BioShock Infinite and the eternal "Games are art??" question

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BioShock Infinite and the eternal "Games are art??" question

Post by SirMustapha » Wed Feb 05, 2014 10:24 pm

Yesterday, I finished BioShock Infinite. Not only I never felt so sucked in and profoundly affected by a game before, but that experience helped me clear up some doubts I had about the whole "games as art" discussion.

I remember the very first time a computer game shook me up for real. It was MDK, a 3rd-person shooter action game released back in 1997. Back then, my PC was either a 386 or a 486, but I remember distinctly that it was too weak to run it (the game demanded 16 megabytes of RAM!! That was, like, an ocean of memory). I remember that game being boaster as totally kickass, and after playing a level on someone else's computer, I was completely psyched. When I finally had a Pentium (must have been in 1998 or something), I was absolutely crazy about that game. It had become, officially, the Best Game Ever. I played it several times since, and even to this day, I consider it one of my all time favourites. I loved the way it was 100% fast-paced, fluid, smooth gameplay, without storylines, cutscenes or any of that crap. It was just a lot of fun.

Since then, I remember very few gaming experiences that got close to that one. Since I moved in with my girlfriend, and purchased a new computer, I tried to keep up to date with some more modern titles. I played Anno 2070 and loved it. I played Skyrim twice, and enjoyed it greatly. I played both Borderlands, and had a hell of a good time. And then, I decided to give BioShock Infinite a try. I had already played the original, and also loved it.

I had read some rave reviews of Infinite, but I'm very skeptical of rave reviews; they're too rave and too reviewy. But in the first hour of gameplay or so, I realised the game really seemed to be all that good. And as the game progressed, I came to conclude that yes, the game is all that good.

By the end of the game, I was convinced: I had just played the new MDK.

The gameplay elements sure played a large role in it. But what is the gameplay if not very similar to all first-person shooters of recent times, including Borderlands? You walk, you run, you jump and you shoot. Yes, you had vigours, but I didn't use them all that much. Yes, you can grab onto hooks and slide through crazy air rails or whatever they're called, and it's pretty cool. It's rock-solid gameplay, balanced and sufficiently challenging, and no moments of utter oh-God-I-can't-stand-this-shit. One thing that definitely jumped at me was the character of Elizabeth, who follows you along for most of the game. Surprisingly, you don't have to keep running around protecting her, watching her mindlessly wandering straight into the line of fire and causing you to lose. No: not only she does not need to be protected at all, but she actually helps you, randomly providing supplies from time to time. THAT was a nice change.

Now, I'm one guy who usually doesn't care about storylines, cutscenes and all that crap that stays in between me and the gaming itself. I didn't care very much about the dragons and the philosophical esoteric gobbledygook in Skyrim. Borderlands amused me quite a bit, but that was all. The original BioShock was the closest that I ever got to being actually involved in the story. Now, right from the start, BioShock Infinite grabbed me by the throat. And the thing is, it didn't need to mercilessly unload backstory and infodumps in me before I actually got to controlling the character. Basically, it only threw me in a strange situation and, later, a magnificent world, with minimal previous information. All interest that I had in the story came from simply walking around, exploring the space. trying to figure out what was going on. That was it. There were cutscenes, but they tended to be short and to the point. The backstory is largely told through kinetoscopes -- machines that show tiny silent films with background music -- and voxophones -- devices that record and playback sound, used mostly for voice logs. And I really liked that, because they don't only tell the story, but the medium itself helps you immerse into the world.

The storyline itself was pretty complex and out there, but it's not hard to follow. Its elements of religious extremism, racism and prejudice are introduced tastefully, and in a way that makes things fit together gradually. And the characters -- by that I mean the main character and Elizabeth -- are both interesting, believable and easy to relate to. And that takes me to a very crucial point: in this game, you don't make pretty much any choices that affect the story (I can only remember ONE choice off the top of my head, and as far as I know, it doesn't make any difference). And I actually find that good.

