Support NeoGAF

[JetBlackPanda]

I was watching a video of Infinite just now and saw the player press the button to show objective arrow. I didn't even use it once.

I forgot it was even in the game.

did any of you use it? this game doesn't even need it.

 

[AkuMifune]

They can, they certainly can, but SIX GODDAMN YEARS of development time using the same engine, and this is what was produced? Seems like a waste to me. They should have been able to do a lot more in 6 years, A LOT MORE.

Word. I heard from an inside source that Bioshock Mobius is already done, they're just working on the story. Palette swaps.

 

[cackhyena]

They can, they certainly can, but SIX GODDAMN YEARS of development time using the same engine, and this is what was produced? Seems like a waste to me. They should have been able to do a lot more in 6 years, A LOT MORE.

Maybe, I wouldn't know. I don't work in game development.

 

[randomengine]

There are 80 voxophones and 37 kinetoscopes/telescopes. There are also 25 infusions and some gear. Compare that to the irrelevant 100+ GPS caches in Tomb Raider, which are supposed to prolong the game's lifespan.

Wow. There is a difference between number of objects and the method and gameplay involved with finding them. Tomb Raider exploration was way more involved, obviously, it is Tomb Raider.

 

[Voice of Reason]

Wow. There is a difference between number of objects and the method and gameplay involved with finding them. Tomb Raider exploration was way more involved, obviously, it is Tomb Raider.

Did you even play Tomb Raider? Major amount of those collectibles are just randomly scattered and can be accessed by obtaining a map. What kind of exploration does that even encourage?

 

[JetBlackPanda]

Wow. There is a difference between number of objects and the method and gameplay involved with finding them. Tomb Raider exploration was way more involved, obviously, it is Tomb Raider.

no its not.

this is Tomb Raider

do you see the problem with your argument yet? Tomb raider is a horrible example because it was nothing like the game its named after. Bioshock feels like a Bioshock game.

 

[Screaming Meat]

I was watching a video of Infinite just now and saw the player press the button to show objective arrow. I didn't even use it once.

I forgot it was even in the game.

did any of you use it? this game doesn't even need it.

Yeah, I went the opposite way every time, mind.

 

[randomengine]

I was watching a video of Infinite just now and saw the player press the button to show objective arrow. I didn't even use it once.

I forgot it was even in the game.

did any of you use it? this game doesn't even need it.

This is another problem I had with the game that objective marker is buggy as hell. A lot of the time it is unresponsive and sometimes won't show up at all or is slow. I compare it to Dead Space objective marker and it is worlds different.

You know who I am impressed with in programming/systems design? Visceral. My god, Dead Space 1 and 2 had some of the best gameplay systems design I have ever seen. From the in-game menus to the objective marker. Dead Space 2 used the same engine but layers amazing new stuff into the game and didn't take 6 goddamn years to come out.

 

[Voice of Reason]

This is another problem I had with the game that objective marker is buggy as hell. A lot of the time it is unresponsive and sometimes won't show up at all or is slow. I compare it to Dead Space objective marker and it is worlds different.

You know who I am impressed with in programming/systems design? Visceral. My god, Dead Space 1 and 2 had some of the best gameplay systems design I have ever seen. From the in-game menus to the objective marker. Dead Space 2 used the same engine but layers amazing new stuff into the game and didn't take 6 goddamn years to come out.

How the hell is it unresponsive? I'm at a loss of words.

 

[bobeth]

This is another problem I had with the game that objective marker is buggy as hell. A lot of the time it is unresponsive and sometimes won't show up at all or is slow. I compare it to Dead Space objective marker and it is worlds different.

You know who I am impressed with in programming/systems design? Visceral. My god, Dead Space 1 and 2 had some of the best gameplay systems design I have ever seen. From the in-game menus to the objective marker. Dead Space 2 used the same engine but layers amazing new stuff into the game and didn't take 6 goddamn years to come out.

Is it april first where you're at?

 

[hey_it's_that_dog]

They can, they certainly can, but SIX GODDAMN YEARS of development time using the same engine, and this is what was produced? Seems like a waste to me. They should have been able to do a lot more in 6 years, A LOT MORE.

