Sorry for being optimistic.

Bioshock Infinite is just another product of the industry. I'd hope we get at least one game this year that tries to shake shit up a little.

I'm sure it will be a GOTY contender. It was legitimately awesome. Hopefully it doesn't suffer the fate of games released early in the year though. By that I mean that people just tend to forget about them, i.e. Dead Space 2.

But my entire point here is that it's not front and center, look at the top of this long-ass quote tree. And like I said I never expected them to solve racism. It's just that they were being misleading because of how that game starts where it feels like it's going to be the theme and then they do nothing meaningful with it.

Right...because exploring the themes of trans-dimensional travel in a video game isn't shaking shit up just a little bit, neither is crafting a rich world in an imaginative setting with so much attention to detail that it hurts. Yep, nothing innovative going on here.

In my honest opinion it joins Ocarina of Time, Portal 1&2, and Half Life 2 as one of the best games of all time.

Infinite is definitely going to be a GOTY contender, and probably will end up as a platinum game on consoles.

Game of the Year contender for sure but classic? You guys burned through the game in less then a week and by this time next month no one will be talking about it.

@mrsignerman44: Games have done time and dimensional travel better.

And the first Bioshock did the second one. And it was only unique for the generation, which Infinite isn't.

Unless Rockstar seriously fucks up, I already know GTAV is going to be my personal game of the year, but I won't be surprised at all and would wholeheartedly support Infinite winning all the awards this year. As for classic status, that was assured the instant I caught the first glimpse of Columbia through the window of the rocket. By far one of the most intricate and beautiful worlds ever crafted in a game.

@lordxavierbritish: I'd sure like to see some examples, since Infinite did it pretty damn well. I can't comprehend why someone would have some weird irrational(hehe) hate for a game, you seem to have one since you frequently post about how "bad" it is. But, as I said before, there's always gotta be that one guy.

I can see it being a classic contender as a triple a game that comes out early in the year with a neat story and good artstyle.

But ultimately a goty should be fun to play and infinite is one horrible shooter. All headshots all the time, no need to change weapons aside from low ammo and once they throw even more uselessvgrunts at you guess what you already got mana/kill and chain stun.

Don't get me wrong usually i like shooting dudes ...but 7 hours of shooting even more dudes after realizing that the shooting has no depth ... could have lived with less.

I'm not sure what meaningful thing you wanted them to do with it. Racism is bad. We knew that going in. They essentially went out of their way to show you how ugly it can make even the nicest looking world look. With the Vox Populi they showed that, eventually, those you subjugate will hit back and hit back hard.

Yeah but aren't those things just self evident if you live in America? We need something more than that. I just find it weird people praising this game for that aspect of it when it doesn't even factor in to the actual story. People have such a low bar for game stories, and I think we have much to gain by raising that standard. If this had even a tenth of the poignancy of films or books about the same issues I'd be ready to sing the praises for being an innovative story, but we shouldn't give credit where it isn't due. They're not breaking any new ground here. They might have grazed it a little, but that's the extent of it.

Definite Game of the Year material and I will give you several reason why this game IS unique in today's gaming landscape. First I like how Irrational games bucks the trend in video games. They develop incredible worlds that beg to be explored inch by inch. In Bioshock Infinite they have made a story line that is leaps and bounds ahead of what the industry is currently putting out, because the aim of this one game is to tell a COMPLETE story. They aren't afraid to close out the story...in one game...not three. Studios are so concerned with pumping in as much cash from a licensed product that "trilogies" are the norm nowadays, especially for big AAA games. Finally, and contrary to all the nay-sayers, the game on harder difficulties is A BLAST TO PLAY. Experimentation with the vigors is great, and the fast paced nature of the combat and addition of the skylines gets the adrenaline pumping. From a straight shooter perspective it isn't at the top of the FPS class, but who the hell thinks this game is meant to be a straight shooter? Do people actually play it guns blazing 100% of the time? I love this game, and it is my current GOTY.

I'm getting really fucking tired of seeing this.

I have never once said Bioshock Infinite is bad. I have never said I hate this game. I have never said anything negative towards this game except other games have done what it does better.

I've also said this several fucking times, but seeing as most people can't read past "Bioshock Infinite is worse than" I'll do this again.

Virtue's Last Reward

Steins;Gate

If you want games that do time/dimensional travel with writing miles ahead of Bioshock Infinite, there ya go.

You seem to have not liked the game so much, but it's reviewing much better than either Dragon Age 2 or Prototype did, there's no way it will be forgotten by the time the GoTYs roll around. As for whether it's a "classic", well that's the kind of thing we can't usually tell until some time down the line.

