Tag: the game was also just boring

captainsnoop:

captainsnoop:

Remember when people were extremely seriously touting Bioshock Infinite as the definitive example of video games being art?

Remember when the game came out and people stopped doing that?

there’s a couple of people in the comments vehemently defending bioshock infinite and that’s… wild. to me.

bioshock infinite isn’t even the best game with bioshock in the name. bioshock infinite is a mess full of half-assed storytelling, conflicting morals, and a gameplay system that takes survival horror mechanics and tries to slap them in an action setting

and, also, despite the action-oriented focus, they reduced the weapon count from like ten to a halo-style two weapon system 

bioshock infinite couldn’t even commit to its own theme of exploring american colonialism and racism because it was too afraid of upsetting people. it reduces the history of american racism to “will you throw a softball at this interracial couple? that’s what racism is! schoolyard bullying!” 

like, for fucks sake, bioshock infinite depicted the story’s black revolutionaries as being more violent than the racist white ruling class. theres a moment in the game where you go to another universe where the black revolutionaries successfully start a revolution and you see them executing white people in the streets and the game says “hmm, looks like…. BOTH sides can be bad… if u fight racism… you’re WORSE than the racists… makes u think huh” 

how can anybody defend this clumsy, half-assed failure of a game? the critical acclaim the game received was partially bought by the publisher and partially supplied by game journalists in the early days of the medium desperately trying to legitimize the field they worked in. 

they chose Bioshock Infinite as their game to elevate to prove that games are Legitimate Art With A Message and all they did was demonstrate that they were a bunch of socially unaware idiots with no grasp on how institutionalized racism affects people. 

Bioshock Infinite is like the ultimate ineffectual centrist game designed to not make white players uncomfortable. It shows a dulled schoolyard version of racism to make white people feel “not so bad” about “that stuff that happened in the past,” it makes a point to say “by the way, Irish people got treated bad too. you know, the heritage that like 99% of white Americans claim to have? so if you’re part irish, you’re officially exempt from feeling bad about historical racism” and then finally says “but hey, if these black people had their way, they’d kill white people in the streets. makes u think huh” 

and the games media gave this game nigh-universal acclaim and touted it as proof that games were a legitimate medium for serious storytelling 

and people still defend it 

it’s insane