Game Pile: Bioshock Infinite, Again
When I wrote about Bioshock Infinite back in May of 2013, I had just started university and had some fantasy in my mind about this blog being a bridge to working in the games industry. James journalism, I imagined, was waiting for me to present an example of what I could do, and so, I wrote about games with the energy of someone trying to reach that sweet spot of irreverent professionalism, discussing games in terms of pros and cons and the inevitable consideration of a consumer.
At the time I did call the game a modern classic, on par with Spec Ops: The Line. I cringe at that a little, because while it’s true, it’s true in the way that you could remove that description from context and leave with the impression that I think that makes it good. It’s absolutely a classic – you can look at it in the context of the games of its time and it serves as an iconic reduction of so many of the elements that make up what it was to be games in that time and that place.
I then spent several years familiarising myself further and further with Bioshock Infinite and realising how much worse a game it was than I appreciated at the time. I eventually came to refer to Bioshock Infinite as a ‘shallow game as high watermark.’ That’s reasonable, I think — It does deserve to be regarded as a classic because of it. It was very much a good example of what gaming, at the time, considered The Way Things Should Be, that it was an example of art as a game.
It’s 2023 now.
I resolved the idea that I should be kind with energy, and cruel with purpose. The purpose here, is to look at my own writing, ten years ago, about this game, and see what I think of it, what I think of who I am now.
Continue Reading →I Swear I’ll Shut Up About Bioshock Infinite
I know I bitched about the game quite a bit by now, but Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea, Part 2 has absolutely amazing aesthetics. The visuals, the music, the sound, it’s all very high quality, and it’s this kind of emotion, this sort of heart in the character of Elizabeth that made her a character I really like.
Deeper In The Pile: Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea, Part 2
Hang on, I thought Deeper In the Pile was for games I’d reviewed but wanted to talk about some more out of the context of a purchase. Why am I talking about this one, which I haven’t reviewed? I treated The Knife of Dunwall as its own standalone purchase, and the same with Burial At Sea Part 1 – what gives?
Well, let’s get the simple review out of the way, then, to formalise it: Burial At Sea, Part 2 is fucking dreadful.
Now I’m going to talk about it, there will be spoilers, and I quite frankly could not give a tenth of a shit about it. The following article contains references to violence, racism, bad things happening to little kids, torture, and – look, if you’re sensitive, at all, don’t play Burial At Sea Part 2. That’s the easy advice. For the rest of you, this is going to get angry. Do keep up.
Continue Reading →Game Pile: Bioshock Infinite: Burial At Sea, Part 1
Time has not been kind to the children of Levine, and in this context I mean the videogames under the Bioshock label, not the presumed flesh-and-blood entities that are resultant of a combination of gametes involving Mr Levine and whatever partners may have been involved. No, as for those entities, if you’re somehow, inexplicably reading this sentence, I would advocate not making any sudden movements around Dad, because he’s clearly quite terrified of you. The games, however, have been given something of an unpleasant beating in the course of history as it rolls past them. Bioshock 1 was successful enough to overshadow its sequels, but also kick off the ‘games as art’ conversation that helped push some of the recent scrutiny of games that are being talked about as art, and being at the crest of that wave, it wound up being scrutinised by more critical eyes than originally gave it all of its 10/10s. Bioshock was suddenly being looked at in the context of its simplistic approach to gender, its monoracial world, its violence-as-only-solution, it’s daddification-as-expression, and even as the game should stand proud for bringing this kind of attention for videogames, it does not look good in that light.
Bioshock 2 is a little bit lucky, actually; as the game’s worn on, the consensus about its bad multiplayer content is that it’s bad, and therefore, people stop talking about it as a feature to be considered, but rather, a growth to be excised. Bonus, the death of Games For Windows Live has decoupled Bioshock 2 from its worst practical element. On the other hand, now it has to look up on both sides to its big-budget brethren, which are either aesthetically superior or better writing, and as bad as Bioshock 2 looked in light of Bioshock, it looks even worse when it has to compare to the jaw-dropping aesthetics of the teaspoon-deep Bioshock Infinite. They even hit most of the same plot points and have a nearly identical conclusion.
What then, has become worse for Bioshock Infinite, though?
Well, the first problem is attempts to fix it.
Continue Reading →Deeper In The Pile: Bioshock Infinite, Part III
This should be our final piece wholly about Bioshock Infinite. Today, our spoiler-heavy delving is going to examine characterisation – an area where we know the developers can do excellently well – before we crack on to talk about holes in the plot and the inevitable discussion of the conclusion. Spoilers will abound, and I may try to stop saying Bioshock Infinite again and again because fuck I’m sick of typing the html for it.
Continue Reading →Deeper In The Pile: Bioshock Infinite, Part II
I’m continuing my discussion of Bioshock Infinite, moving on from our previous discussion where I defended some interesting ideas, and talked about a fundamental element of style. Something chosen about the story, and an issue of taste. This is what we in the writing business call ‘the thin end of the wedge,’ where I’ve talked about how the game is pretty good, and has flaws, without saying anything too controversial. What follows is therefore a spoilery ‘middle of the wedge,’ in which I’m allowed to bitch, because anything mean I’ve had to say will be ameliorated by what I had to say beforehand. Okay? Okay. Okay.
Continue Reading →Deeper In The Pile: Bioshock Infinite, Part I
Bioshock Infinite is a game with a lot in it, and it’s worth talking about. I think it would be foolish for anyone to say that the game wasn’t a worthy topic of discussion, or didn’t hold up to being analysed. Whether or not the game is perfect, that’s another issue, and while I criticised the game as a game, but praised it for what it tried to do with its story, any astute reader will note that that’s not the same thing as praising the story.
There are some ideas Bioshock Infinite inspired that I want to express, but I also don’t want to damage the experience for other players who want to avoid it. After the fold, I’m going to try and put these thoughts out there. These thoughts will be spoilery, but I will try and write them to help explain them to those of you who do not intend to play Bioshock Infinite.
The other thing is, when in outline form, this article was six pages long, originally. With that in mind, I’ve broken it into three large pieces. Part one, I’m going to discuss some deeper, spoilery stuff that I thought was really excellent and a quick discussion of the style of universe that Bioshock Infinite uses.
Continue Reading →Game Pile: Bioshock Infinite
Dreamworks have conditioned me to be very, very wary of anyone who wants to remind you that they’re the creators of anything. It often speaks of the work not standing up on scrutiny, or of fears of their work being inadequate to hold your attention on its own. In many cases, it puts your signature at the beginning of an experience, and can make it clear to people what they will see, before they start. If your signature is a style of whackiness, or off-the-wall thinking, or brilliant music, or technological innovation, not one of these things is a problem, but when your signature is a twist…
Well, you might just be setting yourself up for a fall.
Continue Reading →