#antivanrogue

[mirandaputsherbestbuttforward]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY i don't even know how long we've been following each other at this point but you're one of my longterm faves and i hope your day is/has been SO RAD <33

ahhh I’m so glad, thank you <3

[glaivemaiden]

antivanrogue replied to your photo: the (sort of) line up. the disparity here is not...

that is an a+ progression

it's probably the most variety i've had in a cosplay lineup, and two of them are almost entirely handmade (the harness for Jack was built over an old strapless bra i never wore).

idk how the fuck i'm going to survive this weekend in the heat in any of these. x_x

[villnis-archive]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY omg!!! i hope it is so so good <3

thank you!! <333

[probablylostrightnow]

I personally think BSI is conceptually great but was written terribly (I attribute it mainly toward it being a white guy at the helm). I've played BAS1&2 and while there are some cool narrative tie-ins to Bioshock 1, I have to warn you the game gets seriously dark and if you're thinking of playing it, it requires some trigger warnings. BAS is kind of treated like an epilogue to the main game, though I myself didn't enjoy where they decided to go w it.

Yeah, I feel like Ken Levine was probably not the right person to tell this story. (From what @servantofclio was reading, he seems to have thought of all the racism and religion stuff as... just background to the story he wanted to tell about Elizabeth and Booker? Which. Yeah. See also @nesterov81‘s reblog of my post (thank you!), which adds some interesting info about the development process.) I confess the reactions I got to BAS were mixed enough that I looked up the plot summary on Wikipedia and... once again, yeah. I can deal with a certain amount of dark but it definitely doesn’t sound like the story I’d be looking for about these characters? I might play it sometime and think of it as Levine’s weird AU fanfic of his own work. Or I might just play the original Bioshock again. swaps55 replied to your post “Well, I just finished Bioshock Infinite. Some probably not very...”

I had a lot of the same critiques about the game. I did not find BAS at all satisfying - it completely undoes anything the core game tries to impart (pardon me, been a while since I played it), in a way that is really disappointing. The first part was ok but very short. The second part was...well, why did I play the game if this is where we wind up? All those amazing new worlds...and we went back to Rapture???

Probably the comment that most convinced me to go look at the plot synopsis instead of waiting to play it. (It did leave me with a certain “it was all about... this?” feeling.) antivanrogue replied to your post “Well, I just finished Bioshock Infinite. Some probably not very...”

i haven't played BAS yet, but have been told repeatedly that it's amazing - which is interesting given the other comments on this post! i do agree in general, though. it felt like there were too many points and plot twists they were trying to fit in, and as a result nothing really worked (in sharp contrast to the first bioshock, which i thought drilled its point home beautifully). playing it was ultimately kind of a frustrating experience for me tbh.

Yeah, BAS seems to have provoked widely varying reactions. If I do play, I’ll definitely report how I feel about it. And yes, the original Bioshock felt much better crafted to me - I wonder if it benefited from not having the extensive resources that this game did, thus having to be a bit more focused? (Didn’t miss the hacking minigame, though.)Frustrated is a good word - I think I alternated between captivation and frustration. (Having to try to figure out when the last checkpoint was whenever I wanted to stop playing and go to bed kinda exacerbated the frustrated element.)Thanks for sharing  your thoughts, all!

[probablylostrightnow]

Well, I just finished Bioshock Infinite. Some probably not very well-formed thoughts, plenty of spoilers, and a question for those who’ve played it, under the cut...

The ending felt a bit like swallowing a giant exposition capsule. I can’t help but think they could’ve conveyed the key ideas with a bunch less extraneous lighthouse stuff.

Overall, I enjoyed the game and I’m glad I played it, but it really seems like a mess - the worldbuilding and the narrative both seem to come in fits and spurts (and somewhat at each other’s expense). For a while the game seems to be aiming at social commentary, but then partly through (right around the time it dispenses with its one major character of color *cough*) that seemed to fall by the wayside as the multiple-universes plot took center stage.

