Bioshock Infinite: My (current) Game of the Year

I'm one of those people who consider video games to be an art form. Sure, you have your generic, bland, and mindless shooters (*cough*callofduty*cough*) but I never said all video games are art. It's no different than how not every book published or every song recorded is a work of art.

And it's a lot harder to have a video game that is a work of art. Because unlike a book where you can create a world and fill it with characters with your limitless imagination, a programmer has to use whatever tools he has to create a world and convince you for a moment that it's real. Story writers have to conjure convincing and engaging dialogue, stories with believable characters. But right now what we're left at is a movie. And so the final step is making the the entire experience interactive and enjoyable to play through.

And I believe Bioshock: Infinite does this extremely well in a fashion that has not been seen in years.

So nice to see colours as opposed to bland greys and browns.

The Bioshock series is known for creating entire cities from long gone eras. The original Bioshock rendered an entire dystopian city under the Atlantic ocean with decor, weapons, and music from the 1960s. Bioshock Infinite went in the opposite direction, recreating a floating American state sometime during 1912. I'm just going to say it now, Colombia is beautiful.

You play as a man named Booker DeWitt. Suffering from rampant alcohol and gambling problems for the last number of years he owes a lot of money to a lot of bad people. Without any options left, he is forced to go to the floating city of Columbia with a single objective: "Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt".

As nice as Colombia may appear, there is a lot of blatant racism (which makes sense given the era) and a lot of religious fanaticism for the leader of Colombia, Father Comstock. In fact, the girl you're attempting to kidnap is Comstock's daughter, Elizabeth.

Feisty one.

Elizabeth actually doesn't mind being "kidnapped" as she's been locked away in a tower for most of her life and she escorts you throughout most of the game. And here's where the game really shines. Elizabeth's AI makes her more than just an escort, and she responds and acts like someone who has spent her entire life isolated.

In most other games, your AI companions stand around and do nothing. They move when you move and go when you go. You leave Elizabeth alone, and she'll run off to look at something, make a comment about what you're doing (e.g. getting mad at me for going into the woman's bathroom), or go sit down and rest for a bit. And her body language and facial expressions change to fit the mood. She'll scowl and fold her arms at me, frown and fiddle with her hands, etc. etc..

I know some of you might not think that this is all that amazing, but to have an AI companion who is actually interesting and engages the protagonist and environment is quite a bit step for video games. She responds in real time, in unique ways as opposed to ham-handed scripted cut scenes. Most of the times we got a bland piece of cardboard that was boring at best and annoying at worst.

About as interesting as well.

If there's one complaint I have to make about Bioshock Infinite it's that the gameplay is a bit weaker compared to the other Bioshock games. The weapons and abilities didn't really stick out for me. It's also a bit overly violent at times, I mean, yeah I can kill a person OR I can turn his face into a piece of mush. It's excessive.

Actually, if Elizabeth catches you turning a man's face into pulp she'll respond with something like "Oh my god" or "Ugh" and I actually felt bad. It got to the point where I felt so bad for distressing my AI companion that I stopped with the overkill. There was even a scene where I could draw my weapon and make a mess OR stay calm and proceed as normal. I knew the former would probably bother Elizabeth and so acted on the latter option and got stabbed in the hand by bad people for my stupidity.

And I'm not the only person who has gotten attached to this fictional character and has had their decisions swayed based on what would make Elizabeth happy. I feel that the writers did a great job fleshing out a relationship between Booker and Elizabeth and it shows. The story is also very well done and it had an ending that stuck with me.

That's also a rarity, the number of games where I finish and go "whoa" can be counted one 1 hand. Most of the time it's generic, mundane, and predictable cliches. Not Bioshock: Infinite. I did not see this ending coming. In fact, it turns out I missed A LOT of little details hidden in the game. Everything is important and everything has significance, you just don't notice it the first time around.

 Even this song has some importance.

