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What game are you wasting time on?

Blonsky

Prophet
Joined
Jun 17, 2013
Messages
332
Location
Scratch city
Bioshock 2 and downloadoable content (Protector trials and Minervas Den)

Basically its the same game as Bioshock 1 but everything seems worse then in original.
Playing as Big Daddy but there is no big diference to gameplay, trying to save youre taken little sister and fighting the Family lead by a crazy psychiatrist, new weapons that look like they are stronger but are really disapointing and weaker then original weapons and some are focused mostly on defense, ammo/money gets filled fast and cant carry alot of it.
Also to get ADAM you need to carry around little sisters to dead bodies and protect them until they harvest them. This part makes the game very repetitive because you keep going back through the same coridors and rooms just to get to the right corpse that youre little sister is pointing to and then protect her from enemies that keep coming in waves.

Protectors trial- it adds a bunch of arenas where you defend little sisters from even more enemie waves with limited weapons and ammo and win artwork and cinematics as rewards.
Minervas Den- You are another big daddy that is sent to Raptures main computer building by Morgan Freeman. Changed enemies(resistant to some types of damage), some new weapons/plasmids(lasers/gravity), Short campaign with only 3 maps but its very important to search every room to gather all the weapons and plasmid that are scatered around. And a big shock in the end.
 

DramaticPopcorn

Guest
Just finished playing Betrayer in one sitting.

The good:
Visuals, once you return the colour.
The setting. The game is set during the pilgramige to the New World.
Atmosphere, particularly the sound. It's great m8. Positioning is very precise and sound is often used as a guidance for points of interest.

The eh-not-so-good:
Area desgin: despite great visuals, areas are just vast rectangular fields of nothing but same reused meshes and textures. There is very little variety although despite the lack of assets every area feels unique and remarkable in some way. A testament to the area designers who had to work with few materials.
Quest design: the investigation is neat in concept and if you forget about gameplay conveniences (such as quest compass), requires you to pay attention to the dialogue but quest progression is extremely linear and all of the backtracking involved make, what could have been, a compelling and engrossing investigative experience, into a nuisance.

The bad:
Enemies: There is no variety. AI is terrible and very easily exploitable.
Backtracking. There is simply way too much of it even with fast travel and quest compass it becomes tedious amd pointless as hell.


As for the story:
You are a nameless guy that ended up in a 17 century Silent Hill where everyone is an asshole and you have to find out their grimdark stories to make things right. In short, everyone is a horrible human being and it is in your power to cast final judgement and doom them for eternal torment or release them into nothingness.
Your choices bear no consequence whatsoever though.


All in all, the game appears to have been rushed. A few promising concepts that went nowhere and decent story that is buried under tedious gameplay.

P.S.: The game would have benefitted greatly if you could leave markings on the map for navigation, imho.
 

Peter

Arcane
Joined
Jun 11, 2009
Messages
1,570
Played through the thus far released episodes of Kentucky Route Zero today. Extremely impressed. I could bemoan the lack of proper puzzle-solving etc., but everything about it is so good that I seriously don't mind the relatively light gameplay. Interactivity is pretty high anyway, this isn't some Dear Esther shit, it's just not very difficult or primarily objective/challenge focused. Incredible presentation, seriously some of the best I've seen in a video game, AAA or indie. The music, the atmosphere, the sleek art and animation are all fantastic and come together to create something wholly unique and beautiful.

The individual vignettes were great from the start, but Episode 3 has really picked up with the plot and characterization as well. Was afraid it will just be a series of beautiful, but barely connected moments, but now I'm hooked.

The way it toys with the medium and reflects on others is constantly stimulating and exciting, from Steve Reich inspired road blinkers to the intelligent pokes at the fourth wall to the deft reflective, dreamlike, multiple perspective narrative. I feel like I have too weak of a grasp of literature, theatre, philosophy, etc. to take away everything I can from this thing. How often can you say that about a video game? It's so densely packed with allusion and commentary that it's all a bit too much to take in in one playthrough. Seriously feels like I'm only scratching the surface of what it has to offer and I'll need to replay it to get the most out of it.

