I remember being quite impressed by how Elizabeth would sometimes run ahead of me as I navigated an area, rather than just follow. I think that's the first time I'd ever seen that.
Oh I man I really thought he was going to use that voice filter for the whole 20 minutes
The entire system behind her AI is impressive but that didn't stop me from finding the character itself annoying and rather unlikeable unfortunately.
Not to mention the whole 'ludonarrative dissonance' thing where the enemies in the game are supposed to want to get her back but show no interest in her whatsoever during combat scenes where they could often easily grab her and run off.
Also the fact that they desperately wanted her to be involved in some way in the combat by having her throw stuff at you explains the lack of ammo and very limited carry capacity of guns in Infinite... not sure if that was a choice that ended in the player having the most fun possible.
Maybe they should've also spent a bit more time on the other NPC's as well since most of them feel like talking dolls rather than human beings.
Having Elizabeth be with you for the vast majority of the game was a mistake, in my opinion. It would have been better if they went the traditional Shock route of having her help you from afar while talking to you over radio/telepathy, then letting you interact with her directly at key plot points. It'd give you less time to get sick of her butting into combat, actually make her imprisonment more meaningful, and making her able to tear open rifts remotely would actually add some buildup to [sp]the Bad Timeline when she gets turned into a living siege weapon for Columbia that can open giant portals all over New York.[/sp]
Make her telepathic or have the Timeline Twins give you a device that lets her see and hear what you see, and you can even keep the silly "wow, so this is what cotton candy is" scenes without halting the player's freedom.
Hell, it'd even give a story reason for the Songbird to go whole hog on smashing you, since it won't have to worry about the only collateral damage that matters.
Always loved when she tossed coins as fast a bullet and Booker just catches it like "Nice."
[QUOTE=Demoness;52579558]
Not to mention the whole 'ludonarrative dissonance' thing where the enemies in the game are supposed to want to get her back but show no interest in her whatsoever during combat scenes where they could often easily grab her and run off.
.[/QUOTE]
They did that on purpose because they (most likely) found out while playtesting that it would get annoying as fuck for the player to keep saving her or to protect her all the time.
[QUOTE=Antimuffin;52580290]They did that on purpose because they (most likely) found out while playtesting that it would get annoying as fuck for the player to keep saving her or to protect her all the time.[/QUOTE]
Pretty much, they saw that players tend to universally loathe escort missions during combat, and so they decided to consciously make a ludonarrative break and make the game be an escort mission in everything [b]but[/b] combat.
It's a questionable decision, but it follows from a fairly common design philosophy: when narrative and gameplay conflict, prioritize gameplay over narrative.
Irrational wanted to tell a story with Bioshock: Infinite, but they also wanted to make the game fun (whether or not they succeeded is up to personal opinion).
And when faced with "keep the game narratively consistent and have the player have to constantly break forward combat to fall back and defend Elizabeth and/or try to rescue her from captors" versus "break the game's narrative consistency to allow the player to have free reign over their combat momentum and just have enemies ignore Elizabeth", they determined that the latter decision is more fun, and so they went with it.
[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;52580308]
Irrational wanted to tell a story with Bioshock: Infinite, but they also wanted to make the game fun
[/QUOTE]
shame they objectively failed in both aspects
[QUOTE=milktree;52580343]shame they [b]objectively[/b] failed in both aspects[/QUOTE]
That's a pretty heavy word to throw around, when you're [b]subjectively[/b] wrong. :weeb:
I personally really enjoyed Bioshock: Infinite, far more than I did Bioshock 2 and honestly even the original Bioshock.
That's why I said "whether or not they succeeded is up to personal opinion."
[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;52580308]Pretty much, they saw that players tend to universally loathe escort missions during combat, and so they decided to consciously make a ludonarrative break and make the game be an escort mission in everything [b]but[/b] combat.
It's a questionable decision, but it follows from a fairly common design philosophy: when narrative and gameplay conflict, prioritize gameplay over narrative.
