I agree that the game brought up social issues but didn't discuss/critique them in a way that I wanted or expected. There is one conversation where Elizabeth asks why there are separate bathrooms for Whites and Non-Whites and you answer passively. She responds basically saying it is silly and unnecessarily complicated. That was perfect, the only problem is the game is light on commentary about a world of extreme haves and have-nots, simply leaving you to your own reactions.
If there was one thing I'd change about the game, I would have added in more of a tangible character transformation for Booker. Where being confronted by both Elizabeth's idealism/naivety and the extreme poverty/suffering of the under classes to the lavish lifestyles of the ruling class would make him reflect on inequality and become a more active participant in the game's themes. I understand they wanted Booker to be more of a blank slate for the player...BUT, his passivity was alienating as I had my own reactions that I wanted the opportunity to reflect in the game.
I see that they wanted to make Elizabeth into Booker's conscience...and there is plenty in the game that she reacts meaningfully to. But it was frustrating being behind the wheels of someone who refuses to take a position on anything when I as the player was reacting constantly. I would have liked to have seen more interactivity between Elizabeth and the world of Columbia. More choices with Elizabeth as the one you are given with the raffle at the very beginning. Without a doubt, Elizabeth is the best companion/NPC yet featured in a game I have played. She does frequently interact with her environment in suble, interesting ways. But even for someone who pokes all around the map to find all her discoveries...I still wanted more.
That said, I LOVED the ending. I do think it is gaming's Citizen Kane moment, as it is brings new levels of deliberate craft to the medium. It manages to capture the scope of its own world perfectly with limited use of "cutscenes" which remove you from the game. The game's scope and polish, say nothing of the unfolding story that has you constantly re-writing the plot of the game as you go along, is just unparalleled. When it all comes together at the end, the twist hit me more deeply than most movies who attempt to elicit the same reaction. What has been said in the game isn't new to story-telling as a whole, but its use is integrated so well into the interactive medium that it becomes a revolutionary example of story-telling in its own rite. In every way, BSI is superior to the original (again, ignoring 2k cynically cashing in on a rushed/unnecessary Bioshock 2), and I am confident that it will be one of a handful of defining moments for the medium.
one thing that bothered me about the game and how it touched on social issues (especially racism) was how it sort of would say "wow this society is racist, what a bunch of dicks" and then turn around and throw Chen Lin at us, who was a pretty bad caricature of an Asian American. That was a huge WTF moment for me. Same with the drunk angry Irish people in Shanty Town who you are supposed to simultaneously feel bad for & kill off once they get pissed at you for stealing from them (which afaik you have to do? unless there was a way to sneak around them to get the vigor enhancer thing)
I totally agree about making Booker more tangible, though that's something I felt about all the Bioshock games. It could be because I started gaming with adventure PC games where you either had dialogue options or you typed in your own dialogue, but it always bothered me how when you -did- interact with characters your options were limited to "kill/spare" or just staring at them while they went off on a monologue in front of you. Even if expanding Booker just meant expanding his interactions with Elizabeth, that would've been enough (though I do think if we realized early on that Booker had killed a bunch of Native American women, he might've been harder to play...so maybe we do need to know less about the characters we play?) But I would love these games a thousand times more if there were more ways to legitimately interact either with NPCs or the environment. (it would've also been awesome to have had more songbird in the game considering what a huge deal they made out of that character. i wonder how much songbird got scrapped, because the game seems to have changed pretty dramatically throughout its creation)
But still, calling this game, or the ending a Citizen Kane moment falls way short for me. What did, and still, makes Kane so riveting is that it told a story in a way stories weren't being told in the cinema both through the writing and the cinematography. The narrative and technical achievements of the film were only magnified by the fact that it was Welle's directorial debut. So no matter how -good- BSI might be, it isn't really doing anything that new. If anything, the twist, the interactions with the world, the lack of cut scenes, that praise can all quite easily be given to the first Bioshock game, since in SO many ways BSI is a retelling of BS1 with the real changes being a talking companion, tears, and ziplines.
