Jimquisition: Jimquisition Awards 2013 - BioShock Infinite

Trishbot

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Full Metal Bolshevik said:
109 said:
Full Metal Bolshevik said:
109 said:
Time to admit it folks: Bioshock Infinite is the best first-person shooter released since Half-Life 2.
'insert laugh harder futurama video'

Want me to make a list of fps with better mechanics than Bioshock Infinite?
You can try, I'm going to love proving you wrong.
Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty World at War.

Can you tell me with a straight face that BI had better gameplay than those COD's?
I'll go one or two better. Halo 1, Goldeneye, and Doom. Expertly crafted with the right amount of pacing, variety, level design, and player agency, all through genuinely new and exciting forms of gunplay and character alteration.

Though BI is in good company, I think.
 

Evonisia

Your sinner, in secret
Jun 24, 2013
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109 said:
Evonisia said:
Yeah, no. There's this whole thing called "subjectivity" and to some Infinite's gameplay was utter shite and mediocre, Elizabeth was a crap character and bland.
Yeah, and there's this whole thing called "people being wrong". Also: "people having bad taste".

I'm not even going to bother with your laughable "thought" regarding The LAst of Us.
My thought regarding The Last of Us? I can barely have an opinion on TLoU beyond the fact that it's overhyped (which at this point it is).

No offense, but "You're wrong" and "You have bad taste" are very, very poor ways to call out people for hating Infinite.
 

mronoc

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Goliath100 said:
Jimmy, who said that Bioshock has LD? I seen legitimate criticism of the reaction of the NPCs, and that the superpowers make no sense in the world, but the LD thing feels like straw figure.
There are a fair amount of people who associate any instance of graphic violence in a serious attempt at storytelling in games with Ludonarrative Dissonance. I'd wager the prominence of this opinion can be linked back to statements on the original Bioshock by John Blow. I'm typically in agreement with John Blow in a lot of his criticisms with gaming at large, but in this case, he was just dead wrong, specifically, he said the violence was out of place in a game about "altruism", but the issue is that Bioshock isn't about altruism, it's about objectivism, and the violence serves as a literalization of the economic struggles inherent to an objectivist system.

Regarding Infinite, it has it's share of LD, but it has nothing to do with how violent the game is. It's mainly a symptom of them carrying over the item scavenging mechanics from the first game that make no sense in a still functioning society.
 

Thanatos2k

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Well this was definitely way better than the VGAs. You need to send out trophies or something. (trophies that of course are figurines of you)
 

Evonisia

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Jun 24, 2013
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109 said:
Evonisia said:
My thought regarding The Last of Us? I can barely have an opinion on TLoU beyond the fact that it's overhyped (which at this point it is).
You're not acting contrarian just to look cool at all...
It's not contrarian to say that a game which has received overwhelming praise is overhyped. Quality of a game has nothing to do with how it is hyped.

109 said:
Evonisia said:
No offense, but "You're wrong" and "You have bad taste" are very, very poor ways to call out people for hating Infinite.
No offense, but it's all the effort you and your ilk deserve.
My ilk? Oh wow, that's actually made my day. But I guess if I mustn't be cruel, what crime have I and other people who didn't like Infinite committed to deserve such a blunt "you're wrong" statement.
 

Imp_Emissary

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:) A grand first choice, Jim. I too was a bit confused when people complained Bioshock was too violent for the story.

I mean, have ya seen the Miracle of Sound song on it? Kind of explains the messages of the game.

Anyway, looking forward to the rest!

p.s. My reaction to the dog was first; ":D Aw. Jim added a little doggy to the set.".

Then; "<.< What is he going to do to it?"

You answered that question soon. ;p

Thank God for you, Jim.
 

BreakfastMan

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Jul 22, 2010
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Well, it appears I am the only one who deeply loved the gameplay of Bioshock Infinite. Really don't see what others hate in the combat...

Still, I agree with Jim on this one: Bioshock Infinite is definitely one of the best games released this year. I have it tied with Saints Row IV and Super Mario 3D World as my favorite game of the year. :D
 

Thanatos2k

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Trishbot said:
Full Metal Bolshevik said:
109 said:
Full Metal Bolshevik said:
109 said:
Time to admit it folks: Bioshock Infinite is the best first-person shooter released since Half-Life 2.
'insert laugh harder futurama video'

Want me to make a list of fps with better mechanics than Bioshock Infinite?
You can try, I'm going to love proving you wrong.
Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty World at War.

Can you tell me with a straight face that BI had better gameplay than those COD's?
I'll go one or two better. Halo 1, Goldeneye, and Doom. Expertly crafted with the right amount of pacing, variety, level design, and player agency, all through genuinely new and exciting forms of gunplay and character alteration.