Irrational wanted to tell a story with Bioshock: Infinite, but they also wanted to make the game fun (whether or not they succeeded is up to personal opinion).
And when faced with "keep the game narratively consistent and have the player have to constantly break forward combat to fall back and defend Elizabeth and/or try to rescue her from captors" versus "break the game's narrative consistency to allow the player to have free reign over their combat momentum and just have enemies ignore Elizabeth", they determined that the latter decision is more fun, and so they went with it.[/QUOTE]
Naughty Dog did very well with the support characters in The Last Of Us, where they helped you out in ways other than distracting you every minute to lob minor refills in your direction. Ellie, Bill, Tess, or Tommy would lob bricks, shoot, or stab enemies that were too close for comfort, and would often break you out of grabs or alert you to potential threats. Enemies would attack them, too, but only in ways that meant you could ignore them [I]for a little bit[/I], and usually only after the support character attacked them first.
By comparison, Elizabeth wasn't very handy to have around. She was only useful for being [i]the[/i] plot device, justifying the use of the Tear mechanic (which itself was criminally underused and reduced the importance of some of the franchise's recurring mechanics), and maybe topping you off on health or ammo when the game feels like it ought to hold your hand a little harder.
[QUOTE=milktree;52580343]shame they objectively failed in both aspects[/QUOTE]
I think if I had to pick one moment in the last 5 years or so that a game's story made me say "Holy shit" out loud it would be this. (Well, the whole coming out of the water [I]into[/I] this but you get my point)
[img]https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8100/8593409177_e9fa756f37_b.jpg[/img]
All these ai algorithms and design, all just to lead to one of the most boring and disconnected ai companions I've ever seen in a game.
[editline]16th August 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=Antimuffin;52580290]They did that on purpose because they (most likely) found out while playtesting that it would get annoying as fuck for the player to keep saving her or to protect her all the time.[/QUOTE]
Then why revolve you story around an escort mission?
[QUOTE=eatdembeanz;52580118]Hell, it'd even give a story reason for the Songbird to go whole hog on smashing you, since it won't have to worry about the only collateral damage that matters.[/QUOTE]
Almost an entire game as being built up as your greatest threat, to the point that it's heavily implied the Songbird kills Booker in every other timeline that got towards the whole 'endgame' kind of thing, and then it becomes an aerial bombardment button press for cinematic booms in the background before [sp]dying anticlimactically in a Rapture tear.[/sp] I think even E3 trailers were hyping it up.
Makes me wonder just how many story and gameplay revisions Infinite went through, because quite frankly the final product was boring past the initial "what the fuck" of the plotline.
[QUOTE=RikohZX;52581113]Almost an entire game as being built up as your greatest threat, to the point that it's heavily implied the Songbird kills Booker in every other timeline that got towards the whole 'endgame' kind of thing, and then it becomes an aerial bombardment button press for cinematic booms in the background before [sp]dying anticlimactically in a Rapture tear.[/sp] I think even E3 trailers were hyping it up.
Makes me wonder just how many story and gameplay revisions Infinite went through, because quite frankly the final product was boring past the initial "what the fuck" of the plotline.[/QUOTE]
I don't know how [b]many[/b] iterations it went through, but I do know it went through some massive overhauls.
The [b]original[/b] game was a sort of horror-survival game, where the companion that became Elizabeth was mute (I [b]think[/b] she had her tongue removed in the original story, but don't quote me on that) and I believe the game even took cues from Lovecraftian games and the player had sanity as a status they had to nurse. The enemies were grotesque, otherworldly, or otherwise just monstrous, and the game was about navigating a hellscape toward some end I can't recall (if it was ever revealed).
I believe the Handymen are direct descendants of this original horror-game idea, and the only enemies that are directly from the original game are the Boys of Silence, during the decidedly very short Nursery section near the end of the game. And even then, the Boys of Silence were neutered significantly in the final game - they were originally a major generator of insanity, and I think they were supposed to have some sort of pack-animal behavior, where they notified other enemies of the player's position and they all ganged up on them.
