Soooo..."Bioshock Infinite".

So I love the Bioshock series by default. I loved the first one like burning, and I absolutely adored the second one. The first was was better in terms of story, don't get me wrong, but the second one not only had superior gameplay (duel wielding FTW) but also a far more emotional experience that actually made me give a shit about the character I was controlling. Now the third one is on the horizon (no pun intended)--Bioshock Infinite. Naturally, I was psyched about this development, so I made a point to watch the demo footage as soon as it came out.

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Holy fuck. Where the hell do I start with this one?

-Okay, so Bioshock Infinite takes place in a city floating in the air. Well, I hope this city isn't supposed to be a secret like Rapture, otherwise I think that plan would fail pretty hard, seeing as the rest of the world appears capable of air travel as well. Perhaps it's a colony, but I would love to see the reasons why the world governments sanction such an act. Judging from the pace of things, I'm assuming that Bioshock 4 will take place in a volcano, and Bioshock 5 will propel us into space.

...Wait a minute...

-The city. Jesus Christ, where to start? Well, it's named "Columbia", and it looks like what would happen if some KKK Tea Party nutjob ate a roasted eagle wrapped in an American flag for breakfast, washed it all down with twelve liters of Coca Cola, snorted the powdered corpse of George Washington for dessert, and then promptly upchucked it onto an 1800s steampunk Philadelphia.

You may not believe me just by reading this, but watch; the first minute of the demo shows a mural of George Washington holding the Ten Commandments and the Liberty Bell bathed in golden light while holding the most racist caricatures imaginable of Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Indians, Pacific Islanders, Irishmen, Arabs, and African Americans/African people at bay, with a sign below him reading " IT IS OUR HOLY DUTY TO GUARD AGAINST THE FOREIGN HORDES".

Seriously. This is what would happen if every single racist asshole in America got warped back to the 1800s and decided to colonize.

-Our hero speaks! He sounds good so far, but here's hoping he doesn't become fucking annoying in the real game.

-All of the inhabitants seem to be spliced up and crazy and some sort of violent rebellion has taken place (OMG WHY DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR I CAN'T PUT MY FINGER ON IT). This time the crazies have yellow glowing eyes. Well, I know what will be haunting my nightmares for the next few months.

-While you may not have been able to tell due to the extreme subtlety of 2K (), the whole city of Columbia seems to be populated by Tea Party naturalist loonies with an NRA bent. " THEY'LL TAKE YOUR GUN". "THEY'LL TAKE YOUR WIFE". "THEY'LL TAKE YOUR BUSINESS". "THEY'LL TAKE YOUR LIFE!". Sigh. I'm suspecting the next few signs will read "THEY'LL TAKE YOUR BIBLE" and "THEY'LL TAKE CHRISTMAS".

-Apparently plasmids still exist (and you seem to get them from drinking some sort of uber-patriotic Jesus Juice in a bald-eagle shaped bottle ()). While they look to be of the same stock as the plasmids in the first two Bioshocks, there seem to be a few new elements, such as the ability to stack plasmids and the power to use telekinesis to grab your enemy's gun and shoot them with it (OMG AWESOME).

-We're back to being able to wielding only your plasmid or your weapon at one time. Wooo.

-Our protagonist is, once again, male, since it seems to be impossible for a woman to be the hero of Bioshock without it scaring away teh menz, or...something. Feminism yay.

-We have a female character, though! Her name is Elizabeth, and the hero starts off having to find and rescue her (::le sigh: from...something, I don't know. She had amazingly badass plasmid powers, but such awesomeness is dampened by the fact that she's wearing a dress that shows everything but her nips, runs weakly while holding a hand to her side in pain, and collapses in fatigue after using said godlike abilities.



You know what? I give up. The second coming of Christ will probably occur before the video game industry gets their heads out of their asses when it comes to my gender and its representation in games. At least they restrained from making a preexisting strong woman a woobie, though (I'm looking at you, Other M).

-The good news is we have Big Daddy-like characters. The bad new is they're now reduced, from the look of things, to being meaty heads on robotic bodies and giant mechanical bald eagles (I'm fucking serious).

-Bwuzzah?

I honestly don't know what to think about Bioshock Infinite. It looks amazing, but having some blatant modern day social commentary crammed down my throat for 30+ hours of gameplay is less than appealing. I'm hoping it proves me wrong, but I'll probably either rent it or give it a watch on Youtube before buying it myself.

What do you all think?

What's the explanation for the splicers? Flying sea slugs?