So yeah, Bioshock: Infinite isn't perfect, especially the boss fights, those were terrible. But they did more right than wrong. In a sea of bland shooting games with boring/stupid stories and unmemorable characters, Bioshock: Infinite sticks out. With a colourful and unique world, and doing things we had never successfully seen with AI characters before (Alyx Vance doesn't count, most people hated her) I think this game should be praised for being adventurous.

I highly recommend it. Even if eating hotdogs out of trashcans seems a bit silly. And yes, that is a song by Fears for Tears, written in 1985. What's it doing in 1912 you may ask?

Well I could tell you, but that would spoil the game wouldn't it?

The Last Week before Classes

It's hard to believe 4 months of freedom have gone by so quickly. But with just one more week before classes resume I can't say I feel excited.

Theresa already starts on Monday. She has orientation sessions to go to now that she's in Med school. So it's not like I can spend this week with her. It was unfortunate that she spent so much of her summer working but hey, medical school debts aren't going to pay themselves.

Basically.

So I have a week left to myself. And I have a fair idea of what I want to accomplish with the last of my time. I have a project or two I need to finish. Such as the hollow book. Yeah, this one has been on the backburner for a long time. It's almost done but I'm picky and trying to get some of part to look a bit nicer.

There is also a little kit that I got in Hong Kong that I found that I want to get around to doing as well. I'm hoping to get started on it and maybe post my progress on that too. Can't exactly outright say what it is though. It's a little something for Theresa.

What's inside? Only I know!

Speaking of Theresa I wanted to bake her something this week as well. She's fond of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese. So I'm going to try my hand at those hopefully on Tuesday. Pictures of that potential disaster will be posted.

And I also wanted to take her out for dinner as well. Thing is, I'm not sure whether to take her to a restaurant we've been to before. OR I could risk taking her to some really high-end French restaurant. I never really did do something to congratulate her getting into med school. Though, she kind of dislikes high-end dining because she thinks it's overpriced.

She might kill me but it be worth it.

Lastly, I still have a lot of games to finish. Unfortunately most of them are not going to be beaten in a week. Therefore, a review of Dear Esther, the acclaimed Half Life 2 mod, will be up sometime in the near future.

I've also been reading The Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. They're great books and I'm contemplating giving them a review. However, they're extremely popular and I'm guessing many people have already read and/or watched the series. And I don't generally enjoy talking about things that people already know about, feels kind of redundent.

I am at a part where lots of people are dropping like flies though.

Last thing to note, due to schedule changes I no longer have a 5 day weekend but a 4 day one. It's still pretty good, I can't complain.

Leaves me plenty of time to blog during the term.

The Binding of Isaac: This Game is Horrifying

Theresa gifted me many things from the Steam Summer Sale while I was away in China. Now my backlog of games grows even larger and I have no idea how I'm going to get through all of these. In the meantime, I seem to have a preference for games by independent developers so today let's talk about The Binding of Isaac.

And while it is an excellent game, it is also easily one of the most disturbing games out there as well. Created by the same man who made Super Meatboy, some readers may be offended by this game's religious content. Anyone who may be offended can just scroll to the bottom and talk about their pet cat or something.

Yep, nothing out of the ordinary here.

The game is about a young boy named Isaac who lives with his Mother. However, his Mother begins to hear the voice of "God" and is ordered to sacrifice Isaac to prove her devotion. Yes, this mimics the Biblical story of the same name.

Isaac attempts to flee from his Mother by escaping through a trapdoor found in his bedroom. From there he must try and survive mazes filled with monstrous creatures and eventually face his Mother. The game has 11 different possible endings (13 with the Wrath of the Lamb expansion pack) each shedding light on Isaac's fate.

You play the game as Isaac, a small boy who is depicted as constantly crying. And that's actually how he fights the monsters in the mazes, by firing his tears at enemies. It is also possible to unlock other characters sharing the names of other Biblical characters such as Samson and Magdalene who have their own attributes. For example, Judas starts the game with very low health but the highest attack, whereas Cain has a much greater chance of finding better items.

 Again, the Wrath of the Lamb expansion gives additional characters.