Indeed, the themes and tone of the Nursery are the only remnants of the original game. The original game would have basically played like the Nursery throughout its entirety.
I kinda wish the ending was more rewarding. [sp]You could have gone back to your timeline and had a "happy ever after", but instead the game basically told you "congrats on realizing that everything you did was ultimately pointless".[/sp]
[QUOTE=Nikita;52581221]I kinda wish the ending was more rewarding. [sp]You could have gone back to your timeline and had a "happy ever after", but instead the game basically told you "congrats on realizing that everything you did was ultimately pointless".[/sp][/QUOTE]
My favorite part was that the DLCs made the ending even worse. [sp]Now instead of living a mostly-happy life with the half-infinite amount of unbaptized Bookers, Elizabeth goes out hunting exotic Bookers OUTSIDE of the baptism binary, effectively implying that there could very well be infinite amounts of Comstocks or Bookers who are WORSE than Comstock who simply arose at a point that wasn't the baptism.[/sp]
After Minerva's Den, Burial At Sea really disappointed me.
i think the hate for infinite is a bit overblown but i do think its the weakest game in the franchise. lack of variety and freedom in exchange for more streamline and cinematic stuff, which can easily cater to certain people but it has nothing on bioshock 1/2
i don't get the hate for infinite. the combat is fun as hell. people just shit on it because of that one video making fun of it's story - which was fine, it wasn't some incredible mind blowing story but it was good and it worked.
[QUOTE=Rusty100;52581407]i don't get the hate for infinite. the combat is fun as hell. people just shit on it because of that one video making fun of it's story - which was fine, it wasn't some incredible mind blowing story but it was good and it worked.[/QUOTE]
the story was alright if not a little bit pretentious, but how can anyone find the combat fun is beyond me
it was the most uninspired AAA shooter i've ever played
[QUOTE=Rusty100;52581407]i don't get the hate for infinite. the combat is fun as hell. people just shit on it because of that one video making fun of it's story - which was fine, it wasn't some incredible mind blowing story but it was good and it worked.[/QUOTE]
Honestly the story was whatever, but the gameplay simply bored me which was why I wasn't able to finish the game. Like if the story was awful but the gameplay was enjoyable I'd be saying it was a decent game, but the gameplay just didn't engage me.
[QUOTE=Rusty100;52581407]i don't get the hate for infinite. the combat is fun as hell. people just shit on it because of that one video making fun of it's story - which was fine, it wasn't some incredible mind blowing story but it was good and it worked.[/QUOTE]
Most of the fun of the combat came from the Vigors, and after a while it became too easy to get a reliable setup and not need to really experiment or mess around with them unless you felt like it. They had less variety than the Plasmids of old, too. Beyond that it was a bog-standard two-weapon regenerating-shields shooter with ironsights that tried to set up arena-style battles via the Skyhook but ultimately it was more efficient to just one-two punch with a vigor followed up by some headshots.
For most people, it was pretty boring and had none of the style or intuitive decision-making of even previous Shock titles.
[QUOTE=damnatus;52581570]the story was alright if not a little bit pretentious, but how can anyone find the combat fun is beyond me
it was the most uninspired AAA shooter i've ever played[/QUOTE]
what? it feels like a more refined version of bioshock's gameplay. what game other than one with the same developers feels even remotely like infinite's to the point where you can call it uninspired?
[editline]17th August 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=RikohZX;52581694]Most of the fun of the combat came from the Vigors, and after a while it became too easy to get a reliable setup and not need to really experiment or mess around with them unless you felt like it. They had less variety than the Plasmids of old, too. Beyond that it was a bog-standard two-weapon regenerating-shields shooter with ironsights that tried to set up arena-style battles via the Skyhook but ultimately it was more efficient to just one-two punch with a vigor followed up by some headshots.