See, the problem with making games that allow us to make decisions that affect the story is that, well, it's nearly impossible to do it right. Either the choices will be extremely limiting, or the possibilities will be so endless that they're unfeasible, or tend to make little sense. The game, here, instead of forcing you to make "moral choices" that may or may not have an actual impact on the game, is simply focused in telling a story -- you know, like virtually every work of fiction! Instead of focusing on a huge, complicated decision tree, the game focuses on making the characters interesting and engrossing, and making the story compelling. So, the characters' actions make sense, and the story simply moves along. I found that helped immensely: halfway through the game, I simply wanted to follow the story and enjoy the way it unraveled, instead of just being curious to see how it ended. In other words, the story was told exactly the way it should.

So, I cannot help but conclude that BioShock Infinite is not only a work of art, but a masterpiece. This is the first game that I'll mention when getting into a discussion. I don't care about games that try to teach me morals and judge my decisions; I don't care about games that tell the story through interminable cutscenes that steal momentum; I don't care about games that simply blow their budget on expensive music and visuals and neglects gameplay. This is a game that cares about using gameplay as a means to tell a story. Yes, the story makes social commentary and all that, but it doesn't try to judge me and tell me if I'm a good or a bad person. It doesn't make me the focus of the game, and I really appreciate that.

This implicates that, yes, games are a form of art. They simply are. The fact that some games are poorly made and/or misguided doesn't mean that they're "not art"; they're simply poor. BioShock Infinite shows that it is possible to do it right, and you don't even need a large budget to do it. You can easily make a Flash game that achieves the same effect. Unfortunately, nearly all the "artsy" Flash games I've played so far are so arrogant, so pretentious and so full of themselves that they simply forget to ask 1) whether they actually have something to say, and 2) whether the gameplay is fun or not. In other words, if you put BioShock Infinite in one end of the spectrum, at the opposite end you'll have stuff like The Company of Myself.

BioShock Infinite
Publisher: 2K Games
Year: 2013
Final rating: FUCK YOU, The Company of Myself.
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Re: BioShock Infinite and the eternal "Games are art??" ques

Post by gkscotty » Wed Feb 05, 2014 11:07 pm

I've not played Bioshock Infinite. It's on my Steam list along with a bunch of other games I haven't got around to.

But I have played The Stanley Parable, and that's an interesting game if you're concerned with stories in games.
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It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was Us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do bad things. - Jingo, Terry Pratchett
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Re: BioShock Infinite and the eternal "Games are art??" ques

Post by c_nordlander » Thu Feb 06, 2014 12:00 am

I've not yet played any of the "Bioshock" games, but I want to at some point. Especially "Infinite" seems like it's going for maturity, and I'm not talking about violence and boobs here. Very interesting and intriguing review.

I strongly second what Steve said about "The Stanley Parable".

My dad once mentioned an article (I never read it myself) that apparently used "Morrowind" as an example of the fact that games can now tell epic stories similar to the way books and films always have. I agree with this assessment: "Morrowind" was set in a very original and alien fantasy world (far from the standard pseudo-mediaeval European fantasy we're saturated with) and had a complex, interesting storyline. Admittedly, that storyline could have been presented better (it was mostly revealed in documents you found in the bad guy's hideout near the end), but it was still very well written.

Unfortunately, "Oblivion" threw all that away for a boring European-looking world and a fairly standard "the legions of Hell are trying to invade the Earth, you must seal the gate" plot. So much for that article. (I haven't played "Skyrim" either, so I can't say whether that bucked the trend.)

And hey, I remember MDK. Never played it, though. I'm not a fan of shooters, but I remember that the graphics were pretty groundbreaking for the time.
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Re: BioShock Infinite and the eternal "Games are art??" ques

Post by SirMustapha » Thu Feb 06, 2014 12:49 am

c_nordlander wrote:My dad once mentioned an article (I never read it myself) that apparently used "Morrowind" as an example of the fact that games can now tell epic stories similar to the way books and films always have. I agree with this assessment: "Morrowind" was set in a very original and alien fantasy world (far from the standard pseudo-mediaeval European fantasy we're saturated with) and had a complex, interesting storyline. Admittedly, that storyline could have been presented better (it was mostly revealed in documents you found in the bad guy's hideout near the end), but it was still very well written.

