--------------------- ---------------------
 |
| Father Comstock: Our weak antagonist (1) |
-I couldn't believe it. Ken Levine succumbed to the "6-hour" campaign craze. I beat this game in one friggin night, and that is a HUGE problem, a HUGE qualm that I have. I went off the beaten path so many times, but even with the massive amount of exploration that I did, the game was so short that it wasn't even worth it.
-Father Comstock, The Vox Populi chick, Slate/Slade/whatever the heck his name is, Mr. Fink, and yes, even Elizabeth, the supposed "driving force" of the game were all incredibly weak characters. Characters that were two-dimensional and not even interesting. In other words, EVERY character save for Booker and the friggin bird were poorly crafted.
The writing was as horrid as the plot and the ending were. To give just one example of this travesty of game writing, lets look at Elizabeth, the cliche Disney princess who people only like because they think she is attractive for some reason. She goes back and forth between talking like a High School girl and talking like an eloquent young lady...for no reason at all. It isn't like Dishonored, where she is expected to behave one way with some people and another way with others. She is just that poorly written. She goes from "Yeah, well I want a puppy, but that doesn't mean I'm getting one!" (one of the lines at which point I considered casing the game back up and demanding to get my money back) to (without saying who, for the sake of spoilers) "father, whomever you are, I am leaving, and there is naught you may do to stop me." Now lets look at another example, this next one is a point at which I realized that Ken Levine was trying way too hard to make this game dark and heavy. It is near the end, Booker and Elizabeth are on their way to stop Comstock for good. Elizabeth says, "Booker, are you afraid of God?" and Booker replies, "No, I'm afraid of you."
......what? This exchange just sort of popped up as the two are on a gondola on its way to Comstock's flagship, for no. flipping. reason. This kind of exchange has exactly the same effect as a novel in which the writer thinks that adding a whole boatload of sex makes it really heavy and mature, but it is just a fragile attempt, and it just feels like they are trying too hard. Why is Booker afraid of Elizabeth? Nothing like it is ever implied, partially because there is NO CHEMISTRY between the two, as I'll go on to explain later, but this entire exchange is totally unprompted, unjustified, and pointless. It is so obviously an attempt at a movie effect that I almost feel sorry for Ken Levine, Almost. But sadly, this game is too poorly done for me to feel sorry for him.
How about another example of how badly written this game is? How about something even more pathetic? How about Ken Levine forgetting what he wrote? Ahhh, yes. Ken Levine couldn't even keep up with the doggoned writing, not even for five minutes. There is a point where Booker and Elizabeth are going to commandeer an airship so they can get out of Columbia, and they are riding a Gondola up to the airstrip to get to it. While they are riding, Booker tells Elizabeth that the reason he is in Columbia is to get her to some people, and in exchange, they will wipe away the gambling debt that he owes them. Booker tells her EVERYTHING about why he is here. Then they get on the airship, and he sets the ship's coordinates to New York, and Elizabeth catches that, and she gets mad because Booker promised her they were going to Paris. Booker then says, "I owed some money..and they said they could wipe away my debt if I..." and then Elizabeth starts to cry. Umm...excuse me? Is Elizabeth a dullard or something? He told her literally everything about his purpose for being there, including the fact that he owed money and that she was the bargaining chip, not even FIVE MINUTES beforehand, so why is it that this is such a huge surprise now? I mean, it isn't like they were making this up as they went, they had to write the part where Booker tells Elizabeth initially, and then write the next time he tells her afterward. Maybe I'm not asking the right question when I ask if Elizabeth is a dullard. Maybe I should be asking, are the writers dullards?
