General Gaming Megathread: What are you playing?

My biggest issue with Bioshock: Infinite is the fact that is very much up its own ass with the idea of quantum mechanics, alternate universes, the non-existence of free will vs. choice and storytelling in the Campbellian archetype. All of this has about 0% effect on real life and things that concern real people. This is a contrast to economic exploitation, racism, cultist religion (People like Comstock sadly exist who hide their crimes behind religion--Jesus loathed them especially), and so on. It's clear that Levine had no interest in the latter but set dressing.

Which means the game is incrediblt pretentious and says nothing.

It's also just a shooting gallery--which is FINE but not exactly something to write home about either.
 
CT Phipps said:
My biggest issue with Bioshock: Infinite is the fact that is very much up its own ass with the idea of quantum mechanics, alternate universes, the non-existence of free will vs. choice and storytelling in the Campbellian archetype. All of this has about 0% effect on real life and things that concern real people. This is a contrast to economic exploitation, racism, cultist religion (People like Comstock sadly exist who hide their crimes behind religion--Jesus loathed them especially), and so on. It's clear that Levine had no interest in the latter but set dressing.

Which means the game is incrediblt pretentious and says nothing.

It's also just a shooting gallery--which is FINE but not exactly something to write home about either.
Click to expand...
You bring up some really good points Phipps. I felt the same way about the quantum mechanics and alternate universes too. I remember when I was still a wide eyed young 20 something and was so excited for the game to come out. When I heard that the game was going to have time travel and alternate universes the first thing that came to my mind was: "Oh no."
As a writer Phipps I think that you will know better then anyone that alternate universes and time travel is some of the hardest and most plot hole ridden story telling mechanics. I remember Mike Stoklasa of RedLetterMedia talked about this once. He said that even in shows like Star Trek and Doctor Who who use these mechanics a lot in their stories and do it well still do it wrong and leave plot holes.
I once had the art book for Bioshock Infinite and the ideas that they originally had were actually interesting. Sad that they chose this over what could have been.
 
Last edited:
The writing wasn't even the thing i hated the most about Infinite, it was the two weapon limit and the extremely linear level design. It's like they were trying for some reason to appeal to Call of Duty fans.

I'm not asking for twenty weapon slots, but i like to have a decent amount. I haven't played a game with two weapon limits that isn't trash because it's far too restricting, the only exception maybe being the first Halo game. First, in your first playthrough you are not gonna know each enemy encounter, so it's a crapshoot on which weapon you think you are gonna need. Second is that enemy encounters can't be made around this limit when the game has several weapons. The devs are not gonna know which weapons the player has, so enemy encounters can't have several enemy types at once, it can maybe have like three at best. The only way to have fun with the combat is to know in advance what you are gonna face.

I don't mind linearity in itself, but when your previous games weren't literal hallways, to have pretty much every level be a linear hallway is far too jarring. I highly doubt someone looked at Bioshock 1 and said to themselves they wished the levels were hallways. People like the boxes you have in each level where you have all this space to run around and explore, do side missions and look for upgrades.
 
Last edited:
RangerBoo said:
You bring up some really good points Phipps. I felt the same way about the quantum mechanics and alternate universes too. I remember when I was still a wide eyed young 20 something and was so excited for the game to come out. When I heard that the game was going to have time travel and alternate universes the first thing that came to my mind was: "Oh no."
As a writer Phipps I think that you will know better then anyone that alternate universes and time travel is some of the hardest and most plot hole ridden story telling mechanics. I remember Mike Stoklasa of RedLetterMedia talked about this once. He said that even in shows like Star Trek and Doctor Who who use these mechanics a lot in their stories and do it well still do it wrong and leave plot holes.
I once had the art book for Bioshock Infinite and the ideas that they originally had were actually interesting. Sad that they chose this over what could have been.
Click to expand...

Speaking as a writer, one thing that irritates me about Ken Levine is that he is primarily interested in writing video games about video games and video game storytelling, which isn't necessarily bad but also shows a kind of lack of interest in expanding the medium. When he made Bioshock: Original Recipe he made Objectivism as a choice to provide a pseudo-intellectual conceit to the place but he was most interested in talking about the "illusion of choice" in video games. He thought it was a stupid idea to undermine the "storytelling" of the developers to accommodate player 'choice.' Which, I point out, then make a movie or book as choices may be LIMITED in video games but are a major advantage of the medium.

Apparently, Levine put the "Eat Little Girls or Save them" choice at the insistence of the developers as the original game is about having NO choice as its central conceit ("Would you kindly?"). It was a JOKE as the most ludicrously bizarre moral choice he could make. Except he didn't seem to realize that the extremes of choice in video games ala KOTOR aren't that much far from it. Some game magazines even PRAISED him for allowing the choice and that it fit into the narrative of choosing power or morality.

Except, for whatever legs Bioshock has, it's critiquing Randian economics. Because choice in video games isn't really that interesting a topic to people outside of those who make video games. It was a similar problem I had with SPEC OPS: THE LINE where the game could have said anything about interventionalism or mental breakdown or about the perceiced invincibility of American military mythology (which if you think I'm reaching was actually a major part of CALL OF DUTY 4 as the big "moment" was the realization the US was fucked and beaten by a treacherous enemy nuking them--and all the heroics did was get everyone killed).

No, Spec Ops: The Line isn't about the real world. It's about why people play military shooters and whether killing people who aren't real is fun.

....yes?

Duh. It's why people see action movies. It's not really a fascinating question and is more like something Jack Thompson should ask.
 
