First Person Shooters: The Thread

[Spark Of Spirit]

It's a 1950's period piece detective story taking place in still-functioning Rapture.

This is what the original rumor was for BioShock 2's plot. I wonder if there's anything to that?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

At the cost of pissing off almost every gamer out there, I am going to be straight-up honest with my opinion, here: I just don't find Columbia to be that interesting. You take away the sky-coaster things and the fact that the world takes place in the sky....and its just not that interesting of a world. It just feels too gimmick-heavy to me, like the developers were getting up their own ass with how "artistic" they could be. Really, BioShock: Infinite as a whole just didn't impress me that much (I still haven't even bothered to finish it, yet, which is very telling of how much it has failed to grab me). The gameplay is standard-fare, but lacks the depth of games like F.E.A.R. or Halo in terms of combat mechanics and AI, as well as the intricate level-design of old-school shooters like DOOM. The atmosphere is there, but most of the time it fails at keeping me immersed in the "world" that its trying to create, unlike how Rapture did.

As for the elements that everyone praises about the story and themes and whatnot....I think that's just the perfect example of how my outlook on stories in games is REALLY just way too distant from most people, these days. People praise the themes tackling racism, corruption, cults, and other mature subject matter. That stuff is all certainly there....but its just delivered in such an amateurish way, IMO. I mean that there is no subtlety or sense of real direction to any of these messages. The game just makes them so plainly obvious and downright creates entire scenes around them, rather than cleverly weaving them into the sub-text of the game (to be fair, though, its not nearly as bad as BioShock 2 was, in this regard). I think the first game was surprisingly enough already much better at tackling mature themes in a more subtle and convincing way. It also never forced the story on you as much, so more of these themes were stuff that you discovered by looking more into and reading more into the subtexts of the voice-recorded messages as you connected them together. Case-in-point; that whole deal with the hooker who was having an affair with Andrew Ryan. It was a side-story that you had to go out of your way to find out about by visiting optional rooms. And even then, it didn't blatantly just give any details away. All the information was cleverly ingrained into the way the characters spoke and in what kinds of details you payed attention to. In BSI, I just find that more often than not, everything is way too plainly spelled out for you. The characters do all have rich back-stories behind them, of course, but the same was already true of the first BioShock.

So, in other words, I just find Rapture to be about 5000000000 more interesting than Colombia. Personally, I think that Columbia is a little bit more shallow than what people make it out to be.

Then again, everyone should keep in mind that I'm pretty much a crack-pot when it comes to my opinions on modern games in general. I promise that I'm not deliberately just trying to stand out by making my opinion different from the mass majority, and I REALLY wanted to love BSI given how much I was looking forward to it before it came out....but my problem with this game is the same problem that I've found myself having with most modern games in general, and I have to be honest: I just think that a lot of these games are way more flash than substance, to put it bluntly. If you remove the really pretty looking graphics from the game, I think some of its flaws might be just a little bit more apparent to some people at least. I'm not saying that the original BS was a perfect game, either, but I still find that Rapture was much better when it came to ambiance, atmosphere, and story. The mechanics in these games were always pretty mediocre, though, to be honest, so I can't hold that against BSI too much.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Oh wow, I thought you were huge into Infinite. I'm sort of surprised you haven't been all too impressed. What's strange is that I haven't really heard anyone talking about it recently when just months ago everyone was freaking out about it. For comparison's sake, I still hear people going on about The Last Of Us.

But to be fair, my dad enjoyed the first two games and he played through it and wasn't all too impressed with it. He shelved it after finishing it when he instantly replayed both BioShock games.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Oh wow, I thought you were huge into Infinite. I'm sort of surprised you haven't been all too impressed. What's strange is that I haven't really heard anyone talking about it recently when just months ago everyone was freaking out about it. For comparison's sake, I still hear people going on about The Last Of Us.

I was never really huge into it. I did say it was great, at one point, but really I just find it to be a good, solid game. I probably came off too harsh-sounding in my post now that I re-read it, which I didn't mean to do. But, my point still stands in that I find the mechanics of the game to be merely only "OK" for the most part, and I find that the story and atmosphere of the game is pretty flat. I'm not impressed with the game in that regard. I still had fun with what I played of it, but not so much fun that I was all too compelled to keep playing it. For the sake of perspective, I jumped back into playing DMC3 over the past few weekends and have once again gotten hooked on that game despite having beaten it nearly 3 times already. That game is about 8 years old, now, and it has very dated graphics. The voice-acting ranges from acceptable to laughably bad, the game has tons of "flaws" that would bother most modern gamers too much to bother with it (but don't really bother me, for whatever reason), and the story doesn't even take itself seriously, let alone the fact that it doesn't even have a lick of depth to it and its characters. Yet, I find that game has so much substance to it for the few things it focuses on and does right. I keep coming back to it for more because its just so much damn fun. I suppose that's really what I'm personally not getting out of most modern games these days. I'm just not having very much fun with most of them, these days. I'm not saying that they are bad games, either. They are popular for a reason, but I honestly get pretty bored with most of these games when I try them. I suppose the best thing I can say is that....modern gaming just isn't my thing. Its meant for a different audience than me, which is fine, but that's just what I have come to realize is all.

