel roughly slapped together in a lot of ways. Flaw #438 that reviewers overlooked while they masturbated to the shiny pretties.

The Destructoid review actually used the term "almost perfect."

They did write about it, there were many development troubles and the game lost a lot of its "lead designers" between 2011-2013:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/175574/Two_top_Bioshock_Infinite_team_members_leave_Irrational.php
http://ugrgaming.com/2012/10/17/layoffs-hit-the-bioshock-infinite-team/

Irrational games, the developer behind Bioshock Infinite have lost some staff members. Combat designer Clint Bundrick and AI lead Don Norbury have both left developer Irrational Games for Microsoft Games. This isn’t the first time this happened at Irrational, as the team undergone a number of key departures over the last few months, including art director Nate Wells.

There's also a lot of choice quotes in this one: http://www.polygon.com/features/2013/1/10/3853198/ken-levine-bioshock-infinite-vgas

Nate Wells, the art director of BioShock Infinite, and arguably the best known Irrational employee after Levine, was susceptible to massive creative gutting. This anecdote from a colleague of Wells gives an idea of what iteration, at its most extreme, was like in the office.
Levine and Wells had a blowout fight over Finkton. In BioShock Infinite, Finkton is the shantytown, home to the workers and outcasts of the floating city of Columbia.
The art team and level designers had been working on Finkton for a long time, with Wells directing the style. The inspiration was like the slums in Jamaica or Key West. All of the housing was wooden and colorful, as if painted by the residents to make the depressed quarters more livable. And each bright shack was stacked atop the next, climbing into the sky like an anthill, with the skyline piercing through it.
Ken had been in level reviews numerous times. Then one day, the Finkton team was doing a play test, when Ken decided the entire stage was wrong. It looked like the residents lived in garbage. It needed to be beautiful, because Columbia was designed so that even the poor lived beautifully.
It was all wrong. And it had to go.
Wells was furious. Levine had been looking at this for months. In August of this year, Wells announced his new role as art director at Naughty Dog Studios.
"I'm very friendly with a lot of people from work," Levine says. "but at the end of the day you have to accept the fact that you as a person are sometimes going to be — whether it's 'you can't have that raise' or 'hey, can you change this thing that you worked really hard on?' — you are going to be a person who sometimes disappoints people. If you get really stuck over the fact that they may be upset with you for that, you compromise the game for that, they may like you less as a friend. You have to be very careful about that because you can end up really not fulfilling your responsibilities."

Levine has tried to streamline this process. Most recently, he brought on fellow writers — until late in Infinite's development, he was solely responsible for the story. Drew Holmes, formerly of Volition, was his first hire.
"I asked him what's the most important part about writing for video games, and he said brevity. I hired him right there."

They just apparently forgot about it all after the game came out... short attention spans I guess.

Also a few other things about entire design decisions changing late in the development are rather obvious. For instance if you (again) watch the 2011 Trailer, they intended for Vigors to be one-use only (which would have made more sense from story and gameplay perspective, since there are still a lot of bottles lieing around the levels, which only give salt now).

 

[Azarkon]

MCA has terrible taste in games

this is the modern day PST

Delicious analogy.

I'm not able to resist.

Story-wise, this is the modern day PST. Read this explanation for the game's ending / themes:

Spoiler

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/04/04/bioshock-infinite-ending-explained/

The Comstock version of Booker can’t have kids, but he can travel between dimensions, so he invades the dimension where unbaptized Booker exists and buys his daughter Anna, who he renames to Elizabeth. Booker goes back to reclaim her, but is caught in a loop in which he always fails. The loop is broken at the end, we presume, when Anna becomes a Time Lord and Booker returns to the baptism and dies in place of the version of him who would become Comstock.

'You have died a thousand deaths...'

Not only that, but you don't remember the times you've failed, because you know, interdimensional alter egos.

+ Blatant 'your enemy is yourself' analogy.

It's not a coincidence that Booker and Elizabeth break into the song "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" near the middle of the game. That song represents one of the central questions Infinite is posing-is it possible to make a change, to be absolved to reverse a bad decision...

'A fortress built of regrets...'

