JazzJack2 said:
No again I really fail to see any tie in with the No true Scotsman at all (you'll have to spell it out for me), all I said was that in order for me to enjoy a game and consider it good I require at least a reasonable amount of integration between the gameplay and story.
From Wiki...
Person A: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
Person B: "I am Scottish, and I put sugar on my porridge."
Person A: "Then you are not a true Scotsman."
Substitute:
Person A: "No Good Game fails to properly integrate story and game play"
Person B: "Here are good games that fail to properly integrate story and game play"
Person A: "Those are not good games".
You will of course then argue that was your opinion, etc, etc, and I will point back to where I stated you need to substantiate your opinion in order for it to not be "an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion".
JazzJack2 said:
But that is still based on a social preference for one thing other another, it's still subjective. Imagine if for example aliens came down to earth with no understanding of music and you played them Mozart and then your brilliant piano-key smashing composition and asked them which is better that would be unable to judge because what constitutes 'good music' is based on thousands of years of human thought. If you want a less hypothetical example listen to contemporary Classical and Jazz composers like Stockhausen, Cage, Antheil, Cecil Taylor or Feldman or some East-Asian classical music or anything that is based on values different or opposed to traditional western ideas about music and you'll see what we take for granted as good is really just opinion.
Actually, allowing for objective value in art...or the admiration of evident skill and craft...still allows for cultural value differences. Perhaps not with your "aliens" example, but amongst humans? Most definitely. For the sake of this discussion, let us operate under the assumption that we are both human, and there is a recognizable difference between an artist who has spent 10,000 hours honing a craft, and one who has spent none.
That doesn't mean you have to LIKE the end product, but as discussed there's a wide gulf between "This didn't work for me" and "This is shit".
JazzJack2 said:
Well you could argue that good graphics are objective (even then there is still some debate (e.g are flatter textures better than ones with more bump mapping applied, there are arguments for either side.) But the actual value certain graphical elements have when constituting 'good graphics' is still purely subjective. For example a recent trend in gaming seems to be that better higher resolution textures and more detailed character models are very important for good graphics where as I personally don't find them all too important and find things like animations and shaders to much more important for achieving good graphics.
Animations and shaders are two more areas where you can clearly view objective tiers of quality, good call.
JazzJack2 said:
No I don't disagree that people should substantiate their points but your argument seems to be that people who make or hold controversial points or ideas are more required to substantiated their viewpoints, you wrote and I quote "If you're going to trash on "Dude Where's My Car", people are probably going to give you a lot of leeway. If you're going to trash on "The Godfather", you should probably have a salient argument prepared." Why should people be more inclined to justify a dislike of one thing over the other simply because their critical reception is different?
Required? Certainly not. But we discuss things to either inform one another, share ideas, or reach consensus, yes? So it benefits everyone to have their views understood, and to be speaking a relatively common language. If I set out to convince a group of strangers that the Tao te Ching has a lot of good ideas, I'm probably going to have a relatively easy time of it. If I set out to convince a group of strangers that Mein Kampf has a lot of good ideas, it's going to be an uphill battle, and it would probably benefit me to make sure I'm arguing competently and clearly. This is assuming your end goal is to have your message received genially, and to share ideas in a friendly way. If your goal is to just shout your opinion into space and dare people to come at you, by all means, blaze your own trail.
Also WOOT Godwin's Law!
JazzJack2 said:
No because I feel they won't, as you put it, inevitably find themselves at odds with gameplay, plenty of games have already largely integrated story and gameplay and I would even go as for and say that some, like the Walking Dead or Dark Souls for example, have completely integrated story and gameplay (maybe with an occasional lapse here and there.)
Goodness, really?
Those are your examples? Both excellent games, both stuffed to the bloody gills with game play contrivances that quietly press on your suspension of disbelief. And as much as I admire Dark Souls attempts at indirect story telling, it still accomplishes much if not all of it through text, which is clumsily accessed. Games like the two Bioshocks, Half-Life 2, or Bastion did it much better.
JazzJack2 said:
I've never played BadDudes but if it has solid gameplay then I wouldn't care about the lack of story.
