Jimquisition: Jimquisition Awards 2013 - BioShock Infinite

LetalisK

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Meh. I thought it was too slow and boring and I had beef with the ass-pull near the end(not the one everyone thinks), but I certainly wouldn't begrudge anyone who liked it. Besides, Elizabeth is one of the better video game characters lately.
 

Lightspeaker

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Machine Man 1992 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.
I've got a few: Borderlands 2, Bulletstorm, Crysis 2, Far Cry 3, FEARs 1 and 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2 (crikey, that's a lot of twos.)

If we use the title of First Person Action Adventure, we can add Dishonored to the list.

BI has stiff competition.

Opinions: Everyone has one and they're all subjective.


For me personally:
- CoD4 and WaW = Every CoD game feels clunky as hell as far as I'm concerned. Compared with how crisp and clean aiming and shooting feels in source games. Its playable but that's about all you can say. I play CoD for the spectacle more than anything else now (and I get them when they're cheaper).

- Halo CE is one of my favourite multiplayer FPS games ever. But its very, very dated now and newer games are far smoother. Hell, even at the time I wasn't much of a shooter; my style was more driving a Warthog like an absolute demon, with a guy manning the turret on the back and a guy in the passenger seat clinging onto the vehicle with one hand and the other team's flag in the other. Whilst under attack from Scorpions and Banshees. I could drive like a madman but aiming with that engine wasn't my strongpoint.

- Goldeneye and Doom have both been addressed above.

- Borderlands I find to be one of the most overhyped franchises around. Guns feel awful. Aiming feels awful. Movement feels awful. Combat in general feels awful. I really flat out don't see what people like in it. I tried to force myself to play it for the story but its so weak it can't carry what I find to be virtually unplayable combat.

- Bulletstorm. Honestly haven't played it so don't want to comment.

- Crysis 2. Feels kinda floaty and imprecise. Even more so than the first one so I dunno whats with that.

- Far Cry 3. Magnificent. I'd put it on par with BI.

- FEAR. Its alright I guess. Dunno if I'd hold it up as a shining example of good mechanics.

- L4D2 and TF2. I mentioned earlier I tend to like games on the source engine since its one of the few FPS engines that actually feel "right" to me. That is to say I feel actually in control of my movements and where I'm aiming rather than just waving it around vaguely and dancing about drunkenly. TF2 is actually my favourite multiplayer FPS of all time because of this. I'd put Infinite mechanics on the same level of quality.


My point? All the people going "stop liking this, guys, it has bad mechanics" are simply passing their subjective opinions of what feels right to them off as factual. It doesn't have what you're looking for in an FPS? That doesn't make it a bad FPS, its simply not for you.
 

nuttshell

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B:I was a fun and exciting ride for me but I ran out of excuses for it pretty soon. The game constantly tells you to think about it (look at these moments and these choices you can make, aren't I deep and meaningful and isn't Elizabeth just so lovely?) and when I finally turned my brain on, I realized the characters aren't believable, their actions don't make sense and happen only to create emotion in the player, your choices have no impact on the outcome and the plot is interesting at first but goes to terrible pretty fast. All I can see are impressive ideas executed poorly, a blown potential, leaving a pretentious shooter.
 

ACman

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Machine Man 1992 said:
I've got a few: Borderlands 2, Bulletstorm, Crysis 2, Far Cry 3, FEARs 1 and 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2 (crikey, that's a lot of twos.)

If we use the title of First Person Action Adventure, we can add Dishonored to the list.

BI has stiff competition.
Painkiller, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Metro

I personally think from a tightly directed linear FPSs from this year perspective, Metro: Last Light shits all over Bioshock in every way aside from the uniqueness of aesthetic. Last Light suffers when people compare it to Metro 2033 but compared to Bioshock it outclasses it in every respect... Except for the fact that you are not in a fantastical beautiful hyper-stylized city in the clouds accompanied by a beautiful, raven haired girl in a blue dress.
 