--------------------- ---------------------
 |
| Its like sitting on a riding mower up a few hills and calling it a roller coaster (2) |
-The combat reminded me of Brink. Yes. The combat reminded me of the worst game I've ever played, but mixed with a less good version of borderlands. Every firefight was exactly the same, and they weren't even all that exciting, and the fact that the secret to winning combat was just button mash the right trigger over and over and over as fast as you can possibly do it just gave me a headache. It didn't make things interesting or intense, it just made things annoying. Essentially, if you've played the final push of "Rage," all of the combat is exactly like that. I recently tried this game again on Hard difficulty, just to see if it stop being so mind numbingly simple. But even on the hard difficulty the secret to winning any fight is to hit the enemy with the shock vigor and then shoot them once. That, or murder of crows, with which you can kill all the enemies in the room in two seconds on even the hard difficulty.
-The fact that you can only have two weapons (evoking sort of a Call of Duty feel) and can only hotkey two vigors at a time was stupid. Just plain stupid. Even though I don't like it, the two weapon thing makes a little bit of sense, but not the two vigor thing. If you have them all in your system, and you can switch between them at will, then why do you have to hotkey only two of them? It makes no sense.
-Only two or three of the vigors were even remotely compelling. And even the compelling ones were only there to help with the gunplay. It took the "choose how you want to play" aspect of Bioshocks 1 & 2 and said, "Screw You! Lets only make the guns work well!"
--------------------- ---------------------
 |
| Here, Elizabeth's face captures my exact opinion on having to stay in this stupid area for half the game (3) |
-The entire section of the campaign after the middle section. Once you finish with the middle section, exploration really goes out the window and Columbia no longer becomes interesting, thanks to the dull thunderstorm scenery and altogether bland look of the areas from there on out.
-In Bioshock 1, when the big twist happened, there was a small flashback thing that helped really make things click. It was just five seconds that helped immensely. And I feel like the ending could have really used that, just because I had to sit there and think about things for about half an hour before things started to click. But then again, the ending isn't good, so I guess it doesn't matter if I understood the horridness of it or not, but I still would have liked to.
--------------------- ---------------------
 |
| One of the many things that were missing from the game...one of the many, many, many things. (4) |
--------------------- ---------------------
 |
| "Dance with me, Mr. Dewitt!" Alright, that should be enough meaningful interaction to fool people into thinking there is chemistry between these two! (5) |
-I personally believe that Ken Levine wrote the ending the weekend before the game came out. It was so poorly constructed and cheap. It was so completely riddled with plot holes and utter nonsense that I had to sit in my chair for another half hour to figure out what happened. I will be writing a critique of the ending separately at some point, and there I will explain why this ending is an insult to anybody of even the slightest intelligence.
--------------------- ---------------------
 |
| Quite possibly the most well designed area ever, in terms of sound. I'll give this game that praise gladly. (3) |
-The first thing that I noticed about Infinite was its sound design. Simply amazing sound design. From the moment that I arrived in the church in Columbia and the sound of a choir singing a hymn resonated so beautifully, I knew that this was going to be a game with a strong sound. And I was right, floating barbershop quartets and distant bands made the scenery all the better. Indeed, I decided to at least delve a little bit into the game a third time specifically because of the sound design and the music. But this in no way forgives the many sins that this game commits. It is like saying, "the movie sucked, but the seats were comfortable."
--------------------- ---------------------
 |
| Your reward for winning the raffle is...you get the chance to stone an interracial couple (or not, its your choice). Super harsh, but that was 1912 America. (6) |
-The historical accuracy. Racism is never a good thing, but the fact that Mr. Levine did not leave out the utter, blatant racism of the time really made it all the more believable. The only diversion from historical accuracy was the fact that there were women soldiers. Alright, Ken Levine. If you're going to make a game historically accurate, you have to go all the way no matter who it offends. In 1912, women would not have been allowed to be soldiers, especially not in a city such as this.
-The "Undertow," and "Charge" vigors were always fun to use.
--------------------- ---------------------
 |
| As the cities have fallen, so has the Bioshock franchise. (7) |
4/10
Sorry, Ken Levine, but you screwed up this time.
For more information on why this game SUCKS, here are a few people who feel the same way.