Well...it had some Dudes. Word on the street is they were Bad. It was a Double Dragon style brawler. Whether or not that game play qualifies as "solid" depends on the gamer, I suppose.
JazzJack2 said:
But Booker eating out of bins is not reconcilable because not only is this behaviour not established within the logic of the game's world but actually the opposite, Booker comes across as a perfectly sane individual in the story sections of the game and him eating out of bins contradicts this entirely.
Booker HEALING AT ALL is a contradiction in the game world, as it would be in 95% of games. I've played precious few games that make allowances for sickness, or weather, or disease, or mental health. After that fifth resurrection I'd probably be pretty PTSD, wouldn't I? Other NPCs in the world clearly suffer mental trauma, why not my PC? And on and on. The point I am making is you are VERY SELECTIVELY criticizing realism disconnects in ONE GAME which you dislike.
JazzJack2 said:
I am sorry but I really disagree, Bioshock Infinite and the other games mentioned are not in my opinion a first baby step to good narratives in games they are massive leap backwards, when I look back to the past and see games like STALKER, Planescape Torment, Deus Ex, Dark Souls (which I know is very recent but whatever) Fallout 1 & 2 and Portal all of which not only vastly exceeded games like Bioshock Infinite in terms of world building, story, characterization and atmosphere they all also managed, at least to a reasonable extent, to integrate gameplay and story (at least in my opinion anyway)
It's good that you mention Planescape Torment, because thematically it shares a great many elements with Bioshock Infinite, and their endings are similar to the point where I suspect deliberate homage. One, PS:T, is arguably STILL the single most celebrated story in gaming. BI, I am to understand by your argument, is the absolute worst.
STALKER? Which STALKER? I adored Pripyat for its many, many merits, but the story and the presentation of said story were bad enough to give a mirthless man fits of laughter. When it succeeds, it is through accidental/emergent storytelling. The core narrative is...well it's
really bad. I remember cringing, and placing my face directly in my palm.
Both Portals are clever and well presented games, I agree. Not terribly ambitious, but very funny, and they don't outstay their welcome.
Deus Ex is a hilarious mish mash of pulp culture conspiracy theories and urban legends, served up with some of the corniest writing of all time. A classic, but a deeply flawed classic. Tom Chick's skewering of it was notorious, and Chick can be absurdly contrarian, but few of his criticisms were meritless.
Fallout and Fallout 2 were both fine games (if buggy as fuck), but both always coasted by more on their mise en scene than the actual story. Fallout 1's story was pretty bare bones, and 2 was a mess.
In terms of integration, all of those games suffer the same minor realism disconnects as Infinite. They almost universally handle combat better, but also almost universally handle the story worse. Save Planescape, which has legendarily bad combat and a fantastic story, albeit delivered entirely through text (which is plonky as fuck and in it's own way a terrible form of "integration" given the medium).
Notably, other than STALKER, you've also hand picked a short list of some of the MOST ACCLAIMED GAMES IN HISTORY, which is fine...I love em all and will happily discuss them all day...but doesn't lend a lot of weight to the argument that BI is one of the worst games of all time. It's like saying a band is terrible, and then listing The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Jimmy Hendrix of examples of superior musicians.
At the end of the day man, it's just fairly evident you're a finicky gamer with HIGHLY selective ideas about what makes a game good. It's also fairly evident you have an axe to grind about Bioshock Infinite, most probably because you found something in it that annoyed or underwhelmed you and found yourself subsequently aggrieved by the almost universal praise it received. For my own part I agree with people who state the bog-standard FPS game play does nothing to elevate the game, and like them I think it would've been better as an RPG, but the same was true of Bioshock, and arguably even the System Shocks that preceded it (although they were meatier hybrids). I think your assertion that the story is bad, let alone "the worst ever", is ludicrous, and I honestly don't think there's any way to really defend that, but
your enjoyment of the story is not really something I can argue. I do recommend continuing to stick to all time classics like your short list of games above (again, with the possible exceptions of the excellent but deeply flawed Dark Souls and STALKER), however, as exposure to
actual terrible games could potentially break your spirit.