Tom McShea reviews Bioshock Infinite again, gives it a 4

@brodehouse: Hey, if it were up to me, I would ditch written reviews altogether because they're nothing but this anachronistic thing that only exists at this point to draw in site traffic. I just thought it would be cool if Giant Bomb actually embraced the "these reviews are our staff's personal opinion on a game" edge of reviewing games instead of insisting that that's true, but presenting game reviews on the site, and surfacing their scores to outside score aggregates, as if that one review is representative of the site's collective opinion on the game. I don't think they should have to do multiple reviews under this hypothetical system that doesn't and won't exist, but for certain games I think it would be interesting, at least, to see a Jeff Review of GTA V and a Brad Review of GTA V. That kind of mild competition would lead to more honesty, I think.

"The Bad: Tedious, never-ending combat"

The combat in BioShock Infinite is not world-class, even the most ardent defender of the game isn't going to claim that. But there is only one point in the game where I found it tedious to play, and it wasn't a standard gameplay sequence (it was a specific boss fight, and one that more than a few people have expressed similar views on). It's a system that you get more out of the more you put into it, if that makes sense, and many commentators said that the game was better and more engaging on Hard. Regardless, it's still engaging enough to carry you through the story, and to say that a 9-hour game has seemingly never-ending combat is pretty dumb.

"story refuses to explore different situations the premise presents"

I don't even understand what this sentence means. But I actually think he might have something of a point here; I've expressed my own dissatisfaction with the fact that Infinite eschewed some of the Manifest Destiny gone horribly wrong ideas in favour of what the game ended up being. But that's down to very personal preferences, and even while we can acknowledged that reviews are always subjective, this doesn't hold back the game's unique and consistently fascinating narrative.

"Mechanics clash with the narrative"

Uh-oh. Someone else jumped on the ludonarrative dissonance band-wagon. I still think this argument is bullshit, and not just when applied to Infinite. In fact, the term ludonarrative dissonance arose from a piece of criticism written about the original BioShock, which McShea begins the review saying he's a die-hard fan of. If it put you off so much in Infinite, why didn't it put you off in the original?

Whatever, Tom McShea is and always has been a total waste of space. I'm not inherently opposed to having multiple journalists at a publication present their critiques in an official review, but this just seems like click-bait. Gamespot has a great opportunity to start fresh and rid itself of some of its unsavoury reputation - they're clearly trying to do so with new guidelines for comments - but this is not starting the new regime off on a good foot at all.

@jjweatherman: That video makes me miss Ryan so much. He is so incredibly ON for the entire thing.

I like the idea of revisiting a game again (except for how there is a score at the end. Way to fuck it up, Gamespot) later but man that Tom McShea must get a serious hard on for wanting to draw attention to himself. I see some of the points he brings up about the game which are valid but also tied to everyone's personal preferences....but man that score at the end only comes off as a lame ass attempt to rile people up and get attention.

You sure about that? I'm sure that McShea's stupid score is going to draw quite a lot of clicks because of the "controversy"

Dude doesn't like Bioshock: Infinite.

Why are people frustrated that some dude doesn't like Bioshock: Infinite?

If you like Bioshock: Infinite, that's cool. He isn't calling you a bad person for liking Bioshock: Infinite.

Dude just doesn't like Bioshock: Infinite.

If it gets people to go to the site or click the article, as I'm sure it does, then company goal has been achieved.

I can't take anyone who gives good games anything below a 7. For instance, even though the latest Call of Duty games have not been for me, any reviewer who gives them a 4 rating is a moron, is simply trolling for clicks. Same goes here. Anyone who gives Bioshock Infinite, especially when he says he loves the first one, cannot seriously think it's a 4 out of 10 games unless he's a complete idiot. Haha.

@marokai: Giant Bomb actually had taken that tact, they don't present the their impressions as objective fact (aside from parts that merely are factual), but their impressions. The star rating is not an effective Objective Quality Quotient, but the strength of the author's recommendation. 5 star reviews are not 'perfect games!', but unconditional recommendations.

I do agree that the traditional written product review is something in limbo. The podcast works as well for me to receive impressions, moreover I get to hear impressions against a sounding board that asks pertinent questions (or at least I used to). I don't criticize Tom McShea for having a subjective opinion, I criticize him for his nonsense reasoning, his propensity to broadcast his ignorance and his disingenuous character. I would do the same to any of the GB staff if or when they act in a similar manner.

Bioshock Infinte is a work of art and love by a group of people in the top tier of their craft. I'm tired of people being unable to regognise this because they personally don't like the game. Disliking a game is fine, pointing out a games flaws is fine, but objectively saying something of Bioshocks quality is bad is downright laughable in my humble opinion.