I sense much rage in you...

i don't understand why you're annoyed by some of these things that could be construed as "plot" or "setting"

e: also kill the rolling eyes smilie

Mafiosa wrote:

i don't understand why you're annoyed by some of these things that could be construed as "plot" or "setting"

e: also kill the rolling eyes smilie

I think the OP is ticked by the over-the-top-ness of it. The developer seems to be trying a wee bit too hard to be topical, and it sounds like it's pretty hamhanded.

Personally, one of the things I liked about the original Bioshocks was the wonderful setting. Damp, dank, disturbing--lots of D words. It just doesn't seem the same thing with a city in the air. They might have been better off just making a new, similar game rather than making it another Bioshock.

Internet ruined me and I can't tell if you're trolling, parodying a strawman, or are that idiotic.

Mafiosa wrote:

i don't understand why you're annoyed by some of these things that could be construed as "plot" or "setting"

It's not like it's set in 1920's, a time not known for equality and tries to deconstruct the extreme nationalistic theocracy(I think) this time (objectivist capitalism in the first one, cult of personality communism in the second one).

Hadiya Tannous wrote:

-Our protagonist is, once again, male, since it seems to be impossible for a woman to be the hero of Bioshock without it scaring away teh menz, or...something. Feminism yay.

Wow, that's... that's not even subtle misandry. Hmmm....

Hadiya Tannous wrote:

She had amazingly badass plasmid powers, but such awesomeness is dampened by the fact that she's wearing a dress that shows everything but her nips, runs weakly while holding a hand to her side in pain, and collapses in fatigue after using said godlike abilities.



You know what? I give up. The second coming of Christ will probably occur before the video game industry gets their heads out of their asses when it comes to my gender and its representation in games.

So because there are repercussions for using powers above anybody else's, that means gender is not properly represented? Yeah, no...

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Tungsten Monk wrote:

Mafiosa wrote:

i don't understand why you're annoyed by some of these things that could be construed as "plot" or "setting"

e: also kill the rolling eyes smilie

I think the OP is ticked by the over-the-top-ness of it. The developer seems to be trying a wee bit too hard to be topical, and it sounds like it's pretty hamhanded.

Personally, one of the things I liked about the original Bioshocks was the wonderful setting. Damp, dank, disturbing--lots of D words. It just doesn't seem the same thing with a city in the air. They might have been better off just making a new, similar game rather than making it another Bioshock.

Bioshock is many things

Subtle is not one of them

American theocrats are anything but subtle. The setting fits them well.

Also, a FPS that's not set in ENDLESS DARK CORRIDORS? Count me in.

You loved the previous Bioshock games... But somehow dislike having social commentary in a game?

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Psy-4 wrote:

Hadiya Tannous wrote:

-Our protagonist is, once again, male, since it seems to be impossible for a woman to be the hero of Bioshock without it scaring away teh menz, or...something. Feminism yay.

Wow, that's... that's not even subtle misandry. Hmmm....

I'm confused by this comment. Going by video games alone, an observer might guess that the human race is something like 95% white and male. Complaining about mysoginy is misandrist? That's like telling a person to stop complaining while you're hitting them with a stick. Sure, maybe their screams of pain make you uncomfortable, but that doesn't change the fact that you're fucking hitting them with a stick.

Azzandra wrote:

I'm confused by this comment. Going by video games alone, an observer might guess that the human race is something like 95% white and male.

How dare they cater to their fanbase!

Azzandra wrote:

Complaining about mysoginy is misandrist?

So not having a female protagonist automatically makes it misogynistic?

Azzandra wrote:

I'm confused by this comment.

It was stated that I(or anyone else), as a male, would be so intimidated by the prospect of a protagonist not being male, I would not enjoy the game(in this case, Bioshock).

Can you tell me what is wrong with this assertion?

Azzandra wrote:

Going by video games alone, an observer might guess that the human race is something like 95% white and male. Complaining about misogyny is misandrist? That's like telling a person to stop complaining while you're hitting them with a stick. Sure, maybe their screams of pain make you uncomfortable, but that doesn't change the fact that you're fucking hitting them with a stick.

Indeed. All male leads and superheroes are tools of the patriarchy.

I will ignore the unfortunate implication that men are so removed from women, that a woman can only identify with a character if they are also a woman.

gaijinguy wrote:

Azzandra wrote:

I'm confused by this comment. Going by video games alone, an observer might guess that the human race is something like 95% white and male.

How dare they cater to their fanbase!

Azzandra wrote:

Complaining about mysoginy is misandrist?

So not having a female protagonist automatically makes it misogynistic?

Wait, so... first you condescendingly imply that the reason characters are white and male is for the players to better identify with the characters, and next you crucify me for wanting a character I, too, might identify with and therefore gain the status of customer?

