>It's like the Man of Steel of video games. It wants to be art, with all these heady themes and topics, but it doesn't know what to do with them. It's pretentious! The last 20 minutes is just walking around in those "cutscenes" while Elizabeth explains everything to you in an awestruck tone--like her character just gets it and while your character just fumbles around like, "What does that mean? What's going on? What are you talking about?" and they reveal like four, five, six different twists in this one "cutscene." Then it just ends. And the game is like, "OH, SO PROFOUND!" And you're left thinking, "Wow, those were some crazy twists!" And you like the story, but then you actually think about it. Then you realize one: it's not that crazy or logical, and two: the twist isn't very satisfying in concluding the narrative. So the luster wears off real fast.
>Not to mention that it builds all these things up and doesn't really go anywhere with them. You can't just make all these heavy things,like American exceptionalism, class warfare, institutionalized racism--with roots in real life atrocities in Wounded Knee--massive parts of your story and setting, and then just throw them away completely about two-thirds in because you want to take some apolitical, non-stance between them where you don't want to say anything about anything, only stand back, arms crossed, and smugly say, "Make up your own mind." It's ridiculous! It's... it's like intellectually dishonest!
How accurate is this concerning the game's story?
>>331082396
It didn't really say anything about the story, just vague bellyaching about a lack of "something."
>>331082907
To be fair, the person was trying to avoid spoilers when they were talking about it.
>>331083339
If you're wondering what the story is like, just play the game. Has anything bad ever happened to someone for playing a game?
>>331083661
My father died playing videogames
>>331083661
Yea, lose 60 bucks
The guy who wrote the story admitted he had no fucking idea what he was talking about.
>>331082396
Superman movies are the furthest from art
>>331083661
Yes, Mario Party cut up palms of hands.
>>331083720
it's nowhere near 60 bucks anymore
>>331083731
Source
>>331082907
>The story trades shock and awe for actual substance to try and trick you into thinking the story is smart
>It wastes and belittles potentially interesting themes by using them as window dressing in service of a much less interesting story focus
>The ending itself is really unsatisfying and is a 20 minute walkabout where your character has no idea what is going on and is lectured about why the ending is clever
It actually says quite a few things about the story.
>>331083661
http://news.yahoo.com/man-attacks-child-over-call-duty-173448892.html
But OP, how does anything said about it interwind with gameplay?
A game wanting his story to be "art", but the gameplay aspect stays as bland as possible WONT work out. Where is the balance, fampai
Game is shit anyway so who cares?
A lot of words to not address the actual failing of the plot.
>>331082396
pretty close desu
the only people who think it's deep are uncultured plebs who've never read beyond shit like harry potter
>>331083963
Not really, it says in many more words than is needed "the story sucks"
Has anyone here ever actually seen someone call it "deep" outside of fanwank forum posts?
It has felt like a /v/ strawman since the shitposting started.
>>331084145
If you'd been on reddit for the next few months you'd have seen it everywhere.
It's still a pretty prominent opinion.
>>331084005
>The gameplay was just thoroughly mediocre though, I noticed that on my first playthrough right out. The shooting is serviceable, I guess, the guns all feel fine to shoot, but it's really crazy how many steps back they took from Bioshock 1. And Bioshock 2, even though I hadn't played Bioshock 2 before Infinite. You can't upgrade your guns--well, no, you can upgrade your guns, but they don't upgrade visually like they used to. And you only have one ammo type, there isn't the multiple types. And like halfway through the game, the weapon count basically doubles since you go from having the normal version of every gun to the ragtag rebels version of every gun available. And you can only carry 2 guns in this game! Instead of the 8 you had before, or whatever, it's only 2 now. I did enjoy the skyhooks though, when you could use them. It was only like 5 or 6 arenas that they showed up in, but they were fun to fly around on. The game looked great too, I think it had fantastic art direction. Sound design, too, but the gameplay was just so middle-of-the-road that it's what everyone talked about after playing the game.
Said earlier in the conversation.
>>331084136
But those things are literally the reasoning behind why "the story sucks."
>>331084318
39, San-kyu
>>331084389
Yeah, no. It was a paragraph of just describing the ending and then following with, "right didn't that suck?"
Then there was a list of things that were involved in the plot and an accusation that they were thrown away completely, which isn't true, and then putting words in the developers' mouths.
There was nothing of substance in this whole dumb rant, much like most criticisms of the game.
>>331082396
It's still a great game anon. Any time a game tries to be 'complex' it get shit on: TLOU, infinite, soma, undertale, spec ops etc.
Not saying they all succeed, but id rather games try than we just get more "this villain with one quirk does something horrible at the start, you spend the game meeting characters and then kill him (or more likely he just dies as a result of another attempt to kill you after he has been clearly beaten, so that the player character doesnt come across as cruel)".
