What do you think of the BioShock series?

[mindlessobserver]

Anyone who has ever had kids will immediately get sucked into infinite. The politics of it was pretty on the nose, but the story of the characters allowed me to power through it to see it in its full complexity. It's surprisingly even handed. Columbia(America) had manifest issues, but the "solution" by the revolutionaries turned it into a fucking nightmare world.

 

[GenericEdgelordSupreme]

Bioshock = Awesome
Bioshock 2 = Still pretty cool but not as good as the first one
Infinite = Almost as good as 1 and better than 2 even though it's not dark enough

 

[Jack Awful]

Spoiler

Infinite's point that "even groups that seem to be fighting for a good cause can turn into violent terror orgs that murder children" was a great and relevant one. Unfortunately it was butchered in the DLC when it's revealed that the strong black female terrorist leader was just PRETENDING to go crazy and almost murder that child because the Lutece twins told her threatening the boy and having Elizabeth kill her to protect him was the only way Comstock will die, meaning she's actually so brave and strong that she was willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good. This is retarded and clearly was only added because people were upset that Levine implied that everyone is capable of evil, even black revolutionaries fighting their white racist oppressors and that the ends don't always justify the means.

 

[Whatevermancer]

Bioshock 1 still holds up in terms of gameplay, atmosphere and even graphics. Infinite is pretty to look at, but boring as fuck.

 

[XMassAllYearRound]

I like 1, I'm indifferent to 2 and I don't like Infinite.

Although I don't think infinite is as bad as some people make it out to be and despite the fact we got a neutered storyline (Compared to what could have been from previews and interviews) My major complain comes from the momment to momment gameplay and the trend chasing going on, having two weapons and rechargable shields is bullshit and exploration is non-existent.

 

[Begemot]

I like 1, I'm indifferent to 2 and I don't like Infinite.

Although I don't think infinite is as bad as some people make it out to be and despite the fact we got a neutered storyline (Compared to what could have been from previews and interviews) My major complain comes from the momment to momment gameplay and the trend chasing going on, having two weapons and rechargable shields is bullshit and exploration is non-existent.

I was kind of swept into Bioshock infinite by the story, I loved the concept of the tears and didn't mind the fact it was more linear. Bioshock 2 almost has too much exploration at times, I get lost typically in those levels.

 

[XMassAllYearRound]

I was kind of swept into Bioshock infinite by the story, I loved the concept of the tears and didn't mind the fact it was more linear. Bioshock 2 almost has too much exploration at times, I get lost typically in those levels.

I believe this has been posted before but just for the sake of clarifying where I'm coming from here is a compilation made by crowbcat showcasing what could have been

 

[ZMOT]

Spoiler

Infinite's point that "even groups that seem to be fighting for a good cause can turn into violent terror orgs that murder children" was a great and relevant one. Unfortunately it was butchered in the DLC when it's revealed that the strong black female terrorist leader was just PRETENDING to go crazy and almost murder that child because the Lutece twins told her threatening the boy and having Elizabeth kill her to protect him was the only way Comstock will die, meaning she's actually so brave and strong that she was willing to sacrifice herself for the greater good. This is retarded and clearly was only added because people were upset that Levine implied that everyone is capable of evil, even black revolutionaries fighting their white racist oppressors and that the ends don't always justify the means.

even with the DLC giving us mommy liz, it doesn't make up for the shit sandwich of retconning bs2 and levine basically taking the balls and going home.

I believe this has been posted before but just for the sake of clarifying where I'm coming from here is a compilation made by crowbcat showcasing what could have been

except that was always bullshit, infinite was the cp2077 of the 2010's.
the only reasons it didn't end in a total disaster was them not making super outlandish claims they had to fulfill, and the game itself was still good enough in itself (ymmv).