The reported development time was 4.5 years, according to Ken Levine.

More importantly, your reasoning about the development process is based on the incorrect assumption that there is a perfect linear relationship between time spent and achieving desired outcomes. Like any creative endeavor, game development involves trying to do things, sometimes realizing those things don't work, and then re-doing things. The course of events is not easily predictable. It's not simply a matter of good or bad management. Not every developer has the luxury of time, but Irrational did, so they got to iterate on the game until it was what they wanted.

4.5 years of dev time doesn't mean you should expect a game that is twice as innovative and impressive as a game that took 2.25 years to make. Whatever that would even mean.

tl;dr Your reasoning is bonkers.

 

[Screaming Meat]

A lot of the time it is unresponsive and sometimes won't show up at all or is slow.

My wife says I have the same problem.

 

[randomengine]

How the hell is it unresponsive? I'm at a loss of words.

Often I would press it and it takes a long time to show up in my field of view. Sometimes based on if I was in a transition or not it would simply never appear and minutes later it would randomly appear as if it finally discovered I had pressed the button. Not very sound implementation there.

 

[Marleyman]

ACTUAL TRANSCRIPT of what happened at Ken Levine's house (where BioShock was made):

"Guys, we got all this BioShock to turn into some BioShock Infinite... so how are we going to do this?"

"Well, since the BioShock is already done, let's use all our dev time on story"

"Won't they notice?"

"No, it'll be okay. Add some empty filters and skyhooks."

 

[JetBlackPanda]

Often I would press it and it takes a long time to show up in my field of view. Sometimes based on if I was in a transition or not it would simply never appear and minutes later it would randomly appear as if it finally discovered I had pressed the button. Not very sound implementation there.

If you are mashing the objective marker every time you enter a new area it makes perfect sense why you don't appreciate this game.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Sometimes I have to stop to see the arrow, because otherwise it just won't show up

 

[randomengine]

The reported development time was 4.5 years, according to Ken Levine.

More importantly, your reasoning about the development process is based on the incorrect assumption that there is a perfect linear relationship between time spent and achieving desired outcomes. Like any creative endeavor, game development involves trying to do things, sometimes realizing those things don't work, and then re-doing things. The course of events is not easily predictable. It's not simply a matter of good or bad management. Not every developer has the luxury of time, but Irrational did, so they got to iterate on the game until it was what they wanted.

4.5 years of dev time doesn't mean you should expect a game that is twice as innovative and impressive as a game that took 2.25 years to make.

tl;dr Your reasoning is bonkers.

I agree with that, but comparing to other efforts of struggling development cycle bore better fruit than this. My opinion is one of DISAPPOINTMENT in what was produced when compared to similar projects.

 

[DJ Lushious]

I just bought the Season Pass and am currently at

Spoiler

Shantytown

. Is there any way I can go back to pick up my infusions?

Nope. Gotta wait til your next game. You can pick up all of your bonuses at The Blue Ribbon where you acquire the shield.

The gold skins are instant though.

Its not that bad man.

If it bothers ya that much start a freshie

I don't quite understand how you can take this stance. I bought DLC and it is not available to me, except for a very specific point in time in the game which can only be accessed once. It makes about as much sense as having only a checkpoint save. It's backwards and a very unintelligent game design decision.

 

[Voice of Reason]

Sometimes I have to stop to see the arrow, because otherwise it just won't show up

Isn't that how it is in Dead Space? He's comparing it to the flawless objective marker in Dead Space which behaves the same way.

 

[randomengine]

If you are mashing the objective marker every time you enter a new area it makes perfect sense why you don't appreciate this game.

At least in Dead Space the damn marker works every time and is responsive as hell. That game was released years ago, why does this game feel so goddamn old?

 

[hey_it's_that_dog]

I used the arrow constantly, to make sure I wasn't going the "right" way without exploring the area.

I agree that it was a little hard to read sometimes, as it starts so close to your feet. If it's going backwards, it's easy to not see it at all. Though that does imply that it's going backwards, which can be enough information.

It was also hard to use in a couple situations where skylines were integral to the critical path.
But no big deal.

 

[LiK]

At least in Dead Space the damn marker works every time and is responsive as hell. That game was released years ago, why does this game feel so goddamn old?