Once the games get slightly more obvious philosophy out of the way they will be great. (I actually think the last of us was mature)
>>331084831
So motb got shit on?
>>331084578
All of the flavor stuff that goes into making Columbia the old timey racist white floating city and completely characterizing Booker, his past guilt and the crazy megalomaniac that Comstock was, does disappear when Elizabeth gets captured by Songbird in favor of sci-fi time travel stuff as it works its way to the big reveal of Elizabeth's origins and the wrap up.
And I really don't think it's too much of a stretch to with the dumb line about apolitical non-stance when the story actually paints Daisy and the Vox as bad as everyone else and Booker literally says, "The only difference between Fitzroy and Comstock is how you spell their name."
It's insane that Infinite accidentally, because I really doubt they'd do it intentionally, offer up the idea that maybe it's a good idea to oppress the poor people and darkies because they'll rise up and rape, pillage, and plunder if you don't.
>>331084502
>Writing about scientific concpts you don't understand at all.
I keep seeing this happen, would it be so much to ask for a sci-fi writer to know what the fuck they're talking about?
>>331084885
>disappear when Elizabeth gets captured by Songbird
More like when ghost mom appears.
>>331084578
Yeah, yes. He's describing the presentation of the story so as not to spoil it but give the reader an understanding that it is not satisfying - something a good reviewer does when giving his piece on a story-centered game. Which it is; a series of shooting galleries interspersed with small arenas so you can get from cutscene to cutscene.
I know you're not shilling but holy shit if soneone said this at release you'd barely find a decent conversation to save your life
>>331084935
Movies are doing it recently and I just wish games would catch up
>>331084935
If you expect sci-fi writers to go to college for 4-7 years majoring in theoretical physics in order to write a fictional story you have fucking autism.
>>331085119
Why the fuck would you write about you don't even understand the basics of?
>>331085178
Did you need a backhoe to move the goal posts that fast?
>>331085119
I'm not asking them to be fucking Einstein, just that they shouldn't write about stuff they know absolutely nothing about.
>>331084875
motb?
>>331085119
sci-fi writer here. if you can't put in a few days of legwork making your fiction mesh with the setting's established realism, then you need to write fantasy.
>>331085220
Different guy, faggot. My goalposts are solid; you sure seem fucking eager to change the subject, though.
>>331085307
I can't tell if this is actual advice or talking mad shit about fantasy fiction
Are you published Anon?
>>331085307
The quote from Levine was taken out of context by a bunch of simpering leddit monkeys. What about the actual game and story makes you think that Levine had no idea what he was talking about?
>>331084502
O man, I had never seen this.
>>331085419
It doesn't have to be "mad shit" to be accurate; if you're not willing to put in a little time to know the barest basics of what you're writing about, you should probably just write something that doesn't require legwork to make. Seems like pretty solid advice to me.
>>331082396
Here, have an intelligent better articulated criticism op.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_c2LM-xIvSg
>>331085268
Mask of the betrayer
>>331084831
How is TLOU complex?
Its 28 days later the vidya, doesnt get more bland
>>331083661
I'm still emotionally scarred after playing GW2
>>331085556
28 days later had an entirely different story - but was also a classic film so a rip off of it would also be good.
>>331085434
Where he retcons himself and the point where quantum mechanics dont have a major role in storytelling compared to good sci-fi stories ala Battle Angel Alita: Last Order.
This guy has no clue about time travel, he didnt even try to have the fourth dimension aspect
>>331085434
Writer
>Has a setting about fantastical technology and genetic "magic". Previous canon to fall back on for support.
>Needs to impress audience while keeping core Bioshock themes intact. Politicial extremeish but higher stakes is a natural conclusion.
>Decides we need to go beyond "save the city" and "save the world." We /save the multiverse/ now.
Good so far, right?
>Writer probably has ending in mind first, "journey" second. No rising sction, just the climax.
>Writer needs to make multiverse manipulation sound plausible and relevant, but the nature of the twist outshines the "political" parts.
>Writer decides, anyways, to focus on the political sidestory. Majority of audience now agrees Columbia's plight is an unsatisfying red herring with awful closure.
>Instead of giving what Bioshock fans love, let's give them a half-assed version of that with our poorly-justified stakes-raiser twist that ham-handedly connects the games for faux continuity.
They accidentally mocked the fact they copied the formula that made a good springboard for 1 and 2 by doing so.
>>331085119
Well duh at least read some books about it you mong.
It's called research, the better the research, the better the outcome? Why are you in defense mode anyway? Did we tickle a bone?
>>331085952
Also Bioshock 2 is best Bioshock.
Obligatory.
>>331087324
This image is the product of Levine half assing
>>331089604
>half assing
>2/10 knees too pointy would not bang
>>331082396
Man of Steel was like top 10 of 2013 though, fuck that hack writer and fuck Bioshock Infinite too I guess.