Psy-4 wrote:

I will ignore the unfortunate implication that men are so removed from women, that a woman can only identify with a character if they are also a woman.

That's reasonable, as long as you accept the opposite position: that it is also ludicrous to believe that men are so far removed from women that they could not identify with a female character. Which is what the video game industry honestly believes, otherwise they wouldn't blindly accept that the default gender should always be male. That is my issue here.

Psy-4 wrote:

Azzandra wrote:

I'm confused by this comment.

It was stated that I(or anyone else), as a male, would be so intimidated by the prospect of a protagonist not being male, I would not enjoy the game(in this case, Bioshock).

Can you tell me what is wrong with this assertion?

It was sarcasm, and you missed it?

why do you guys even acknowledge psy-4's existence anymore

Azzandra wrote:

Wait, so... first you condescendingly imply that the reason characters are white and male is for the players to better identify with the characters,
and next you crucify me for wanting a character I, too, might identify with and therefore gain the status of customer?

No, I'm pointing out that there's a difference between hating women and not actively marketing to them. People Can Fly didn't make Daniel Garner as opposed to Danielle Garner the protagonist of Painkiller because they think women are abhumans who could never possibly carry the weight of preventing Hell's invasion of Purgatory.

gaijinguy wrote:

Azzandra wrote:

Wait, so... first you condescendingly imply that the reason characters are white and male is for the players to better identify with the characters,
and next you crucify me for wanting a character I, too, might identify with and therefore gain the status of customer?

No, I'm pointing out that there's a difference between hating women and not actively marketing to them. People Can Fly didn't make Daniel Garner as opposed to Danielle Garner the protagonist of Painkiller because they think women are abhumans who could never possibly carry the weight of preventing Hell's invasion of Purgatory.

But that's exactly the problem, isn't it? They don't think to market to women. They're convinced that you need a penis in order to be a gamer, when in reality you can make do with a set of eyeballs and a working pair of thumbs. So I'm sorry if my impression is that they don't want my money lest they come in contact with my gross girl cooties, but they're not working terribly hard to correct that impression, now are they?

Hadiya Tannous wrote:

So I love the Bioshock series by default. I loved the first one like burning, and I absolutely adored the second one. The first was was better in terms of story, don't get me wrong, but the second one not only had superior gameplay (duel wielding FTW) but also a far more emotional experience that actually made me give a shit about the character I was controlling. Now the third one is on the horizon (no pun intended)--Bioshock Infinite.

As long as we're going on about Bioshock 1's infinitely superior story (Bioshock 2 was a fucking train wreck), you should probably be aware that Infinite is being created by the people behind the first one.

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Naturally, I was psyched about this development, so I made a point to watch the demo footage as soon as it came out.

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Holy fuck. Where the hell do I start with this one?

I look forward to your fan rage based entirely upon a short trailer, which will give us only the merest glimpses of the game as a whole. You know, like trailers do.

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-Okay, so Bioshock Infinite takes place in a city floating in the air. Well, I hope this city isn't supposed to be a secret like Rapture, otherwise I think that plan would fail pretty hard, seeing as the rest of the world appears capable of air travel as well. Perhaps it's a colony, but I would love to see the reasons why the world governments sanction such an act. Judging from the pace of things, I'm assuming that Bioshock 4 will take place in a volcano, and Bioshock 5 will propel us into space.

The rest of the world isn't capable of air travel. You know what the state-of-the-art airplanes looked like 1912?

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At this period in history, airplanes were a novelty. Very, very few people took them remotely seriously. From what we can see of this trailer:

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Columbia is very, VERY high up. That's actually higher than most airplanes were capable of flying in those days. Over the open fields of the Midwest where hardly anybody lives, it wouldn't be hard to stay hidden.

So yes, Columbia would probably be found eventually. Probably at some point after WW1, and certainly by the time radar stations started getting set up in the 40s. But Rapture wouldn't even have lasted that long, since the US was very, very carefully watching the Atlantic ocean for Russian submarines in the 1950s. They even went so far as to create a sonar net called SOSUS that was operational to some degree as early as 1952, which means that so far, Rapture has been getting very lucky.

About the only true disadvantage Columbia has when it comes to Rapture (aside from the architectural impossibilities of both) is that the air isn't full of fish and other food sources; one wonders how it keeps its population fed up there. And hell, if someone breaks a window in Columbia, at least everyone else in the building won't be horrifically killed. Can't really say that about Rapture.

