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

[Azarkon]

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?

:decline of story-driven games:

 

[Major_Blackhart]

So, how long til reviewers start saying the game wasn't really that revolutionary?
Who wants to make bets?

 

[Toffeli]

How long did it take with Oblivious?

 

[evdk]

So, how long til reviewers start saying the game wasn't really that revolutionary?
Who wants to make bets?

Depends on when God-Ken announces Bioshock: Beyond Infinity.

 

[aris]

So, how long til reviewers start saying the game wasn't really that revolutionary?
Who wants to make bets?

That has already started. That will eventually pass, and a couple of years down the road, most of the criticism will be forgotten, and will again be hailed as one of the greatest games evah, like bioshock and SS2 is today, mark my words.

 

[Brinko]

http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/8/4196156/bioshock-infinites-rod-fergusson-leaves

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Rod Fergusson, the former Gears of War producer

"I've been striving for better storytelling

this explains a lot.

 

[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.

Why not do the same for PST?

Because theres a difference in Story of the two games, theres a difference in how that story gets unfolded by the player, and theres a large difference in gameplay. The only issue I have woth it is that I dont really like the real time combat, but for me that goes as flaw by my own taste, not one that breaks the game for me. Infinite is for me like sitting in a Cinema, watching a mediocre movie, and every 5 Minutes a Paper soldier appears before my Seat, the movie stops and It wont start again until I folow the directors advice and shoot it with my supersoaker.

 

[cvv]

That has already started. That will eventually pass, and a couple of years down the road, most of the criticism will be forgotten, and will again be hailed as one of the greatest games evah, like bioshock and SS2 is today, mark my words.

I'll bet my butt it won't. This is not gonna be the case of the first Bioshock. It's not gonna be Skyrim, that's still being played, modded and talked about. This will simply slide in the general white noise because for most people it'll be too embarassing - for the journalists who gave it 11/10s and for the people who got fooled and bought this fancy popsicle of a game.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Started playing this fucker yesterday and my feelings are mixed.

Sure it's beautiful and the world is well crafted. Ken knows his shit about these things. The sound stage deserves an Oscar. On the down side, they dumbed down the gun/vigor/upgrade aspects even more, but that's not what is even bothering me so much.

It's those stupid gimmicky sky-lines. I completely lost it when I jumped on those things, and then to my horror and completely taken by surprise, I witnessed how Elizabeth jumped on it too and followed me around like an obedient dog, hanging down like some dead chicken on a Chinese food market while smiling at me. On rails.

There they have created this lovely and vulnerable character called Elizabeth which I almost started to really care about, and then this. First I laughed, then I facepalmed, then I had to quit the game.

Maybe I'm gonna come back....but boy. What a dissonance.

 

[Jick Magger]

 

[Dexter]

Why do I end up wanting to punch that guy every time I start watching one of his videos even though I might largely agree with it?
And why the hell do these people keep bringing up "violence", when it's really the gameplay mechanics and pacing of the game they object to? The Walking Dead for instance was violent as fuck, you were ramming things into peoples and zombies heads, there was a scene where an ice block was dropped onto someones heads and the game made a point out of it to show you more and more fucked up ways how to kill something for shoch value, and yet it worked perfectly.

 

[Luzur]

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...

i kinda felt it too watching the LP, all those detailed shit around the map, like Lady Comstocks memorial and Comstocks palace etc, and the player dont have time to look at it all since the same 5-6 enemies of 1-2 Robo-Lincoln/Washington/Comstock (which i thought was General Lee first), 5-6 Sky-Troopers/Police/Vox Populi and some balloon/stationary MG's are swarming him from all around.

 

[Jick Magger]

Why do I end up wanting to punch that guy every time I start watching one of his videos even though I might largely agree with it?
And why the hell do these people keep bringing up "violence", when it's really the gameplay mechanics and pacing of the game they object to? The Walking Dead for instance was violent as fuck, you were ramming things into peoples and zombies heads, there was a scene where an ice block was dropped onto someones heads and the game made a point out of it to show you more and more fucked up ways how to kill something for shoch value, and yet it worked perfectly.

I think it's less about violence in general and more violence being used as a crutch in the stead of good storytelling or gameplay. In the examples you listed the violence fit well with the narrative. The scene where a character drops a salt-lick on another characters head because he suspected he was dead and may turn worked because it revealed the pragmatism and lengths that he was willing to go to to save the group and himself, even if it meant destroying his relationship with one of the members of the group (and potentially the main character).

In Bioshock Infinite, there isn't any purpose to most of the violence. It's just cheap padding that the player has to slog through to get to the genuinely good parts of the game and, at worst, actively undermines the narrative because of the dissonance it causes with the player character.

 

[aris]

That has already started. That will eventually pass, and a couple of years down the road, most of the criticism will be forgotten, and will again be hailed as one of the greatest games evah, like bioshock and SS2 is today, mark my words.

I'll bet my butt it won't. This is not gonna be the case of the first Bioshock. It's not gonna be Skyrim, that's still being played, modded and talked about. This will simply slide in the general white noise because for most people it'll be too embarassing - for the journalists who gave it 11/10s and for the people who got fooled and bought this fancy popsicle of a game.

My prediction against yours, we'll see what happens. I find it extremely unlikely though.

