It's been three years, and Yahtzee still has yet to adequately explain why he hated BioShock 2 so much. His actual review came down to a load of silly nitpicks of the sort he would normally reserve for games he likes and has to fill time complaining about anyway, and he hasn't said anything beyond "Grr sequels" since.
Yep, can't agree more. This is an amazing game, there are not too many "triple A" games like this sadly. Great narrative that made me really think introspectively and engaging gameplay that, for the most part, complements said narrative. The one minor complaint that I had myself has to do with the streamlining of the series, and just one particular aspect really. Why is there no manual saving? I do not know if that is just a console version issue or if I was just too dumb to find it, but it was a little frustrating when I was wanting to go to bed or leave for work and I was left to the mercy of finding an area that auto-saved. Now I understand perhaps it was done to help players focus and discourage the usual practice of either wreaking havoc on innocent NPC's then reloading or using it as a quick "mistake eraser". But in a a game with large sprawling environments I personally missed it, or like I said maybe I possibly just missed it due to idiocy.
It becomes significantly less awesome on 1999 Mode
when you're scrambling around trying to distract and kill multiple Patriots, tossing Possessions at them and Undertowing RPG guys off the side of the ship and laying down Shock traps while trying to blow out the missile launchers on the zeppelins and keep the airship from taking too much damage. Bearing in mind that your shield gets shredded in no time flat and the Patriots are massive bullet sponges.
Hectic and tense as all hell, to be sure, but not in the same fun way the rest of the game was on that difficulty.
OT: Well, Yahtzee really liked the first one, so I'm glad to see the pattern is being kept strong here. I still say it'll take one hell of a game to oust Infinite for my personal Game of the Year.
Yahtzee's treatment of BioShock 2 is completely fair and justified. It was just such a 'so what?' storyline, it didn't need to be made, but it was. May it be forgotten in time.
BioShock Infinite is GOTY 2013 for me. GTA5 might beat it, or Season 2 of Walking Dead, but BioShock Infinite is such a good game...
"Don't you mean 2nd sequel, Yahtzee? - GET OUT !"
xDD
I did like the vibe of Bioshock 2. Sure it was just more of the same and a butchery in the story department (and all other Yahtzee points that he mentioned in that review are relevant), but I liked BEEING a Big Daddy and moving around Rapture again
he touched on the one real point that bothered me about the game,
namely, that the Vigors aren't as well connected to the narretive as the plasmids were in Bioshock.
all the same though, I'm surprised how positive the review was.
I never actually questioned it. To me it seemed like Vigors were just getting known in Columbia, since they were trying hard to sell it and had a lot of commercial business going on. I got the feeling that the general public was just now getting introduced to it. I guess Fink came up with the Vigors when peering at the Rapture universe.
It has flat out bad shooting, horrible enemy variety, obnoxiously horrendous modern shooter limitations like the two guns, no inventory system and scavenging is done basically for no other reason than to get more money for useless upgrades, it has piss poor characters most of the time, drops ideologies and themes all through out the game but never even dares to approach them, the city feels hollow and empty almost like a Themepark ride broken up with sections of VR combat.
At the same time it has a wonderful companion in it that really had me listen to her and want to know more about her, has fun to use, albeit generic, plasmids... oops vigours, showcases a city that if it had not been so linear with bigger open skyrail sections would have blown your mind and has quite possible the best opening section of the entire fucking last decade where you are slowly allowed to adjust to the city and it's weird quirks until you finally reach your goal.
And then the mediocre boring escape the city parts start which in my opinion could have been cut from the game and replaced with a rail shooter. Where we stop and start for a bit of dialogue in between.
But why say it myself when I can plug a youtuber I really enjoy! (WARNING it does contain the spoiler, lots of them)
I bought it because I watched the first hour in a LP on YouTube and was thoroughly wowed. But having finished it I have to say ... meh.
Really and truly I'm not trying to troll here. I'm going to be as balanced as I can be, and you'll see a lot of caveats in my criticisms. So let me get some of the good stuff out of the way first.
1. It is as gorgeous to look at as anything on this console generation.
2. The voice acting is top notch.
3. The recreation of the time period (specifically the social and religious structure) are disturbingly accurate in tone, even though some details differ.
4. Combat is frenetic and exciting.
My issues with the game follow, and let me point out these are my personal opinions and I do *not* claim them to be "facts."