I think it's OK to revisit games analytically and I wish more outlets did it. However, I don't think you should contextualize that sort of reassessment as a "review". Criticize the game, reevaluate the design, but don't pretend it's purchasing advice by slapping a score on it after the fact. It's just kind of crass and there are better ways to pitch this type of feature.

An example for why this doesn't work for me as a "review" is that he lauds the game's "gorgeous visual design". Were he to re-review e.g. Final Fantasy 7 with its blocky and weird-looking character models, would he knock it for "unappealing visual design"? Do the mechanics clash with the narrative? (I'm not trying to pick a fight, FF7 is great, it's just an example.)

I have trouble taking this document sincerely as is and would have preferred a scoreless critique. Timeliness is essential and he's six months late. This is an op-ed more than anything else. Perhaps in the end it's semantics, but clearly people care about those semantics.

The validation of strangers is the only way I can get off.

They've done the same for Disney Infinity as well - original 6/10 - second review 8/10 but I guess that didn't get much traction as its a more low profile release and it's a score going up rather than down.

I'm all for a postmortem on games a few months after release once the dust and hype has settled but to go from a 9 to a 4 is just bizarre and makes the site itself look wholly unprofessional. What type of precedent does this set? We'll give it a 9 at first blush but then when we have time to find further criticism we'll dock it points?

The review doesn't even read like a 4, it reads like a 7 - 8. There's things he likes and some things he's neutral on and then says the combat is tedious. The combat isn't its strongest point but McShea has frequently said he doesn't like FPS games so I wouldn't of though this really would've changed his mind on that?

I agree. It annoys me to no end that people are disappointed when games are not what they thought it would be, and can't let themselves accept what the game actually is. It just seems like Tom wanted a different game. It's like I go into Super Mario looking for Super Meat Boy, don't find it, and give Super Mario a 4 for not being Super Meat Boy.

apparently the new cool thing is to shit on critically acclaimed games after a 6 months grace period.

I have no way to relate to any of this, I thought Infinite was fantastic.

For me, I thought both the story and gameplay was so much better than Bioshock 1, and I really did not care for the last half of bioshock 1 or its combat. But I keep reading how so many people like Bioshock 1 a lot more than infinite and nothing about that even computes with me.

I guess that's what opinions are .....

From his description of the combat it almost reads like he played it on easy, maaaybe medium. I played it on hard and found it challenging and rewarding.

The idea of mixing in multiple reviews on a site is pretty cool, get's people to realize that a review is subjective and people have different tastes.

Why can this not be a review? Why must a review be purchasing advice? I for one would rather see reviews go in this direction. I think it is good for a huge game like this to get a low score. Too often big games are flooded with positive praise, where is the discussion there?

Reviews are opinions, and as long as the score matches the text, can it really be wrong?

It's my game of the year so fuck him. It is clearly click bait.

@brodehouse: I don't think we're really disagreeing on much, I just think this site, and many others, could do a better job at trying to surface game reviews as that individual's personal opinion, rather than appearing presentationally as if it were Giant Bomb's review of a game and not Jeff Gerstmann's review of a game. That distinction doesn't really come across for most people and it's hard to blame them for that. If we're going to have old-school written reviews for awhile, at least Gamespot is trying out something different to make those reviews and scores appear more subject to an individual reviewer instead of as the end-all-be-all Gamespot review.

What do I think? I think that the idea of a "second opinion" is a neat feature if used right. However, I continue to think that Tom McShea is the worst with his overbearingly smug and contrarian attitudes about everything and will thus continue to not take anything he writes or says seriously.

I care about his current score as his original score: Interesting but just an opinion.

A 4/10 seems really low for a game like Infinite. When I hear a 4/10 I think of a broken mess.

I've never really agreed with most of McShea's reviews anyway, so whatever.

You're railing against a decades if not centuries old strata at that point. Reviews and comments are almost always attributed to the publication they're printed in unless it's an editorial or opinion piece.

As for the outrage, I don't get it, but I come from the music world where there's no stigma against a review being "late", or being "too late to be a review" or "too wrong to be objective." You listen to the album a bunch, you write 3,000 words about it and you put it out there to get the conversation going. Granted I always get comments from readers about how I was "listening to the wrong album" or "just don't get it" or "am a hater", but those comments tend to come rooted in a sense of adolescence and amazement (and, every so often, in truth I'd missed or ignored). Whenever I hear complaints about a review like this McShea review, I can't help but feel like people are mad the review isn't "accurate", or on the flip-side "too opinionated".