Pyrokinesis

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Couldn't you have started off with a less controversial award winner? Now im not sure If I should really believe any of the others that follow this one. From a personal standpoint (opinions incoming) Bioshock infinite was a glued together story that clearly wreaked to death of 2 entirely seperate development cycles being glued together with almost an audible clunk the very moment you "think its over and your on an airship lets make the final decision of where to go" but then the game clunks on over into the dark gritty boring narrative poor/short portion of the game that clearly looks to have been made blind from the entire first half of the development. Almost as if the first half was made after the second half and they were crudely glued together by the falcon strike of plot devices. Elizabeth is the only likeable character who is short sided by the gameplay which basically demeans her and per potential to a vending machine/portal gun that has this insipid habit of throwing change at you after you could have needed it. All to easily going from what should have been a tragic moment for her then suddenly with the utmost of joy "Here you should have this". Booker is so devoid of character almost nothing short of a slave to the plot and the tag along to Elizabeth's story and yet she is still considered the secondary character. His backstory is poorly executed due to his "dimension amnesia", so even he is obvious to who he is making him even less of a character with an arc. Moral choice or even the illusion of choice is comically absent with nothing more that 2 cosmetic changes to show for it. And yet somehow this is whats being held up as the greatest of first person shooter narrative? I hope it was only due to lack of competitors this year.
 

Extra-Ordinary

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Mar 17, 2010
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Yep, Bioshock Infinite (right next to The Last Of Us) is my absolute Game Of The Year.
I pretty much agree with everything Jim said with one difference: I'm not apologizing. I'm really not going to be sorry for loving a game.
 

Metalrocks

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i enjoyed this game a lot. i played more then TR and i even payed for the season pass. i played it more then 3 times which i cant say for TR or other games that have some out this year. well, at least on pc.
 

nuttshell

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Oh, I remember something, I want to add:
About half way through the game, when "nothing makes any sense" really started to get to me, I had the idea, that Booker was crazy and I am experiencing the adventures of a delusional mind. I thought, that would explain the positive reviews that complimented the story and the characters.
 

Thanatos2k

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Phoenixmgs said:
Thanatos2k said:
Phoenixmgs said:
Full Metal Bolshevik said:
Pc is objectivly superior. Besides, you can use a 360 controller if you dislike the keyboard that much.

I agree that Dishonored powers were overpower, but that's a different issue, it was fun to play and it felt better good.
So you want me to play on a PC with a controller to only end up being at a disadvantage against other players? PC is only objectively better with regards to graphics, which are the least important part of a game. I'm playing Dishonored now, which isn't very good looking but it's a bunch of fun, it can't be much of a looker even with max settings on a PC.
The fact that you admit you have a disadvantage is exactly why it's objectively superior. The point of an FPS game is to point, move, and shoot. Mouse keyboard is the best way to do this in the fastest and most accurate manner. Circle strafing while maintaining aim on a controller is laughable.

Do you play football with one hand tied behind your hand and call it superior? I'm sure you could play football that way, and the players would "get used to it" and even eventually get good at it, but don't pretend it's a better game that way. (Edit: And NO, I'm not talking about soccer!)
Aiming and shooting a real gun is much more difficult than even using a controller.
Um, what.

Playing a shooter on a PC is much easier than using a controller so a shooter is just too easy on a PC. Shooting a gun in PC shooter is further away from shooting an actual gun than using a controller to shoot a gun.
"Easier"? Of course it's easier, that's the whole point of the superior controls! It makes doing what you want (point, shoot) as easy as possible, so your skill determines the outcome! That's the entire basis of multiplayer shooters!

Are you seriously suggesting this is somehow a flaw? What? The whole point of good controls is to make input EASY!

And are you seriously, no joke, suggesting that a console controller is closer to "shooting an actual gun" than using a keyboard and mouse, and this is somehow the INTENDED PURPOSE OF AN FPS VIDEO GAME? I don't even know how to respond to this. Go join the army, it seems that's what you really want.