I probably would have figured out whose daughter Elizabeth was faster if I hadn’t taken a break in the middle to play a bunch of Diablo 3. but I’d kinda forgotten some of the earlier dialogue when that became relevant. Had not guessed that DeWitt = Comstock and that still seems like a hand-wavey and pretty much unnecessary revelation.

In both gameplay and narrative, it feels like they just kept throwing ideas at a wall to see what stuck, and no one told them that they probably had enough stuff on the wall already. (Clio, who was intermittently watching me play, theorized that was because Ken Levine was the one throwing stuff at the wall. I would not rule out this possibility.)

So... some interesting things going on, some unexpected character moments (Elizabeth and Lady Comstock - man), I loved Booker and Elizabeth’s relationship so much, gorgeous visuals and an amazing soundtrack - it’s too bad the whole thing is a mess.

Have any of you played “Burial at Sea” (the DLC)? I know it retcons some of the storyline of Bioshock (and maybe this one too)... if any of you did play, did you find it worthwhile?

[probablylostrightnow]

Bioshock Infinite spoilers...

Huh. Somehow I did not expect to end up in a literal AU. (Elizabeth just took us to an alternate universe where the guy we’re looking for is alive instead of dead. An alternate universe where Columbia was less shitty appears not to have been on the menu.)

Still loving the interactions with Elizabeth (and so proud of her for hitting Booker the protagonist with a wrench, he fucking deserved it). Still liking the glimpses of worldbuilding and interactions. Still meh on the actual shooting, though it’s more in my comfort zone now that I’ve acquired a sniper rifle and shotgun. (The game keeps throwing new guns at me, and I keep trying them out and then going back to my sniper rifle and shotgun. Apparently I know what I like. :)

[probablylostrightnow]

i'll be really interested to hear what you think of it. i found the original bioshock more nuanced than infinite, though there were a lot of clever bits in the latter. keep us posted :D

I played some more last night and enjoyed it - the place they were holding Elizabeth was so delightfully creepy, and the set piece fleeing from there was good and exciting. And I LOOOVE Elizabeth and no harm may come to her. I know the game is manipulating me to evoke these feelings and I don’t care. I will protect her from everyone, including Booker, from whom she might need it.

I’m really enjoying exploring the environments and interacting with the environment. I realized that what I’m not enjoying as much are the more “gameplay” parts - searching everything for silver eagles is a bit tedious and kind of breaks the immersion (no one minds that I’m taking all their wallets and purses and rifling through the cash registers), and the shooty bits are... fine but not really a highlight?

Elizabeth just ran off because I killed a whole bunch of people. Which - doesn’t seem so unreasonable, does it? :)

[glaivemaiden]

for the video game thing! 5 & 15 :D

5: A popular series/game you just can't get into no matter how much you try?

for ones that are actually popular across a wide spectrum of demographics, definitely Assassin’s Creed. i mean, obviously COD and shit like that aren’t my thing, but AssCreed i’ve actually played and i was always just “eh” about it. 

also i’m really, really trying with TES and Fallout but open world games do not get along with my ADHD.

i don’t really count games where i actually get attached to characters. that’s why Final Fantasy and Overwatch aren’t on this list. i can’t for the life of me play the games (spoiler alert: i’m terrified of both), but i have a lot of love for some of the characters and get invested in their stories, regardless.

15: Which two games do you think would make an awesome crossover?

uhhhhhhh. i mean, i have a really limited range of games i’ve played that would make ANY sense to cross over, but like, Mass Effect crossed over with The Last of Us would probably be hysterical, if you consider how much shit Ellie would give literally everyone, and would probably end up being coparented by Shepard and Joel (no i’m not shipping Shepard with Joel, please don’t send me down that road). 

or maybe a fighting style game like Mortal Kombat or w/e with BioWare characters vs characters from... idk, any other company. like BioWare vs Ubisoft or Bethesda.

okay, that would probably be fucking hysterical.