A) Gameplay peeves (this is the minor stuff):
1. I'm not a fan of the FPS format, and I admit this was a pre-bias against the gameplay for me. As I've said in other threads, rather than finding the style immersive it makes me feel like a dalek - just an eye, a gun, and an appendage for activating things. This time I was a dalek with a skyhook which yes, as Yahtzee pointed out, was particularly exhilarating. But I can't count the number of times I was pinned down in a firefight because I didn't know the thing preventing me from backing up was a patch of uneven ground that most third-person player characters would have automatically stepped over. That said I know I'd find it more fun with practice, but...
2. I prefer to be able to revisit already played levels in whatever order I want after playing them *without* overwriting a single game save. I can re-read chapters of a book to savor the parts I really like, so I like to be able to do so in games. IMO one of the greatest shortcomings of the GTA series is the fact you can't retry completed missions as much as you like. There's so much great content in GTA:SA that I wish I could easily re-experience, but it's just too much hassle.
3. I agree with Yahtzee about the vigors, but I was also thrown by how they are employed by other characters in the game. Saying anything more would be a spoiler, but it does lead me to ...
B) Story issues (which was the stuff that actually bugged me):
1. I'm trying to word this without spoilers, but at one point in the game the political landscape of Columbia undergoes a shift -- I don't think saying that much is a spoiler because what kind of game would this be without major events? But it forced me into an uncomfortable position which, if I had a choice, I would not have gone along with. It also drew a parallel between two of the city's factions that I found absolutely abhorrent.
I'm sorry, but the Vox were utterly, utterly in the right. And turning them into the enemies for the final acts of the game is amazingly unfair to the cause of oppressed peoples. Even after they shoehorned in the scene of Daisy trying to murder a kid it didn't undermine the cause of equal rights, it just showed that she was a psycho. So while I didn't mind it when Elizabeth killed her, my stomach was in knots for the rest of the game as I was forced to kill people who only wanted to be treated like people. Granted, my Irish grandfather whom I'm named after was a union organizer in the 20s so I'm a bit biased. But I would have disagreed with Dewitt in his comparison of Comstock and Fitzroy regardless.
Not to mention Dewitt and Elizabeth's selfish and idiotic decision to crash the city near the end. How many thousands or millions of people did they straight up murder? I know the final scenes basically eliminated this tale from all timelines, but Booker didn't know that yet.
In short, while there are bad people everywhere not all causes are morally equivalent, which is what it seemed like Levine was trying to say. Basically it pushed me out of the story.
2. The emotional impact of the ending -- or lack thereof for me. Maybe it's because the ending of the gut-wrenching "Walking Dead: The Game" still haunts me months after I finished it, but I was not emotionally drawn into the lives of "Bioshock Infinite's" two main characters. I had felt somewhat like I was Booker during most of the game, but the revelations at the end undid that.
3. The sci-fi of the ending. I've seen things like this many times, and these kinds of concepts have been in some of my favorite sci-fi. So I think that's why all I could think was that I've seen this sort of thing done many times before and much better.
Considering the utter finality of the ending, which should "logically" prevent these events from ever happening, I'll be amused to see what the plot of the DLC will be. I won't be buying it though.
So I felt that far from being "infinite" the game made the setting feel very, very confined. Unlike a caged bird who looks in a mirror and thinks their world is bigger than it is, I could only see the bars.
Again I'm not trolling, and these are just opinions. And I'm not saying you're wrong if you enjoyed it as much as most reviewers seem to. But these are the reasons it didn't work for me.
With the last (proper) Bioshock, he made sure to be positive only briefly before going over all the negative things in the game. Now he doesn't mind just saying that it's mostly very good. I guess people are starting to prefer actual reviews instead of just rants. I don't mind either way, it's all good to me.
Great review of a great game. I suppose I'll give my opinion on it as well, just to boost my own ego for a few minutes...
PROS:
The gameplay - It has been quite some time since I've played a shooter this fastflowing. The skyline system allows for a great way to get around on the battlefield, the plas- I mean "vigors" are really fun to use, and the guns actually feel like they pack a punch. I will say that at times the game showers you with more resources than you'll ever need, but considering I played on Medium, you might need those resources on Hard. Or 1999-mode.
The beginning - It is simply marvelous. After a short ride in a rocketseat and after nearly drowning, you arrive in Columbia, the city above the clouds. At first, it seems ideal. You go around town, taking in the sights, entertaining yourself at the fair, encountering oddities, meeting the twins, and win the lottery. And that is when all hell breaks loose, and you are forced to shoot your way through waves of policemen out for your blood. Marvelous.
