So my faith in BioShock: Infinite is now restored!

[M0rp43vs]

I have been waiting with baited breath for this since the trailer was announced.
The fact that it's also coming out on my Birthday is like the frosting on what I'm hoping to be a delicious birthday cake

 

[thesilentman]

snip

I get your reasoning behind the rating, it was just your wording that made me feel confused. But assuming the OP was the average teenager when he was twelve is faulty thinking. Everyone is different in terms of maturity when they're teenagers. Some people will see an underwater violence spree and others will see what you see, the themes of Ayn Rand and such. In the end, it's a work of art. And the moment you put rules on art, it loses it meaning of being art.

OT- Infinite, hmmm? I think I'll settle for reviews until I decide whether to purchase the game. Bioshock felt like a movie in some aspects, which killed the experience for me, something I hope Infinite will rectify.

 

[taciturnCandid]

There's a difference between starting to play more mature titles like Splinter Cell and Halo when you're turning 15/16, and playing something like Bioshock when you've only just started High School.

Whenever gaming gets dragged into the House of Parliament or before the Senate over its apparent 'damaging' effects on young players, the response gamers always give is that it;s up to parents to not be shitty, and to ensure their kids are not playing games that are unsuitable for them.

As far as I'm concerned, Bioshock is not suitable for someone who's only just left primary school. Not only are the themes and ideas way beyond what any Year 7 student is going to be able to understand, but being presented with choices like whether to bludgeon a Little Sister to death or not are choices that only adults should be presented with.

Lol no. That was one of my main gripes with Bioshock: despite all the hype, it actually wasn't brilliant in its political stuff. It was the standard criticism and rather simplistic. A 12 year old should definitely be able to understand it if he or she is interested in these kind of things.

Bioshock is an excellent deconstruction of Ayn Rand and Objectivism, a philosophy which has been gaining more tract amongst neo-conservatives over the last decade. It completely pinpoints all the flaws in Rand's reasoning, by showing exactly what would happen in John Galt's 'utopia' if the only people who matter are the captains of industry, and people like toilet cleaners get repeatedly shat on.

It's also a commentary on the notion of player agency in videogames. It deconstructs the way objectives are given within shooters, by making you feel as if you're acting of your own volition, then pulling the rug and pointing out that you never had any agency at all. You were simply doing what you were programmed to, and there's nothing you could have conceivably done about it.

Show me a 12 year old who's schooled up on the finer points of Objectivist philosophy and game design theory, and I'll concede you have a point.

I played GTA2 when I was 10 years old. Can't say it shook me. It all depends on the person playing, I guess.
(I got the copy from a friend of mine, my parents probably wouldn't have accepted my playing it had they known what kind of game it was!).

Well, kudos to your parents at least.

snip

What, exactly, do you think a child is going to glean from Bioshock?

That depends. If the child is still quite young, and still hasn't learnt all that much about the world, then all the critiques of Ayn Rand and game design theory are going to go straight over their heads. So all that's left is the gameplay, where the idea is that violence is something fun. I can play the game and realise that in shooting Splicers, I'm simply indulging an enjoyment for violence that I can keep entirely divorced from reality. A 12 year old isn't going to have that same introspection. If a child is presented with hardcore violence in the context of a game, where violence is created to be enjoyed, and are then presented with situations where they can choose whether or not to kill little girls, then that could have a genuinely disturbing effect on the way they perceive violence in the real world.

This isn't to say that every child who ever plays anything violent is going to become an axe-murderer. But these things work in generalities- most kids in general do not have the maturity, introspection or awareness of the real world to be able to play something like Bioshock and keep it completely divorced from reality. That's why we have the age rating system in the first place. If children were stoic little dolls who could absorb anything violent or sexual without ill effect, why would we need age ratings.

Gaming is at a crossroads when it comes to age ratings: we can either take responsibility as gamers, and ensure that parents are made aware that games like Bioshock, COD or Spec Ops are not meant for children. Or we can let Congress and the House of Parliament take care of it instead. In which case, the issue isn't going to be about parents letting kids play mature games, it's going to be about developers being able to make mature games at all. Shrugging off responsibility and saying "Well, I'm sure the kids will be fine if they play a bit of Bioshock" achieves exactly jack and shit.

Well put! I agree!

I think that games can be a great method of re-evaluating the world around us, but in order to do that there needs to be an understanding and experience of that world.

