Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Frumple]

I mean, we can call this the religion thread if we feel like it.

We'd be wrong, but hey, that'd be not!thread appropriate

E: ... anyway, to make something thread appropriate, in Gordian Quest I just now fully comprehended that my bear does less damage than my golem does throwing the bear at things.

Any game that has a damage optimization process include "Your highest DPS in this case is to literally throw the bear at them." has my at least tentative approval.

It's reasonable when you think about it, really. What hurts more, getting clawed by a bear or having a presumably 600+ pound magic grizzly chucked into you? One tears the skin, the other pulps whatever it hits!

[Mephansteras]

Hmmm, don't think I've ever tried chucking the bear at enemies before. I'll have to give that combo a try!

[Frumple]

Yeah, I don't think it's, like, optimal toss damage, but it's something usually slower than the golem, usually within range of the golem, and comes with a guaranteed at-least-two attacks in their hand, every time. Spirit bears are a remarkably reliable toss target, especially early on.

[Robsoie]

Genesis Alpha One : never ever trust the "danger level" of a system.
Oh a "low danger level" abandonned ship, let's teleport into it for more loot and giggles...
... after dying in a few seconds after getting on that ship due insane amount of alien nests and crazy high damage aliens, it should have been "WTF danger level"

[Jopax]

I talked about Boneraiser Minions before but I wanna mention it again. It had some updates, more classes, more weird shit and silly things introduced, good fun. But something that's been in the game a while is one of my favorite combos. One of the relics is called Ring of Fire and it states that all nasty puddles on the ground are lit on fire. This essentially creates AoE damage zones whenever there's a puddle. What are nasty puddles and to get them? Well thy are brown puddles that slow down enemies that cross them and there's four ways to make them so far. One is that they get spawned by pots (either Pot Bro minions or the Potted Comedown spell which rains a bunch of pots that either deal damage or create puddles, flaming or otherwise). Another is if you get a relic called Bustling Diaper, which makes you spawn a nasty puddle whenever you're hit (that's a fun image), and a second relic called Tummy Bugs which causes dying enemies to sometimes spawn them (another fun image). And finally, my favorite method, by way of a spell called Unrelenting Dysentery which literally causes every enemy present to shit themselves and spawn a nasty puddle.

Now, the game is silly pixel art stuff so it's fairly abstract when it happens. But the image of an evil necromancer being assaulted by scores of paladins and royal guard knights who casts a spell that causes them all to violently shit themselves with flaming diarrhea is too goddamn hilarious when imagined in a more realistic setting.

[n9103]

Stuff like that is just not at all in line with what I would expect from the game name.
Funny shit though 

[Robsoie]

Finally completed the 2nd part of the Burial at Sea story for Bioshock Infinite, concluding my long long and spaced out playthrough of the Bioshock collection.

Spoiler: Some thoughts, appreciation and rants, warning lots of spoilers (click to show/hide)

Bioshock 1 :
Story and world building - good world building, as you progressively learn more about the characters, the story behind them etc.. that's one of the major reason of the progression as the game has a lot of boring gameplay unfortunately, some nice surprise through the story unfolding.
Design - sadly after a great start that get the underwater Rapture atmosphere right, the environment start to become boring, you'll see that it sadly and quickly become generic warehouse-looking after warehouse-looking rooms that lose completely the whole "it's an underwater city" atmosphere.
Missions - some parts are really good (like the Sander Cohen chapter) other are average or frankly not good (don't remember the name of the area, but there was one with lots of backtracking all over very generic areas with mobs always respawning)
Gameplay - it was bad to me because the whole environment is designed like a realistic place but your movements are 100% quake-like : some arcade sprinting lunatic all the time, with no variation of gameplay (out of the plasmid powers of course that at least made it fun).
Ending - i only got the good ending : i felt it was a fitting and very good one, very satisfying ending to the story, worth taking all that time saving little sisters. That was the best ending of all the Bioshocks that followed.