Picture sources:
Cover: www.egmnow.com
(1) www.gamesradar.com
(2) www.mobygames.com
(3) www.bioshock.wikia.com
(4) www.pcgamer.com
(5) www.gameinformer.com
(6) www.gamereplays.org
(7) www.savegameonline.com
1999 MODE REVIEW:
I hated Bioshock: Infinite. Anyone who has read my review of the game and the ending knows this. I hated every second of this game from the minute the gameplay started all the way to that cheap, rushed, plot hole ridden slop called "the ending." So, why did I play it again on the hardest of the hard modes? Because I wanted to prove my point that Bioshock Infinite is the most anaesthetizingly simple-minded game on the market. And what better way to prove that than by suffering through this game one more time on easy mode tier 4....I mean, 1999 mode. 1999 mode is an unlockable mode that becomes available after you beat the game once, and it is supposably much harder than the easy, medium, and hard modes (or, as I like to call them, the easy modes tier 1, 2, and 3. Now, let me be clear, a game doesn't have to be hard for me to like it. I occasionally like to cruise through a game on a lower difficulty. It is when the game is both easy and simple-minded that my issues with it begin, and this is the story of Bioshock Infinite's life. I played two times when I first got the game (mainly because I so desperately wanted to enjoy it that I thought by playing it again it would suddenly stop being so horrible), once on easy, once on medium. It was exactly the same experience each time. The secret to winning every battle EVER is to use a vigor like murder of crows or shock jockey and shoot just one bullet, and you can cover the entire field of battle with corpses in the blink of an eye. No exceptions save for the handymen, everybody dies faster than the plant that I had to grow in my 5th grade science class, and it is about as much fun as my 5th grade year was in the first place. And I tried to do hard mode about a month ago, but didn't make it past Finkton because of how utterly bored I was...oh, and I wasn't even remotely challenged in that mode either. So, is 1999 mode a bigger challenge? Well, with genuine surprise, yes and no.
I'm going to start this off by saying that nothing changes in anything other than gameplay in 1999 mode. The writing is still horrid and inconsistent, the ending still sucks, despite what fanboys and fangirls may say, characters are still 2-dimensional robots, Elizabeth is still a good for nothing waste of space with no character who gamers only like because at some point she wears a dress that shows her cleavage and because she can take care of herself despite living alone in a tower all her life with nothing to threaten her, and who can pull ammunition for whatever gun you have out of her backside. The entire game is still one long filler mission, and the entire gameplay aspect is suited only for prepubescent boys who pay $60 just so that they can play multiplayer. The sound design is still absolutely the best of any game I've ever played, and the lighting is nominated for that award as well, Booker is still a fantastic protagonist, and a true shining star in this abyss. And even so, the changes in gameplay are only minor.
As I said before, if you are a prepubescent boy who thinks that playing anything other than multiplayer is geeky and that story doesn't matter because the only function of videogames is to have a lot of action in them, then Bioshock Infinite is the game for you. And, unfortunately, 1999 mode is no exception. You still can make it through the game without ever having to buy anything EVER, because you will have full health and salts for nearly 95% of the time, and thanks to the stupid, overused rebounding shields thing, it isn't like you need any health kits. Even if you didn't have the stupid, overused rebounding shields thing, it isn't like you would need health kits, because good for nothing Elizabeth still manages to find health kits to throw to you every five seconds. I swear, if 2k wanted to make a harder mode, they should have kept Elizabeth from interfering on the battlefield. Bioshock Infinite's gameplay might be slightly good if Elizabeth were to just stay behind cover and stop taking away every hint of challenge. I never had any trouble with any battles in 1999 mode. Not one battle gave me trouble because it is exactly the same grind each time. Nobody has any weaknesses that are special, nobody adapts, nobody looks at the corpse with the crows on it and thinks "oh, that might hurt me!" If you want to win in Bioshock Infinite, you can do so with your eyes closed mashing the right trigger as hard as you can. When you open your eyes, you will be at the ending, having just figured out the secret to winning every single fight there is...well, all except a few.