Elizabeth - This. This is how a female character is supposed to be made, with flaws and all. Elizabeth is naive, but goodhearted. She is kind, but there is a limit to what she will take. She is goodlooking without being overly sexualised. And she is reliant on Booker to get out of Columbia, but she is still powerful enough to pull her own weight. Also, she is helpful in combat without getting in the way. A much better female character than the majority out there. At times her personality might waver a bit, but considering how Lara Croft went from helpless lamb to murderous machine in her last game, I think we can cut Elizabeth some slack.
The world - I'm a sucker for steampunk. Moving on.
CONS:
Two weapon-rule - Only being allowed to carry two weapons at a time feels a bit restrictive, considering the previous two games had no such limit. This is not a great con though, and it is eased by the fact that that you can pick up ammo for any weapon, not just the ones you are carrying.
Trailer differences - The trailers showed us several things that I thought looked awesome, but which appearantly never made it into the full game. For example, at least one of the trailers showed Elizabeth bleeding and coughing after using just a few tears, suggesting that doing this feat took a toll on her body. That sounds like an awesome idea! You've got this huge power, capable of ripping through time and space, but will you risk killing Elizabeth in order to use it? That aspect is nowhere to be found in the game, and Elizabeth can just rip the universes apart at will. And there are other examples. Where was that scene with the insane guy siccing birds at you? The stormy battle on the bridge against the Handyman? The bar with random folks who got upset after you used a telekinetic power to turn their weapons against them? Not in the game, just the trailers. Disappointing.
The ending - Okay, the ending in itself is not what's bad. What is bad is the rushed feel of it, and the fact that you contribute squat to it. You and Elizabeth travel through a few different worlds, she explains the plot to you because the game hasn't done that already, a twist is revealed, some more world-jumping, another twist, and then it's over. All within 5 minutes. Okay, so I know Bioshock had a slightly rushed ending as well, but at least there the twist was presented to you and the plot was explained quite a while before the game was over. This gave the player time to absorb what had just occured, what it meant for them, and ponder just how they should act henceforth. In Bioshock Infinite, a majority of the plot is given to you in the last 10 minutes, before the game abruptly tells you to sod off. And you might have different ways of interpreting the ending, or explaining the plot, but the fact is that the whole existential world gobble-di-goo just comes right out of nowhere. It just feels like it could have been better handled, is all.
Overall, this is one of the best games of 2013 so far. Highly recommended to everyone who loved Bioshock, shooters in general, and heck, just games in general.
Its kinda hard not be snarky about the multiple universes bit. There is just so much to take in throughout the game, now I think I'll do another play through as well.
I knew Yahtzee would enjoy the skylines though. I'm pretty sure I have yet to hear someone say something really negative about them.
Also the treatment of Bioshock 2 was great. Got a good chuckle out of me.
Eh, with vigors and that horribly bland forced stealth section near the end, yes, it was lacking, and the progression system felt pretty much "throw random amounts of money at whatever you prefer the most and probably are lugging through the entire game!" But the actual aesthetics and feeling to combat was great. I actually enjoyed watching my pistol reload -- that's not something you normally compliment in a game but the snappiness of the animation actually made it pleasant. The only real downside gun-wise is that the RPG is kind of just a blander version of the Volley gun (same could be said with the Heavy Repeater being essentially the SMG but bigger) and the Heater is utter shit. Still, it's more fun to play than most other FPS campaigns I have lying around, and the skylines/tactical tears do make up for some of my gameplay gripes.
That said, I am really disappointed by 1999 mode. Yes, the stats are like how they would be in 1999, but that in no way means it plays like a game from that era. Enemies and the player still behave like modern styles of shooting, gameplay is still dependent on scavenging and regenerating your shield, and you still have to use the auto-save feature.
I actually wanted to Google the new Bioshock Infinite and get more info on the game like "can it be played offline" Now normally this would be a stupid question to ask. But not lately... Our internet takes 5 minutes just to bring up Google. Now imagine downloading updates and whatever else...
Why oh why do games need to be online ALL THE TIME? Also ever wondered what will happen when those servers go the way of the dodo???
I find it quite humorous that, while everyone and their whore mom is jumping on the "it's over rated" bandwagon, Yahtzee, the person who is known for taking the piss, is being all rational. And by rational I of course mean thinks it's really fucking good and isn't complaining about really pointless bullshit no one except stupid people who missed the point have been doing. And not complaining that it's too violent.
I know it's probably not true, but it's times like these, where ZP actually says a game was good, that I like to imagine everyone who has been complaining about it suddenly shuffle their feet in embarrassment and realize what tosspots they've been acting.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