I got to the part where you referred to Prototype as "garbage" and forgot everything else.

BOTH PROTOTYPE GAMES ARE EXCELLENT, WHOLLY ENJOYABLE GAMES AND FUCK YOU OR SOMETHING

Bioshock Infinite will probably be remembered for years to come. It's so rare for a big budget video game to even attempt something like this and pull it off so well. In the end, video games are about making money. And if you think it's easy to get finance for 3 years of game development for a single player experience that involves quantum physics theory, class struggle, racism, religious criticism etc in world where Call of Duty, Gears of War, Halo and Mario games bring in the most money, then you haven't reflected on the state of the industry lately. Your best bet of getting something even remotely profound or emotional, was to go buy and buy a few japanese 3DS games and downloadable episodic chapters from Telltale. I love The Walking Dead, but you definitely have more artistic freedom when the cost is less mainstream. I had given up hope that I would ever see a big game be intresting in this way again.

So, the most impressive thing about Bioshock Infinite is not what is, but rather what it's not. It could easiely have banked on the success of Bioshock 1 and just do the same thing all again. This is what sequels usuallly do. Improve on some aspects and just try to better the experience. Having Elizabeth could have been that one improvement. Instead of risking to alienate the player with all the themes in Bioshock Infinite, Levine could have played it much, much safer and everyone would have been happy anyways. But he didn't and it's so rare to see anyone taking these big risks for the sake of artistic freedom in this industry.

I'm happily looking forward to The Last of Us, GTA V, Watch Dogs and other potentially great games this year. But something like Bioshock Infinite is simply not going to happen again in a long time.

Yep, sounds like you're in love with the game already. While we're comparing VN's to shooters, let me just say that Bioshock Infinite's game play blows their's out of the water. See how ridiculous that sounds? Of course the writing is better, it's practically a goddamn book!

Probably. Which shocks me, in a Post Walking Dead world, I can't quite believe people are praising Bioshock Infinite's story so much, when it does everything I thought we were past with "important" video game stories.

@mrsignerman44: The fact of the matter is, if Bioshock can't create a better story than a visual novel they fucked up. They have an entire 3D world to work with including fully animated and expressive character models, open and explorable environments, and millions of dollars spent on what amounts to hours upon hours of voice acting spread through in the game both in the form of character dialogue and audio logs.

Bioshock Infinte is average. If the best game to come out this year is a very average shooter with great visual design then video games are dead.

I don't care if anyone enjoys Bioshock Infinite, but treating it as a pinnacle of video games and a timeless classic is just stupid.

Establishing a setting by showing a racial dichotomy doesn't tie you to fully exploring it. This is not how narrative works. You are so off base here. When they show racism in Taxi Driver, were you mad they didn't make it "front and center"? So confusing.

You are also generalizing about the praise, speaking to no person. I don't think new ground is being broken, they are just showing some strong aspects games don't usually show (propaganda, racism, ugliness of rebellions) and they work off of that to tell a very interesting story. It's just very well executed. It's basically the quality of the first 15 minutes of Half Life 2's story telling stretched out over a whole game. That is something worth commending. The credit is very due, and very earned.

Judging from the response it has gotten it will be a nominee at pretty much all site for GOTY.

So far the year looks like it's going to be a tie with Infinite and The Last of Us, with Tomb Raider and DmC a distant tie for second.

Time will tell and Yes.

Everybody's entitled to their opinions. But holy shit, I'm glad you're in the minority on this issue.

I don't understand this mentality.

Why is it bad for a game to be average? Can we not live in a world where every single game doesn't have to be shoved to either end of the spectrum? It's like people can't accept that a game can't be GAME OF THE YEAR ALL YEARS and not be shit.

"Oh man look at this guy over here, he thinks this game is just okay. How can he not realize this game is a fucking masterpiece? This game is an intellectual game for intellectuals with intellectual references to other art like Le Mizeraaaa."

It's pretty much guaranteed that it'll be in the running for GOTY. I'm unsure about it being a classic though. The gameplay was lackluster and at times tedious. I think it's a high mark for video game story telling and I can see it being called a classic in that regards. The combat severely hampers it though.

GOTY contender? yes. Winner? No. Classic? No.

@lordxavierbritish: Maybe because you're going out of your way, celebrating other non-casual games as central to your point? Or that you can accept that the hot new thing that's getting gushed over is not remotely worth any of said praise. Not every game released gets game of the year attention or call outs. That's ridiculous. Just as much as saying that Infinite is a 'product of the industry' when celebrating Dark Souls or other games like it as if they weren't sequels or iterations or whatever.