The Handymen. It is as if 2k games has no idea how to make consistent difficulty jumps. The handymen were the only enemies I had trouble with on 1999 mode, and these guys were hard to beat on easy mode. They are giant, strong, resistant to everything, and faster than you. On 1999 mode, I would shoot one of these guys in the heart (their weak spot...big surprise. Why on earth do they have their weak spot unexposed?) with rockets eight times, and it wouldn't knock their health down by even a little bit. "But, Reagan, you were just complaining about not being challenged!" No, I was complaining about the gameplay being simple minded, and the handymen, though incredibly overpowered, are no exception. The secret to winning a fight with a handyman is exactly the same as in any other situation. You mash and mash and mash and shoot lightning, just for a longer time, and you will be killed more often because of the fact that you can't just administer health kits, you have to wait for the shields to recharge, and the handyman is faster than you. Honestly, out of all the enemies in Bioshock Infinite, the handyman is the second least well done one of them all (the first being the weird creature in Comstock house than is surrounded by little elf things...where did that even come from?). For one thing, the weak spot is completely exposed, and its speed and strength are counterproductive given the health system of this game. They are like a poorly done version of the big daddies from Bioshock 1 & 2, except in those games you had health kits with you that you would strategically administer, so even though it was tough, it was manageable. The Handymen are anything but, and in 1999 mode, they are almost intolerable, but not in a healthy way.
So, what is good about 1999 mode? Well, I'll tell you right now that it isn't much, but I did notice as I was going along. The few times that you aren't walking around with full health, the looting system has a bit more weight. During my experience, more than a few times during combat I would be looking through the desks I was hiding behind and hoping that there was an orange or something that would boost my health. This is a far cry from every other mode where looting was just part of it with no real purpose. Also, I had a lot more fun with the horrid gameplay up until Finkton, but after that things just got too boring.
In the end, I didn't finish the game on 1999 mode. I got up until the financial district in the "Emporia" chapter, and from there on in the game is almost intolerably boring in scenery, story, and gameplay, and I just could not bring myself to go through that again. I only have about a week until I'm back on campus, with no gaming for months, so I figured that I didn't want to spend another second of my free time on this horrible game. I set out to prove that this game is simpleminded, and I have explained as best I can. Whether or not you choose to waste your money on encouraging more poor storytelling and stale gameplay is in your hands. All I can do is warn you off of it.
I did enjoy 1999 mode a bit more, but not a lot. But, essentially,this game earns one extra point, only in 1999 mode.
5/10
Sorry, Ken, but this is really bad. And yet, I still find myself really looking forward to the Burial at Sea DLC, without sarcasm, I am really looking forward to that. I hope that 2k games can get its act together for the return to rapture.
I didn't want to spoil anything on the actual review of Bioshock: Infinite, but I have many thoughts about the ending, so I figured it was time to write a talk/review of the ending and only the ending of Bioshock: Infinite, one of the most disappointing games I've ever had the displeasure of wasting $60 on.