To help with focusing the team's timelines and budget, Irrational Games hired Jordan Thomas, the creative director of 2K Marin that led BioShock 2's development, in January 2012. Levine and Thomas decided on the roadmap for Infinite, quickly determining that the multiplayer elements were not needed and refocusing on the single-player campaign.[73] 2K later hired Don Roy in March 2012, a former game producer from Sony and Microsoft. Roy found that there no effective playable build of Infinite, and Irrational had outsourced so much of the content of the game but failed to have any process to bring that back into their internal production line that the content was effectively lost, leading to a lot of wasted costs and time. Roy stepped in to streamline the production processes and try to bring the game back on track.[68]

At the same time as these departures, 2K hired Rod Fergusson from Epic Games as their product director while Scott Sinclair, art director from the original Bioshock, replaced Wells.[75] Fergusson had gained a reputation as a "closer" from his prior work at Microsoft and Epic, helping to assure games were completed in their final development cycle. Fergusson reviewed the state of Infinite, and in direct consultation with Levine, made several calls to stop work on content either not yet in the game or that was not yet refined enough for shipping.[68] Additional material, such as locations, weapons, vigors, and other enemies, were also cut from the game as it neared publication and fine-tuned the experience; Irrational's Bill Gardner claims that enough material for five or six games were scrapped during this process.[17] Former Irrational employees credited Fergusson with helping to make Levine's creative vision into practice timelines and budgets, helping to make sure that Infinite would be released in a timely manner.[73]

Development of BioShock Infinite - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Jack Awful]

even with the DLC giving us mommy liz, it doesn't make up for the shit sandwich of retconning bs2 and levine basically taking the balls and going home.


except that was always bullshit, infinite was the cp2077 of the 2010's.
the only reasons it didn't end in a total disaster was them not making super outlandish claims they had to fulfill, and the game itself was still good enough in itself (ymmv).

Development of BioShock Infinite - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That is some top tier incompetence, holy shit. This is up there with Daikatana for reasons developers need publishers.

 

[frozenrunner]

I had played and appreciated System Shock 2 when Bioshock was announced. It always seemed to me like a dumbed down console version of System Shock 2, so I ignored all of them. I don't really regret it.

 

[cummytummies]

I had Bioshock 1 on the 360. Hated the control scheme so never gave it a fair chance. I own the remastered trilogy on PC so I'll try to play it some day.

 

[Corpun]

First one is great stuff, Second one surprised me with how good it was considering how much I heard people hated it. Combat was fun and the good endings always make me cry. Infinite looks good on first run but gets worse each playthrough.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Anyone who has ever had kids will immediately get sucked into infinite. The politics of it was pretty on the nose, but the story of the characters allowed me to power through it to see it in its full complexity. It's surprisingly even handed. Columbia(America) had manifest issues, but the "solution" by the revolutionaries turned it into a fucking nightmare world.

There are aspects of Infinite's story that have aged well, that aspect you mention is very bold in light of today's world as well just the general idea of an America stand in being destroyed by what is essentially a race war is chilling looking back on today.

Bioshock 1 is very prescient in it's own way in showing radical new technology breaking down a society, you can read the plasmids as a metaphor for smart phones and social media, ie unprecedented newfound power in the hands of the average person and the negative impact that can have.

Ken Levine basically read the tea leaves of America and correctly predicted where we were going.

 

[Buttigieg2020]

I firmly believe 2 was the overall best in the series after playing through the series this year.

The combat in 2 was genuinely great. Bioshock 1 felt like most of your options were worthless, ammo was scarce and switching to plasmids was slow. I went melee focused and that trivialized the rest of the combat. In 2, almost everything feels great to use. I played the second half of the game like an evil overlord, using summon bot and the brainwashing plasmids to get armies of things to fight for me with one hand, and launching turrets with the other. Super fun and closest to an “immersive sim” in the series.
Having an actual resource cost to saving the little sisters makes being evil an actually attractive choice, combined with the options for who you get to save through the game, makes the morality choices way more interesting than the first game.

The story in 2 gets crapped on a lot, but a collectivist villain stands out a lot more than evil capitalist. It doesn’t have 1’s great twist (except the DLC, which is also fantastic), but it does a great job of fleshing out the world, showing you what it would be like to be the majority of people in rapture, and pointing out how the people overthrowing the system might be worse than the people they are overthrowing.
I really didn’t care for Bioshock 1’s story after the twist, the villain was terminally retarded.

 

[Corpun]

There are aspects of Infinite's story that have aged well, that aspect you mention is very bold in light of today's world as well just the general idea of an America stand in being destroyed by what is essentially a race war is chilling looking back on today.

If I remember correctly the game sort've retcons the Vox Populi in DLC and the base game. The Vox that are your enemies are some alternate universe or something who radicalize because that timelines Booker dies a hero of the cause, and Fitzroy goes murder happy on white racists kids because the Lutece Twins ask her to so Elizabeth matures or something.