Frankly, I agree with all of his points. Bioshock Infinite clearly promises one thing to players early on before making it about this entirely other thing. It's an exhilarating experience and I enjoyed the hell out of it as someone who couldn't be bothered to finish either of the first two Bioshocks due to their controls and general gameplay (I already dislike FPS games quite a bit, so...) so I can't say I agree with him in terms of finding the weapons dull or the action slogging. But if I DID find the game to be those things - and let's not act like every person is looking to play the same type of game at the same moment in history - and I was also consistently let down by the narrative's preference for time dynamics and damsels in distress rather than the male megalomania of the first two games...yea, I could probably give this game a 4, easily. I gave the original Uncharted a 2.5/5 on this site just because of it's final hour and a half.

I'm not opposed to disappointment in a game being expressed over the course of a review, and while I see eye-to-eye with Jeff on a lot of things I can't agree with his idea that reviews are a consumer report sort of experience. That idea died the moment the internet got HD video and streaming radio. Whenever I'm reviewing an album these days, I'm reviewing the album fully expecting the person who's reading the review to have heard the artist's previous music, to have heard the album I'm talking about and is ready to have an actual discussion about what's on the disc, not about whether I think it's worth any money or not. Tom McShea did that, so I don't see the point in complaining.

One fish in a school of thousands.

It really strikes me how everybody loves to bitch and moan about how reviewers never use the ten-point scale properly and turn 8 into the "average", but when McShea gives Infinite a rating that implies he thinks it is slightly below average people act like he called it a pile of shit or something. Honestly, I can totally understand if you think BioShock: Infinite is a below-average product; while the art design and soundtrack are incredible, the story is very muddled and the gameplay is pretty repetitive. I'd be much more inclined to give BS: Infinite a 6 or 7, because despite its flaws I still think it's an above-average product, but good for McShea for at least using the points scale properly. In the world of reviews, 5 should be "okay" and 9 should be "almost flawless". 5 should not be "shitty, broken and boring" and 9 should not be "deeply flawed but I had fun with it".

And hey, opinions and all that. If you're coming into this saying "I don't understand why anyone would think BioShock: Infinite isn't a good game" maybe you should read the review. If you're coming into this saying "WHAT A POINTLESS ARTICLE BIOSHOCK INFINITE IS GREAT" then you've being willfully ignorant that some people have different tastes to you.

And hey, everyone loved Final Fantasy 7 and that was a stupid pile of poop too!

Here's my theory:

"Hey guys, we just relaunched the site and we're getting flamed by other media outlets because of bugs and technical issues. How can we distract everyone for a few days while we iron everything out?"

Tom: "I have an idea...."

I find it very difficult to imagine how someone could think that Bioshock Infinite is a below average game! I mean if we give it the Giantbomb star scale conversion it becomes a 2/5 putting on a par with games like Deadpool or Star Trek: The Video Game.

Maybe his love for the first Bioshock just set his expectations too high and this is the result. For me, neither Bioshock nor Bioshock Infinite are perfect games but Infinite is imperfect in ways I can handle more easily and have more fun getting through.

He doesn't like a game, that's cool. I dislike a lot of games too. I don't read his reviews anyway since his taste in games and what he takes away from them differs greatly from my own, so his opinion does me no good when it comes to me making a purchasing decision. However his non-enjoyment of the game shouldn't make said game any less enjoyable for you if it's your cup of tea. I don't understand why people need every review to validate their own opinion. Review outrage is just silly.

I take it that it won't be appearing on his Game Of The Year list...

click bait and pointless.

I've already played the game and hold my own opinion.

I think he has some points that I mostly agree with.

But whatever fuck that dude and his opinion differing from mine! Fire his ass!

I don't really give a shit about review scores, but I came here to ask one question..

Does Tom Mcshea do this stuff on purpose? Just to piss people off?

I've read a few of his articles in the past, and it seems like it's all just intentional bitching and troll-bait.

I enjoyed every second I played of it. One of the Few games I sat through without touching another game and beat it. personally its an 7.5/10 to me and I will replay it again here when all dlc is out and I dont have to play a little then wait for the next.

Oh brother, Tom McShea at it again. This guy either has the weirdest taste in video games or he is a huge troll.

Meh, I could give no shits with this guy says. Also, multiple reviews for a game just seems dumb unless they are user reviews.

Yeah this was my exact reaction. Tom McShea, the dude who said that the future of gaming was a beefed up windows tablet...

No I do not agree with his views on Bioshock or really anything else.

i skim read the review, he makes an ok argument, i agree with a lot of it,(surprisingly cuz i don't like the guy at all). However, much of it has already been said by more eloquent people, i feel that this is more of a retrospective masquerading as a review.

the 4.0 seems to serve only as a cheap way of adding weight to a pretty standard opinion.