Booker’s death in that scene meant to me that we can’t change the past, but we can try to change the future…and it really helps if we have a few interdimensional lighthouses. I don’t mean to sound glib. I didn’t take it as a positive message, which is welcome. But how did you feel about how we got there?

'What can change the nature of a man?'

+ the PST ending where you kill yourself to break the circle of torment.

Ignore all the plot holes, bad writing, and gimmicky story devices for a moment, and think about the story, and you're going to see both why MCA enjoys the game, and why Ken Levine owes MCA royalties.

One difference, though, which struck me while watching the ending - this game reaches the exact opposite conclusion about 'what can change the nature of a man?' Where PST ends triumphantly with TNO's acceptance of his past, from which comes his redemption, BSI ends with you being

Spoiler

literally smothered by your past, and destroyed by it. DeWitt never accepts his guilt and gets tricked into killing himself. While the ending is 'bitter-sweet' because DeWitt lives on with his daughter Anna / Elizabeth in another universe, he never experiences the profound redemption that TNO does.

I have to say, even though I don't think this occurs to either developer, there's a Christian vs. Judaic difference that comes out in their games - for where Christianity accepts the fundamental redemption of man through Christ, Judaism has a ... poorer outlook for Sodom and its fate.

In short,

'What can change the nature of a man?'

PST: whatever you belief can change the nature of a man, can change the nature of a man
BSI: nothing the man does himself can change his nature; it's up to God

 

[Heresiarch]

Some strange idea comes up: if the game was made into a Myst like adventure or 3rd person ADV, it could be so much more interesting. All those detailed screeneries will be put into much better use, imagine Examine a statue and Elizabeth explains its history. Unfortunately gamers won't buy games without combat anymore...

 

[Dexter]

TotalBiscuit also rips it a new one in long long video:

 

[Azarkon]

I think BSI gives me a bit of hope towards that end - the praises being heaped onto the game mainly has to do with 'ELIZABETH BEST AI IN GAMES EVER' and character interactions / plot, less to do with its FPS gameplay. A lot of reviewers and gamers have expressed the same criticism over the needless ultra-violence. While it's sad that not even Ken Levine has the balls to man up to it, I think the time is coming when developers ought to be able to capture the player's attention strictly through rich character / world interactions, and in doing so create - not just in one way - the modern PST.

 

[Zewp]

I wish TB would condense his videos a bit, or provide a tl;dr version. I like listening to his stuff from time to time, but I really can't sit and dedicate an hour to listening to his opinion on the game.

 

[DalekFlay]

TotalBiscuit also rips it a new one in long long video:

"Rips it a new one" is an interesting take. He says it is a great game, just not perfect like many reviews said. By that standard he liked it more than I did, and I'm the Infinite Defense Squad in this thread for some reason.

 

[Dexter]

I think BSI gives me a bit of hope towards that end - the praises being heaped onto the game mainly has to do with 'ELIZABETH BEST AI IN GAMES EVER' and character interactions / plot, less to do with its FPS gameplay. A lot of reviewers and gamers have expressed the same criticism over the needless ultra-violence. While it's sad that not even Ken Levine has the balls to man up to it, I think the time is coming when developers ought to be able to capture the player's attention strictly through rich character / world interactions, and in doing so create - not just in one way - the modern PST.

I think what most of them seem to realize but seemingly are unable to outright say, because they lack the analytic skills is that the combat/gameplay sucks and isn't fun, but instead of saying that, because the game is "obviously great" they make a "game is too violent" out of it because some guy on Kotaku said it.

They didn't seem to have any problems with other "violent" games even recently like Serious Sam 3. The Walking Dead and Spec Ops were very "violent" and were largely praised for a variety of reasons.

"Rips it a new one" is an interesting take. He says it is a great game, just not perfect like many reviews said. By that standard he liked it more than I did, and I'm the Infinite Defense Squad in this thread for some reason.

I didn't watch it in its entirety, but he complains about it for about an hour or so and calls it "average at best" with mostly the right stuff, while largely only mentioning the art design and story as the "good" parts, so dno.

 

[DalekFlay]

I didn't watch it in its entirety, but he complains about it for about an hour or so and calls it "average at best" with mostly the right stuff, while largely only mentioning the art design and story as the "good" parts, so dno.