In BS1 the twist felt so real and so personal and shocking that it threw the pacing of the rest of the game off (in a good way I felt, since your whole world got tuned upside down going from blind and unknowing vengeance/favor to a real and personal vendetta) and i felt like in this game, the twist was sort of entering into M Night territory in terms of "well we've got to outdo the first game with the twist". I mean, there was foreshadowing that became less murky after you realize how fucked up the situation is, but a lot of it relied on finding all the recordings, something that wasn't necessary in the first game (which to me is important in a narrative since as it stands i don't know anyone who's found all the recordings yet which means we're all working with incomplete narratives)
If anything, in my opinion, BSI is simply honing all the awesome things that BS1 had already redefined. If we were to award a game with a crown as heavy as being Kane-like, I'd be more apt to give it to BS1, Braid, Portal or Psychonauts because those games were all telling completely different stories and using completely different mechanics to do so (and in the case of Braid and Portal, they were actually those designer's debuts)
i haven't gotten through the whole thing but i love the line, "i like this game so much i'm trying to make this work" because that is sort of how i feel. i also love the fact that the game has this many people thinking and rationalizing over the plot, i really do....though i wish this power had been used for good and had us bitching about Objectivism again ;)
Well, I literally spent all evening on a point-by-point rebuttal of that article right down to creating a bloody diagram:
The page refreshed on its own and I lost everything...ah, yes I forget what a shitbox LiveJournal is now that the Kremlin owns it. Well, I am not re-writing all that. The short version is: that is the dumbest article I have read on the subject. And there are some good critiques.
I literally think they fail to make a single valid point, and had provided counter points to each of their "arguments", other than pointing out several times that they would have preferred the game to explain everything for them and that clearly a game that left ambiguity makes their Bro-y CoD-addled brains hurt. The mere fact that the game proved to be an intellectual exercise is a good thing, not a criticism like they seem to drag it out to be over six pointless pages.
Literally everything can be explained away because Bioshock's universe is never explained we don't know the exact rules, but we can attempt to use multiverse/quantum/string theory to understand it. When we do that the game does *mostly* make sense. But the real black box to the game is the source or even the limits of Elizabeth's powers. Clearly they bend even our understanding of multiverses.
I am thankful people like this are in the minority and the vast majority of people are using BSI as an opportunity to learn even just the basics of multiverse theories like string theory. This is probably the best DLC ever devised by a video game that so many people would be driven to to research pretty crazy stuff to get insight into the end of a video game. It's fun to try and apply our limited scientific understanding to the fantasy universe of Bioshock...even more fun to share it with others.
People who said there isn't a multiplayer component is missing out on some really wonderful conversations about the very nature of the game and its universe.
We can keep chatting on FB, but I am totally done with LJ. So pissed about my lost comment!
huh LJ marked this comment as spam. personally i'd rather keep the conversation here so as to not spoil it for people and because i really don't feel like running the risk of inciting a bunch of your bros need to retell me repeatedly that Ken Levine had nothing to do with BS2 even after i stated that I knew that (raaar nerdrage).
the article i linked to repeatedly said that they love the game though! i'd love to see other critiques on it. admittedly for me, the whole multiverse thing is specifically what i don't like about the game, since alternate universes and time travel are about my least favorite sci fi tropes out there. that said, since it's not a trope i enjoy, i admittedly know little about it and am happy to learn more.
as for the source of Elizabeth's power, i thought it was pretty clear it was from a) being experimented on by the lutrecs and b) because a part of her physically exists in another dimension? though i guess the extent of said power is a moot point now, since she is essentially dead and has been replaced by Anna, which is a shame since Elizabeth was a good character (I'm glad they didn't go with the original idea of making her mute!)
If there was one thing I'd change about the game, I would have added in more of a tangible character transformation for Booker. Where being confronted by both Elizabeth's idealism/naivety and the extreme poverty/suffering of the under classes to the lavish lifestyles of the ruling class would make him reflect on inequality and become a more active participant in the game's themes. I understand they wanted Booker to be more of a blank slate for the player...BUT, his passivity was alienating as I had my own reactions that I wanted the opportunity to reflect in the game.
I see that they wanted to make Elizabeth into Booker's conscience...and there is plenty in the game that she reacts meaningfully to. But it was frustrating being behind the wheels of someone who refuses to take a position on anything when I as the player was reacting constantly. I would have liked to have seen more interactivity between Elizabeth and the world of Columbia. More choices with Elizabeth as the one you are given with the raffle at the very beginning. Without a doubt, Elizabeth is the best companion/NPC yet featured in a game I have played. She does frequently interact with her environment in suble, interesting ways. But even for someone who pokes all around the map to find all her discoveries...I still wanted more.
That said, I LOVED the ending. I do think it is gaming's Citizen Kane moment, as it is brings new levels of deliberate craft to the medium. It manages to capture the scope of its own world perfectly with limited use of "cutscenes" which remove you from the game. The game's scope and polish, say nothing of the unfolding story that has you constantly re-writing the plot of the game as you go along, is just unparalleled. When it all comes together at the end, the twist hit me more deeply than most movies who attempt to elicit the same reaction. What has been said in the game isn't new to story-telling as a whole, but its use is integrated so well into the interactive medium that it becomes a revolutionary example of story-telling in its own rite. In every way, BSI is superior to the original (again, ignoring 2k cynically cashing in on a rushed/unnecessary Bioshock 2), and I am confident that it will be one of a handful of defining moments for the medium.