Oh look, Tom McShea made another thing that made me say "Fuck Tom McShea". Like I needed yet another one of those.

"Sadly, she's little more than an item dispersal system with a fancy dress. Elizabeth helpfully tosses ammunition and health when Booker gets low, and unlocks doors, but otherwise she serves as a bystander. She does offer one nice touch of humanity. When Booker kills enemies in particularly violent ways, she recoils in disgust, which is more character development than is found elsewhere."

I find this to be blatantly untrue. During battles this is true but the action sequences are not the points where there is character development (why would you expect that anyways?). That is all handled in cutscenes and when you're walking around the world together. There is a ton of ambient dialogue that allows you to understand her viewpoints and feelings. I thought she was an amazingly detailed and deep character in a year filled with wonderful female characters.

@chaser324 said:

I've listened to Gamespot's podcast for quite some time and I've often find myself wishing Ryan, may he rest in peace, or Jeff was present. These days there isn't really anyone on that show that can argue well against him, or even tries for that matter, so it just becomes this echo chamber where a lot of the time his hyperbole and populism is allowed to run unopposed.

Don't care about this review or anything. I don't even think he creates the "controversies" that he does as a means to get pageviews, attention or out of some other, similarly narcissistic, motive. I just think he's an idiot.

>:|

@lackingsaint said:

It's a fair point, and I think things would be better in that scenario, but we can't look at these things in a vacuum. At no point did anyone at Gamespot, from what I've seen, come out and say "we're completely changing the status quo as regards review scores, and 4 out of 10 now means below average as opposed to flaming piece of shit". Gamespot's ratings still classify any game that receives 4.0-4.9 as "Poor", and when we're talking about a website that gave Daikatana a 4.6, you can see why some people might get annoyed. Yes, I know I'm referencing a 14-year old game, but I don't think that people forget this kind of stuff that easily.

The way this review was presented makes it seem all the world like Tom McShea thinks BioShock Infinite is roughly comparable in quality to Ducktales: Remastered and a couple of notches worse than that Deadpool game, and he's entitled to that opinion, and I'm entitled to think that anyone that would make that argument is not someone whose opinion on games is worthy listening to. I think that's the argument that people are coming from.

Also, I think "almost flawless" is a really good way of describing BioShock Infinite.

YES, I Love that Podcast, Ryan Tears him apart.

I'm sick of seeing this guy and his reviews and I'm sick of hearing people complain about him.

If you don't like him, stop rewarding him for his behavior and he will go away.

+1

I think Infinite is really overrated but this article is fucking embarrassing. The game's point is that "there will always be a megalomaniac"? Really? I mean, the game is pretty hamfisted and questionably written at parts, but jesus, that's seriously the one thing you take away from it? Dude seems like sort of a shitty writer with a poor understanding of the fiction he's lambasting and he abuses the hell out of his thesaurus to boot.

IF EVERYONE DOESNT LOVE THE GAME I LOVE THEN CAN I REALLY LOVE IT?

I think if people have opinions that vary they should share them. I made the mistake and bought Bioshock Infinite blindly trusting all the global appraisal and ended up not being able to finish due to the combat bored me to death. Seriously, no part of that game is any fun gameplay wise.

I think 4 is a little low, at least on a 10 star scale.

I can understand not liking the game. It has it's flaws (like every other game in existence), so I can understand when someone is less tolerant of those flaws or more harsh on them than other people. As far as the score goes...unless he's grading on a completely different standard than the rest of the website, I'm not so sure where he's getting a 4/10. I'm the kind of person that honestly feels that scores need to disappear from game reviews. I know most people still find value in them, but all I see scores doing is causing unnecessary and vapid argument. After reading his actual review, I find his criticisms to wander into exaggeration a bit. But, like everyone says a billion times, "opinions are opinions." I'm not here to complain about what some nerd has to say about a game he doesn't like (even if that nerd works for gamespot).

As a side note, I think its a little too easy to be a contrarian these days on the internet. People get so worked up over the swell of positive feedback from reviews, forums, podcasts, ect. that they think they need to somehow swing the pendulum back in the other direction. It's the fox news style of games press. The result is, rather than being level headed in your criticism of a thing (in this case, game) you instead critically beat it into a pulp (in this case, giving a 4/10) in order to prove your point. I just find it sort of unnecessary.

I'm going to start dismissing everything I don't like in my life as "click bait."

"Oh, man that asshole just cut me off on the highway! Fucking click bait!"

"My girlfriend broke up with me! Clearly click bait..."

"The government is shut down? NICE CLICK BAIT, OBAMA!"