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-The city. Jesus Christ, where to start? Well, it's named "Columbia", and it looks like what would happen if some KKK Tea Party nutjob ate a roasted eagle wrapped in an American flag for breakfast, washed it all down with twelve liters of Coca Cola, snorted the powdered corpse of George Washington for dessert, and then promptly upchucked it onto an 1800s steampunk Philadelphia.

You're objecting to the city based on its POLITICS? And you think you're a Bioshock fan. Need I remind you that Rapture was created to be Ayn Rand's wet dream, an objectivist laissez-faire utopia where the only things that were held sacred were profit and a complete lack of real oversight?

Or were you just too obtuse to miss all that and thought that Andrew Ryan's introductory speech to new arrivals was all about liberty with bunnies and puppies for all?

Quote :

You may not believe me just by reading this, but watch; the first minute of the demo shows a mural of George Washington holding the Ten Commandments and the Liberty Bell bathed in golden light while holding the most racist caricatures imaginable of Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Indians, Pacific Islanders, Irishmen, Arabs, and African Americans/African people at bay, with a sign below him reading " IT IS OUR HOLY DUTY TO GUARD AGAINST THE FOREIGN HORDES".

Seriously. This is what would happen if every single racist asshole in America got warped back to the 1800s and decided to colonize.

Sooooo apparently you're operating under the assumption that racism was invented by the Tea Party, or something.

Earlier in this rant, you mention the KKK. You are aware that they were created just after the civil war in the 1860s, right?

Bioshock: Infinite is set to take place in 1912. At this point in American history it was truly good to be a white guy. But only a specific kind of white: If you were Jewish, or worse Irish, or worst yet, Irish Catholic, you might as well not be white. Catholicism was seen as a foreign influence and no Catholic could be truly American as their true allegiance was to the pope in the WASPs' eyes. And foreigners? Well, we don't want to get mixed up in THEIR shit, but they keep coming over here and fucking us over. Does this sound familiar to you at all?

On top of that, you had racial segregation in the South (that wasn't invented in the 1960s just so it could be heroically cast down, bee tee dub). So far, the art in Infinite reflects things you could see in political cartoons just by picking up a newspaper on a street corner.

EDIT: Oh, and while we're going on about the politics and social climes of the day... in 1912, women were only allowed to vote in a handful of states. Women wouldn't get the vote throughout the US until the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, some 8 years after the game takes place.

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-Our hero speaks! He sounds good so far, but here's hoping he doesn't become fucking annoying in the real game.

For more passive-aggressive, speculative fan bitching, please join No Mutants Allowed.

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-All of the inhabitants seem to be spliced up and crazy and some sort of violent rebellion has taken place (OMG WHY DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR I CAN'T PUT MY FINGER ON IT). This time the crazies have yellow glowing eyes. Well, I know what will be haunting my nightmares for the next few months.

It just wouldn't be a 'shock game without crazies running around. And apparently you missed the melty-faced Splicers AND LITTLE SISTERS in the first two Bioshock games if glowing yellow eyes are such a problem for you.

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-While you may not have been able to tell due to the extreme subtlety of 2K (), the whole city of Columbia seems to be populated by Tea Party naturalist loonies with an NRA bent. " THEY'LL TAKE YOUR GUN". "THEY'LL TAKE YOUR WIFE". "THEY'LL TAKE YOUR BUSINESS". "THEY'LL TAKE YOUR LIFE!". Sigh. I'm suspecting the next few signs will read "THEY'LL TAKE YOUR BIBLE" and "THEY'LL TAKE CHRISTMAS".

So you were furiously shlicking to all the corpses of Bible-smugglers in Bioshock, I take it?

You also seem to have forgotten all the propaganda in the first two Bioshock games you claim to love so much. Did you even fucking play them?

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-We're back to being able to wielding only your plasmid or your weapon at one time. Wooo.

Jeez, sorry you're not playing a Big Daddy again.

Quote :

-Our protagonist is, once again, male, since it seems to be impossible for a woman to be the hero of Bioshock without it scaring away teh menz, or...something. Feminism yay.

What does this have to do with anything? At all?

Quote :

-We have a female character, though! Her name is Elizabeth, and the hero starts off having to find and rescue her (::le sigh: from...something, I don't know. She had amazingly badass plasmid powers, but such awesomeness is dampened by the fact that she's wearing a dress that shows everything but her nips, runs weakly while holding a hand to her side in pain, and collapses in fatigue after using said godlike abilities.

WELL JEEZ I'M SORRY YOUR GODDESS SIDEKICK HAS SOME KIND OF LIMITING FACTOR

HOLY SHIT THIS GAME SHOULD BE ABOUT FINDING A MODESTLY-DRESSED FEMALE AVATAR OF GOD'S WRATH AND YOU JUST FOLLOW HER AROUND THE WHOLE GAME WATCHING HER OWN SHIT

Oh wait, that'd be pretty goddamn boring. You might as well watch one of the live action Resident Evil movies.

