Hotel art/indie art/fine art.
If you think you need to define what is and isn't art, you don't really -get- art.
Bioshock infinite - the day games became a true art form
- Thread starter JoseArmando
- Start date
Hotel art/indie art/fine art.
If you think you need to define what is and isn't art, you don't really -get- art.
Mild Spoilers Below. Fair Warning.
I just finished the game.
It was pretty damn good. I hate video games for that reason. Giant time suck, but a ton of fun when they're done right.
What kind of propaganda do you see/expect to see?
Some of my thoughts RE: Propaganda
*****SPOILERS*****
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You start the game walking into basically a religious cult. People are literally worshipping/praying to statues of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, etc.
I thought it was a pretty funny representation of reality. The State is the religion.
They do keep calling the protagonists "anarchists".
Fast-forward, you go to a different area with the minorities/lower class. The evil guy here is the business tycoon. Pretty standard anti-business propaganda.
He's constantly telling yelling over a loudspeaker about how 8-hour days, workers comp, paid vacation, etc are "anarchist" words.
He also pays the workers in tokens that can only be used in stores that he owns. I like that a lot of the merchant robots say things like "Who needs competition when you have quality?".
An interesting twist, you enter a point in the game where the lower-class gains access to weapons, and they end up being much more violent than the previous "elite" class. They kill innocent civilians without discrimination and show that they're fine with killing children too.
The rest of the game is standard FPS fair combined with a story full of multidimensional mindfuckery. The hopping in and out of different realities is a neat concept for a game.
Anyone who enjoyed BioShock 1 will most likely love this.
The overall message I got from the game is that power corrupts, no matter who has it.
But that's me. I'm sure other people will have other ideas.
Towards the end shit gets pretty crazy. Great twists in the story IMO even if some of them are hard to swallow.
*****/SPOILERS*****
Overall I thought it was a great game. I'm glad it's over so I can uninstall it now. I try to avoid games as much possible these days (time sink). BioShock is an exception. GTA 5 will be too.
I just finished the game.
It was pretty damn good. I hate video games for that reason. Giant time suck, but a ton of fun when they're done right.
What kind of propaganda do you see/expect to see?
Some of my thoughts RE: Propaganda
*****SPOILERS*****
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
You start the game walking into basically a religious cult. People are literally worshipping/praying to statues of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, etc.
I thought it was a pretty funny representation of reality. The State is the religion.
They do keep calling the protagonists "anarchists".
Fast-forward, you go to a different area with the minorities/lower class. The evil guy here is the business tycoon. Pretty standard anti-business propaganda.
He's constantly telling yelling over a loudspeaker about how 8-hour days, workers comp, paid vacation, etc are "anarchist" words.
He also pays the workers in tokens that can only be used in stores that he owns. I like that a lot of the merchant robots say things like "Who needs competition when you have quality?".
An interesting twist, you enter a point in the game where the lower-class gains access to weapons, and they end up being much more violent than the previous "elite" class. They kill innocent civilians without discrimination and show that they're fine with killing children too.
The rest of the game is standard FPS fair combined with a story full of multidimensional mindfuckery. The hopping in and out of different realities is a neat concept for a game.
Anyone who enjoyed BioShock 1 will most likely love this.
The overall message I got from the game is that power corrupts, no matter who has it.
But that's me. I'm sure other people will have other ideas.
Towards the end shit gets pretty crazy. Great twists in the story IMO even if some of them are hard to swallow.
*****/SPOILERS*****
Overall I thought it was a great game. I'm glad it's over so I can uninstall it now. I try to avoid games as much possible these days (time sink). BioShock is an exception. GTA 5 will be too.
Finished the game yesterday now, I can say it was amazing. One of the best video games I have ever played.
Spoilers/
The story was mind-blowing at the end. I am still thinking about it today. I definitely didn't see Comstock being another version of the main character. The only thing I hated about it was that since that future was erased, Elisabeth cannot exist at all as well as the city which I loved.
/Spoilers
Spoilers/
The story was mind-blowing at the end. I am still thinking about it today. I definitely didn't see Comstock being another version of the main character. The only thing I hated about it was that since that future was erased, Elisabeth cannot exist at all as well as the city which I loved.
/Spoilers
MORE SPOILERS.
****SPOILERS****
Yeah, pretty crazy ending. The character you spend the entire game protecting murders you and commits suicide by proxy.
****/SPOILERS****
****SPOILERS****
Yeah, pretty crazy ending. The character you spend the entire game protecting murders you and commits suicide by proxy.
****/SPOILERS****
Good Game? Yes. Art? Hell-NO.
First Bioshock was a decent game, but not a work of art. In the sea of garbage that most tripple AAA games are though it wasn't too difficult to create something that seemed like a jewel in the rough. I can' paint worth nothing, but even my scribbles look like van ghogh compared to that of a 3 year olds.
I played through Infinite and it is just as bad of an example of games as art as anything else.