Bioshock 2 :
Story and world building - world building is also very good, taking place after the Bioshock events it completes a bit the world building of the first one and that focus on being a "big daddy" made you really interested in learning more about what's happening.
Design - after Bioshock 1 i got very surprised by this very good world design from the beginning to the end, unlike Bioshock 1 you never lose the "it's an underwater city" atmosphere, it's just brillantly designed.
Missions - i never felt bored by any of the game areas, the missions aren't a repeat of each other and you feel involved all the time, despite the respawning mobs it never get too repetitive.
Gameplay - not very good, the quake-like "out of place" feeling is still there, but it felt less pronounced than in Bioshock 1, and you don't feel like a heavy behemoth (like a big daddy was when you walk near them) out of when you jump and there's a very loud noise as expected when landing, at least the underwater sections change the pace a bit.
Ending - i only got the good ending : didn't liked it much, it simply did not felt rewarding enough (the worst evil of the game is "forgiven" with 0 comeuppance), your character die (at least in some logical way due to his body being designed for the sea depths huge pressure) at least his "daughter" and the little sisters you saved get to live.


Bioshock Infinite
Story and world building - world building is also very good in itself, everything feels right in the atmosphere the game is going for, there's no link to Bioshock 1 or 2 too, now the story i just disliked it with ever more one dimensional and cartoony characterisations.
Design - simply amazing , the city in the sky atmosphere is incredibly well done, the sense of majesty of the location is way above the 2 previous Bioshock, amazing work everywhere you run into.
Missions - they're good, there are a few areas in which you feel things are repeating too much, but overall you're always feeling involved though sometime the repetition of some fights in just different setup can (and will) be annoying.
Gameplay - it's much better, because the gameplay completely embrace the city in the sky setup, there's a lot of air pursuits and moves through cables all around the place, giving an alternative vertical gameplay to the default one.
Ending - there's no alternate ending and to me it's one of the worst Bioshock ending, not only it made very few sense once you start thinking about it, but it made me feel i so completely wasted my time playing while witnessing my character evolution from that piece of shit into that concerned father risking all for his "daughter" ...


Bioshock Infinite Burial at Sea DLC part1&2 (must play as it actually conclude the whole story)
Story - you're thrown on pre-Bioshock 1 Rapture, it's quite nice to see how it was before everything went to hell as you visit a bunch of place before their fall. But man, the storyline what the frack is that crap (see #1)
Design - part1 has some nice areas, the underwater feeling is average but far from as good as in Bioshock 2, part2 lose it completely and it never felt underwater anymore to me, quite similar to the 2nd half of Bioshock 1
Missions - the part1 start is stupid, you see grown up Elizabeth doing an out of character slutty femme fatale impersonation as if it was some old classic "film noir", but the game does not feel "film noir" once you're past the opening area unfortunately. The missions are only average past the start. Part2 has more originality thanks to its specific gameplay
Gameplay - Part1 is more of the same as Bioshock Infinite but with less verticality (there are a couple of areas with some) and Part 2 is completely genius, changing completely the gameplay into a stealth based game that is actually very interesting (and no other Bioshock did that)
Ending - Part 1 has a small surprise in its ending, nothing satisfying tough, Part 2.. probably the worst thing ever, the idiocy and nonsensical explanation of it is simply beyond words, what a way to kill Elizabeth and force a link to Bioshock 1 that never needed that game for that.

As a summary
Story : best is Bioshock 2 , Bioshock 1 is very good and worst is WTF Bioshock Infinite+Burial at Sea
Design : Bioshock Infinite is absolutely treasure for the eye, Bioshock 2 is amazing, worst is Bioshock 1
Missions : best are Bioshock 2 and Bioshock Infinite, Bioshock 1 is only servicable
Gameplay : best is Bioshock Infinite, worst is Bioshock 1
Ending : Best is Bioshock 1, worst is Bioshock Infinite and worst of the worst is Burial at Sea part 2


#1 super spoilery crap :
Burial at the Sea part 2 main story :

Elizabeth "oh i've been killed but i'm alive after all the story is a complete mess so whatever"
later
Elizabeth "got captured by very bad guy that wants to kill me because he's just very bad"
later
Elizabeth "i'm tricking that bad guy to get some time, but i'll 100% work for him"
later
Elizabeth "that guy is really bad and is totally not trustable but i'll do what he said all the time"
later
Elizabeth "i know he's going to betray me 100% but let's continue to do what he wants"
later
Elizabeth "he's going to sure kill me but i will have a plan"
later
Elizabeth "he's obviously lying, but he's not going to see me coming with my plan"
later
Elizabeth "i'll strike first because there's no way he'll honor his words"
later
Elizabeth "hey bad guy, we're in the endgame now, i'm here !"
*Elizabeth head is bludgeonned and caved in by bad guy
Elizabeth "that was how it should have been, let's sing La vie en rose"

[nenjin]

Bioshock Infinite's story suffered from smelling too deeply of its own farts. They tried to top BS1's elaborate story, and as soon as you get into

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Time travel

you've basically lost half of people who recognize it's a license to do whatever the hell you want.