I never heard him say average at best. I heard him say repeatedly it's a good game and that the combat is just a bit meh. Then at the end he just says "hey all I'm saying is it isn't perfect."

I don't really care, just saying it didn't seem THAT negative to me.

I think what most of them seem to realize but seemingly are unable to outright say, because they lack the analytic skills is that the combat/gameplay sucks and isn't fun, but instead of saying that, because the game is "obviously great" they make a "game is too violent" out of it because some guy on Kotaku said it.

They didn't seem to have any problems with other "violent" games even recently like Serious Sam 3. The Walking Dead and Spec Ops were very "violent" and were largely praised for a variety of reasons.

The game purposely opens with happy jolly wonderland and then purposely shocks you with graphic violence out of nowhere. I assume that is why they notice it more here.

 

[Cromwell]

The comments. Gameplay wise its very meh but oh the story is so delicious. Are theese people not able to read a book or why is it that they play and praise a game for a story when nothing else in it interests them. I mean I would, for myself, always tolerate flaws in the game if the story is really good, but usually the ones with a really good story have something else redeeming it besides the story. If the gameplay is tedious, flawed as fuck, why not sip it altogether and read the summary of the story on the wiki, and go read a fucking book.

 

[cvv]

I gotta say, that's one of the worst TB's videos I have ever seen and I've seen most of his non-ancient stuff.

He rambles, can't focus neither on the game, nor on his thoughts, he's constantly negative yet praises the game to high heaven in the end, and sometimes he lambasts completely ridiculous things (like the whole NPC part). But he's probably the only major reviewer (together with Angry Joe) with the ballz to say the game is not freshly fallen snow perfect.

Next time though he shouldn't do a brainy, thoughtfull, deep analysis of a hectic shooter while simultaneously playing it.

 

[Zewp]

The comments. Gameplay wise its very meh but oh the story is so delicious. Are theese people not able to read a book or why is it that they play and praise a game for a story when nothing else in it interests them. I mean I would, for myself, always tolerate flaws in the game if the story is really good, but usually the ones with a really good story have something else redeeming it besides the story. If the gameplay is tedious, flawed as fuck, why not sip it altogether and read the summary of the story on the wiki, and go read a fucking book.

And you're likely to get a much better story out of a book as well.

 

[DalekFlay]

No matter how amazing a game story is the gameplay has to be good too. As much as exploration and story are the core of this series if there was nothing else it would grow boring very quickly. The combat, if nothing else, distracts you and gives you a break from looking through desks constantly.

I think varying player action is essential in video games.

 

[grdja]

Still TB is way more objective than freaking Yahtzee (fuck that comparison, Yahtzee is a joke), and actually does have many "true old school gamer" traits.

 

[aris]

No matter how amazing a game story is the gameplay has to be good too.

Isn't that just a tad schizophrenic when PS:T is hailed on the codex as one of the best games ever made?

 

[Angthoron]

Nope.

 

[Cromwell]

What this Thread now needs is a comparision why Infinite is not worse then PS:T at least Gameplay wise.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

latest news: i've been told my copy of infinite biocock must be a bootleg because, despite what i say, in the full game there are no invisible walls whatsoever.

this level of refusing reality feels creepy to me.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

I think the time is coming when developers ought to be able to capture the player's attention strictly through rich character / world interactions, and in doing so create - not just in one way - the modern PST.

You mean like BioWare games people play strictly as the story-driven games?

What this Thread now needs is a comparision why Infinite is not worse then PS:T at least Gameplay wise.

Call gaudaost, then.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

Some strange idea comes up: if the game was made into a Myst like adventure or 3rd person ADV, it could be so much more interesting. All those detailed screeneries will be put into much better use, imagine Examine a statue and Elizabeth explains its history. Unfortunately gamers won't buy games without combat anymore...

It could be called 1789 Mode, for example.

 

[Azarkon]

The comments. Gameplay wise its very meh but oh the story is so delicious. Are theese people not able to read a book or why is it that they play and praise a game for a story when nothing else in it interests them. I mean I would, for myself, always tolerate flaws in the game if the story is really good, but usually the ones with a really good story have something else redeeming it besides the story. If the gameplay is tedious, flawed as fuck, why not sip it altogether and read the summary of the story on the wiki, and go read a fucking book.

Why not do the same for PST?