@dillonator: Dark Souls iterated and improved, Infinite maintained the status quo. The only reason I even bring up counter examples is because people are claiming it's "the best." If you're going to make a statement like that you better back it up.

And I don't go out of my way to do shit. You people want this. I don't call you out, you're the one's replying to what I have to say. If you don't like my opinions then don't respond. I guess that's impossible though since thinking isn't allowed on the internet.

@lordxavierbritish: If by iterated and improved, mean that you used estus flasks rather than eat grass, if you mean that combat is slowed down, if you mean wide vistas that chug on all platforms, if you mean that until later patches that PVP and many covenants didn't work as designed, then yeah, it's the Souls formula done to absolute perfection.

Let's not even get into how Dark Magic from the DLC unbalanced PVP. And let's not get into the fact that the calling card of the game, the difficulty, really isn't all that difficult. Or the story told is done almost strictly through telling and implicating, not showing. Just because Dark Souls is a sacred cow for hardcores doesn't matter.

You go into multiple Infinite threads, like people who are doing the hate on deal before it becomes stylish, and then say people responding aren't thinkers. If this game being in the conversation as a completely arbitrary game of the year means gaming is dead to you and this is how you're going to go about talking about it, maybe you need to go someplace that's more suited for guys like you. Like /v/ or something.

It will probably be remembered the same as Bioshock, a game with a fun story to play through that was limited by its gameplay. With regards to GOTY, who cares?

@dillonator: Don't put words in my mouth. I don't go into every Infinite thread and hate on the game, I go into the threads I find interesting and respond to the topic. Just because you don't like my response doesn't me I don't belong there, you don't get to take the moral high ground just because you hold the majority opinion.

Really the very implication that I would say the people who love Bioshock Infinite don't think would be retarded. Have you read the ending threads? The amount of research they've done into this shit is insane.

And while I'd rather not get into a Dark Souls argument in a Bioshock thread, apparently you want this so fuck it let's get down to it. I'd rather talk about Dark Souls anyway.

Oh no I have a replenishable health source instead of farming up so much grass I never run out of HP ever. Oh no the combat was made more deliberate so I actually have to think before I swing my 500 pound stone greatsword. The only covenant I even remember being broken was Gravelords at release, and that's been fixed now. There may have been more obscure bugs I didn't know about, but I tried pretty much every covenant right after the release and I didn't have any fucking problems.

And Dark Souls PvP has always been unbalanced, that's just the way it is. It was never fair in the first place, and honestly I never understood people that take it super seriously. I mean an entire round of Dark Souls pvp pretty much consists of posturing around until one guy kills the other guy in one hit or stunlocks him forever. It's always been about exploitation and taking advantage of a situation, I don't know why the fuck you are expecting a fair match out of the guy who bows and then waits for you to return it so he can stab you in the back with his +5 lightning katana. When I invade, or get invaded, I always assume I'm either going to get immediately crushed or have a ridiculous advantage because what works in PvP is so outside of what actually works well in PvE that trying to balance it for both would just ruin the entire game. I never tried that new "match making" system in Oolacile, but I assume it isn't much different than sitting outside Kiln for a match. Honestly I just don't have any interest in PvP outside of doing dumb theme builds and screwing over a few noobies and I don't know why anyone would.

Also I don't get this difficulty thing. People who have never played Dark Souls are the only people who call it difficulty, anyone who has actually put the time in knows it's not that hard. It's a game about caution and exploitation, the only reason people think it's hard is because it stands as a stark contrast to handholding shooter slideshows that popualte the AAA market today. I mean I'm not going to sit here and claim I can beat NG+ O&S with no armor and an Estoc, but the main campaign is only mildly challenging for anyone who knows what their doing.

And really the story is a whole other fucking concept that I'd need an entire thread to discuss. Honestly if you think a story needs to just outright show you what is happening and shove it in your face so you have no choice but to pay attention, well really I'm not sure what to think. Good stories don't have to just explain everything outright, and really I consider the fact that you can go through Dark Souls without ever actually learning the truth of your situation is an achievement. It's great that you have to read through the lore and listen to all the NPC dialogue and just fucking sit down and discuss it with other people to get the most out of it. It's something that makes Dark Souls unique in modern gaming and it's a trait other developers should really take notice of.

Also if you're seriously going to say "show don't tell" a Bioshock thread probably isn't the best place to do it. Half the fucking story is still done through audio logs.