What do you mean? It works every time for me and I like how it shoots out.

 

[Andrew.]

I don't quite understand how you can take this stance. I bought DLC and it is not available to me, except for a very specific point in time in the game which can only be accessed once. It makes about as much sense as having only a checkpoint save. It's backwards and a very unintelligent game design decision.

It's because I love the game so much it wouldnt bother me if I knew I had to start a new game to get the bonuses. It just adds incentive to replay. Different strokes for different folks. I dont mind the checkpoint system either.

 

[hey_it's_that_dog]

I agree with that, but comparing to other efforts of struggling development cycle bore better fruit than this. My opinion is one of DISAPPOINTMENT in what was produced when compared to similar projects.

Basically your subjective experience was that you didn't like the game that much. Why do you need to attribute that to the development process at all?

Lots of people loved the game. Personally, I have no trouble seeing why the game took 4.5 years to make. So why not articulate your complaints about the game instead of harping on how it failed to live up to some imagined ratio of development time to quality.

 

[mace999]

I'm replaying Bioshock as I never did finish it, and boy is it a lot tougher than Infinite ..... don't know why I didn't finish it 1st time tho cos I'm loving it this time !?!

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

Sure, it has a very identifiable look, aesthetic and environment. No doubt, but so did Fallout 3. And that was released ages ago. That was all neat, but the part you play, the GAME, was old hat. If they really took 6 years to develop the world, that is just too long, especially when similar games have done similar things with less time, while at the same time building new gameplay systems to complement them.

I will say this Ken Levine is a talented writer and world builder, but they need to fire the engine/programming staff at Irrational. They are slow as hell and the end product is not all that impressive. If it took 6 years to develop the world and the look and the story, hire some goddamn system programmers to develop a game with 6 years of innovation in it as well.

What are you basing this off of? I'm not wowed by some of the game either, but I don't pretend to know how much work went into X or Y, or presume I know enough of the inner workings of the company or the design process of this particular game to say that people did not perform the job they were given and should be fired.

I get what you're playing at, but it's a fallacy to say that the time spent on a project is some standard metric that we can stick on a graph perpendicular to your perception of uniqueness and quality and say that deviations represent innovation or laziness.

Edit: Essentially beaten

 

[LiK]

I'm replaying Bioshock as I never did finish it, and boy is it a lot tougher than Infinite ..... don't know why I didn't finish it 1st time tho cos I'm loving it this time !?!

Cuz you're a better man now.

 

[DJ Lushious]

It's because I love the game so much it wouldnt bother me if I knew I had to start a new game to get the bonuses.

I love the game, too. I simply don't have all the time in the world to go back through nine hours of gameplay to get to an unlock I paid for. Having paid for it, and not being able to receive it, is the part that really irks me.

 

[Alo81]

All these items are already in the game, including the exclusive shotgun! You just have to alter config files to unlock them. Anyway, FYI.

How?

 

[FartOfWar]

I don't understand what is so funny. At least with some games with long dev times when I played the game I was wowed by something I had never seen before. I remember playing Prey for the first time and being really impressed with it. That was some really difficult tech that I am sure they spent a lot of time on implementing. That was actually a fun and interesting shooter. Portal of course was an evolution of that, but after seeing Prey, the awe was lessened.

With Bioshock Infinite, I cannot think of anything I was particular impressed with. Nothing stood out to me as, "Wow this is awesome and unique, and I have never experienced this from another game before." Most of what I am seeing is just hype.

Stick with the subjective, cos you can't go wrong. Fair game to say its shit or whatever, but when you attempt to qualify that opinion with ad ignorantiam technical assessments you're finished.

 

[Dylan]

Was listening to yesterday's Bombcast while a platonic girl friend was hanging out in my apartment. She had been around a few times while I was playing through BI and was pretty much on full ignore mode except for every once in awhile piping up to say "that sounds disgusting" (in response to the audio of murder of crows + melee usually).

She overheard the Bombcast chatter about the ending, and said to me, totally sincerely:

"Wait, are they talking about the story?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. I didn't know you could do that with games."