Here is a basic summary of how Bioshock: Infinite ends: After one of the worst final pushes of all time, Booker and Elizabeth fully destroy the tower that Elizabeth was housed in for some reason, after Booker drowns Comstock in his basin of water (which is a sad attempt at foreshadowing, just like the priest in the beginning with the baptism). After that point, Elizabeth's character (if you can even call it that) completely fades away and she becomes this dull little mosquito who takes up space on the screen and blabbers on about other worlds. She talks about how she knows the truth now, and is super ambiguous. But essentially, she explains the multiverse theory...uh oh. Yep. The multiverse theory, the cheapest way out for storytellers who don't know what they are doing, the biggest, nastiest box to open because if you open it you are asking for inconsistency. And with Bioshock Infinite, you get just that. Essentially, what happens is you learn that there are infinite (hardy har har, Ken Levine) numbers of worlds, and that Elizabeth won't stop until Comstock has been killed in all of them. And then, you learn that "Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt" was actually Comstock trying to get Booker to give him his daughter...Anna. Or, as she will come to be known, Elizabeth. That is right, Ken Levine has been flaunting your daughter's cleavage at you for the entire game. But that isn't where it ends, Booker vows to help Elizabeth get rid of Comstock in every universe, so they come to a priest at a river who is offering Baptisms. This is a place they have already been, a place in Booker's life where he went to get baptized to be cleansed of the horrible things he did to workers while he was in the Pinkertons. But he didn't accept the Baptism because he doesn't believe that baptism will wipe away the things he has done (Another one of Ken Levine's precious moral statements that he spends the entire game throwing a temper tantrum over). And then, all of a sudden a whole boatload of Elizabeths pop up from nowhere (Oh, sure, people get all uptight when a deus ex machina kid appears out of nowhere in Mass Effect 3, but if a boatload of deus ex machina Elizabeths appear then it is the best ending of all time!) and start explaining that there are alternate universes in which Booker accepted the baptism and as a result chose a new name: Zachary Comstock. That is right, Booker IS Comstock. Booker is the main villain. It is Booker versus Booker. And then the many Elizabeths hold Booker under the water, symbolizing that baptism is the death of him in any universe. then they all fade away. Then, if you manage to wait through the HOUR of credits (which is amazing, considering that this game could have been made by a freshman in high school if you gave him a free weekend) there is an extra scene where Booker wakes up in his apartment and you hear a baby cry. He gets up and heads to a door saying, "Anna, is that you? Anna?" And as he opens the door, it fades to black.
I have essentially lost respect for Ken Levine because of this ending. I mean, the entire game he acts like a child throwing a temper tantrum and spewing his precious anti-religion-in-general propaganda. Look at Bioshock 1. He managed to talk about how he doesn't like religion in that, but he did so tastefully and with respect. It wasn't like in Infinite, where the entire religious population consists of bumbling idiots who worship the founding fathers and John Wilkes Booth, and where the atheists are the dashing heroes coming in to save the day. Members of both populations can be either of these in real life, but not in Ken Levine's world. Now, why am I going on about this? Because basically the message of the end is that religion is evil. If Booker becomes baptized he becomes a homicidal maniac who hates black people and wants to destroy the world. If Booker refuses the baptism, says "I'm not sorry for killing and brutalizing all of those black people when I was a pinkerton," then he is still flawed, but he is an intelligent hero who believes in racial equality (yeah...loving that logic there, Ken). This is where my qualms with the logic begin.
O.k. Comstock is Booker. Booker is Comstock. I get it. But why is the baptized one a racist and why is the one who isn't sorry about his crimes the egalitarian poster child? What I chalk it down to is Ken Levine was in a rush because he had no idea what he was doing, and so he decided that he needed to make Booker and Comstock the same person (a super cheap twist in itself), but he needed a connecting factor, so he said "religion! That'll be it! If he repents of his sins, then his favorite past time will be killing black people, if he just lives with the sins, then he will be an egalitarian!" If it were the other way around, then it would make sense, and I would be ok with it, but it is a completely illogical two roads that are diverging in this narrow wood. It is just common sense that if a person genuinely feels horrible and seeks to redeem themselves for their crimes then they wouldn't go back and do worse renditions of the same crime! And if all a person does is wallow in self pity then they are not going to automatically fit modern ideals. You can go ahead and call me a zealot for using actual logic as opposed to hatred if you'd like, but this is not an opinion. It is a fact that the connection of Baptism between Booker and Comstock is skewered all to hell in order to fuel Ken Levine's fire. It is simply amazing that he has the gall to say that this game is about more than racism and religion, when that is ALL the game is about in the end. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I, being religious, am offended by it, I understand that he is entitled to his opinion just like everyone else. But his conduct in this game is disrespectful and tasteless, and if it were a religious person making a game about how all non-religious folk are a bunch of bumbling idiots then I would be just as disturbed by it.