If you can take a bit of indie artyness, academic headiness, and don't mind simple gameplay, I can't recommend this thing enough. It's prodding at the edges of what constitutes as a "real game", and the results are beautiful, emotionally engaging™ (that fucking bar scene in Ep. 3) and intelectually stimulating. It's not regressive, primitive, disappointing 2deep4u trash like Dear Esther, Gone Home, Proteus etc. It's sublime, and has melted my brain just a tiny bit.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Starting the only RPG in Codex Top 10 Evah I've never played before - Vampire: Bloodlines.

This better be good Codex or else... :outrage:
How I envy you.:argh:

Be warned that Bloodlines is a storyfag game with high replayability and atmosphere, it is awesome at that but is kinda shitty as a FPS. If you expect great shooting you are for a disappointment, the guns work and the controls work but that is it. Make sure to replay with a Malkavian.
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,184
Location
Bjørgvin
There is only one games series that I regularly get a craving for, and that is the Heroes of Might&Magic games, so I replayed the HoMM 1 campaign, this time as the Barbarian.
Now I feel a craving for Master of Orion, so I guess that's next. Been two years since last time I played, and my memory is so rotten that I have to RTFM again.
 

DramaticPopcorn

Guest
Starting the only RPG in Codex Top 10 Evah I've never played before - Vampire: Bloodlines.

This better be good Codex or else... :outrage:
How I envy you.:argh:

Be warned that Bloodlines is a storyfag game with high replayability and atmosphere, it is awesome at that but is kinda shitty as a FPS. If you expect great shooting you are for a disappointment, the guns work and the controls work but that is it. Make sure to replay with a Malkavian.
How does Bloodlines have high replayability? There isn't that much unique content aside from Malkavian run
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
How does Bloodlines have high replayability? There isn't that much unique content aside from Malkavian run
True, there isn't much unique content but playing with a Brujah and a Nosferatu sure feels different and as you can breeze through the game when you know what you are doing, it doesn't feel like a chore to replay it. I played the whole game as a Toreador focused on guns, a Gangrel and became a ugly half man half bat thing that rape anything on melee including bosses, a Tremere focused on blowing people out from inside their bodies and a Malkavian for general lulz. It isn't that you can find another RPG like Bloodlines on the market anyway.
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
Here's my mini-review of Alpha Protocol

I'm in the 2nd stage, in Moscow now, at the embassy, protecting the stupid asshole Savkor or whats his name. (it would be nice if that fucking imbecile could go back into the embassy instead of getting himself killed over and over in the park in front of it, god how I hate escort missions)
I'm playing on Hard and it's been hard just enough to be fun, forcing me to try to stealth more than I usually would in such game.

I hate so much about this game:
The timer on the dialogues makes me choose an answer before the other character had finished his line, it's awful. I can't even focus on what's being said because I have to be thinking about my response instead.
The retarded suave/casual/recruit/aggressive options - I have no idea what my character will say and I can't think it through because of that stupid timer. I've never played Mass Effect or any of those shit games where this wheel thing is and I'm glad for it.

I have never in my life seen a worse hacking minigame than that fucking abomination with searching for number, I hate it so much.
I hate popping the moles.
I hate the fucking shooting. You see, it worked in Splinter Cell because it wasn't so extreme about the inaccuracy, it forced you to plan better but this game overdoes it so much that instead of a "super special secret agent" you feel like a retard without hands, it sucks COCKS having to aim in the same spot for 3 seconds to hit something.
The UI, the gadgets and everything about controlling the game is total shit made for consoles. It was similar in Splinter Cell, only it fucking worked better. The UI has hard time registering mouse clicks and generally all your input, for some menus it's better to use the mouse, for others it's better to use the keyboard.

Even after some ini tweaks, the game stutters often, like when the shitty ragdolls are activated after shooting somebody or a new area opens up.
It's bugged to shit, too. It refused to install the 1.1 patch so dunno if that fixes anything. Reloading after death must be done via "load checkpoint" instead of "reload last save" cuz that causes all enemies to disappear. There's obviously something wrong with the save states anyway, it loads me in different spots, some doors can be open, some enemies stuck that weren't before loading. Sometimes the enemies are in different places. How fucking hard is it to make a working save system. I hate the fucking checkpoint saves anyway. Sometimes I activate a checkpoint by accident but realize I need to go back to hack a computer so I do and then I die and suddenly I spawn with a locked door behind me thus I can't go back anymore when that wasn't the case when I activated the checkpoint. What the fuuuuuuuuck.
The minigames are fucking horrible - the lockpicking makes me slide me mouse 3 times across my whole desk, the same with the hacking plus it's so annoying to be staring at the moving numbers trying to pick out the one static line of shit, it really huts my eyes.
The enemy sight is finicky at best, too. I have no idea when I'm visible or not, it seems random. A fucker can be sometimes walking right towards me and not see me, other times the enemy spots me across the whole map. That happens especially with the guys at turrets.