 

[MuddyDonut]

Was listening to yesterday's Bombcast while a platonic girl friend was hanging out in my apartment. She had been around a few times while I was playing through BI and was pretty much on full ignore mode except for every once in awhile piping up to say "that sounds disgusting" (in response to the audio of murder of crows + melee usually).

She overheard the Bombcast chatter about the ending, and said to me, totally sincerely:

"Wait, are they talking about the story?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. I didn't know you could do that with games."

When I was playing my family kept on saying the game was weird/boring and there wasn't enough action. However, when Elizabeth popped up they became way more interested, even if I don't care for her as much as others do. The consistent question was where is she at/what is she doing?

 

[Sub_Level]

this game started out really strong, but now I am 9 hours in and it has been too combat heavy. Just arena after arena of enemies. I like the word, the story and the characters, but it has way too much combat.

Straight up, i thought the combat was excellent. You can mix and match guns, vigors, and the skyhook for some pretty crazy moves. Not since Halo CE has there been a singleplayer fps where you can make an amazing montage just from the campaign.

 

[Andrew.]

Straight up, I feel naked without the shotgun equipped at all times.

 

[SniperHunter]

Straight up, i thought the combat was excellent. You can mix and match guns, vigors, and the skyhook for some pretty crazy moves. Not since Halo CE has there been a singleplayer fps where you can make an amazing montage just from the campaign.

I kinda freeze during combat, I don't tend to use skyhooks, just stay behind cover and take out enemies one by one and I often die 4 times during the process :/

 

[hey_it's_that_dog]

Shotgun was my least used weapon. I like the carbine best for a mix of tactical and aesthetic reasons.

Also, I'm really enjoying the combat so far on my hard playthrough. Forces me to become more adept with vigors. I also turned on the visible damage stats which reveals when the enemy is "vulnerable," which is not something I fully grasped on my first playthrough.

I also think the way they animated the numbers is very pleasing.

I kinda freeze during combat, I don't tend to use skyhooks, just stay behind cover and take out enemies one by one and I often die 4 times during the process :/

That's often how I played my first time through. I'm not a very fluent FPS player and I don't pick them up as quickly as TPS or character action games. Now that I've had some practice, I'm experimenting more and using the time I'm hiding in cover to consider my many options.

 

[Screaming Meat]

Straight up, I feel naked without the shotgun equipped at all times.

I can not be without the Hand Cannon. That gun rocks my world.

 

[MuddyDonut]

Fully upgraded sniper is amazing.

 

[Alo81]

I don't think they saw this one coming.

 

[Tummi Gummi]

I don't think they saw this one coming.

Thing is that's like at least half your health gone by the time you've killed the 2nd guy in 1999 mode.

 

[-Amon-]

I used the arrow constantly, to make sure I wasn't going the "right" way without exploring the area.

Did the same, for the purpose of exploring everything before entering an area in which i could not backtrack.

 

[Grisby]

Credits are rolling. Man, was not expecting that ending. I thought I had figured out some parts but damn.

Gonna be thinking about this one for a while.

 

[ElzarTheBam]

Straight up, i thought the combat was excellent. You can mix and match guns, vigors, and the skyhook for some pretty crazy moves. Not since Halo CE has there been a singleplayer fps where you can make an amazing montage just from the campaign.

I agree with this.

With upgraded bigots such as bronco and undertow, the game turns into bulletstorm.

So good.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

upgraded bigots

Fraudulent slip, dear Elzar? Columbia reminding you of someone?

 

[SmithnCo]

Thing is that's like at least half your health gone by the time you've killed the 2nd guy in 1999 mode.

Gotta undertow them suckers.

 

[Andrew.]

How many bigot collectibles are in game?

 

[Screaming Meat]

Fraudulent slip, dear Elzar?

Wait, was that a freudian slip too?

 

[ViewtifulJC]

How many bigot collectibles are in game?

3/5ths as many of the normal collectibles

 

[Voice of Reason]

I love to mix around the bigots while I'm playing, leads to some interesting encounters.

 

[Sullichin]

I love to mix around the bigots while I'm playing, leads to some interesting encounters.

Yeah, the best way to get past some of the latter encounters is to stun a Vox with a couple of racial slurs and then combo into shock jockey.