 

[abija]

Why do I end up wanting to punch that guy every time I start watching one of his videos even though I might largely agree with it?
And why the hell do these people keep bringing up "violence", when it's really the gameplay mechanics and pacing of the game they object to? The Walking Dead for instance was violent as fuck, you were ramming things into peoples and zombies heads, there was a scene where an ice block was dropped onto someones heads and the game made a point out of it to show you more and more fucked up ways how to kill something for shoch value, and yet it worked perfectly.

The problem is that you go gratuitous violence -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRKa1-zrKck -> gratuitous violence.

 

[GeorgeWood]

Bioshock Infinite looks like BUTTER!!!!!!!!!

 

[Azarkon]

Because theres a difference in Story of the two games, theres a difference in how that story gets unfolded by the player, and theres a large difference in gameplay. The only issue I have woth it is that I dont really like the real time combat, but for me that goes as flaw by my own taste, not one that breaks the game for me. Infinite is for me like sitting in a Cinema, watching a mediocre movie, and every 5 Minutes a Paper soldier appears before my Seat, the movie stops and It wont start again until I folow the directors advice and shoot it with my supersoaker.

But for the people you were referring to when you asked 'why not read a book,' the story was Shakespeare having a baby with Christopher Nolan, brought to life by 'God-Ken' Levine...

All I'm saying is that, PST wasn't better when it comes to having few redeeming qualities besides the writing. It was not just RTwP combat; it was bad RTwP combat.

 

[ohWOW]

PST writing was a part of a fucking gameplay. You actually drove that fucking story, takin part in actual fucking dialogues. In Bioshock you're just a typical :patriot: watching a tv show.Also fuck you.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

the world is well crafted

Just wanted to comment on this (Haven't been posting in here much since I can't really be assed to defend Infinite. It's largely popamole decline compared to the first two Bioshocks which I enjoyed a lot) but the world isn't as well crafted. A flying sky-city should be about as retarded as a city on the bottom of the ocean, but Bioshock 1 had a hell of a lot more audio logs that fleshed out and handwaved away some questions. Even a bullshit "IT'S MAGIC" excuse or a Star Trek "Andrew Ryan reversed the polarity of the neutrinos and now underwater city!" excuse is a hell of a lot better than what you get for 90% of Columbia. And of course there are the super linear levels, whereas Bioshock (Despite being under the goddamn ocean) had more room to explore.

And this isn't even mentioning how the story shits the bed as far as the world design. I don't really regret blowing $20 on Infinite but I do feel let down compared to the first two. Wasn't even let down that Bioshock wasn't System Shock-like, since I knew enough about it before release that it was going to be a shooter. Unfortunately Infinite tries to do the same thing as Bioshock and doesn't manage it.

 

[Luzur]

PST writing was a part of a fucking gameplay. You actually drove that fucking story, takin part in actual fucking dialogues. In Bioshock you're just a typical :patriot: watching a tv show.Also fuck you.

its true, you have no real options via dialogue or anything then to follow Elizabeth or pull that lever that opens the door to the next area.

 

[Black]

Why do I end up wanting to punch that guy every time I start watching one of his videos even though I might largely agree with it?
And why the hell do these people keep bringing up "violence", when it's really the gameplay mechanics and pacing of the game they object to? The Walking Dead for instance was violent as fuck, you were ramming things into peoples and zombies heads, there was a scene where an ice block was dropped onto someones heads and the game made a point out of it to show you more and more fucked up ways how to kill something for shoch value, and yet it worked perfectly.

The problem is that you go gratuitous violence -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRKa1-zrKck -> gratuitous violence.

What the fuck.
It's like that one bitch singing in da or tali and maleshep watching some interspecies porn in me3.

No wonder braindead people mistook this piece of shit for "art".

 

[sea]

That Errant Signal video was spot on the money. Although his commentary on story-related stuff has been a little weak lately, here Camster gets it totally right about why this game's mechanics are an incoherent mess of ideas taken from other better-designed games made by people who understood why systems work with each other rather than against each other. It also goes a long way towards explaining why BioShock Infinite is rather boring: mechanically it does nothing new, systemically it's conflicted at best, and the story is basically a carrot to make you play through shitty filler combat in linear repetitive levels.

 

[felipepepe]

I wonder how hard breaking the AAA+ mold really can be... remove all the goddamn filler, make the game last like 2-3 hours, save a ton in development costs, charge it just a bit less (like $50-40) and profit.

I can't believe no one sold this idea to suits yet... no one expects a AAA game to come out cheap, even if you spent like 1/5 of what a "normal" game would cost, you can charge 4/5 and people would still be happy to pay less for an AAA title.

 

[Cromwell]

I wonder how hard breaking the AAA+ mold really can be... remove all the goddamn filler, make the game last like 2-3 hours, save a ton in development costs, charge it just a bit less (like $50-40) and profit.

I can't believe no one sold this idea to suits yet... no one expects a AAA game to come out cheap, even if you spent like 1/5 of what a "normal" game would cost, you can charge 4/5 and people would still be happy to pay less for an AAA title.

But whats filler for you, and if you remove it whats left in the game at all? Ive heard most shooters today dont last longer than 3-4 hours so whats there to remove and cut costs. Back to floating texts?