Quote :

You know what? I give up. The second coming of Christ will probably occur before the video game industry gets their heads out of their asses when it comes to my gender and its representation in games. At least they restrained from making a preexisting strong woman a woobie, though (I'm looking at you, Other M).

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Zoey would like a word with you.

Quote :

-The good news is we have Big Daddy-like characters. The bad new is they're now reduced, from the look of things, to being meaty heads on robotic bodies and giant mechanical bald eagles (I'm fucking serious).

Because the technology of a flying city totally has to be identical to that of an undersea one that comes along 40 years later amirite?

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-Bwuzzah?

Huzzah!

(Why did that need its own bullet?)

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I honestly don't know what to think about Bioshock Infinite. It looks amazing, but having some blatant modern day social commentary crammed down my throat for 30+ hours of gameplay is less than appealing. I'm hoping it proves me wrong, but I'll probably either rent it or give it a watch on Youtube before buying it myself.

I think that you are either so incredibly obtuse that you're hating Bioshock Infinite for being a Bioshock game without realizing it, or you need to go outside and breathe some real air for a minute.

Azzandra wrote:

Psy-4 wrote:

Hadiya Tannous wrote:

-Our protagonist is, once again, male, since it seems to be impossible for a woman to be the hero of Bioshock without it scaring away teh menz, or...something. Feminism yay.

Wow, that's... that's not even subtle misandry. Hmmm....

I'm confused by this comment. Going by video games alone, an observer might guess that the human race is something like 95% white and male. Complaining about mysoginy is misandrist? That's like telling a person to stop complaining while you're hitting them with a stick. Sure, maybe their screams of pain make you uncomfortable, but that doesn't change the fact that you're fucking hitting them with a stick.

The thing is, this is complaining about being hit with a fucking stick when nobody's hitting you with a stick. Unless you take the gender of a game's protagonist all on its own, devoid of any other context as an insult... which appears to be the case here.

Penguin wrote:

Azzandra wrote:

Psy-4 wrote:

Hadiya Tannous wrote:

-Our protagonist is, once again, male, since it seems to be impossible for a woman to be the hero of Bioshock without it scaring away teh menz, or...something. Feminism yay.

Wow, that's... that's not even subtle misandry. Hmmm....

I'm confused by this comment. Going by video games alone, an observer might guess that the human race is something like 95% white and male. Complaining about mysoginy is misandrist? That's like telling a person to stop complaining while you're hitting them with a stick. Sure, maybe their screams of pain make you uncomfortable, but that doesn't change the fact that you're fucking hitting them with a stick.

The thing is, this is complaining about being hit with a fucking stick when nobody's hitting you with a stick. Unless you take the gender of a game's protagonist all on its own, devoid of any other context as an insult... which appears to be the case here.

Well, I was talking in general. Taken out of context, there's nothing inherently offensive about having a male protagonist. There IS something problematic about actively avoiding having a female protagonist, however, which is what the video game industry seems to be doing.

Except that they haven't but w/e

Penguin wrote:

Except that they haven't but w/e

Okay, maybe they haven't. But I'd have a problem with it if they did.

Azzandra wrote:

But that's exactly the problem, isn't it? They don't think to market to women.

THIS JUST IN! Marketing departments are a myth perpetrated by the patriarchy to keep the woman down.

Seriously, though, do you honestly think that major studios don't have entire groups of staff telling them who their customers are, who they want them to be, and how to appeal to them?

Azzandra wrote:

They're convinced that you need a penis in order to be a gamer, when in reality you can make do with a set of eyeballs and a working pair of thumbs. So I'm sorry if my impression is that they don't want my money lest they come in contact with my gross girl cooties, but they're not working terribly hard to correct that impression, now are they?

So you're running off insane troll logic about their motivations and it's somehow their fault for not stopping you?

Azzandra wrote:

Okay, maybe they haven't. But I'd have a problem with it if they did.

Fair enough. But since they haven't, I find that the most applicable arguments come from people pointing out that while there are lots of female protagonists, the majority of them seem designed to cater to the 12-year-old boy demographic: Scantily clad with improbably proportions.

I'd point out that male heroes in those games also tend to wear absurd clothing and have impossibly huge muscles, but, well, you know. I try not to argue both ends of an argument.

...

What am I doing right now Christ almighty

...Well I'm never doing this again.

You can still say that it was internet sarcasm and ironic posting that nobody got, and all will be forgiven.