Though BI is in good company, I think.
Goldeneye has horrible controls, Halo has regenerating health (Bioshock Infinite went halfway with that awful mechanic), and Doom is flat and doesn't have mouse aiming.

All three of those are inferior mechanically to Bioshock Infinite.

See, the thing is about people who say Bioshock Infinite has bad gameplay is that they're really suggesting that all FPS games have bad gameplay. There's REALLY nothing very different that hasn't been done before in popular genre-leading FPS games of the past. So people start in with all sorts of nonsense reasons like "the pacing" or "doesn't support the narrative" or all sorts of things trying to dance around things that they can't really say are wrong because it's not exactly different from things they claim are good.
 

TheKrigeron

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I liked Bioshock Infinite when I first finished it because it had such a good ending I left it on a very good note, but ater taking a step back and replaying the game I realised that I didn't Actually enjoy it. I like to think it wasn't because of the insipid articles like "Why Bioshock Infinite is not as good as you think it is"or something of the sort
 

Britpoint

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I disagree with Jim in that I do think Bioshock Infinite is a victim of ludonarrative dissonance to some extent for reasons I can't honestly remember at this point. I'm assuming I was satisfied with the argument at the time I formed the opinion.

Anyway, I'm not going to try and claim it didn't deserve this prestigious award though. While I certainly had some issues with the way the story and gameplay interacted it was still at the end end of the day a damn fine story with some pretty good gameplay. Could Bioshock Infinite have been better? Absolutely. Does that stop it being brilliant anyway? Absolutely not.
 

Phoenixmgs_v1legacy

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Ronack said:
I have immense issues with this first award because the game in question tried to be Sliders but failed immensely so. The only thing the game has going for it is the city itself and the visuals, with gameplay being "been there, done that" 90% of the time. To be fair, the story was quite entertaining until the first "leap".
Those weren't "leaps".

Most FPSs are just shooting stuff with regular guns & throwing the occasional grenade. Just think about the standard FPS like COD, all you can do is move your character & aim, Infinite allows for much more. Infinite has a lot of powers to use & combine along with the fun as hell skyrails plus the Elizabeth tear aspect. There's not many shooters with powers (FPS or TPS), Infinite does stand out. The shooting is good (not the best), I was quickscoping enemies with the sniper rifle just fine on my PS3 without aim-assist whereas the 1st Bioshock, I needed aim-assist.
 

RJ 17

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Nov 27, 2011
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Ahhhh BS Infinite, what a game. I've actually got it pulling an upset on GTA V to take Game of the Year on my Escapist bracket!

That said, I did have some issues with it. Only two, really, one is a popular nit-pick at the game, the other is just my personal feelings.

1: Going with the popular nit-pick: the combat wasn't that great. Didn't like the 2-gun system (because all that does is say "find your two favorite guns and run through the game with them since Elizabeth basically gives you infinite ammo"). At least give us some special ammo types or something. What, they could peek through dimensions to get the concept for Vigors - super-power inducing beverages based off of a substance found only in sea-slugs at the bottom of the ocean - but the concept of armor piercing bullets? What fine-ass madness is this! Altering ammo is physically impossible!

Other than that, the typical "bullet sponge" complaint about most of the enemies beyond the standard dime-a-dozen soldiers. I'm not asking for CoD-style "one to three shots will kill any enemy" style combat, but good lord...you shouldn't have to unload 5 clips of ammo into some guy to bring him down.

2: I still say that the ending to the story doesn't work, and no one will be able to convince me otherwise. By that, I'm specifically referring to the plan to completely get rid of Comstock, permanently. To wipe him completely away from all of existence so that there's no way any of the madness he caused could happen again. For starters, if every choice you make spawns a universe in which the opposite of that choice is made, I don't think you can wipe out a choice by killing yourself before that choice is made. Why? Because you're making a choice to kill yourself, so that would create a universe in which you refused to make that sacrifice. "But...but...but the choice to kill Booker was made out in that Limbo area where all the lighthouses are! Therefor it doesn't really count!" Oh go fuck yourself with that explanation. That was never, not once, established during the ending that "any choices made in this area don't spawn a new universe" and beyond that it's highly debateable when the choice was actually made. If somehow killing himself in that ethereal baptism pond somehow has consequences on the universe, then that implies that any choice in that pond would have consequences. Such as, I don't know, allowing Elizabeth to hold you under and drown you? As opposed to flipping the fuck out, pushing all the hers off of you and trying to run away. I'd say THAT'S certainly a possible outcome of that situation, no matter how slim the chances are. Thus a new universe is spawned in which Booker refuses the suicidal sacrifice.

Beyond that, doesn't the very existence of Burial At Sea prove that the ending didn't work? Granted, I haven't played it yet, but if all the wrongs were righted by Booker's sacrifice, then Trans Universal Elizabeth shouldn't exist anymore if Comstock doesn't exist anymore. So what the fuck?

