Bioshock II, Completed
Apr. 8th, 2011 10:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsWell, I finished Bioshock II. The ending battle is satisfactory, in the sense that the story writers came up with a good excuse for exactly why so much crap falls on you at the very last minute. The battle was hard, the setting appropriate, your ability to acquire and manage resources for it well-considered. The setting is appropriately horrific, too, being the insane prisoner wing of Rapture's prison, now gone tragically awry. It's a very moving setting.
I realized yesterday why Roger Ebert says video games aren't art. Bioshock II is very ambitious, with an astounding amount of illustration, texture, and design, to avoid the "repetitious texture" problem so prevalent in earlier video games. (Even Half Life II suffered from this, although by the time the Episodes were written many of those visual bugs had been worked around.) It verges on art, but it can't grab you and let you absorb the horror-- you're doing things, about getting to the goal, about following the script to the end. You're too busy to be emotionally moved by the setting.
I played it as a saint, so I got the "sunny day" ending. Not much of a sunny day, but still, a challenging and acceptable ending, satisfying to the viewer. I watched the alternatives on YouTube, and I think the "minor sad" ending (there are four endings: "good," "minor sad," "major sad," and "evil.") has more hope than the "good" ending, in that since you die completely, Eleanor now has a chance to do good on her own, without your ghost haunting her as a conscience. If the point of the story was that individualism and consciousness are necessary for there to even be a distinction between good and evil, then Eleanor has a greater opportunity to be "good" if she has to make that choice on her own.
If I have one complaint, it's that your equipment list is very hard to manage. For one thing, the camera and toolkits are mixed in sequence with your guns on the keyboard, so while shifting from one gun to the next you might accindently fat-finger and come up shooting your opponent with a lockpick. Yeah, that does a lot of good. For the other, every upgrade to your superpowers scrambled the order of those keys, meaning you had to re-learn where your flame, electrical, and telekinesis were every time you rescued a little sister.
A very good game, despite the hiccups. Omaha will be pleased that I've emerged from my mancave now, although Portal 2 is now only 13 days away. Gack.
I realized yesterday why Roger Ebert says video games aren't art. Bioshock II is very ambitious, with an astounding amount of illustration, texture, and design, to avoid the "repetitious texture" problem so prevalent in earlier video games. (Even Half Life II suffered from this, although by the time the Episodes were written many of those visual bugs had been worked around.) It verges on art, but it can't grab you and let you absorb the horror-- you're doing things, about getting to the goal, about following the script to the end. You're too busy to be emotionally moved by the setting.
I played it as a saint, so I got the "sunny day" ending. Not much of a sunny day, but still, a challenging and acceptable ending, satisfying to the viewer. I watched the alternatives on YouTube, and I think the "minor sad" ending (there are four endings: "good," "minor sad," "major sad," and "evil.") has more hope than the "good" ending, in that since you die completely, Eleanor now has a chance to do good on her own, without your ghost haunting her as a conscience. If the point of the story was that individualism and consciousness are necessary for there to even be a distinction between good and evil, then Eleanor has a greater opportunity to be "good" if she has to make that choice on her own.
If I have one complaint, it's that your equipment list is very hard to manage. For one thing, the camera and toolkits are mixed in sequence with your guns on the keyboard, so while shifting from one gun to the next you might accindently fat-finger and come up shooting your opponent with a lockpick. Yeah, that does a lot of good. For the other, every upgrade to your superpowers scrambled the order of those keys, meaning you had to re-learn where your flame, electrical, and telekinesis were every time you rescued a little sister.
A very good game, despite the hiccups. Omaha will be pleased that I've emerged from my mancave now, although Portal 2 is now only 13 days away. Gack.
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Date: 2011-04-08 08:27 pm (UTC)Bioshock II was less of that for me until the little sister portion. I liked the game, it was moving and did have that one moment of "OMG" with the little sister's view. But for mood and ambiance the first was better.
You have played I, haven't you?
Date: 2011-04-11 08:24 am (UTC)Re: You have played I, haven't you?
Date: 2011-04-12 08:09 pm (UTC)and it points out the flaws in the first one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGfZMDjtuAo
no subject
Date: 2011-04-14 05:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-14 05:27 am (UTC)