Also Bioshock Infinite:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Came out in that time when video games were all about fathers being the heroes but also probably it's tragic AF. I'm playing the Forest right now, which came out about a year after Bioshock Infinite and it's got the same energy.

By 3/4s of the way through Bioshock Infinite I started to feel jerked around. And the ending is something you're just subjected to. I really never bought that:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Booker could ever become Comstock. Yet the game was like "herpadee! the least plausible thing is what our whole narrative conceit turns on!"

I enjoyed the game but man the ending, in attempting to be this massive send off of the series, just left me irritated with the writers.

[Robsoie]

That idiotic one dimensional characterisation (hilarious considering the game wants to flirt with "infinite" realities) of most of the people involved mixed with the story completely losing itself once it tried to get serious with those infinite stuff and mixing it with time travel but failing so badly at it, made sure to destroy the few sense the story had.
My enjoyement of the game was only due to the magnificent design and the vertical gameplay fun, definitively not for the story (unlike in Bioshock 1&2 in which i enjoyed that part).

[nenjin]

I feel like, while BS:I had the best vertical gameplay of the series it didn't really live up to its full potential. The skyhooks initially promised that you'd have this large, almost semi-open level to play around in. By the time the game came out, they were more like set pieces. With a few arena exceptions, you weren't really bouncing around a whole area using the skyhooks, they were part of how you proceeded through a largely linear level. I think BS:I design peaks somewhere after the start but before the midpoint. The sections that feel like a town and have buildings to go into and you work your way through, occasionally using the skyhooks, those are great. But after the midpoint it felt like the skyhooks were just to get between sections and they throw a few scripted moments in there as well. Just a really long way of saying they were a gimmick instead of integral to gameplay.

The illusion of verticality is really impressive and the way it really does give you the feeling of all this open space. I just wish more energy had been given to designing around the idea in terms of the levels and how you get through them.

I also felt like the "Tears" were a little gamey versus how the trailers portrayed them. They seemed more dynamic and useful in the trailers. In the game it was more like "here's an arena, and here's some static tears you can use to get more ammo or maybe a turret." Just felt like with another year BS:I could have fleshed out their ideas a lot more.

At least the game was so polished you could see your reflection in the start menu though.

If I have to say in which order the game really enthralled me, it's still gotta be BS1, BS:I then BS2. BS1 being new and the first, it's harder to see the unfulfilled ideas. And it had the best crafted story of the right scope of the three, to me.

[King Zultan]

I'm gonna say t that I agree with you guys BS:I had the worst story of the bunch, I will also say that I didn't like the fact that you could only have two guns at a time, probably didn't help the fact that the two I chose were the pistol and sniper rifle.

[Salmeuk]

yeah infinite failed the above not necessarily due to lack of thought or input, but simply the modern economics of game development:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muJYTeQlvC4

aka it was made by overworked code slaves. it is very much a product of its time, that way

"interesting, subtle critique of unbridled capitalist paradise underneath the ocean" was traded for... a series of set-piece theme park rides linked by awkward segues?

so many articles giving Infinite 9.5 / 10 days after release. . video game ratings have truly meant nothing for like 20 years now lol

[Robsoie]

Yeah those AAA/high budget games always get a minimum of 9/10 whatever they are, maybe a part of the high budget is sent to the review websites

[Chiefwaffles]

It's mostly just audience pressure. Remember Cyberpunk 2077? It had glowing reviews before release, aside from a select few reviewers giving it severe marks down for bugginess and the like. People got fucking outraged at those reviewers for daring to mark down surely the best game of all time from glorious CD Projekt Red which everyone knew would never do any harm.

It's just hype and pressure.

[nenjin]

"That's all it is really. Pressure, and time."