Efe
Erudite
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2015
- Messages
- 2,597
Bioshock Infinite was a shooter with barely any "shock" DNA left.
We now live in the era of the open world first person RPG
We don't. This only means that you played The Outer Worlds recently (and perhaps also that you don't have much time to spend actually playing games and unconsciously place extra emphasis on the ones you do play). As a larger statement on the game industry as a whole, it is inaccurate, and any list of RPGs released in the last five or even ten years will prove you wrong. More charitably, you are conflating the undisputed and massive influence of Skyrim (a first person open world RPG) on subsequent open world RPGs that, for the most part, aren't first-person.
Distilling your otherwise interesting post to a statement or two, it would be "Bioshock Infinite managed to meaningfully restrict player-character power."
Really smart design, having you upgrade the weapons you like because you don't have money to upgrade all weapons, then the game forces you to use the weapons you didn't upgrade and sorry, I prefer to kill enemies with whatever gun I like than just following the script the developer overlord decided for me.I found the Call of Duty-inspired two weapon limitation to actually be kind of good. Yes, good. Why? Because the combination of the aforementioned ammo cap and the lengthy, multi-wave ambush battles means you can run out of ammo for your weapon and be forced to scramble across the battlefield to pick up a different one. I think that's awesome - anything that forces you out of your comfort zone in these games is worthy of praise. So the two-weapon limit actually provides two functions here - it's both a roleplaying choice ("I'm a sniper who carries a shotgun for short-range encounters, and I'll upgrade those weapons exclusively") and a mechanic that forces you against the limits of that choice.
If we put aside expectations based on the words on the title screen though, is this some horrible thing? I only played it once right when it came out, but I remember it being a pretty fun shooter. Better than most of the crappy console focused shooters we got at the time.
Really smart design, having you upgrade the weapons you like because you don't have money to upgrade all weapons, then the game forces you to use the weapons you didn't upgrade and sorry, I prefer to kill enemies with whatever gun I like than just following the script the developer overlord decided for me.I found the Call of Duty-inspired two weapon limitation to actually be kind of good. Yes, good. Why? Because the combination of the aforementioned ammo cap and the lengthy, multi-wave ambush battles means you can run out of ammo for your weapon and be forced to scramble across the battlefield to pick up a different one. I think that's awesome - anything that forces you out of your comfort zone in these games is worthy of praise. So the two-weapon limit actually provides two functions here - it's both a roleplaying choice ("I'm a sniper who carries a shotgun for short-range encounters, and I'll upgrade those weapons exclusively") and a mechanic that forces you against the limits of that choice.
Why the fuck did Infi just write an essay on Bioshock Infinite?
Nah. As we know, Ken Levine is making a new game, so Infi is being paid to shill his old games so people get interested in his new game.
I was one who was disappointed with BS and thought it paled next to SS, but still had a good time with it. But I reject the notion that Bioshock has any RPG stock in it at all.
In Bioshocks, you use types of currency to buy your not-RPG "uprgrades". But experience points in proper RPGs are not a currency. They are a numeric representation of the real life phenomenon of mental and/or physical adaptation to stressors, not something tangible you opt to pick up off the ground or get from a safe. You cannot turn down XP gain unless you and your GM (whether flesh or digital) are retarded. You don't spend XP, it accumulates and at certain thresholds you reach the next level in your physical and/or cognitive development, at which point you can select or raise as many skills as the rules allow/allot you points (which are also abstract, not tangible objects), not according to how much XP you have left in your wallet. Currency is not genre specific at all, its a universal concept in games, period. I can use money to "upgrade" Park Place in Monopoly. How can a game with a currency based system, which is external, tangible, and optional, inform a game with an XP based system, which is internal, abstract, and automatic?
Btw, the general concept of upgrading is not something invented with RPGs, which have specific forms of upgrading your character.
As far as RPGs are concerned, a "build" is permanent. . Sure, a lenient GM will, once or twice, let you change some things around if you're not liking your character composition, but what they will not allow is constant swapping in and out of abilities according to the player's everchanging whim. That's video game shit implemented by video game designers to solve a problem of video games. Now you could relate a DnD Wizard and his spellbook to Bioshock's Vigors and Plasmids...but the wizard also comes with several categories of permanent character development. Permanent choices require more careful consideration than transient ones, and the hazards of choosing poorly are greater than choices that can be altered every 10-30 minutes. Else no one would have ever lamented fucking up a character in a RPG, something that never happens in Bioshock.
These games may have something to teach open world games (in general, not RPGs specifically). But can we stop diluting and degrading genres, concepts, and terminology? I don't see how anyone can implement these lessons if they don't understand and acknowledge the importance of the Whys and Hows of the Whats.
Weird to see some people bashing Bioshock so hard. I think it's good for what it is... a shooter with a cool setting and decent atmosphere.
I can see it being a disappointment if you were expecting System Shock 3, but then that's on you for having unrealistic expectations. It was plainly obvious even before playing it that it wasn't going to be an immersive sim or something with a lot of RPG mechanics.
2-4 gun limit is fine in stuff like Far Cry