All in all I still enjoyed the game thoroughly. Great setting and the story (at least up until the ending) was engaging and fun to play through. To make a long story short: I can agree with naming this as one of the Games of the Year, especially since it was really one of the only few games I was actually looking forward to this year. :p
 

Therumancer

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Well, award shows are all about opinions, and yearly award shows tend to be limited by comparing them to what else came out in the year in question.

As I've said many times Bioshock Infinite is a decent game, and is probably worthy of being called one of the year's best generally due to pretty much crap coming out this year, so it doesn't have a lot to really compete with in the final equasion. As a game it has a large number of flaws, starting with of course the attempt to be a giant bash on the American right wing, oftentimes without an understanding of the positions it's trying to satirize, and of course the weakest cop out of an ending since "Mass Effect 3" where they pretty much decided to fire out a shotgun of weirdness, had no real idea on how to tie things up, so in the end they pretty much decided to go with a surreal "Infinite Paradox" type ending that is supposed to be profound due to the entire thing pretty much rendering itself irrelevant and ending on a note equivalent to a giant wet raspberry coming from your dog's posterior before it rolls over and goes to sleep.

The thing is that Bioshock: Infinite is an example of a game that still manages to be really good, despite numerous failures, especially in light of simply not being up against much else that really seemed to make the effort. It has beautifully constructed environments, an illusion of depth in it's storyline for a while (even if it takes a dump all over it), and some amusingly quirky ideas. I mean simply contriving an environment where you can see warbots in the form of George Washington and Abe Lincoln cut loose on each other with mini guns deserves points for the simple "WTF" factor if nothing else.

All told it's a decent, safe, choice for any awards show.

That said I will say that where the initial Bioshock games tried to present their powers in the context of the setting for example, the disconnect with this one was immediate which I think is where a lot of my personal issues come from. When the very first thing you run into is them pretty much giving away what amounts to free mind control powers at a faire it makes my brain hurt. Seems like we're dealing with a society that should have had more of a rape and civil disobeidience problem on that merit alone before a bunch of anarchists came along... I mean the problems with that one almost write themselves.
 

The Goat Tsar

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Thanatos2k said:
Trishbot said:
Full Metal Bolshevik said:
109 said:
Full Metal Bolshevik said:
109 said:
Time to admit it folks: Bioshock Infinite is the best first-person shooter released since Half-Life 2.
'insert laugh harder futurama video'

Want me to make a list of fps with better mechanics than Bioshock Infinite?
You can try, I'm going to love proving you wrong.
Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty World at War.

Can you tell me with a straight face that BI had better gameplay than those COD's?
I'll go one or two better. Halo 1, Goldeneye, and Doom. Expertly crafted with the right amount of pacing, variety, level design, and player agency, all through genuinely new and exciting forms of gunplay and character alteration.

Though BI is in good company, I think.
Goldeneye has horrible controls, Halo has regenerating health (Bioshock Infinite went halfway with that awful mechanic), and Doom is flat and doesn't have mouse aiming.

All three of those are inferior mechanically to Bioshock Infinite.

See, the thing is about people who say Bioshock Infinite has bad gameplay is that they're really suggesting that all FPS games have bad gameplay. There's REALLY nothing very different that hasn't been done before in popular genre-leading FPS games of the past. So people start in with all sorts of nonsense reasons like "the pacing" or "doesn't support the narrative" or all sorts of things trying to dance around things that they can't really say are wrong because it's not exactly different from things they claim are good.
You can't say those three games are mechanically inferior to Bioshock Infinite. Some people like regenerating health. Some people don't like mouse aiming. It's not bad, it's just different.

The issue I had with Bioshock Infinite's gameplay had nothing to do with the gunplay, I actually liked that. It was the enemies. Almost all of them were way too easy to me, but then I got to the handymen, who were just dumb. They were just giant bullet sponges that did tons of damage, I feel like they could've had more interesting mechanics and counterplay.
 

Phoenixmgs_v1legacy

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Sep 1, 2010
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Full Metal Bolshevik said:
Call of Duty 4 and Call of Duty World at War.
Obviously I won't make a full list.

Can you tell me with a straight face that BI had better gameplay than those COD's?
The COD games aren't anything special, there's no lean & no slide (Ghosts finally has a slide). In pure gunplay, MoH Warfighter blows any COD out of the water (Warfighter's campaign is shit but its superior controls & gunplay makes its online so much better than COD). At least, Bioshock has powers & gear to makes things a lot more interesting along with the skyrails. In COD, you literally just move your character, aim, and shoot while throwing an occasional grenade; that's better than Infinite how? Plus, COD still has that stupid exploitable aim-assist that has no place in a competitive environment.
 

Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
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It looked very, very nice, and I'm glad it's one of the only games that still uses keyframe animation instead of simply opting for mo-cap.

I'll leave it at that.