So where the hell have I been for half a month, you might be asking? Well, the internet in my house went down, and on top of that, me and my girlfriend were in the middle of moving when this happened.
Given this fact, we figured that there wasn't any point in shelling out money to get the internet fixed when we were moving soon anyway, and the process of moving took longer than expected. That's the VERY short version of what happened, but we're all moved in now, and if the internet should ever bugger up here, since it's an apartment complex, it shouldn't be for long because more people than just us will be affected by it.
But since I couldn't do much of what I usually do with the internet down, in addition to the lengthy process of moving, all I really did was play this little game you might have heard of.
Now, I have played this before, but I was either 15 or 16 and so I was returning to it under the assumption that a good deal of it probably flew straight over my head at the time. Because this is one of those Smart And Artistic Video Games (TM) that everyone likes to bang on about whenever the conversation of "viddy gamez is art" comes up, and while I'm beyond sick of that whole diatribe myself (the definition of art is literally "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power" so yes video games are bloody art), it is pretty impossible to not understand why it's earned itself a place in the hall of fame of "art games".
Mainly it's earned itself a place in that hall of fame because the narrative of this game is sodding marvelous, deeper than the city of Rapture itself, insanely imaginative and well written, tackles both political and philosophical themes that most games wouldn't dare go anywhere near, deconstructs the concept of a linear game, and has one HELL of a twist that I simply refuse to spoil here. And returning to it...I was actually surprised how much of it didn't fly right over my teenage self's head. Maybe that chump's smarter than I give him credit for.
Honestly, if it weren't for one tiny little plot hole I noticed that I can't explain without spoiling a lot of the story, and the fact that the contrast between the two different possible endings is extremely jarring (and it's a real pain that if you harvest even one Little Sister then you get the bad ending), then I would describe this game as having a perfect story. Even as it is though, it's got to be one of the best in gaming history.
And everything surrounding the story and lifting it up is just as incredible. The voice acting, even if there's a few regional accents that sound rather questionable, is all brilliant and makes every single character you hear from feel so real and full of personality, even though you never meet the vast majority of them and are only listening to their audio logs.
And those audio logs...good god, while they might be an often mocked method of storytelling in more recent games, in this one every single one you find is so interesting that you don't care in the slightest about that. The characters who leave them are all engrossing, and the world of Rapture and its lore that you'll get out of them is one of the best realised histories to a gaming world I've ever experienced.
But none of that would mean anything if Rapture was boring to actually explore and look at, and thankfully, "boring" is just about the last word I'd ever use to describe it. There's an unmistakable and incredibly aesthetically pleasing style to every environment you find yourself in, the graphics are very nice for 2007, every area is so detailed that I found it impossible to not explore every inch of it, and the lighting, sound design and soundtrack (both original and licensed music) gives the game one of the thickest atmospheres I've ever experienced from a game.
And while both the gunplay and Plasmid combat is very fun, with several different weapons and interesting ammo types to play about with, combined with interesting Plasmid abilities...unfortunately I do have a few rather significant issues with the gameplay.
For one thing, as soon as you realise that when you die, you respawn at the nearest checkpoint with all your ammo and items intact and any enemies you hurt but didn't kill back where they were with the same amount of health you left them with (yes, this is seriously how dying works), you also realise that death has absolutely no consequences, and the game isn't scary or challenging in the least. This is only made worse by the fact that you can't walk five feet without stumbling across extra money, health or ammo, because with that being the case, you likely won't be dying much anyway.
Unless you're up against a Big Daddy, who you'll have to kill if you want to get to its Little Sister (which trust me, you do), and who frankly just aren't fun to fight for me with how overpowered they seem. Especially the ones with drill hands, they can go stick their heads out the nearest window and drown themselves.
The moral choice system is further watered down by the fact that the extra rewards you get for taking the evil paths to make them more tempting are so minimal as to entirely not be worth it, the alarm system is almost indescribably annoying, and all the goddamn hacking you'll be doing if you want to do things somewhat stealthily or give yourself advantages gets very, very tedious, as it's always the exact same thing.
And finally the very ending part of the game feels very anticlimactic no matter which ending you get, as both of them and the final boss feel like they're over and done with within about two minutes. It's just about the one part of the game where they dropped the ball a little on the pacing. And it certainly doesn't help that the section just before the final boss indulges in a utterly terrible and boring escort mission that is by far the worst part of the game.
But even considering all the mean things I just said, although I don't quite agree with the term being applied to this game myself, I totally get why many consider it a masterpiece. And with that...I never did get around to playing either of the two sequels after I played this all those years ago...maybe it's time to rectify that.