What about the controller's analog buttons that allowing leaning to not be purely a digital input. A console shooter is objectively better in that regard.
Leaning is a pretty worthless mechanic all told. I'm not sure what it has to do with anything. Plus it's not a digital input because it's not a binary state. You lean farther the longer you hold down the key on PC, but it's so fast it really doesn't matter, does it? You lean, you sneak a peak or shoot real quick, and then you start moving, because moving is far more important than leaning. If you're leaning, you're not moving, and if you're not moving, you die.
 

OldFogeyGamer

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I never paid attention to the pre-release hype of Infinite, so I wasn't let down while playing it (waiting for it to go on sale also helped) and I did enjoy it; I liked Elizabeth's character, loved the distinct lack of DRAMATIC BROWN PALETTE that seems to plague so many other games, and it had an interesting plot... well, until the ending squandered it with a scene that either a) contradicts everything Elizabeth explained about the nature of the alternate universes and creates a paradox or b) doesn't contradict it and means there are an infinite number of alternate realities out there where a decision not to carry out the act is made, thus makes the ending scene completely invalid.

So our reward for playing through is an ending that's either non-nonsensical or irrelevant. Still a better ending than Mass Effect 3 though, so I'll give it that.
 

DarkhoIlow

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Was looking forward to this awards from you Jim.

It will be glooooooooooooorious! That's a fact!

Bioshock Infinite is one of my favorite games of the year. Definitely in my top 3.
 

FireAza

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While I think Infinite's biggest "dissidence" is the fact you're murdering thousands of police who are just trying to defend Colombia, at least the game kinda attempts to justify it with the "Booker is trying to become a peaceful man, but if often forced to use violence" plot.
 

webkilla

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I have to admit that after I read the first few hit-pieces when Bioshock Inf came out, that I did find my view of the game deminish...

But after playing it, and especially after thinking about it, then I very much have to agree with Jim now.

Booker says a certain something at one point in the game. That he is the sort of violent man that our blue-clad female hero needs to be protected from - or something to that effect. It really struck me as telling of them game.

If anything, then there IMO wasn't enough race-violence shown in the game. I mean, the only time I recall seeing white people violently abuse a black person is at that 'wedding' thing with the baseball choice. I honestly think there could have been a few more scripted events of discrimination, not necessarily violent ones, but like a black man or woman being denied access to a shop when you walk by - or similarly with the irish or whatever.

Sure, the game isn't perfect - but my main complaint there is the tonics. They aren't explained, they don't really seem to be used all that much by the people up in the cloud city, so why even have them? Well, because the other bioshock games had them. That's not a good enough explanation.

Also I would have loved to have seen the whole "The city was built by crimping bits of tech from other timelines/dimensions" thing much earlier, since that would have been a very neat thing to work off more.
 

Starker

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"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Ludonarrative Dissonance & Game Vocabulary Criticism: http://www.errantsignal.com/blog/?p=543
 

wAriot

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I still can't see why people think B:I's story was good.
Protip: it was as bad as the gameplay.

Edit:
109 said:
I honestly can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not.
 

Azahul

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Apr 16, 2011
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wAriot said:
I still can't see why people think B:I's story was good.
Protip: it was as bad as the gameplay.

Edit:
109 said:
I honestly can't tell if you are being sarcastic or not.
Art is inherently subjective, so people will always like things other people can't see the attraction for. Personally, I really enjoyed the story. It's rare that video games manage to achieve anything approaching emotional investment in their characters for me, so the level of desperation I felt when Elizabeth is taken (not to mention how sick I felt at the line "It wasn't the torture that broke me") was something I found to be quite impressive.

Then there's the fact that I was actually quite interested in the parallel universe mechanics, and thought they managed to tie it all up into an ending that was pretty clever and made sense according to the established rules for the setting. The more meta stuff that I've come to expect from the Bioshock series didn't hurt either. And I liked that it didn't explicitly explain the ending, requiring you to have understood enough from the game to put it together yourself. My favourite film (and one of my favourite books) is Cloud Atlas, so I guess I have a thing for stuff like that.

Also, the Leuteces were damned awesome.

I do agree with Jim on this one. Bioshock Infinite was my pick of the year, and one of the more interesting attempts at intelligent storytelling in video games.