The game differentiates itself from other dungeon crawlers in two ways, the maze creations and the items. Each playthrough is completely different in terms of mazes explored, monsters encountered, and items obtained. There are no saves and each time you play, you're either going to die or beat it. Dying involves you starting all over. As you progress and beat the game, additional items, bosses and even levels unlock giving another layer of depth to the game.

There are over 100 items that can randomly appear in the game, with an additional hundred items with the Wrath of the Lamb expansion. You have items ranging from basic health upgrades, attack upgrades to items that grant you wings, change your tears into lazers or give Isaac bad gas.

Oh on top of that, most items will cause your character to change his appearance. A tub of lard makes you fat, coat hangers will go through your head, diseases make you appear infected and sick, chemicals will burn off half your face.

A guy on Deviantart has drawn depictions of his character after each game, and remember that each playthrough is going to give you different items resulting in completely unique experiences:

You can view the rest of his gallery here.

Despite its cartoony appearance, The Binding of Isaac is NOT a game I'd would recommend for younger children. The monsters range from bizarre to disturbing and there is an exceptional amount of blood and gore in the game. The game is also quite difficult and often unforgiving. You are not required to explore the entire map and in fact can just go and fight bosses as soon as you find them. 

HOWEVER, by doing so you risk missing items that will make the rest of your playthrough easier. Or maybe you won't find anything at all and you'll end up fighting a boss half crippled. That constant threat of risk vs. reward is another well done feature of the game. Any mistakes are done because you decided to do them and you have no one else to blame.

For only $5 and an additional $3 for the expansion pack on Steam, this game is well worth its cost. Lots of content, plenty of replay value, and a unique experience and different challenge each time you play, I highly recommend this game.

Bastion: This Game is Glorious

It's been ages since I've done a review of anything but I've finally had a moment to dip into my backlog of books/games and decided to play Bastion.

I reviewed LIMBO many months ago and you might start noticing a trend. I'm generally only going to be reviewing Indie or uncommon games. I don't want to be discussing something like Battlefield, Diablo, or anything else that gets enough attention as it is.

I think this makes me a hipster though.

Nevermind, I only have 2 Xs on this thing. I'm still safe.

Bastion is the story of a boy know only as "The Kid" who wakes up, finds his entire world destroyed, torn up, and spat out by an event known as The Calamity. Guided only by a Stranger's voice he sets off to explore what's left of his world and find a way to start-up a structure called the Bastion. In doing so, hopefully the events of the Calamity can be reversed.

It's a 2D Adventure Role-Playing Game (or ARPG) with an isometric viewpoint. In other words, you control a character and make him do things in a 2D world that's made to look 3D. If you're confused by my description of how the world looks, take a look at the picture below. The world is done in this beautiful hand-drawn style and is a mix of both Steampunk and Fantasy.

But the visual presentation isn't what makes this game so wonderful, it's how everything else is presented.

Everything looks so pretty!

First, the story. A lot of games have trouble weaving a story with gameplay. Some games present massive blocks of texts, others have unskippable cutscenes, or wordy and boring dialogue sessions. All of these interrupt gameplay. Bastion gets around this by simply having the Stranger narrate chunks of the story as you play along.

For example, let's say you enter a new area. As you walk around, the Stranger will give a little bit of information, just a few sentences as you're running around. And then that's it. And he won't say anything else until you've done something worth saying. With this, you get a rich and unique narrative that's not overwhelming or intrusive.

Anything and everything you do can get a line from the Stranger. Doing well in a fight can get him to comment on how you breezed through, whereas nearly dying will prompt him to say how it was a hard fight, but you still did it. And this extends to the weapons you chose, the tasks you complete, the way you die, so on and so forth.

I know this sounds odd. But imagine if you could have Morgan Freeman follow you around for a day and give random commentary on everything you do, where you go, and give justification for why you did that. That is exactly what the narration feels like.

Every word this man says is liquid gold.