You can give a 12 year old a critique of objectivism or a critique of Keynesian economics, but it is useless without the right context. The reason why Bioshock is so powerful is because of the emotional themes and the ability to show the consequences of pure objectivism.

I haven't played it, but from what I hear, Spec Ops: The line offers an experience that if you aren't aware of the context and the consequences faced, then it is just a generic shooter.

I have heard kids talk about how the Nuclear Explosion in CoD: MW and say how cool it was. It wasn't cool. It was a shocking and showed the real consequences of conflict in a nuclear age. Without that context, it is just a bomb going off and some cool effects.

The very worst thing is when kids are not educated by their own experiences and compare them to it and they end up being just brainwashed. I mean, bioshock can teach you to have an irrational hate of objectivism if you don't understand the principles and why they are incorrect. It is different being told something is wrong and understanding why something is wrong.

That isn't to say that there can't be themes that question life in video games targeted towards children. I think making a game that makes a child question things that they can control and bring a new perspective would be a good thing. It could lead to some breakthroughs with the matter of bullying.

But make sure the right material for the right audience.

 

[Ascarus]

hopefully infinite will be better than bioshock 2 which was basically bioshock 1 without the compelling narrative.

 

[Vkmies]

I actually thought the new trailer wasn't too impressive. The gameplay looks ok, but we've seen Infinite-gameplay before. It always looked great. I was just annoyed by the music. You couldn't have been able to choose a less appropriate song when it comes to the aesthetics. Ruined the whole thing for me. Doesn't make the game any less hype, but the trailer wasn't anything too special for me. If you are going to go with a certain style, you should make everything fit that side. Didn't think that really conveyed in the new Infinite-trailer.

 

[taciturnCandid]

SNIP

THANK YOU! Someone else who realises that supporting age ratings is not the same thing as censorship. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

Restricing content that the young are exposed to is not a form of censorship unless the are restricted at the time they can make a cognitive choice about the issue with the approprite context and experience.

Exposing someone to material that they do not understand and forcing them to make a decision is brainwashing and is a type of censorship. The longer an opinion is held, the more powerful it is and the less likely they will form an opinion on an issue once they do have the ability to understand it.

Restricting access of certain materials to a certain age group is the opposite of censorship. It is the allowance for them to develop their own opinions, which is something we can all value.

I don't worry about nudity on television, but what I do object to is a child being put in a situation of being exposed to many of the tropes involving love and sex in a entertainment setting.

Entertainment is limited in attention span, so they hasten the process of romance. They link sexual attraction and desire with love and use that as a shortcut. Not only that, but many times characters are idealized and so there are unrealistic expectations.

Now why is this dangerous? The notion that sex=love and an expectation of an idealized person leads to instability in later relationships. It can impair an ability to form a healthy one as it encourages the idea that any sort of romantic feelings must be sorted out in a sexual manner.


Similarly, violence in entertainment needs to be monitored. The casual link to ultra violence and fun without the proper context can be damaging. Without the emotional understanding of the consequences of violence and the contextual knowledge of when to apply violence, it becomes a matter of desensitization. It does not mean the child will become violent, but they will not express the proper concern over violent events.

Political opinions are very difficult to expose a child to as they do not have all the knowledge and experience to form their own opinion. Rather it is an echo of what they have been told. Instead of objectively evaluating the world around them, they use the opinion that is familiar to them.

There are other issues as well, but the exposure to things without the ability to understand them is dangerous. We are supposed to encourage healthy development and healthy minds that are able to think for themselves. Exposure to elements when they are most appropriate is the way to do this.

 

[chadachada123]

No I'm not. If a game as a big red 18 on the box, it's not meant to be played by anyone under 18. Therefore, someone who buys their child an 18 game is, whether through ignorance or deliberate effort, ignoring the advice of the ESRB and BBFC. So yes, that makes them a bad parent.

[snip]

No, it is illegal. Shops are not allowed to sell M games to minors, full stop. It's not different to cinemas barring you from seeing an 18-rated film, or porn sites being off-limits to anyone under 18. Maybe it's different where you are, but here in the UK, shops can get prosecuted if they're found selling 15 or 18-rated games to underage kids.

You are right, things work differently in the US than in the UK.

In the US, the ESRB is a privately-run ADVISORY board, making a recommendation that is not legally binding and also is not meant to be a blanket-rating for all people. It is solely meant to help inform parents of stuff that the parents may find unsuitable for their children.

