Zero Punctuation: BioShock: Infinite

[StormShaun]

But isn't tha ... oh ...

...

I'm getting out now.
*leaves and comes back*

Well that was an arse of a review, a very firm arse which stuck together very well.
Also I liked the arse jokes.

And the humor in this one was nice.
Though I don't think Infinite has a comfy arse enough to become game of the year.

... I wonder what Yahtzee thinks of Saints Row 4 so far (Since we all know he wants to marry Saints Row 2). XD

 

[Darth_Payn]

Yahtzee, I sense a growing trend of using strategically placed pauses to set up jokes, like the Poo Map thing from your SimCity review. And you showed us a Back to the Future Shout out and Marvel gag in one screen! Yeah, I saw that 616 Continuity line on your board. Are you trying to tell us something?

 

[Number-14]

All I got from this review are butts. There were a lot of butts in this review. Butts

 

[Robot Number V]

There's only one bit I flat out disagree with in this review: The party.

It might seem like we're the party and shit is getting messy because of us, but that's a lie. The place starts out all fine and ends with you walking out of the rubble... and that's only because you teleported into the rubble after everyone else had gone. You actually aren't there when shit gets messy, you just kinda walked into a world in which shit was already messy... from a world in which shit couldn't get messy. In fact, you get a statement explaining that the only messy shit the other you contributed before dying was to burn a building down. Then, afterwards, you keep showing up to areas where there was just a party not five minutes ago, but most party-goers are gone now and you're left dealing with the angry ones that stayed behind to clean up.

Otherwise, yeah, the rest of what he said was true.

Hmm. I don't think that's exactly true, though this is kind a personal interpretation: See, when Elizabeth expands the tears, I don't think she's just taking herself and Booker through a portal to a completely separate reality. It's more like she's taking another reality and...superimposing it over the existing one. Remember how all the dead guards "inherited" their memories of their formerly dead selves: This means that the two realities are connected at least in some way. My personal theory is that there's only ever one true version of the universe, and all the other universes don't actually exist until somebody observes them. It's like Schrodinger's Cat. The cat is alive and dead until someone observes it in either state, and at that point whichever state isn't observed simply collapses. [footnote]Unless I don't understand Schrodinger's Cat nearly as well as I think I do, which is extremely possible.[/footnote] Basically, Elizabeth has the power to open the box and see the cat in both states, and choose for herself which state becomes "reality".

So she IS technically responsible for choosing the "Shit Has Gotten Messy" reality and bringing it into existence, even if she was only trying to move some guns. Though you could argue that moving those guns was directly related to the shit getting messy, and Elizabeth knew that at the time she was trying to move them. The phrase "uprising" had already been thrown around, she knew what she getting into.

 

[Monsterfurby]

"Pretentious". Thank you, that was the word I was looking for when trying to appease the murderous rabble that was trying to lynch me for not liking Bioshock Infinite.

Yeah, I don't like it (that includes generic reskinned squadmate #31471823 that somehow got people claiming she is not generic reskinned squadmate #31471823), but that's just personal taste of course.

 

[TheUnbeholden]

The gameplay feels lacking compared to the previous games, but the art style and storytelling was fantastic.

thats not good considering bioshock felt its gameplay was lacking compared to SS2, with the minor exception of big daddies.

 

[DoctorObviously]

Welp, even Yahtzee likes this one. Guess I am the only organism who didn't liked it.

 

[VoidWanderer]

While I never finished the game, as I realized that the slippery slope the game plot was sliding towards had spikes at the bottom, I found my view of the game very grounded (sorry for the pun).

I saw all the reviews giving this game glowing recommendations, and after getting as has as I did my only question was... "How?" The game is fun, don't flame me, but the plot is not that strong. Compared to the first Bioshock game, the plot is like the movie 'Click' with Adam Sandler. Elizabeth is less companion and ally, but more like a plot continuation device and random ammo/health generator.

I saw a youtube video which showed all the points in the game that seemed weak. I am happy Yahtzee enjoyed the game as it is good, it is even great, but only to a point. If you want me to give a score out of 10, I would say 8.5.

For those who rave about the game and think it is the best thing since ('last great game'), check out this link and tell me what you thought of the points made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Yc15KgfNJsw

Edited because I linked the wrong video....

 

[Requia]

I'm pretty surprised Yahtzee likes the game.

Not saying I don't, in fact I really like it myself. I just sorta expected him to tear the game to pieces like he does in most of his reviews.

As for the final level. I actually liked it.

Spoiler

You get to sick Songbird on zeppelins! Friggen awesome!

The problem (for me) with the final level is that the game spent the entire time not giving a shit if I was any good or not, and then the game suddenly introduces a way to fail, creating a difficulty curve that can best be described as a flat highway that ends in a brick wall.

A new game to keep me away from Minecraft sounds good. The biggest question is, do you have such scarce ammo like in System Shock 2?

Hell no. Its got ammo coming out its ass. Actually was kinda fun, since I got to focus more on whether the weapon I was using was actually the right weapon for the job instead of whether or not the game would fuck me over by not having any ammo for it for the next 2 hours.

 

[scorptatious]

I'm pretty surprised Yahtzee likes the game.