But this is also an action game so how does combat fare? Combat is also excellent. You are given a wide variety of upgradable weapons and skills to use so there is a large variety of customization. Nothing is better than the other, it all comes down to personal preference which is good. The enemies encountered are also unique and present their own challenges.

But there will be a point where you feel ridiculously overpowered and the game becomes too easy. Some people are going to like this but others are going to want a challenge. However, instead of a difficulty setting you eventually get access to a Shrine.

In Bastion, praying to the Gods will benefit your enemies, not you. Depending on who you pray to your enemies may gain increased defense, health regeneration, dropping explosives on death and many more. In return, you get an experience bonus which will help you level up faster if you can survive.

Why do the Gods hate us so much?!

Any problems with the game? Some of the challenges I found were very challenging unless certain upgrades were purchases which can be frustrating, but I guess that's what makes it a challenge. Another feature of the game is that the world pieces itself together as you explore it. A path will literally form in from empty space in front of you. This can be disorientating at times, running around, trying to find the trigger to activate the next chunk of world to form.

Other than that, I can't think of any other complaints.

The music is lovely, the art is lovely, the story could be considered cliched but the way it's presented should be applauded, and combat works great. The game is only $15 on Steam for PCs or 1200 Microsoft Points in the Xbox Live Arcade. You're looking at anywhere from 8 to 15 hours of gameplay depending on whether you do the challenges and/or the Story+ mode upon beating the game.

I highly recommend this game, one of the best I've played as of late. Trailer is down below:

And that's the voice of The Stranger in case you were wondering.

And I know this post is a few hours late. Still going to try and stick with my every third day posting schedule. Next post will be on Saturday.

Holiday Aftermath

If you've read the comments I've left on most of your blogs you probably know by now that my Christmas weekend was pretty uneventful. No really, all I did was spend a few quiet days with family and many hours with my computer.

Come towards the light Damian...

Theresa was busy all weekend so I wasn't able to see her. Luckily I anticipated this and gave her her gifts early which included a hoodie, some TF2 cellphone charms, various games from the Steam Holiday sale and the third volume of popular webcomic.

Myself? I don't expect to receive anything big. Friends got me a lot of games and a foam Minecraft pickaxe, I don't expect anything from my siblings until February (April if I'm unlucky), parents gave me cash and I treated myself to more games.

Thank you Dear for this one.

So, what am I going to do for the rest of the break? Hopefully see as many old friends as possible and take Theresa out on as many dates as I possibly can. Let's hope her boss doesn't keep scheduling her to work for ENTIRE WEEKS. Seriously, she's busy all the time during the school year, give her a break when she has a break.

In the meantime I have more research stuff to do. That paper isn't going to edit itself and neither is that experiment. Gah, I'm so sick of technical errors at this point. Hopefully I'll get things figured out before the term starts again.

Really want to do this to some of the computers at the lab.

I know the rest of you had a relatively more exciting Christmas holiday than me. If all goes well maybe I can get to work on some other things this break and not be a complete waste of waste. There are some recipes I need to try as well as a DIY project I've been eying.

But the computer games, they beckon.

Probably what I'll end up doing.

LIMBO: This Game is Depressing

If it wasn't obvious enough that I'm a gamer (and that I would give internal organs to Valve if they asked) I'm not sure what else I need to do. However, I know a lot of you aren't like this and can't understand the appeal. That's fine, but whenever I do make comments on a game I will do my best to make the commentary more accessible to non-gamers.

Preemptive apologies to Beth because this isn't a book review.

Thanks to finals being done I can actually enjoy myself. So today we'll be talking about LIMBO, a game about a boy who wakes up in a forest and needs to go find his missing sister. It's a 2D platformer with physics puzzles, in layman's terms you run and jump around and manipulate the properties of the environment to move to the next stage. Sounds pretty standard so far.

And now why LIMBO is horrifying and how only a serial killer could smile during a playthrough.

This is not a happy game.

The entire game is set in black and white environments. Utilizing that grainy film effect and clever lighting it creates a ominous, dark and unwelcoming world. To further help this, the only sound effects in the game are faint background noises such as the sound of flies and soft crunching of questionable objects.