In short, Ken Levine ended up becoming arrogant due to the massive praise he got for the first Bioshock and ended up with his head up his ass. Not the first time this has happened to a developer. Remember what happened to Bioware? They received so much praise for all their previous games that they ended up with the belief that they can do no wrong and that everything they write will be gold. They ended up writing the worst ending ever made in storytelling that came out of fucking no where. Instead of owning up to it and admitting that they fucked up, Bioware instead blamed the fans for not understanding their genius. Now today they are a joke who everyone loves to see fail.
I will give Levine some credit in that he admits that Infinite has many faults and people have a right to criticize it. Whether or not he learns from those faults remains to be seen.
 
SquidVan said:
Bioshock Infinite was shit on many fronts. I got the "maybe you just didn't understand the story" comment many times due to my distaste of it. I understood the dimension hopping, I just thought it was stupid.
Click to expand...
That's because it's not bad, you just didn't understand the retarded and convoluted story.
 
Proletären said:
I'm playing System Shock 1 and this time I'm going to finish it!
Click to expand...
I'd recommend the Enhanced Edition where you can mouselook and toggle that back off to manage items with the press of E. I mean if you play it like it launched more power to you but mouselook is nice to have.

Before I started playing Prey I think System Shock 1 has been my favorite immersive sim so far. If it even counts as an entry in that genre. I preferred it to SS2, Bioshock 1, 2, and Infinite.
 
Bioshock Infinite had several problems.

1) It played like absolute ass. My primary memory of Infinite's gunplay was frustration and boredom. It's been like 7 years and the fight against the ghost is remembered in my mind with the same wincing frustration as stubbing my toe really hard on a table corner

2) It was straight up action rather than having the pseudo immersive sim/survival horror feel that the OG Bioshock had. This isn't because of the setting because I remember the early Infinite trailers giving off that same uneasy fever dream feeling of Rapture

3) Political message was rather toothless in execution compared to Rapture, which is really weird considering Rapture was a condemnation of the hypothetical and Infinite was meant to be a condemnation of something very real and very historical.

4) Fucking Doctor Who level bullshittery regarding dimensions and universes. Turning your dystopian portrayal of IRL racism and absolutely abhorrent American history into a farcical sci-fi fantasy nonsense adventure about portals and timelines just undercuts everything. Bioshock was committed to its politics throughout the story, it didn't drop it halfway through.
 
Bioshock Infinite was a game. That is my opinion on it. System Shock 1 ftw.
 
Crni Vuk said:
There is someone doing a remake of SS1.

Click to expand...

Yeah! It's Nightdive Studios. They're the ones who bought System Shock and gave it an enhanced edition. They're apparently also doing an enhanced edition for SS2.

The owner seems like a pretty cool dude from an interview I saw. He had looked up an old game on vacation that he wanted to play at night and couldn't buy it anywhere and then when he did find files for it or his old copy or something he couldn't get it to run on his modern system.

Apparently, he ended up contacting the IP owners and wanted to start a company that would fix games to work on modern systems. And one of those games (if not the first, I don't remember) was System Shock. I know the Codex loves to shit on Beamdog and I'm not really sure why but they never have shit on Nightdive on the same level at least. I appreciate the idea of bringing back old games and keeping them working on new systems. GOG, Nightdive, Beamdog (though I guess they do it lazily with modders work that receive no compensation??), etc.

I'm not huge on the new lighting and colors (I guess the whole tone) of that System Shock 1 demo but I'm still excited to see that project come to fruition so nooblets can one day semi-experience what System Shock 1 was. Which was fucking great.
 
I'd say if you want to play both go play the System Shock Enhanced Edition. It's just old looking at that point but it's a pretty impressive game for 1994. System Shock 2 is a game held dear by many. If you're on NMA I assume you can handle System Shock Enhanced Edition. It's so much better to click E and be able to mouse look in my opinion. It's also a game I use in arguments about the "aging" of games. Everyone now would say that it aged poorly but even back in the day the controls were so crazy to get used to it was criticized for it. Enhanced Edition fixes a lot of that and at least on GOG, I know you get both the OG and the EE.
 
So Casey Hudson finally left Bioware. 7 years too late. Casey Hudson should never be forgiven for the abortion that was the Mass Effect 3 ending and for introducing Mac Walters into the industry which started a long line of the entertainment industry hiring fan fic writers off the internet to write entertainment.
 
SquidVan said:
I'd recommend the Enhanced Edition where you can mouselook and toggle that back off to manage items with the press of E.
Click to expand...
That's the version I'm playing. I can't believe how far before it's time this game actually was. It has almost everything.
 
Hell yeah. It's a bit of a pain to get that done (unless they changed anything?). Got to at least hit NG++ and go back to the altar under that dragon I believe. And that's assuming you don't fuck it up.

I finished up mine I think last year? Did Bloodborne's last few this year.
 
I like how nobody cares about the Game Awards because they are too busy playing Cyberpunk. Such bad timing. Then again, we all knew that they were going to give the award to The Last Lesbians 2 because they had a separate category for what players think the best game is and a separate category for what game the activists, er, sorry, """"journalists"""" think is the best game is. That is not a good sign.

The Game Awards summed up in a nutshell:


"It's not about the money. It's about sending a message."
 
Last edited:
RangerBoo said:
I like how nobody cares about the Game Awards because they are too busy playing Cyberpunk. Such bad timing. Then again, we all knew that they were going to give the award to The Last Lesbians 2 because they had a separate category for what players think the best game is and a separate category for what game the activists, er, sorry, """"journalists"""" think is the best game is. That is not a good sign.

The Game Awards summed up in a nutshell:


"It's not about the money. It's about sending a message."
Click to expand...

I was disappointed last night.
Even though they mentioned it, but there's no new information for Elden Ring.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top