I hate how upon activating an alarm, everybody can magically see me immediately for some time and some enemies see me indefinitely since then and some not.
I hate the shitty over the shoulder aiming, I don't know from where my bullets are coming from but it's certainly not the barrel of my gun. I seem to be able to sometimes hit shit when aiming in a wall.

I hate the shitty, boring perks. I hate the fucking key prompts shining in my face from across the whole area. I hate how sometimes I can't climb a stack of crates, jump off a ledge at an unmarked spot or such things. Again, Splinter Cell had some key prompts, but not when it came to moving in the environment and they were only visible when you approached the thing and you were never blocked off by stupid shit like 1 box that your character arbitrarily couldn't climb over. Of course the key prompts get bugged sometimes so I gotta run around like an idiot to activate them correctly.

More random stupid shit I hate: I haven't found how to cancel throwing a grenade, the aim zoom is just a zoom without actually looking through the sights as it should be and it doesn't seem to improve your accuracy at all, it's useless since I'm not fucking blind and can see what I'm aiming at, all the areas have been pretty small so far except for the train yard but there the aim was also useless because it the enemy moves an inch the accuracy is fucked again. The grenade throwing line doesn't represent the reality. Most of the maps are just a corridor leading up to some square area where you can sneak around - the maps are shit.

There's some more stupid stuff I can't remember right now, but you see, these aren't some pet peeves, these are things that are actively pissing me off all the time when I'm playing the game.

I must say I'm impressed with the voice acting and the dialogues though. They feel really natural and funny. I like the graphics and especially the face textures. What I don't like is the story - it's full of info dumps and exposition that I can't keep track of, it's just too much because they were trying for some pseudo complicated and deep background for everything and it bores me a little.

So what is the game trying to be? I think it's a split between a really shitty Splinter Cell and a really shitty Metal Gear. I think that because of the obvious mechanics and because of the silly characters and pseudo-science and general insanity - like a single soldier destroying tons of shit, letting a terrorist go for info, cartoon russian whore with an M60, a mute teenage girl with dual revolvers and all this shit.

I think I just like feeling like I'm replaying Splinter Cell.
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
Currently grinding CP on Final Fantasy XIII with the sound muted, listening to Josh Sawyer talking about Pillars of Eternity. People tell me I don't need to grind CP but there is sooo much combat I just want to powerlevel until I can easily autoattack my way through it.

When the stupid gets too much, I load up Shadowrun: Dragonfall DC. It is a great game. I just solved the ghoul problem in the sewers and now the doctor has given me a job to do, but says he can't pay me because I screwed him over on the ghouls. Nice quest-to-quest reactivity.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,514
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Currently grinding CP on Final Fantasy XIII with the sound muted, listening to Josh Sawyer talking about Pillars of Eternity. People tell me I don't need to grind CP but there is sooo much combat I just want to powerlevel until I can easily autoattack my way through it.

When the stupid gets too much, I load up Shadowrun: Dragonfall DC. It is a great game. I just solved the ghoul problem in the sewers and now the doctor has given me a job to do, but says he can't pay me because I screwed him over on the ghouls. Nice quest-to-quest reactivity.
The music is the best part of FFXIII. I'd say it's about the only thing that I have a really fond memory of.
 

Deleted member 7219

Guest
The music is the best part of FFXIII. I'd say it's about the only thing that I have a really fond memory of.

Yeah I have it on when playing normally, but when grinding in any game I just put on a podcast. That's much better that listening to the same music track over and over again.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,514
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
The Wolf Among Us. I like the atmosphere and writing, but there's not much C&C that I can see. Something happened to my save and I had to restart from a checkpoint. I decided to choose other options but not much changed that I can remember. I still enjoy the "game", though. I'm actually not having any technical issues running the game... yet.
 