The puzzles generally take a bit of thinking and timing to figure out. Most of them consist of some variation of timed jumps, operating switches and machines as well as pulling and moving objects to help you advance. The game particularly enjoys having you desecrate the bodies of the dead.

Oh and did I mention? The entire world hates you. Everything, anything and everyone can and will kill you at a whim. Whether it be like falling from too high, drowning, cut into pieces by a sawblade.

Being eviscerated by massive spider.

And the boy dies in the saddest ways possible. You feel bad every time you watch his tiny body go limp or fly in all directions of the wind. Afterall, it is your fault he missed that jump or electrocuted himself. That being said, you do come back in a safe and reasonable location in respect to where you died. You're not going to have to redo every puzzle upon your death.

The story is sparse and is left almost entirely to the player to figure out. Some people think this is a problem but I personally found it added to the unnerving atmosphere of the game. You don't really have a sense of what's going on or why. Some people question if the boy and his sister are even alive.

It's a mystery!

That being said, it is a very solid puzzle game and has won many awards. I love supporting the independent developers because they don't produce bland and repetitive games. These guys are willing to take steps in new and unique ways and they should be rewarded for it. Unlike companies such as Electronic Arts.

(By the way, I will take as many opportunities as possible to bash EA because I hate them with every fiber of my being).

This is technically my first review of ANYTHING ever. Any comments or suggestions would be great whether it be about the post or potential future reviews. I'm really open to anything, as long as I can make it entertaining.

You can pick up LIMBO on Steam for $9.99 or try the demo for free. HOWEVER, Steam is currently having their 2011 Holiday sale so LIMBO is $4.99 until January 2nd.

Brb, TF2 Halloween Event Time.

Ok, I think it's pretty obvious to most of my gamer followers that I play a lot of Team Fortress 2. While everyone is scrambling to play Battlefield 3 or pre-ordering Call of Duty 3 I'm sitting back with a game that came out 4 years ago and is still going strong.

I'm also a hat addict. Stop judging me.

In all seriousness I still love this game. The gamemodes and maps are still fun, the addition of the new items allow for more varied gameplay and styles, the characters have unique voices and personalities. Valve (the developer, nothing to do with plumbing) also supports the community and individual modders. Paying commissions to people who either design maps that become popular, or modders who create hats and weapons that catch their attention. I like developers who give back to the community.

And it's not a measly amount either. Valve gives away 25% of the money made from these community contributions which last year was over 2 million dollars. Seriously, there was a guy who made a hat and it was so popular in a 2 weeks he had made 40 grand just like that. Just for making a virtual hat for people to wear in game.

Pretty self-explanatory.

The game is currently Free-to-Play meaning it doesn't cost anything. You start with a basic account and the only requirement to upgrade to a "premium" account is to buy something from the store. There's no pressure to, you can play just as fine with the basic account and the only ways you are disadvantaged from a premium account is superficial.

If you have some FPS experience you can charge right in and start kicking butt. If you feel uncomfortable playing in a server right away you could always play through the handy tutorial as well. The reason why I'm kind of promoting the game right now is because the much anticipated Halloween Event just came out and I'm kind of giddy with excitement.

Last year we got to fight this pumpkin guy. This year we get a flying eye.

As usual, Valve has released a silly comic on their blog and it's the kind of stuff expected from the TF2 universe. I think it's a breath of fresh air, the cartoony look that doesn't take itself seriously compared to all the gritty, dark "realistic" games that dominate the market today.

I'd give you guys my Steam ID so you could add me to your friend's lists but mine is full at the moment. :( If you have time, I seriously suggest you try TF2 out. There's no risk at all, the game is being patched and updated on average every 2 weeks. The community is USUALLY very nice and friendly despite what I said about Russian kids a few posts back.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to spend some time with my girlfriend playing our favorite shooter. If you have any questions about TF2 I'd be more than happy to answer them.

This is her favorite hat in the game, I don't know what to say to her some days.