Recent reviews by ZZZ

it's really boring and not that pretty i'd just go outside but my boyfriend liked it. i dont know where the gampelay is the girls voice just drones on and if you dont reply to her in 15 seconds you cant talk anymore. also you keep running into bushes.

♥♥♥♥ ZAUM DO NOT GIVE THEM MONEY THIS GAME IS GOOD BUT ZAUM SUCKSSSSSSSSS I HATE YOU ZAUM

GOOD GAME I LOVE YOU MR CHOPPED and ♥♥♥♥ the fans for what they did to the creator i support her

I'll rewrite this when I actually finish it but god...no way for me to explain what i like about this game so much without sounding pretentious as hell so im just tossing that concern to the wind for now.

Listen. If you have the patience and resilience for this game and can appreciate good writing. Play this game. Just do it. I feel like I go into some kinda trance playing this, where everything is so hard but I'm just so curious about this world, about what's going to happen and what I need to do that I just can't stop until I'm thoroughly tired. It's more a heavy, atmospheric, philosophical experience than a game at this point and I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love that. The dialog is so well written with so many layers to it, sometimes I just pause and read it over and over again. It's gorgeous. I can hardly imagine how much more poetic it is in it's original language. I think this game is probably in my top 3 now and I'm not even finished.

Pathologic 2 is amazing, please play it.

A summary at the start:
I wouldn't recommend this to someone with depression because it feels insulting.
I wouldn't recommend this to someone who knows people who struggle with depression because it's unrealistic.
And that just leaves the people who have no experience with this stuff.
So when a game centered around depression lands itself in a place where only those unfamiliar with it could appreciate it best... is it really a good game about those themes?

ALSO i did not really play for 5 hours, its only a 15 minute game. some bug stopped the game from closing so i had to force stop it and it didnt give me the achievements but i got all the endings.

Here's what I liked.
+ The art and music. Gorgeous enough to make you ignore the writing.
+ it's free and was made by one person, so it's got that going for it.

And that's about where it ends.

Suicide and depression is a pretty heavy topic to tackle and unfortunately mixed messages seems to miss it. It really doesn't have much to say aside from 'hey talk to your loved ones if they're sad!'

And while I can understand the sentiment it just comes across as hollow. You can't "save" someone with just a talk. The way this ties in with the gameplay is even messier. Missing out on a small detail blocks you from a good ending, choosing to go out means losing your friend.
Maybe this would be different if the game were more fleshed out, but to me it seems like it shifts the blame onto you. It just paints an unhealthy picture.

some of the scenes just seem to be there for shock value to make it look deep rather than contributing to the story, the scene of the bad ending is...egregious honestly. and maybe i'm weighing my personal experiences way into this, but the self harm in the game was also a bit much.

I feel like this could've had potential if it had been fleshed out more, and I don't think a topic like depression is something you can effectively try and explore in a game thats only about 20 minutes long. It comes across as shallow, although I don't think that was the makers intent.

Lastly the dialogue is a bit... off beat. I guess some people talk like that though, but it's the type of speech [and humour in terms of the ... ugh... "memes"] that will get dated very fast.

For background, this is my first Bioshock game. Honestly, take a look at what some negative reviews are saying too before buying this. I'll try to keep this spoiler light, but a TLDR at the start, just straight up do NOT get this game unless its on sale and you're severely bored because it is NOT worth 23 USD

VISUALS: Literally amazing. Everything about the world this game takes place in is gorgeous, which is a shame considering the things that bring it down. By far my favourite, and maybe the only part of this game that I really liked. 10/10

GAMEPLAY: Disclaimer, my experience with FPS is limited. It was fun, but felt really clunky at some parts. So many visual effects make it hard for you to keep track of whats happening, melee fighting is absolutely ridiculous swiveling the camera around so hard you cant see whats happening. The hard difficulty isn't that hard if you came for a challenge, by the way. I managed to play most of the game in hard despite FPS games not being my strong suit.

There's not a lot of variation in combat either, although the skyline system was very unique and super fun. Vigors were an interesting mechanic but there was a needless variety considering a lot of em did the same thing, making it kind of confusing. Still cool though. Elizabeth tends to get in your way sometimes, cost me a whole battle cause she would not move out of the way of my sniper rifle. The regeneration health mechanic on enemies was frustrating with some late game boss battles, since you WILL run out of ammo.

There's not a lot of other puzzles and stuff, and the few 'morality' choices you make have no impact on the game whatsoever, despite the weight they appear to have, super missed opportunity. It would have been fun to see how different interactions with Elizabeth couldve led to variation, even if it is the same ending. And some enemies and choices I just didn't want to make.

Really fun but not outstanding which is OK. 6/10

STORY : Ooh boy, here comes my biggest gripe with this game. To keep it simple I'll break it down and spoilers will be separate.