Unfortunately, "Oblivion" threw all that away for a boring European-looking world and a fairly standard "the legions of Hell are trying to invade the Earth, you must seal the gate" plot. So much for that article. (I haven't played "Skyrim" either, so I can't say whether that bucked the trend.)
Skyrim is the only Elder Scrolls game I've actually played; mostly because, when they came out, I didn't have a PC powerful enough to run them, and when I finally bought one, I went straight for Skyrim. Its main story does have a few nuances, but it's also pretty by-the-numbers; and it has some oh-the-moral-choices! moments, but it's more in the sense of not giving you clear and obvious "heroes" and "villains", which is cool. But the way you describe it, yeah, it's not like Morrowind.
And hey, I remember MDK. Never played it, though. I'm not a fan of shooters, but I remember that the graphics were pretty groundbreaking for the time.
Indeed, they were. In fact, years later, I was pretty amazed at how they could make such an advanced and smooth game run in such relatively weak gear.
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Re: BioShock Infinite and the eternal "Games are art??" ques

Post by c_nordlander » Thu Feb 06, 2014 12:56 am

Ah, thanks for the explanation regarding "Skyrim".

I guess "Morrowind"'s plot wasn't as groundbreaking as I may have made it sound. It had plenty of innovation and some nice twists along the way, but if you boiled it down to the essentials, it was still "you're the Chosen One and must destroy the dark lord who lives in the Mordor-equivalent before he takes over the world*". It just told that story in a well-written and original way. With "Oblivion", the writers didn't seem to even try.

*OF COURSE!
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Re: BioShock Infinite and the eternal "Games are art??" ques

Post by SirMustapha » Thu Jul 03, 2014 11:49 pm

I decided to bump this thread because of a Cracked article I just read, that used Bioshock Infinite as an example of bad things in games. To cut to the chase, the writer made a critique that, for the first few minutes of gameplay, you're immersed in an incredible world that you're eager to know and explore; but way too soon, the carnage starts, and then it's just hours of killing baddies. He said it's a bad thing, because later in the article, he says he has "this stupid dream about video games being the future of storytelling".

Well, excuse me. To me, that sounds as feasible as having a dream about books being the future of sports. Listen here: it's an excellent exercise to integrate gaming and storytelling, as long as one complements the other. But to think that games could become the medium for telling stories? Really? As far as I'm concerned, my dream is that games become the future of gaming. In Bioshock Infinite, the game throws bad guys at you to kill because, well heck, it's a 1st person shooter after all. Maybe they could have turned it into a point-and-click adventure? Well, then, the author could just as well complain that Monkey Island 2 just keeps throwing puzzles at you to solve, instead of focusing on the story. I mean, if storytelling really is the future of gaming, then video-games will simply turn into cinema! We already have lots of media for storytelling. Why is it that those people insist in removing from video-games exactly what characterises them as video-games? I confess that I am one of those cynics who groans loudly when a puzzle game is turned into a "story". What's wrong with treating games as games? There is this absurd, headlong eagerness of proving that games can be "art". As I said in my initial post, they already are. What's the problem with that?

Sheesh. I wonder if, in the early 20th century, people were complaining about talking movies because they made intertitles obsolete, and, heck, watching movies is all about reading static text! With these talkies, just 5 minutes in and they're already throwing all that movement at you! It's just that I have this stupid dream about cinema being the future of reading.
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Re: BioShock Infinite and the eternal "Games are art??" ques

Post by c_nordlander » Fri Jul 04, 2014 12:03 am

I agree with everything you say.

I love storytelling, and think games could do a lot more with stories and writing than most of them currently do. But in games, gameplay is the raison d'être. I'd rather play an awesome game with terrible plot/writing* than a terrible game with awesome plot/writing.

*Separated because it's perfectly possible to have a good plot but bad writing, or vice versa.
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