Ivan

Arcane
Joined
Jun 22, 2013
Messages
7,474
Location
California
Also played Wolf AMong Us. While enjoyable, it's completely forgettable a few days after, not unlike a nu-Nolan film.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
The music is the best part of FFXIII. I'd say it's about the only thing that I have a really fond memory of.

yeah pulse music especially. It is so fucking annoying to play most of the game just to get to pulse and listen to that music.


in other news : Tale of Two wastelands mod for FNV and F3. Go to FNV to use your brain, go to F3 to kill all betsheda npc. win win:

ihfHmOTVUa9N6.png

in another news i am playing it b2b with Stalker Shadow of chernobyl for the xxx time and this time i think it hooked me up for some reason. Sometimes game still look good:

ibhiBhX2rRzMRJ.png


I did just X16 lab mission. So far liked those indoors missions but overall story doesn't fucking make any lick of sense beside being mysterious.
 

Starwars

Arcane
Joined
Jan 31, 2007
Messages
2,829
Location
Sweden
Trying to replay Baldurs Gate II. Man, this game is the epitome of the game I really loved when it came out and with each replay since it has slowly gotten less and less enjoyable for me. I think I actually had more fun with BG1 that I replayed last year which I *never* would have thought a few years ago. Can't quite put my finger on why either. The thing that always appealed to me was the huge sense of exploration and places to go but after replaying it so many times I guess that feeling has faded. I don't find the combat particularly good so that part of the game can't "carry it" so to speak and the story/dialogues neither.
It's kinda sad since I had a huge nostalgia crush on this game (and BG1) for a long time and it really swept me away when I first played it back in the day.

Though it doesn't help that I'm trying the Enhanced Edition version I think. I dunno, there are improvements there that are kinda nice to have but the entire thing feels... weird and off.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
Also AI in stalker game is kind of awesome. I mean they can fucking take cover and wait forever if they have better position.

Meanwhile for example in fallout nv enemies simply run to you and if they don't see you they again run to your position instead of flaniking or trying to hit from back.
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
Also AI in stalker game is kind of awesome. I mean they can fucking take cover and wait forever if they have better position.

Meanwhile for example in fallout nv enemies simply run to you and if they don't see you they again run to your position instead of flaniking or trying to hit from back.
The AI is really good, I wonder if people actually noticed.
X16 lab? Is that the part where you need to find the entrance to the lab with a key you got from the bartender and some scientist you kill? Did you have any trouble in the lab area? My game crashes all the time like every 40 seconds, I even applied the 1.6 patch :(
 

Blonsky

Prophet
Joined
Jun 17, 2013
Messages
332
Location
Scratch city
Bulletstorm- after 20 min i couldnt listen anymore to the stupid shit characters were saying and uninstalled it. Really disappointing.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
The AI is really good, I wonder if people actually noticed.
X16 lab? Is that the part where you need to find the entrance to the lab with a key you got from the bartender and some scientist you kill? Did you have any trouble in the lab area? My game crashes all the time like every 40 seconds, I even applied the 1.6 patch :(

yeah but i didn't kill any scientist so far. i only defended one and then later he helped me out on mission.
Those zombies in Stalker are sure fucking thing. Headshots or GTFO.

I tried to apply some bigger mods as i didn't like vanilla (tried to get into it like 30 times at least) also looked at that misery mod for COP and then i installed lost alpha.

and holy fuck that shit is soo bad. I thought well i don't remember game being as shit as this. So i reinstalled SOC and for some reason i managed to get to X16 lab and i didn't hate it.
I only use ZRP that fixed vanilla bugs and it is supposed to deal with weapon sway which was uber annoying in vanilla stalker.

I think it is AI that did the trick in the end. Fighting with someone who can fight and flank you and use effectively cover is somewhat refreshing after all those shit AIs in other games.

Though bullet sponge mutants are annoying as fuck and i don't really dig that pseudo horror vibe that was supposed to scare me and instead it made this "meh. sponges" feeling.

Gunplay is probably the weirdest thing ever it is at the same time good and bad. Good because i like how weapons are not pin point weapons and have spread that can fuck your headshots + you can see every bullet flying + headshots usually means 1 or 2 bullets on almost any enemy.

Meanwhile bad is the weapon feeling which is more comparable to fallout 3 pewpew guns than something like sof.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
Bulletstorm- after 20 min i couldnt listen anymore to the stupid shit characters were saying and uninstalled it. Really disappointing.

you are sad being. I also didn't dig it right away.
Bulletstorm is probably one of the best FPSes around after finishing it.