A game can be rated M for a variety of reasons (from sex to drugs to violence to torture, and everything in between), and cultural norms vary between countries and families. A well-informed parent knows what is and isn't acceptable for their child, far more than a red number does.

You are aware, I imagine, that kids develop emotionally at different rates, and that violence/etc affects some children more, naturally, than other children, yes? A game with gore might be perfectly suitable for a specific twelve-year old while a game with drug use might be completely inappropriate for that same kid. This is a determination that can only be made on a case-by-case basis, and is a job suited for parents (or their therapists/psychiatrists).

[Legalese warning] Ratings in the US are not legally binding, and it is retailers that willingly enforce the age ratings at stores. This is because children are entitled to the same 1st amendment rights/freedoms of speech as adults (except for "obscenity"/porn, see the Miller Case), and it would be an infringement of that right for the government to forbid retailers from spreading their speech without a damn good reason. As there is NO conclusive evidence that children are emotionally or mentally harmed by violence in games, the standard that is applied to pornography cannot be applied to violent games (see Brown v EMA).

This is the same as movies or DVDs in the US. Movie theaters WILLINGLY refuse to let under-17s into R-rated films without parent accompaniment, and there are no laws that enforce it. Your assertion that the Supreme Court case was about limiting content is laughably wrong, since it did not in any way seek to place limits on developers or what they develop, but was solely meant for retailers.

My question for you: Assuming that under-18s are allowed to see 18+ films in theaters if they are accompanied by their parents (as is the case in most movie theaters in the US), or for under-15s to see 15+ films with the same, why should video games be held to a different standard?

And why in the hell should all 15+ or 18+ games be treated the same, when there are such obvious and massive differences between the content of them, even within a single rating? My first R-rated film (17+), when I was 8 or so, was only rated such for some language and some kung-fu, and frankly was less worthy of the rating than some PG-13 movies I had seen by that time, and would not have been nearly as bad as if I had seen the Dark Knight (PG-13) at that same age.

 

[Kopikatsu]

One year without much word on a game? Pah. Try being eager for Final Fantasy Versus XIII for more than a couple months. Now THAT is faith-shaking.

I see your FF Versus XIII and I raise my Kingdom Hearts 3. Check and mate.

In fairness, KH III never "died" the same way Infinite or Versus did. Yeah, a sequel is LONG overdue and we probobly won't see it for some time yet, and even though there have been no proper reveals, Nomura has stated numerous times that it IS coming. There's even a (not very subtle) message in the credits of KH 3D that blatantly says as much. Versus and (for a while) Infinite just faded into oblivion.

Anyway, to be honest, I've never been a fan of Bioshock; not even the first. The story was good of course, but the gameplay was clunky and the atmosphere was dull after about 10 minutes in. In my opinion.

I don't know what to think of Infinite though. The grappling things look like fun, and the environment is freakin' awesome, but everything else looks standard. I'll definitly rent it at some point, regardless.

Nomura has said that he wants KH3 to be a next-gen title. So it's not a matter of waiting for KH3 to be released so much as waiting for development to start.

 

[THEMILKMAN]

I'm very much excited for it. The only thing I don't like is why did they replace the glorious weapon wheel with the 2-weapon system?

 

[ZehMadScientist]

Was excited to hell and back when it was announced. Then it kind of died down... Then the E3 trailer came around. Then I was excited again. Then I bought Dishono(u)red, which looks and feels so similar to this game that I kind of let my hype seep away in this game. My Steampunk fix is met for now.

Still getting BioInfinite on day 1 though

 

[TecnoMonkey]

I don't know, I was also pretty hyped about the game and I am probably going to get it... eventually.

It's just that a trailer, no matter how good it may be, can't shake the thought of those developers leaving. I was thinking about buying it a few days after launch but now... I just think that I, and other people quite frankly, should be cautious in regards to Infinite.

 

[Legion]

I am looking forward to it, yes, but I am not "hyped". I deliberately try and avoid being so now because I have been disappointed so many titles that I expected to be guaranteed to be amazing.

I actually tend to find I enjoy games more where I know next to nothing about them, and do not find out about them until right before I get them.

My favourite games this year are Xcom, The Walking Dead and Dishonored. The first two I bought last week, and Dishonored I got on release day, but only really had an interest in it a week before.

Games where I am excited months before they come out almost always disappoint me because I get drawn into the hype, the PR/marketing bullshit and end up with too high expectations.

So this time around I shall simply not pay attention until I get it.

 

[Darknacht]

I it looks interesting, maybe it can make up for how bad the first two were.