Bioshock 1 is very prescient in it's own way in showing radical new technology breaking down a society, you can read the plasmids as a metaphor for smart phones and social media, ie unprecedented newfound power in the hands of the average person and the negative impact that can have.

Ken Levine basically read the tea leaves of America and correctly predicted where we were going.

There should be more discussion on bizarre shit video games have incidentally predicted. Deus Ex 1 always comes to mind given it predicted terror attacks would be used to justify mass surveillance, poverty would rise massively, rich oligarchs would turn to wanting feudalism or some similar governing power, and a virus would emerge from China that kills massive amounts of people due to nanomachines.

 

[Mr. Duck]

I liked both 1 and 2, and was totally dissapointed with Infinite.

The problem with Infinite is that they tried to fit what was supposed to be a bigger game, into the aging hardware of the 360 and PS3, it should have been a PS4/One game from the beginning, in the same way that Cyberpunk should have been a next-gen only game, and in the end we end up with a CoD clone with superpowers because they HAD to fit it into 7th gen consoles.

 

[Dom Cruise]

If I remember correctly the game sort've retcons the Vox Populi in DLC and the base game. The Vox that are your enemies are some alternate universe or something who radicalize because that timelines Booker dies a hero of the cause, and Fitzroy goes murder happy on white racists kids because the Lutece Twins ask her to so Elizabeth matures or something.

There should be more discussion on bizarre shit video games have incidentally predicted. Deus Ex 1 always comes to mind given it predicted terror attacks would be used to justify mass surveillance, poverty would rise massively, rich oligarchs would turn to wanting feudalism or some similar governing power, and a virus would emerge from China that kills massive amounts of people due to nanomachines.

It is indeed pretty freaky how prescient Deus Ex 1 is.

To expound a bit on my thoughts on how the first Bioshock is prescient, we have a utopian movement led by a charismatic leader (Andrew Ryan) that gives birth to newfound technology giving unprecedented power in the hands of the average person (plasmid), but the technology only serves to cast a spotlight on the inherent inequalities of society and a grifter exploits this climate for their own personal gain (Frank Fontaine) eventually leading to a nightmare dystopia.

In real life we had a utopian movement spearheaded by a charismatic leader (Barack Obama), that gives birth to newfound technology giving unprecedented power in the hands of the average person (smartphones and social media), but the technology only serves to cast a spotlight on the inherent inequalities of society and a grifter exploits this climate for their own personal gain (countless SJW grifters) eventually leading to a nightmare dystopia.

I remember back when the game first came out some people were comparing Andrew Ryan to Ron Paul, Ron Paul never became President of course but I think what both he and Obama had in common was tapping into people's desire for a utopian movement in the wake of 9/11.

 

[Car Won't Crank]

There should be more discussion on bizarre shit video games have incidentally predicted. Deus Ex 1 always comes to mind given it predicted terror attacks would be used to justify mass surveillance, poverty would rise massively, rich oligarchs would turn to wanting feudalism or some similar governing power, and a virus would emerge from China that kills massive amounts of people due to nanomachines.

To some extent, Deus Ex 1 and Human revolution also predicted the small group of elite people who control key aspects of the world. I'm more familiar with Human Revolution and the shady and cliche name given to the elites are the Illuminati. That small group of people seem to have similar characteristics of the people behind the whole great reset idea that's floating around recently. Guess it would be Klaus Schwab? Mr Robot also had a similar type of thing.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

I liked Infinite, not the best game ever, but it was pretty and engaging enough. It should be noted that I played it in 45 minute bursts every other day so I never got fatigued by it and I sort of knew what the game could do and what it would let me do. Normally I'm a goody two shoes in any game where I have the choice between good or bad but I knew Infinite wouldn't let me bean the tied up black woman for public entertainment, so I chose to do that so see how the devs would stop me. It was interesting to see where they would go with the story because it was obvious they didn't have the freedom to go anywhere they chose.

Other than that, 8/10. Bioshock 1 was also fun except all items were huge which annoyed me. Pack of cigarettes the size of shoe box and so on.

 

[Jack Awful]

The story in 2 gets crapped on a lot, but a collectivist villain stands out a lot more than evil capitalist.

Maybe that's why.

"How DARE they suggest that altruism can be used for evil, and that collectivism isn't a perfect system that we should attempt to vote and riot the west into adopting! They're clearly a counter-revolutionary!"