Problem is that first hour when you need to deal with their shit before you start to enjoy it. Later it introduces reallly fun guns to play with and shit ton of other cool stuff.

And game is fucking beautiful which is weird considering UE3 usually shitty looking games.
 

Baron Dupek

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2013
Messages
1,870,765
Quake, on Darkplace.
After decade or more since last time, now with music that do good job.

EDIT and done. Now let's try some addons shall we
 
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Watser

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2014
Messages
1,865,075
Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Just rounded up Geneforge 5 and decided I'd play Nethergate next.
How is Resurrection compared to the original? Just another cheap Vogel remake or is there any reason to play it above the original?
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
Patron
Joined
May 13, 2009
Messages
27,089
Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
So...I played through Bioshock: Infinite recently.

If this is the pinnacle of AAA gaming, then burn the whole thing to the ground right now. For a $200.000.000 game, it never took off. It never managed to amount to anything, even though there were bits and parts that looked like they ALMOST had what it takes. With that kind of money they would have been better off making a Hollywood blockbuster out of this, instead of a lacklustre puddle of nothingness that the game is.

Let's give a little backstory first. I played Ultima Underworld when it was new. I remember the dialogue system, although primitive, being pretty neat. I recall a magazine preview of System Shock where they said there was no dialogue system, only "audiologs". I played System Shock when it was new. I played both the floppy disk version AND the updated CD version. I played System Shock so much that I managed to break the narrative flow, leading to me getting email messages from people whose cold, lifeless bodies I had looted hours before. I remember thinking "This is a neat way to establish a narrative and a story, but it's not an all-encompassing solution".

That last fact is something that's completely lost on one Ken Levine, as I'm about to demonstrate.

5 years later System Shock 2 is released. Although a *breakthrough* is established by allowing the player to meet others in-game, there's never any dialogue taking place on the level of Ultima Underworld. So it's mostly down to audiologs and e-mails again. Since this is the sequel to System Shock, that's OK. I even faintly recall there being somewhere in the backstory a sort of mandatory obligation for the crew of the Von Braun to record their thoughts and experiences - if not for the sake of historical posterity, then at least to help the crew figure out what went wrong when something DID go wrong. So yeah, audiologs are OK in SS1 and SS2.

Then Ken Levine decides to resurrect his old hit and make it into a AAA title. For some strangely bizarre messed-up reason, someone thought it would make sense for the inhabitants of Rapture to have audiologs. Except it made almost no sense, it requires the notion that a majority of the population of Rapture to be so narcissistic AND so naive that they think it's perfectly fine to keep an audio diary. But since Bioshock 1 had some degree of freshness and originality still in it, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. That does not explain or justify the two sequels (plus DLCs) to Bioshock. By this point the trope of using audiologs has become nothing more than a lazy excuse to avoid writing character interactions and sensible dialogue, that horse has been beaten down to a fine, sticky paste. And yet Irrational Games persisted in using it.

But by the time Bioshock: Infinite rolls out, even Ken Levine realizes that audilogs have run their course, so he sees a need to add something more. So we get a protagonist with a name, a face and a backstory (a welcome change, I have to say) and someone for that protagonist to talk to. And that is the lovely plot-device-with-a-gaping-hole-in-it named Elizabeth. Unfortunately for us players, Booker DeWitt has really nothing to say, he's just a ruffian, a hired gun. Sure, he has a sad and tragic backstory, but 95% of the time he's spouting generic nonsense one might find in any FPS game. "We have to go there, we have to do that, we don't have time for this, Elizabeth, do this!", etc. So it's up to Elizabeth to have all the depths, all the interesting things to say - and yes, to be the eye candy. The problem is, it's so obvious that Elizabeth is the centerpiece of the game and the story, she's designed by committee to be as attractive and likable as possible. She feels fake as a result. Alyx Vance has come and gone, girl, you're not fooling anyone. One of the few things that did impress me in the game was how her dress changed to reflect what she and Booker have gone through - it gets dirty and torn, then it gets bloody and she changes into another dress, etc. But that, to be honest, was one of only a handful of items about BS:I that impressed me. For all the effort put into it, all that money, the game left virtually nothing behind with me. No memorable events, no good memories, and only one "Ooh!" moment - the scene right at the end with all the lighthouses, the starry sky and the other Bookers and Elizabeths walking around.