Not saying I don't, in fact I really like it myself. I just sorta expected him to tear the game to pieces like he does in most of his reviews.

As for the final level. I actually liked it.

Spoiler

You get to sick Songbird on zeppelins! Friggen awesome!

The problem (for me) with the final level is that the game spent the entire time not giving a shit if I was any good or not, and then the game suddenly introduces a way to fail, creating a difficulty curve that can best be described as a flat highway that ends in a brick wall.

*shrugs*

Personally, I didn't find it all that hard. I beat it on my first try. Of course, I was playing on medium the first time I was on there, so I guess that explains it.

 

[1rock]

That's just not credible. How are you posting on The Escapist, if that's the case? The Escapist's pages are far slower to load and less reliable than Google.

Sorry to say it is credible. The reality is that the internet is very slow in our country and very very expensive. We still have 1Gigabyte caps... Yea you do get better but then you are talking about big money.

Even this Forum takes about 2 minutes to load and jumping from page to page take about 1 minute if I am lucky. The truth is ?fast and affordable? doesn't exist here... That is also the reason why I took up fishing... Gaming became to expensive... The updates are MASSIVE and it just takes to long. But thankfully the review clips allows me to see what I miss so I am thankful for them. Really they make my day.

If I want to play a game that needs online support it will take about half the day to update and by that time I get to play the weekend is a memory. In short it sucks but it is the truth.

You are welcome to PM me and I will send you some info on the speeds and cost of our internet. It is scary expensive...

 

[PeanutKai]

Genuinely surprised Yahtzee liked this game. I thought for sure he'd say the plot is a fucking mess. When you introduce time travel and multiple universes you're asking for plot holes. There is far too much suspension of disbelief needed for my tastes. When fans need to make videos and graphs explaining the ending then something has gone wrong. Anyone who's familiar with the grandfather paradox knows why the ending is bullshit. The game is up its own arse far further than first thought. 7/10

 

[Aardvaarkman]

nternet is very slow in our country and very very expensive. We still have 1Gigabyte caps... Yea you do get better but then you are talking about big money.

I still think you're exaggerating. I'm pretty sure Google would time-out your connection well before five minutes. And if The Escapist pages take only 2 minutes to load, how does Google take 5 minutes, when it's a much smaller page, hosted on much faster servers?

 

[DjinnFor]

This really surprised me. Game was great and all, but was expecting Yahtzee do to his usual thing of just nit picking harder then ever to find things to crack jokes about and spend half the review complaining about the two weapon limitation. Game must of really hit a cord with him.

Also thank you for voicing my one major complaint with Infinite which is that the Vigors are tragically unrelated to the plot. In the first game plasmids are used to reinforce one of the central ideas, (That a risk to extremist objectivism is that people can be remarkable short sighted.)

So as long as society doesn't embrace Objectivism, nobody will be short-sighted, or their short-sightedness won't be a major problem? Pretty sure short-sightedness will horribly derail pretty much any system...

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Oh, I nearly forgot. One of my my favorite things about this game is that when you launch it on a PS3, the first thing you see is a warning about the hazards of the Playstation Move, and how annoying it is to set up. It's essentially an anti-advertisement, saying "Whatever you do, don't buy a Playstation Move!"

 

[1rock]

I still think you're exaggerating. I'm pretty sure Google would time-out your connection well before five minutes. And if The Escapist pages take only 2 minutes to load, how does Google take 5 minutes, when it's a much smaller page, hosted on much faster servers?

I really don't know what your problem is? Yes Google ?times-out? all the time hence the 5 minutes now I may have neglected to say that I have to hit the "f5" key a couple of times. But that is like saying you have to chew your food. Obviously the connection is good at times but most of the time I am lucky if I get to log in without a time out.

 

[NWJ94]

So as long as society doesn't embrace Objectivism, nobody will be short-sighted, or their short-sightedness won't be a major problem? Pretty sure short-sightedness will horribly derail pretty much any system...

Sorry, let me clarify that. In Bioshock the plasmids are dangerous substances with negative side effects (turning people into splicers). Now most modern economies go for a free market approach (to widely vary degrees of course), but just because its a free market doesn't mean there are some limits, I can't for example go into a store and buy a nuke for what should be fairly obvious reasons.

Now in a regular (non extremist objectivist) society plasmids, with their negative side effects, would be a controlled substance. But in Bioshock because Ryan is so determined to keep the government from interfering with trade he refuses to do so. As a result, short sightedness in the population causes an arms race as people splice more and more to keep ahead (as I recall because of the rioting and civil war). Thus leading to most of the population descending into splicers and Ryan eventually needing to release the gas that lets him control them, thus reinforcing the central irony. That in his quest to be totally Objectivist he became a dictator.

So your right, short sightedness is a problem in any society, but one of the ideas the game explores is that an objectivist society that embraces the philosophy to an extreme will see that problem come to the forefront.

Not saying the game is right one way or the other, just explaining what the game was going for IMO and just praising it for tying a central game mechanic to its story.

 

[jpoon]

hahaaaaaa! Great review! Also a damn fine game, even for how up its own but it was of course.