[Foggle]

Oh wow, I thought you were huge into Infinite. I'm sort of surprised you haven't been all too impressed. What's strange is that I haven't really heard anyone talking about it recently when just months ago everyone was freaking out about it. For comparison's sake, I still hear people going on about The Last Of Us.

Most people tend to forget about overhyped AAA games as soon as the next one comes out. I guarantee that no one will be talking about TLoU anymore once GTA5 is out.

Which isn't to say that any of these games don't deserve their hype. I love Infinite, and I'm sure the other two are just as good as everyone says.

At the cost of pissing off almost every gamer out there, I am going to be straight-up honest with my opinion, here: I just don't find Columbia to be that interesting. You take away the sky-coaster things and the fact that the world takes place in the sky....and its just not that interesting of a world. It just feels too gimmick-heavy to me, like the developers were getting up their own ass with how "artistic" they could be.

Take away the steam pipes and the fact that it's submerged in water and Rapture is basically just a spaceship from any other dark science fiction game. Both game worlds are heavily based on gimmicks. That's why people like them.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I sort of fell out of modern gaming when I played Modern Warfare 2 and came across No Russian. When the focus is on shock value over gameplay (I mean, you don't do anything for 95% of the level except shoot people who don't shoot back) in an attempt to have 'meaning' then you lost what video games are about in the first place.

Instead of realizing that was a bad level that had no business being made, there are now people like David Cage who built whole games around that concept and get rewarded for it.

At some point modern gaming became 'badly-written C-tier action movie'. Why pay $60 for a bad movie when I can watch a good one for a fraction of the price?

[Foggle]

I agree that movie games are generally stupid, but I think BioShock Infinite is an excellent movie game. It may be overt with its themes (you can thank the people who didn't understand the nuances of BS1's plot for this), but it has legitimately interesting writing and a very fun to explore world. Every room in the game is constructed in such a way as to appear as if it could actually be lived in. A lot of love went into the game's art and level design and I feel that it's unfair to say that Irrational was "up their own ass" when working on it. That's the kind of shit you say about Heavy Rain and Metal Gear Solid 2.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I agree that movie games are generally stupid, but I think BioShock Infinite is an excellent movie game. It may be overt with its themes (you can thank the people who didn't understand the nuances of BS1's plot for this), but it has legitimately interesting writing and a very fun to explore world. Every room in the game is constructed in such a way as to appear as if it could actually be lived in. A lot of love went into the game's art and level design and I feel that it's unfair to say that Irrational was "up their own ass" when working on it. That's the kind of shit you say about Heavy Rain and Metal Gear Solid 2.

To be fair, I didn't actually say that. I don't really have any issue with Infinite other than I don't really have a desire to play it, other than my dad's experience which didn't really wow him.

It actually takes a lot for me to get interested in an FPS these days since I got so burned out on them this past gen.

[talonmalon333]

Is it as good as the first game?

[Foggle]

To be fair, I didn't actually say that.

I know. E-K did.

[Foggle]

Is it as good as the first game?

Far better, though I'm sure a lot of people will tell you differently. Playing both games back to back was like night and day for me. Story and atmosphere aside, I really just do not like the original BioShock anymore.

System Shock 2 blows any and all other Shock games out of the water, however.

[Spark Of Spirit]

To be fair, I didn't actually say that.

I know. E-K did.

Oh. 

Is it as good as the first game?

I actually feel the second game has the better gameplay, but the first has better everything else. The second game gets kicked around a bit too much, but if you look at it as a side-story (it isn't really a sequel) then it's pretty good for what it is.

[Foggle]

I actually feel the second game has the better gameplay, but the first has better everything else. The second game gets kicked around a bit too much, but if you look at it as a side-story (it isn't really a sequel) then it's pretty good for what it is.

Think he was talking about Infinite.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I actually feel the second game has the better gameplay, but the first has better everything else. The second game gets kicked around a bit too much, but if you look at it as a side-story (it isn't really a sequel) then it's pretty good for what it is.

Think he was talking about Infinite.

Yeah, but he sort of dismissed the second game totally, which isn't entirely fair.

It's not like it was DMC2 or something.

[talonmalon333]

I actually feel the second game has the better gameplay, but the first has better everything else. The second game gets kicked around a bit too much, but if you look at it as a side-story (it isn't really a sequel) then it's pretty good for what it is.

Think he was talking about Infinite.

Yeah, but he sort of dismissed the second game totally, which isn't entirely fair.

It's not like it was DMC2 or something.

Dismissed? I just haven't played 2 is all. Neglecting to name it isn't an insult.