Given this fact, we figured that there wasn't any point in shelling out money to get the internet fixed when we were moving soon anyway, and the process of moving took longer than expected. That's the VERY short version of what happened, but we're all moved in now, and if the internet should ever bugger up here, since it's an apartment complex, it shouldn't be for long because more people than just us will be affected by it.
But since I couldn't do much of what I usually do with the internet down, in addition to the lengthy process of moving, all I really did was play this little game you might have heard of.
Now, I have played this before, but I was either 15 or 16 and so I was returning to it under the assumption that a good deal of it probably flew straight over my head at the time. Because this is one of those Smart And Artistic Video Games (TM) that everyone likes to bang on about whenever the conversation of "viddy gamez is art" comes up, and while I'm beyond sick of that whole diatribe myself (the definition of art is literally "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power" so yes video games are bloody art), it is pretty impossible to not understand why it's earned itself a place in the hall of fame of "art games".
Mainly it's earned itself a place in that hall of fame because the narrative of this game is sodding marvelous, deeper than the city of Rapture itself, insanely imaginative and well written, tackles both political and philosophical themes that most games wouldn't dare go anywhere near, deconstructs the concept of a linear game, and has one HELL of a twist that I simply refuse to spoil here. And returning to it...I was actually surprised how much of it didn't fly right over my teenage self's head. Maybe that chump's smarter than I give him credit for.
Honestly, if it weren't for one tiny little plot hole I noticed that I can't explain without spoiling a lot of the story, and the fact that the contrast between the two different possible endings is extremely jarring (and it's a real pain that if you harvest even one Little Sister then you get the bad ending), then I would describe this game as having a perfect story. Even as it is though, it's got to be one of the best in gaming history.
And everything surrounding the story and lifting it up is just as incredible. The voice acting, even if there's a few regional accents that sound rather questionable, is all brilliant and makes every single character you hear from feel so real and full of personality, even though you never meet the vast majority of them and are only listening to their audio logs.
And those audio logs...good god, while they might be an often mocked method of storytelling in more recent games, in this one every single one you find is so interesting that you don't care in the slightest about that. The characters who leave them are all engrossing, and the world of Rapture and its lore that you'll get out of them is one of the best realised histories to a gaming world I've ever experienced.
But none of that would mean anything if Rapture was boring to actually explore and look at, and thankfully, "boring" is just about the last word I'd ever use to describe it. There's an unmistakable and incredibly aesthetically pleasing style to every environment you find yourself in, the graphics are very nice for 2007, every area is so detailed that I found it impossible to not explore every inch of it, and the lighting, sound design and soundtrack (both original and licensed music) gives the game one of the thickest atmospheres I've ever experienced from a game.
And while both the gunplay and Plasmid combat is very fun, with several different weapons and interesting ammo types to play about with, combined with interesting Plasmid abilities...unfortunately I do have a few rather significant issues with the gameplay.
For one thing, as soon as you realise that when you die, you respawn at the nearest checkpoint with all your ammo and items intact and any enemies you hurt but didn't kill back where they were with the same amount of health you left them with (yes, this is seriously how dying works), you also realise that death has absolutely no consequences, and the game isn't scary or challenging in the least. This is only made worse by the fact that you can't walk five feet without stumbling across extra money, health or ammo, because with that being the case, you likely won't be dying much anyway.
Unless you're up against a Big Daddy, who you'll have to kill if you want to get to its Little Sister (which trust me, you do), and who frankly just aren't fun to fight for me with how overpowered they seem. Especially the ones with drill hands, they can go stick their heads out the nearest window and drown themselves.
The moral choice system is further watered down by the fact that the extra rewards you get for taking the evil paths to make them more tempting are so minimal as to entirely not be worth it, the alarm system is almost indescribably annoying, and all the goddamn hacking you'll be doing if you want to do things somewhat stealthily or give yourself advantages gets very, very tedious, as it's always the exact same thing.
And finally the very ending part of the game feels very anticlimactic no matter which ending you get, as both of them and the final boss feel like they're over and done with within about two minutes. It's just about the one part of the game where they dropped the ball a little on the pacing. And it certainly doesn't help that the section just before the final boss indulges in a utterly terrible and boring escort mission that is by far the worst part of the game.
But even considering all the mean things I just said, although I don't quite agree with the term being applied to this game myself, I totally get why many consider it a masterpiece. And with that...I never did get around to playing either of the two sequels after I played this all those years ago...maybe it's time to rectify that.