KingofMadCows said:
Treblaine said:
I presume you object to other emotional manipulation by works of fiction? Do you not like any drama or tension in games, books and film? Would it be better if the Little Sisters were replaced with just something like emotionally neutral like a ball of light. yet at the same time it has to have meaning that Little Sisters supposedly lack.
So it has to be meaningful yet without much emotional significance.
As you can see, you can't get away with dissing my favourite game without your logic being challenged, you are contradicting yourself or asking for a game of cold rational significance.
I don't object to emotional manipulation. I don't like it when it's so obvious. I don't like it when they use little kids or cute animals that most people are obviously going to care about. I also don't like it when you're given a choice between two extreme options of either saving her or killing her.
I would have preferred it if either you were asked to care about characters that have a bit more development so you like them because of their personality or their backstory instead of just their appearance, or if the choices you were given concerning the characters weren't so extreme. How about making the Little Sisters look more like mutated monsters and less like little girls so that your attachment to them is more based on their backstory and development rather than physical appearance? How about instead of immediately having to choose between either saving or killing the first Little Sister you meet, you have a choice of either curing her or keeping her that way so they could gather more ADAM for you? How about adding some elements to give more credence to Atlas's assertion that the Little Sisters aren't really humans anymore?
And how did I "diss" your favorite game?
There is A LOT in between Blade Runner and the worst sci-fi. It is't really saying much to say that it's too much to say it's up there with Blade Runner. It's like saying "Well, it's not Citizen Kane".
Except the whole point of this topic is about games that people think are overrated. If everyone else thinks that this game is as great as Blade Runner and I don't, then that means I think it's overrated. If every critic gives a game a 10/10 and I think it deserves a 9/10 then that means I think it's overrated.
"I didn't do that for my complaints against..."
So far you've hardly even complained, you've just stated and reaffirmed your personal opinion... for all it is worth.
I'm not expecting an essay, 5 or 6 bullet points would do with brief issues. If you can't even do that I'd have to wonder if you have any genuine criticisms to give or if Bioshock and other games simply aren't to your personal tastes. I mean I don't like girly rom-com but they aren't exactly targeted at me, maybe if Fallout 3 and bioshock aren't your think maybe this is like selling NASCAR to a Formula 1 fan
So you don't judge games based on personal opinion? You have carefully standardized measures and operationalized terms with which to weigh the worthiness of a game objectively? You use the scientific method to judge a game and submit it for peer review?
Of course, my complaints are based on personal opinion. I don't like it when a story uses such transparent methods to manipulate me emotionally but I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't mind. After all, movies like "Patch Adams" and "Avatar" have done extremely well in the box office.
The move toward more realism and a more serious(depressing) story in GTA IV created too much of a disconnect with the previous GTA games for me to like it as much as the other games. The "heaviness" of the controls compared to previous games also hurt my enjoyment.
FO3 abandoning the more realistic and logical elements of the franchise in favor of the wackier elements made it much less of a Fallout game to me. Sure it was still fun, but it lacked the substance of previous games.
In the case of GTA IV and FO3, it's not a matter of selling NASCAR to a Formula 1 fan since they're the ones who changed the formula from previous games. It's more like if NASCAR suddenly became Formula 1 for no reason and they expected their former fans to just follow along.
Ok, but you forgot the third option: leave them. Don't either Rescue or Harvest any Little Sisters. You have that option but you'll have to scrape by on very few plasmids, the few you get for free. I have seen speedruns of bioshock where no little-sisters are harvested nor rescued.
And what would you propose as a middle ground between either greedily taking all the Adam and killing them or taking a little and saving them. Many choices DO boil down to such an extreme binary decision in REAL life. Buy or sell. Run or fight. Invest or spend.
Look, with such a free game as Bioshock where you can run around and look anywhere most of the time you can't afford to be subtle, it has to be obvious and added to that it is profound and iconic.
"How about making the Little Sisters look more like mutated monsters"
They hardly look like Shirley Temple as it is, is it that they look in ANY way like a little girl that is the problem? If it was an ewok that tried to tell you its life story and connect with you in a one-sided conversation that is just obtuse and ineffective. The whole game of bioshock is violently killing men and women, the Little Sisters have to be something the average person would instantly connect with as vulnerable. A child is that but not a lovely child, but a creepy zombie one, so it's not THAT obvious.
Also the little sisters are part of the artistic vision of juxtaposition; a little girl escorted by a walking tank resembling a giant armoured diving suit is part of the Rapture vision, it is totally consistent and if you don't like that that's like objecting to Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks being cast in a romantic-comedy... maybe you just shouldn't be watching a romantic comedy. Maybe you shouldn't be playing Bioshock.
"How about adding some elements to give more credence to Atlas's assertion that the Little Sisters aren't really humans anymore?"
Uhh, because there ISN'T ANY more creedence to the assertion they aren't human any more! I hope you have finished Bioshock and you know the whole deal with Atlas, then you'll understand why he says what he says, you are told everything about the Little Sisters and it's up to you decide what to do and ultimately there is no ambiguity, they ARE little children its just others may like to delude themselves otherwise for personal gain.
"you have a choice of either curing her or keeping her that way so they could gather more ADAM for you?"
Pay ATTENTION when you play these games! Number 1, Little Sisters will only gather Adam for their Big Daddies, they are psychologically programmed to be that way, they will not collect Adam for Jack. Number 2, this IS done in the Sequel, Bioshock 2, as you actually play as a Big Daddy so this is possible.
If every critic gives a game a 10/10 and I think it deserves a 9/10 then that means I think it's overrated.
You don't seem to understand statistics, as critics are never that consistent, even if the average score rounds up to 10/10 a significant proportion will still give it a 9/10 and some even give it an 8/10, a personal 9/10 score would be well within the range that found the average. Individual scores are worthless anyway, only in aggregate because of personal inaccuracy in quantifying their judgement of a game, and THEN said metascore is only worth anything RELATIVE to other games and it doesn't mean anything about its true reception, only the overall reception of a minority of people; games journalists.
"So you don't judge games based on personal opinion?"
I did not say that.
I say you SHOULD judge based on personal opinion but that MUST be backed up with reason to let us know if your opinion is a genuine criticism or if it comes from prejudice. If a food critics says "I hated the dessert" but failed to clarify that they don't like ANY ice cream which was the desert then it's quite a worthless opinion as it says nothing about the quality of the food, just the critic's personal tastes. Or something like saying an ice cream is too creamy when the entire point of ice-cream is to be creamy and most people order it for that.
You still need to clarify your opinions of Bioshock to give them any weight.
One thing that would help is instead of moaning about what you don't like tell me what you like. If you say Top-down RPG games with very deep character c
"It's more like if NASCAR suddenly became Formula 1 for no reason and they expected their former fans to just follow along."
So you've pretty much admitted it is a NASCAR vs Formula 1 type of difference in taste but you are putting the blame on the developers for changing with the sequels rather than just appreciating each game by itself for what it IS... rather than what you want it to be. Looking at the games for what they actually are, are they really over-rated?
Bioshock is what it is, most of the "it's over-rated" accusations I hear come from those who have the idea that Bioshock should be something that it simply is not and never intended to be.