@lordxavierbritish: I loved Dark Souls, but this whole elitist attitude about the story being good only because it doesn't "spoon feed you maaaaan" is making the game look bad. The fact that the story was in the background was a big complaint for most, including myself who prefers story over game play most of the time. I hope Dark Souls 2 corrects this and gives us a story that's actually memorable this time. But if they do that, I'm pretty sure that it'll be viewed as "appealing to the casual market" no?

@mrsignerman44: If you prefer story over gameplay perhaps you should reconsider your medium of choice.

The story in Dark Souls is memorable, the mythology is incredible deep as is the relationship between the various characters such as Seath the Scaleless, Lord Gwyn, Gwyndolin, Kingseeker Frampt, etc. The story is so well done because you can ignore it and focus on the game play, not the other way around. The world of Dark Souls is supposed to be empty and lifeless, not full of vibrant personalities waiting to give you thirty minute diatribes about the scales of immortality or the birth of pyromancy.

There are just elements of the story that wouldn't work if you were forced to trudge through it. Piecing together the truth behind the silver-tongued serpents, finding the dark secrets of Anor Londo, following the fall of Big Hat Logan while simultaneously learning more about Seath and the truth behind the dragon school magics. The best part of Dark Souls story is that it's almost a puzzle in and of itself, the game doesn't require it but when you do some digging and it all falls starts into place it's almost as gratifying as solving one of the rooms in games like Braid or Portal.

You say I'm making the game look bad, but to completely dismiss the entire narrative just because it isn't up front and required reading; man that's just fucking wrong.

Instant classic

@lordxavierbritish: So, I should change my preferences now because of disliking a barebones story? Okay, I'll get right on that. While the setting and lore of Dark Souls was interesting and rich, it simply didn't flow well as a narrative story. What's wrong with vibrant personalities? What's wrong with creating characters that are more dynamic? Reading a few item descriptions doesn't constitute a great story. Also, don't twist my words by saying that I dismissed the story because I was lazy or too "casual" to put work into it. I did put work into it, I did do some of the required reading and it simply wasn't that interesting.

@mrsignerman44: I never said casual. You can't quote shit I didn't say.

And I'm not going to sit here and argue about this if you just want to dismiss everything I've said just because you didn't like it. I've spent hours discussing and reading about the story of Dark Souls, I've explained to you why it is told the way it is and why it succeeds because of it. If you're going to just throw around false claims like the story being bare bones or the main narrative arc having no depth then go bother someone else. There's nothing wrong with vibrant personalities or dynamic characters, but Dark Souls chose not to do that and succeeded in spite of it.

Also don't play this "I care more about the story" bull shit if you're going to basically say you can't tell a great story through words. I mean jesus christ, come on.

Seriously?

You come into a thread that's obviously going to be filled with people that hold the game very highly and drop borderline sensationalist responses like these and then get upset when people call you out on it?

@fresh_muffins: I responded to the question in the OP.

I have reasoning behind my opinions which I've explained.

If you don't like it then don't respond.

@lordxavierbritish: Why tell a decent story through item descriptions when you can tell a fantastic one through voice acting and actual setpieces? Just seems dumb dawg.

Except it's obvious that your first response to the OP's question would provoke the garbage that's developed through this thread so far.

Also, I never said you had or hadn't provided reasoning for your opinions.

@mrsignerman44: Why write books, why make music, why paint a portrait. It's a stylistic choice. Getting reductive about it doesn't change that.

@fresh_muffins: I don't actively try to provoke people, I just very rarely censor myself.

I said what I wanted to say, I don't know why people take such issue with it. I'd rather not have ruined a perfectly good thread but that's the internet for you.

You'd have to be crazy to think this WON'T be a GOTY contender. As for all time classic...only time will tell. I'd have to imagine so though.

Also I have to disagree with the Bomb Crew about the thought that if this game is the best of this year that's sort of a bummer. I think the game is just that incredible. As of now it's really got no competition, but let's wait and see.

Again, you missed the point entirely, and you did want to provoke or ruin the thread. At this point, you shouldn't run away from that and just own up to it.

It's pretty good. I don't think it will stand up all that well 5 years from now due to gameplay and the type of story it is. Definitely a GOTY contender.

I hope this game is a milestone. I hope that in 5 years or so we can look back and say Bioshock Infinite was the game that started big budget games along this trajectory of really caring about their narrative. It'll definitely be up for contention for GOTY as well.

@mrsignerman44: The only thing I want to provoke is discussion.

Don't claim to know me or my motives. If you want to see how far I'll go to completely shit on a game just go browse around the Dragon Age 2 forums for awhile.

Prototype and dragon age 2 were never going to be game of the year wtf lol

Bioshock is definitely GOTY so far and i don't think anything is releasing that looks to de-thrown it, and it's a certified classic in my book already