Thought this was a fun article to read, wanted to share. I think it’s interesting that as societal and political views at large shift in the 2020s, it’s good to go back and reevaluate how narratives are portrayed even as recently as 2015.
FTA:
The crucible of how the game treats its profundity is in the relation between its white Founders faction, which is in power, and its rebellious Vox Populi, who are attempting to liberate the oppressed racial and political classes of Columbia. The player stands between these two forces, doing tasks for each in turn, eventually learning that both are insufficient in creating a good reality. As Chris Franklin highlighted in a recent video, this is a common refrain in projects that Levine has worked on: putting the player in the position of a mediating force between two extremes. The player can feel pulled, and compelled, toward different directions while ultimately being forced down a particular path. Playing as a character who is terminally in the middle of the road allows us to point fingers at any insufficiencies we see in the world around us — as King put it, “gamers like to feel smart,” and seeing the gaps of logic in the various worldviews on display can make us feel like clever social analysts. A player uses magic in their left hand while holding a gun in their right hand in a screenshot from BioShock Infinite.
From the vantage of 2024, it seems that one of the key problems of Infinite’s view from nowhere is infinity itself. No matter your viewpoint, Infinite seems to present you with some ideas that might align with your vision of the world and others that might challenge you. This is probably an admirable goal — art can give us perspectives on the world that we don’t yet understand, and that’s one of the many ways that creative expression can change us.
If there’s an issue here that generates the endless debates about whether Infinite is good, it’s that the game does not provoke us with a particular person’s, group’s, or ideology’s perspective. Instead, it just confronts us with the idea that many different ways of existing in the world are real, and any of them taken to their logical extreme will exclude all others. What produces the “both sides” problems of Infinite is a problem of imagination. Infinite is a universe of plural worlds, and if any of them takes over fully, everything goes bad.
Full disclosure, I was disappointed in the majority of the replies this got when I first posted it, and as a knee-jerk reaction I took it down. But I encourage you to at least read the quotes.
They could figure this out more easily by simply playing the game and deciding if they enjoyed it or not.
I’m happy you decided to repost this.
An article that discusses and re-examines if a game you like is good is not a personal attack.
I encourage anyone who thinks it is indeed a good game (hey I also enjoyed it back in the day) take the time to read the article and at least respond to the content posted.
It is absolutely fine to disagree with what the article is saying. And it’s fine if you don’t want to read it. But I don’t think it’s bee-ing nice to comment that you refused to read an innocent article because you disagree with the headline and it’s source. The article was posted to discuss its contents (as the body of the post pointed out). Not whether or not polygon is worthwhile.
If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all ya know?
Uhh I really enjoyed it
That’s great! I remember myself enjoying the gameplay a lot, and it ran surprisingly well on my PC at the time. Any thoughts beyond that, anything about the article specifically? The article isn’t over here saying, “This award-winning game was bad!” it’s more so trying to take a closer look at the story and themes of the game as a whole from a 2024 perspective and how our current world can reflect them. Though to be fair ™, it is definitely meant to be a click-bait article that’s part of a greater “Spicey Takes” section.
Was pretty obviously clickbait, so I didn’t read it, and still don’t plan to even after you provided that additional context. I’m afraid that I added all that I could, sorry.
I honestly felt it was weaker than both Bioshock and System Shock 2. It was stronger than Bioshock 2, but I mean… that doesn’t take a lot.
Both System Shock 2 and Bioshock built the game systems first and foremost to be fun and engaging, and then wrote an engaging story around those mechanics. Bioshock was literally taking dumbed down systems from System Shock 2 and rewriting a more engaging and thoughtful story around the familiar systems. Bioshock Infinite seemed much more like they had a story idea first and then tried to adapt Bioshock-esque gameplay hamfistedly stapled onto said story. The others feel like the gameplay came first, and the story evolved naturally to align with the gameplay.
Games like Neir Automata really show where a synthesis of game systems design and game story design are really important and become even more impactful to the story, and in this Bioshock Infinite failed in comparison to earlier installments in the series (and its spiritual predecessor, System Shock 2).
I feel like it’s hard to talk about Bioshock as a series at all without discussing System Shock 2, because that’s where Levine first pioneered his story with the engaging antagonist who speaks to you through a radio, and Bioshock is where he refined it into what comes close to literature. Bioshock Infinite marks a regression, more worried about the story that Levine wanted to tell than the gameplay to support it. Due to that the story falls flat, feels stilted, and Levine’s generic take of “everyone can be a bad guy” feels hollow, because it’s not backed up by compelling gameplay that supports it.
As McLuhan put it, “the medium is the message” and video games inherently work better through a synthesis of gameplay and story, without one dominating over the other. Games that lean too far in one direction or the other (Metal Gear Solid’s interminably long cut-scenes for instance) take you too far out of the gaming medium and too far into other, more detached mediums.
As McLuhan put it, “the medium is the message” and video games inherently work better through a synthesis of gameplay and story, without one dominating over the other. Games that lean too far in one direction or the other (Metal Gear Solid’s interminably long cut-scenes for instance) take you too far out of the gaming medium and too far into other, more detached mediums.
Absolutely banger take, I agree completely. Games have a difficult needle to thread, unlike a book or movie that can be strictly narrative-based, a video game has to somehow give the player enough agency while taking it away to allow the story to progress. And now I have DND on the mind again.
I’m reminded of a comment my older brother made about Final Fantasy X, all those years ago. He described it as basically playing a movie. Go figure, I liked the cutscenes!
I came back because I read a bunch about Levine’s new game, Judas… and it sounds like his approach to Judas is exactly what I’m asking for.
He talks about “narrative legos” a lot while developing this game, and I think that’s the kind of thing he really needed to implement to be able to tell the story he actually wanted to tell.
I found one interview (already forgot which one) where he described Bioshock Infinite’s linear story as holding him back, and that’s part of why it’s a weaker installment, because it can’t change the story in response to your actions. That’s clearly what Levine was trying to do with stuff like the choice of harvesting of the Little Sisters or not, or in Infinite, choosing to be a racist piece of shit or not. He was held back technologically, and I think the “narrative legos” idea is why Judas languished so long in development hell.
Here’s hoping Levine learned his lessons this time around.
The game itself was for me mid - not good not bad, but the ending? I can’t believe no one mentioned it yet, that was the most impressive ending I’ve experienced in a game ever. Without spoilers, for those who played it, the piano notes and then darkness, I couldn’t believe it, it was so good.