1. Not a lot of memorable NPCS. There's Elizabeth and there's you. That's it. The antagonists aren't built up as well as they could have been, especially one in particular whose motives are weak and abandoned underdeveloped before that plot line is even finished.

2. The story is .. seriously overambitious and preachy. They bit off way more than they could chew and proceeded to handle it very poorly. Directing focus onto other areas instead of trying to get everywhere could've fixed this. The game shoves its beliefs in your face without trying to flesh them out, which is surprising since it tries to play the gray morality angle. It abandons themes without exploring them, and at the end it has very little to say and not even an entertaining way to say it.The writers probably thought that was deep, and for some games it might be, but this warranted an epilogue at the very least. Story elements are left surprisingly unexplained unless you go out of your way to collect and listen to every recording, and the end result can be very unsatisfying.

ALRIGHT, now very, very mild spoilers ahead.

3. They try to create a 'both sides are bad and the same' narrative without even giving it much thought. It's a pretentious attempt at trying to seem deep, but the game seriously tries to make you think the uprising of the poor is equal to the harshness of the rich abusing them. It TELLS you this, not shows you how so. One minute you're sympathizing with them and trying to help and the next you seriously expect it to be realistic for them to now be powerful enough to topple the entire city with high tech weaponry without even EXPLAINING how it got this far?

On top of that there is no reason whatsoever for them to target you! The game could have gone on perfectly fine with the main antagonist, and without shoehorning these guys in for no good reason.

4. It doesn't bother to give you an example of how these things happen, they simply shove what THEY think in your face and then justify it with poor writing. An example of this is a person turning on you to illustrate they're all the same, but the reason this person turns on you is something you literally could have talked to them about with more time. And now suddenly their entire outlook has changed. Even then, the reason why they want you dead is null because you've already done the thing they try to kill you to prevent.

5. Now about the themes. At first you think, oh, they're going to try and tackle racism? But it's only a gimmick and barely has any importance in the story, as though the writers forgot it was even a theme to begin with. What was the purpose? To give meaning to a faction in the game? Oh, that movement focuses on poor people in general and not on rights? Then was it a tool to paint a common enemy by the leader? No, he really seems to believe in this? Then what was the point if you're not going to elaborate or give a conclusion or have ANYTHING to say on the matter aside from 'Yeah. Racism. It sure is there.'

And don't even get me started on the 'both sides' thing. This game takes place in the early 1900s for the love of ♥♥♥♥! These people have lottery games where the prize is stoning interracial couples to death! You're gonna add this as a theme, give this false equivelance bs, and then FORGET all about it?

The same issue happens with it's criticism of capitalism and class. You establish that the poor are being exploited, worked to the bone, living like ♥♥♥♥ on the streets being forced to listen to propaganda. Alright, so far so good. But now you're saying it's ... BAD for them to rise up against it because they'll be the same as the people that have been hurting them? How and why? Oh you're not going to explain that and the whole thing is irrelevant to the main story anyways? Alright then.

Like I said. Overambitious and badly written.

Finally, it's the main story. I guess Dewitt and Elizabeth have a nice relationship and there's some clever foreshadowing. You get a lot of cut scenes with her but after she finds out you're taking her to NY it's very hard to see why she would trust you again, so it seems like Dewitt's concern for her just stems out of nowhere [this is subjective though]. I personally found her pretty annoying both as a companion and a character though.

It ties up most loose ends but the story seems to go nowhere, there's a lot of missed worldbuilding moments. For all it focuses on Elizabeth, it fails to explain why she has powers or what the villain's end goal even was. The tears feels more like bandaids for plot holes than something with weight on the story.

There's a lot of smart and flowery language on the nature of the multiverse and reality and whatever, but it really doesn't have any thematic presence outside of explaining how it lead to Columbia. It's just pure pretentiousness. You can just hear the writers sucking their own ♥♥♥♥♥ across the screen.

You can't just stuff a bunch of fancy words with a pretty cutscene, and a ton of religous imagery and expect it to make your story look deep. You need to do that by actually writing a story that SAYS something. But not everything needs to say something sure and if you just want it to be fun entertainment, then don't try to make it obvious you think you're clever with zero commitment. I've seen better multiverse stories.

Story? 2/10. And it only gets that high because of the good foreshadowing and plot twists.

TLDR
Bioshock infinite bites off more than it can chew and still doesn't manage to produce anything of value. It's wrapped in the prettiest packing paper you can find and moderately fun, but as a story driven FPS, it does a poor job of actually giving you a story to care about unless your standards are low.

give veronica her girlfriend back

its fun but I would not recommend it theres more fun games out there. I just like wasting my time is all.

edit: not great as an rpg but great as an fps with fun quests thrown in. dont expect much of the writing and you wont get disappointed. its fun.

controls are kinda hard to get used to and the combat is a bit too slow for my taste but it is kinda rewarding once u figure out the strategic puzzley bits urself also the whole MOOD the FEELING the ATMOSPHERE is so GOOD