Bioshock Infinite: Okay, Okay. I’m Interested.

So, Persekore just got through with the game Bioshock and revealed her initial impressions a little while back.

I had a great time with Bioshock myself, back when normal good people played it several years ago. I had so much fun that Bioshock 2 was something I really looked forward to for a while. What new cool thing would they try? Would the endings of the previous game be the basis for the next? Would they improve upon the aspects of the first game that I didn’t dig as much? Would you actually touch water for more than 2 seconds?

The answer was “No, no. Bioshock 2 will basically be the same exact thing.” That just doesn’t interest me. Bioshock was a good game, but I don’t need another 10 hours of the same thing.

My opinion of the recently announced Bioshock: Infinite was basically the same. Another shooter with powers and an emphasis on dramatic presentation of a story focusing on the decay of a nigh-mystical city founded on a certain operating philosophical principle? Same song, different verse.

Okay, so now you’re running around on a floating zeppelin-powered city apparently populated by American Manifest Destiny xenophobes built around the turn of the century as a sort of clockwork Death Star… that’s … that’s actually kind of cool.

And I guess the new Big Daddy is just another big hulking dude except this one is a giant steampunk cyborg man who looks like a cross between a robot, a gorilla, and an old carnival strongman with an amazing moustache… that’s… that’s sort of excellent.

But what really sold me on the idea was this 10-minute long preview of the gameplay. Is it the same style of game, down to having more than a few of the same exact magic power things for the main character to do? Yes. Is the style so similar that you’d think the games were made simultaneously as some sort of “make a political allegory in an FPS” competition? Yes.

Does it look really cool? Good lord yes.

Bioshock: A Beginner’s Thoughts, part 1

I should probably start this off by saying that although I’m probably more of a gamer than I think I am, I’m still not much of a gamer. Obvious contradictions aside, while I’ve always liked the idea of video/computer games of all sorts, I’ve never really had the chance to play anything other than Super Smash Brothers for more than twenty minutes, and consequently rather tend to suck. I like the stories in games, and I like watching them unfold, but rather than take up the controller myself and condemn myself to afternoons of endless dying, I tended to decide to take the much less humiliating route of watching my boyfriend play for me.

This is how I first met Bioshock, when it was new and shiny however-long ago it came out. I went over to my boyfriend’s place, sat down on his couch, looked over at the TV where he was playing some sort of game thing, and – “There are bees coming out of your hands!!” There was also a story, something about a sunken Libertarian distopia and rivaling urban-gangster boss figures, and creepy little girls who kept souped-up scuba-divers as pets, but for that first walkthrough my head pretty much stopped at ‘dude, you have superpowers, and they’re awesomely freaky!’.

So when time passed, and I found myself with both more spare time than I knew what to do with and a bit of spare change, I decided that I had to try playing the game for myself. I realise I’m late to the party on this one, and that everyone with an X-box has already gotten about all they can out of the game already, but hey – someone has to represent the stragglers, right?

How Red Dead Redemption’s Story Uses the Medium to Subvert Players’ Expectations

I don’t particularly feel like writing a review of Red Dead Redemption. There are plenty of glowing appraisals of the game out there already, and all I really need to tell you is that, while I experienced a couple minor bugs and other petty annoyances, RDR is an excellent game, I enjoyed the hell out of it, and if you’ve been considering getting it, you should.

What I do feel like writing about however, is one aspect of the game I found especially interesting. That is, how it takes advantages of some of the standards tropes of the video game medium to allow the story to completely subvert the player’s expectations.  Word of warning, I intend to spoil the hell out of some important plot details after this point, so if you’re one of those people (like me) who likes to be surprised, stop here.