After seeing that end sequence, I can understand - note, only understand - that (gaming) journalists wanted to run around like headless chickens and proclaim Bioshock: Infinite as "the Citizen Kane of gaming". That scene is pretty powerful, an almost magical moment where Irrational Games manages to make something extraordinary - but then the scene ends and all that's left is the inevitable destruction of Comstock. Kind of a letdown, but not something that leaves a bad taste in the player's mouth, I reckon.

As for the gameplay, it's drivel. It's such a generic FPS with rechargable shields and :popamole: gameplay, it's borderline insulting. Choices are provided at certain points, but they're all fake, have no meaning. The gameplay is so piss-easy (I played on Medium) that there's no point to go and explore the levels, as your only reward is maybe some pittance of ammo, an even less pittance of cash and respawnings mobs of dumb-as-bricks AI. I went through around 60% of the game using only the Carbine and the Sniper Rifle, only resorting to other weapons when I did not have a choice in weapon usage. Vigors? I only used the Possession one in a pinch, the others were only used when and where the game demanded it. Videobooths and listening to people's senseless prattle? No reason, I quickly learned to ignore them. While I started out paying some attention to architecture and level design, I quickly gave up as it all just gave away and stopped making sense - just like the other two Bioshock games before it.

By now I guess there are many of you (myself included) that wish that my tale of Bioshock: Infinite was over. But I had yet to play the Burial at Sea DLCs...

Part 1 is about as banal-shit-boring as one can imagine. Somehow we're back as Booker DeWitt, only this time we're in Rapture 50 years since the events in Columbia - giving Elizabeth a light. So much for sense and reason, and we haven't even started. Part 1 is just more of the same as the main campaign, except for fewer weapons and Vigours, no upgrade options and ITZ RAPTURE!!! instead of Columbia. Absolutely nothing of value happens for a couple of hours, or until the big revelation at the end that allows us to watch the death of the last Comstock. This felt like a gigantic waste of time.

But then Part 2 starts, and things pick up a bit.

In Part 2 the player controls Elizabeth, but she has no omniscience to tear reality a new asshole. She's just plain old Elizabeth, trying to escape a sunken deathtrap and return to Rapture. First order of the day: Realize that playing Burial at Sea requires stealth; just barging in gets one killed really quick. So I shift a few internal gears and I'm playing Thief: Burial at Sea. The splicers even use some of the same phrases as the Thief guards use when they think I'm around. Unfortunately the stealth mechanics aren't up to much, but at least it's a different change of pace from what counts as "normal gameplay" in Bioshock. The new weapon is nice, but quickly enough I'm down to the shotgun and the microwave gun to realiably get rid of enemies when I can't clobber their heads in.

Sadly, while the gameplay in Bioshock: Infinite finally picks up here, the story sinks to the bottom of the sea...almost literally. In order to provide exposition, Elizabeth is made to talk to herself most of the time. Elizabeth finds herself in Rapture during events that directly lead up to the events in Bioshock 1. What a twist! And while going back to Columbia for a spell was a nice touch, it all just felt like a guided tour, with no meaning or purpose. Speaking of lack of purpose, there comes a scene near the end where Elizabeth is captured and tortured by the antagonist. This scene, graphic and gruesome as it is...serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever. The player has no control, no choice about whether to spill the beans or suffer horribly. If this was part of the main campaign, and we were made clear that this would change the way we had to play the game, that there was a real sense of loss, this scene might have worked. But when all we can do is watch and listen, it becomes nothing more than torture porn, it's as if Ken Levine is making a statement that Elizabeth is his and his alone to mess with. So she's made to suffer...and then suffer some more. And the ending? "Anti-climatic" doesn't even begin to describe it. A player is made to go through all of this, just for that? "Ah, but it wraps up everything so nicely, now it's a complete story from Bioshock: Infinite to Bioshock 1!" Meh, whatever. I never got the time to bond and feel anything for Elizabeth anyway, so no big loss that this is the end of Bioshock.

Hundreds of millions of dollars spent to make the games, dozens of hours spent on playing these games - and in the end they leave less behind than a 3-hour session of Eversion did, which cost only a fraction of the cost of Bioshock to make.

Pack it in, Mr. Levine. You're done.
 
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