For most people, it was pretty boring and had none of the style or intuitive decision-making of even previous Shock titles.[/QUOTE]
i'm not even talking about the vigors. even just the shooting feels excellent
My problem with Infinite is how they decided to make Elizabeth the whole fucking reason for [sp]Bioshock 1 happening. It made the entire first game pointless in my opinion because it implies that Fontaine was incapable of doing anything without the aid of Elizabeth's portal bullshit. That this super special magic girl is the reason for Rapture's civil war to happen in the first place. [/sp]
[QUOTE=Rusty100;52581734]what? it feels like a more refined version of bioshock's gameplay. what game other than one with the same developers feels even remotely like infinite's to the point where you can call it uninspired?
[editline]17th August 2017[/editline]
i'm not even talking about the vigors. even just the shooting feels excellent[/QUOTE]
are you sure you played the right game?
[QUOTE=Rusty100;52581407]i don't get the hate for infinite. the combat is fun as hell. people just shit on it because of that one video making fun of it's story - which was fine, it wasn't some incredible mind blowing story but it was good and it worked.[/QUOTE]
Infinite had some really bad game design decisions, a lot of which were explained in the MatthewMattosis I think you're referring to. Over half of the vigors did the same function, which held back the diverse range of styles you could kill enemies like in previous Shock games. Almost every style of play in Infinite is "stun the enemy, dislocate their positioning, and shoot".
Why include an upgrade system the way they did if you can only two weapons at a time? The weapon carry limit incentivizes experimenting with all the guns, but the upgrade system incentivizes upgrading your "mains" and only sticking to them. If you run out of ammo for your main, you have to switch it out with a weapon you barely upgraded and does a fraction of the damage that you were just doing.
They had a really interesting concept with the skyhooks, but the concept was squandered since all they really were used for was to traverse the arena more quickly or to occasionally reach a ledge to shoot off from. I was under the impression that entire firefights would be fought on jungle gyms of skylines before launch.
The Boys of Silence were originally meant to be patrolling enemies throughout several levels that would force the player to be quiet and listen to sneak past them, rather than just be personified security cameras from Bioshock 1/2 that didn't really make any sense, weren't expanded on, and disappeared after 20 minutes.
I could go on and on. I mean, the game was scrapped and reworked a bunch of times over throughout its development and Irrational Games disbanded pretty much immediately after they were finished with the DLC so I'm glad they were even able to finish it at all and still be pretty good, but it's pretty clear both through the gameplay and its narrative that several ideas were abandoned, redone in a rush, underdeveloped etc.
I guess I can see why it's impressive in the way he details it, but it felt awfully manufactured to me. Like it's all specifically meant to get me emotionally attached to her, I could FEEL the effort, like they were practically begging me to love this honestly rather bland waifu character. Nothing about it felt organic.
As expected I couldn't care about Elizabeth in the slightest.
[QUOTE=Bertie;52588094]I guess I can see why it's impressive in the way he details it, but it felt awfully manufactured to me. Like it's all specifically meant to get me emotionally attached to her, I could FEEL the effort, like they were practically begging me to love this honestly rather bland waifu character. Nothing about it felt organic.
As expected I couldn't care about Elizabeth in the slightest.[/QUOTE]
Irrational really shouldn't have stepped out of their audio log comfort zone when they wanted us to like Elizabeth. Not only did we spend way too much time with her period, but her actions right when we meet her leading up to the middle of Finkton did more to make her seem dumb and annoying than it made her seem quirky and naive.
They nailed getting us to care about the deuteragonists in Bioshock 2 with both Sinclair and Eleanor, neither of whom appear in the gameworld proper for longer than thirty minutes. Hell, even Dr. Polito and Officer Delacroix in System Shock 2 had more of an emotional impact on me when I found them, and they only had some audio logs, a name, and ONE appearance to their characters.
I remember my favourite part of the game being toward the end in the asylum, cause you were finally on your own, in a setting you didn't understand with nobody to rely on. They really should have gone for more of that, it would have made her presence feel more rewarding.
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