Now, off of that topic, lets talk about the stupid doggoned multiverse thing. This ending is so poorly conceived and rushed that they don't even remain true to the logic of the multiverse theory. Lets review: In order to kill Comstock for good, Booker must be killed before he can accept the baptism...They walk through a tear that leads them to a world where the baptism is about to happen, and they kill Booker there, so Comstock and Booker are dead in all Universes. But, wait a minute, if they killed Booker before the baptism in this universe, shouldn't there be at least a few other universes in which they didn't kill him? Why does killing one Booker in one universe make a difference at all? He is ONE Booker in a universe of INFINITE Bookers! Surely there are some universes where Booker was never born at all, or in which Booker accepted the baptism but didn't become Comstock, or ones in which Booker didn't accept the baptism and DID become Comstock. Or maybe there are universes where Booker wasn't a pinkerton so he didn't have any stains on his past, or maybe there are universes where Booker had those stains but loved what he did so he just remained a pinkerton and never sought redemption. Whenever one opens up the multiverse box, they unleash a force that they simply cannot work with efficiently. It just boggles my mind, because also, near the beginning of the game, the Lutece twins ask Booker to flip a coin, and it lands on one side, and one of the twins is wearing a chalk board with tallies under "heads" and it flips over to reveal multiple, multiple tallies on heads. The other twin says "chin up, there is always next time" indicating a time loop sort of thing. Obviously, Booker has gone through this process multiple times, so if Elizabeth is so all knowing and powerful, then why is it that she hasn't figured out that no matter how many times Booker is killed, there will always be a Booker and there will always be a Comstock.
And another thing, why on earth is Comstock old? It is exactly the same time period, exactly the same amount of time has passed, so why is it that Booker ages x amount of years? I understand that some people have white hair at an earlier age, but Comstock is OLD and he has a different voice. You know what I get out of that? The Bioshock team had already made Comstock and they just decided to make him the same person as Booker in the end without going back and making it make sense. With the Bioshock 1, the twist was right in front of you the whole time, but you just couldn't see it because you didn't know the truth yet. With this game, the truth comes out and it just feels forced. Yeah, the prophet seemed to know a lot about Booker and the advertisements saying to beware him were pretty detailed in their knowledge of him, but it was no way there in front of you the whole time. I guess technically it was, but only vaguely and in a not at all impressive way.
And another thing, why did Booker come to Columbia anyway? "Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt?" But by definition he already did that when he gave Elizabeth to Lutece. So, if the Lutece twins are so all knowing, then why do they keep bringing him to Columbia if they already know it is going to fail every time? And why is it that Booker can't seem to remember SELLING HIS DAUGHTER to wipe away a debt?
There are just so many plotholes in this game that I can't believe it is being hailed as a game of the year contender. It makes no sense, it is poorly crafted, and the story makes no sense because of all the flaws in the logic of even the multiverse theory.
Now that I've cooled down a bit, I'd like to take a step back. I've been way unfair to Ken Levine, I know he is not the only one responsible for this game. I'd just like to say that right upfront. I know that Ken Levine is not the one who is responsible for all of the failures of this game, even though I've been crucifying him for all these things. When I say "Ken Levine blah blah blah," I am actually talking to the entire team. I know Ken Levine as the guy behind Bioshock, so I always attribute the major successes along with the major failures to him, as one has to be ready for when they are the guy responsible. And I also know that it probably wasn't Ken Levine's intention to portray religion as the source of all evil, that is most likely just an unfortunate byproduct of the story. But he did handle it disrespectfully and tastelessly, so the fact that it wasn't his intention to be that way doesn't excuse it.
To conclude, the ending to Bioshock Infinite sucks. It sucks just like the rest of the game. This is a game that tries to blend action and story, but when you do that and you don't do a good job of either, then what do you have?
Do you have thoughts on the ending? Feel free to comment below, just know that I will be moderating comments and will not accept anything having to do with the religious aspects that I discussed earlier. If you have thoughts on the ending in general or have some insight into the logic of the multiverse theory, or if you agree with me and want to say so, then feel free to comment!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thoughts? Questions? Think I'm full of it?