The problem with Bioshock is that it is in congruent in its art, message and delivery and thus it is not art. You have a decent/interesting story that is connected in disjointed and meaningless hours of shoot-freaks-in-the-face marathons. There is no human element aside from what the story tries to force feed you -but once you are back in the game, the so called "morality" of the game goes out the window as waves of faceless, cookie cutter enemies swarm at you begging for a bullet to the face with, by the way, horrible voice overs.
Art is congruent -art isn't in a vacuum. A great piece of literature is art through its every word. A great movie is art through the entirety of its script, acting, cinematography etc -the parts come together to form a coherent whole.
This is what Ken Levine is unable to do -he throws in an interesting art direction with an interesting story in to an incoherent world that is in congruent.
I believe games can be art -but I don't believe Bioshock is an example at all.
If you want to see digital art then play Shadow of the Colossus. Journey. Braid. Blueberry Garden. And there are several indie games out there as well that haven't been backed by 100 million dollar marketing budgets that are more art than Bioshock ever will be.
They may not be better games though -people seem to interchange "good" with "art". Bioshock may be a better GAME when you break it down as a piece of entertainment than some of the games that I mentioned which can be more honestly classified as art -but don't distort Bioshock as being anything more than a good or great game. It's not art.
Going on a bit of a tangent here -but gamers (which I am one) seem to have really low standards when it comes art.
I can't count the number of reviews about Bioshock 1, MGS4, GTAiv etc that drool over the game scripts, pegging them as Pulitzer prize winning material. The voice acting as Oscar worth performances. They lower their standards for games to a point that discredits the entire industry -because as decent as Bioshock writing may have been, it cannot hold a candle to an even half decent book on the NYT list. As decent as GTA IV's voice acting was, it would be disqualifying for an Oscar nominated film.
Gamers need to raise their standards if they want the industry to raise it too.
First Bioshock was a decent game, but not a work of art. In the sea of garbage that most tripple AAA games are though it wasn't too difficult to create something that seemed like a jewel in the rough. I can' paint worth nothing, but even my scribbles look like van ghogh compared to that of a 3 year olds.
I played through Infinite and it is just as bad of an example of games as art as anything else.
The problem with Bioshock is that it is in congruent in its art, message and delivery and thus it is not art. You have a decent/interesting story that is connected in disjointed and meaningless hours of shoot-freaks-in-the-face marathons. There is no human element aside from what the story tries to force feed you -but once you are back in the game, the so called "morality" of the game goes out the window as waves of faceless, cookie cutter enemies swarm at you begging for a bullet to the face with, by the way, horrible voice overs.
Art is congruent -art isn't in a vacuum. A great piece of literature is art through its every word. A great movie is art through the entirety of its script, acting, cinematography etc -the parts come together to form a coherent whole.
This is what Ken Levine is unable to do -he throws in an interesting art direction with an interesting story in to an incoherent world that is in congruent.
I believe games can be art -but I don't believe Bioshock is an example at all.
If you want to see digital art then play Shadow of the Colossus. Journey. Braid. Blueberry Garden. And there are several indie games out there as well that haven't been backed by 100 million dollar marketing budgets that are more art than Bioshock ever will be.
They may not be better games though -people seem to interchange "good" with "art". Bioshock may be a better GAME when you break it down as a piece of entertainment than some of the games that I mentioned which can be more honestly classified as art -but don't distort Bioshock as being anything more than a good or great game. It's not art.
Going on a bit of a tangent here -but gamers (which I am one) seem to have really low standards when it comes art.
I can't count the number of reviews about Bioshock 1, MGS4, GTAiv etc that drool over the game scripts, pegging them as Pulitzer prize winning material. The voice acting as Oscar worth performances. They lower their standards for games to a point that discredits the entire industry -because as decent as Bioshock writing may have been, it cannot hold a candle to an even half decent book on the NYT list. As decent as GTA IV's voice acting was, it would be disqualifying for an Oscar nominated film.
Gamers need to raise their standards if they want the industry to raise it too.
Mind fucking blown. I barely cold stomach half an hour in first Bioshock, but this is just awesome. I think I'm very near the end now, plowed through it using almost only that melee head ripping thing with that vampire's embrace stuff and murder of crows, because they just kick so much ass.
So beautiful.
So beautiful.
Yea, I have to agree with the OP. I just picked this game up over last weekend end it's been quite an experience so far - and I'm not really much into videos games.
Maxing the graphics out on this thing, paired with a 30" Dell UltraSharp, with a nice sound system is pretty wicked. Sometimes I would explore just for the sake of exploring, and I NEVER do that in a game.
Not to mention, it's an awesome GAMING experience as well. It definitely has set a new benchmark for game developers going forward.
Maxing the graphics out on this thing, paired with a 30" Dell UltraSharp, with a nice sound system is pretty wicked. Sometimes I would explore just for the sake of exploring, and I NEVER do that in a game.
Not to mention, it's an awesome GAMING experience as well. It definitely has set a new benchmark for game developers going forward.