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I totally agree about making Booker more tangible, though that's something I felt about all the Bioshock games. It could be because I started gaming with adventure PC games where you either had dialogue options or you typed in your own dialogue, but it always bothered me how when you -did- interact with characters your options were limited to "kill/spare" or just staring at them while they went off on a monologue in front of you. Even if expanding Booker just meant expanding his interactions with Elizabeth, that would've been enough (though I do think if we realized early on that Booker had killed a bunch of Native American women, he might've been harder to play...so maybe we do need to know less about the characters we play?) But I would love these games a thousand times more if there were more ways to legitimately interact either with NPCs or the environment. (it would've also been awesome to have had more songbird in the game considering what a huge deal they made out of that character. i wonder how much songbird got scrapped, because the game seems to have changed pretty dramatically throughout its creation)
But still, calling this game, or the ending a Citizen Kane moment falls way short for me. What did, and still, makes Kane so riveting is that it told a story in a way stories weren't being told in the cinema both through the writing and the cinematography. The narrative and technical achievements of the film were only magnified by the fact that it was Welle's directorial debut. So no matter how -good- BSI might be, it isn't really doing anything that new. If anything, the twist, the interactions with the world, the lack of cut scenes, that praise can all quite easily be given to the first Bioshock game, since in SO many ways BSI is a retelling of BS1 with the real changes being a talking companion, tears, and ziplines.
In BS1 the twist felt so real and so personal and shocking that it threw the pacing of the rest of the game off (in a good way I felt, since your whole world got tuned upside down going from blind and unknowing vengeance/favor to a real and personal vendetta) and i felt like in this game, the twist was sort of entering into M Night territory in terms of "well we've got to outdo the first game with the twist". I mean, there was foreshadowing that became less murky after you realize how fucked up the situation is, but a lot of it relied on finding all the recordings, something that wasn't necessary in the first game (which to me is important in a narrative since as it stands i don't know anyone who's found all the recordings yet which means we're all working with incomplete narratives)
If anything, in my opinion, BSI is simply honing all the awesome things that BS1 had already redefined. If we were to award a game with a crown as heavy as being Kane-like, I'd be more apt to give it to BS1, Braid, Portal or Psychonauts because those games were all telling completely different stories and using completely different mechanics to do so (and in the case of Braid and Portal, they were actually those designer's debuts)
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i haven't gotten through the whole thing but i love the line, "i like this game so much i'm trying to make this work" because that is sort of how i feel. i also love the fact that the game has this many people thinking and rationalizing over the plot, i really do....though i wish this power had been used for good and had us bitching about Objectivism again ;)
Reply
The page refreshed on its own and I lost everything...ah, yes I forget what a shitbox LiveJournal is now that the Kremlin owns it. Well, I am not re-writing all that. The short version is: that is the dumbest article I have read on the subject. And there are some good critiques.
I literally think they fail to make a single valid point, and had provided counter points to each of their "arguments", other than pointing out several times that they would have preferred the game to explain everything for them and that clearly a game that left ambiguity makes their Bro-y CoD-addled brains hurt. The mere fact that the game proved to be an intellectual exercise is a good thing, not a criticism like they seem to drag it out to be over six pointless pages.
Literally everything can be explained away because Bioshock's universe is never explained we don't know the exact rules, but we can attempt to use multiverse/quantum/string theory to understand it. When we do that the game does *mostly* make sense. But the real black box to the game is the source or even the limits of Elizabeth's powers. Clearly they bend even our understanding of multiverses.
I am thankful people like this are in the minority and the vast majority of people are using BSI as an opportunity to learn even just the basics of multiverse theories like string theory. This is probably the best DLC ever devised by a video game that so many people would be driven to to research pretty crazy stuff to get insight into the end of a video game. It's fun to try and apply our limited scientific understanding to the fantasy universe of Bioshock...even more fun to share it with others.
People who said there isn't a multiplayer component is missing out on some really wonderful conversations about the very nature of the game and its universe.
We can keep chatting on FB, but I am totally done with LJ. So pissed about my lost comment!
Reply
the article i linked to repeatedly said that they love the game though! i'd love to see other critiques on it. admittedly for me, the whole multiverse thing is specifically what i don't like about the game, since alternate universes and time travel are about my least favorite sci fi tropes out there. that said, since it's not a trope i enjoy, i admittedly know little about it and am happy to learn more.
as for the source of Elizabeth's power, i thought it was pretty clear it was from a) being experimented on by the lutrecs and b) because a part of her physically exists in another dimension? though i guess the extent of said power is a moot point now, since she is essentially dead and has been replaced by Anna, which is a shame since Elizabeth was a good character (I'm glad they didn't go with the original idea of making her mute!)
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