Why is this game so overrated?

[Snickers]

Finally brought myself to play it during the sale and was amazed how much it failed to live up to the hype. It looked so good at the begining then devolved into a boring corridor shooter with a schizophrenic story. "Overwhelmingly Positive???" What the hell?

[Gurkhal]

Loved the game myself and found it very interesting in its unusual, at least to me, setting and that it went to kick against extreme right and extreme left at the same time. Good game in all and while not everything was roses I certainly had a blast playing it! The only thing I feel a bit sad about is that the DLCs sent us back to Rapture and didn't give us more oppertunity to play in Colombia, which as a setting I found more interesting than Rapture. But each to their own and I wonder what kind of setting a new BioShock game will be set in.

[Transdude1996]

Originally posted by Gurkhal:

But each to their own and I wonder what kind of setting a new BioShock game will be set in.

Read this:

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/impossible-cities/

[Gurkhal]

Interesting text, thanks for sharing!

[Xylber]

Feel the story, pay attention to dialogs, and you will enjoy it. If you only want to kill people without any problems, play Doom4 (fun game, of course, but different style).

[Solarmech]

Originally posted by Gurkhal:

But each to their own and I wonder what kind of setting a new BioShock game will be set in.

Read this:

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/impossible-cities/ [/quote]

Thanks for sharing that. sm

[Wingress]

Originally posted by Solarmech:

Originally posted by Gurkhal:

But each to their own and I wonder what kind of setting a new BioShock game will be set in.

Read this:

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/impossible-cities/

Thanks for sharing that. sm [/quote]
wow dude, you're here too

[Solarmech]

Yeah, I stick my nose in all over the place. sm

[Rafael Freeman]

There is a difference between a plot and a story. The story of BioShock Infinite is amazing, but not everybody gets it or cares about a great story in a video game.

And that is fine. But professional critics tend to care about a game with a great story and rated the game accordingly.

The game does have a few problems though and one of those problems is that the story is primarily told through the audio logs.

[Transdude1996]

Originally posted by rafaelherschel:

There is a difference between a plot and a story. The story of BioShock Infinite is amazing, but not everybody gets it or cares about a great story in a video game.

And that is fine. But professional critics tend to care about a game with a great story and rated the game accordingly.

The game does have a few problems though and one of those problems is that the story is primarily told through the audio logs.

That's been a huge problem with reviewing games everywhere.

Take for instance Doom 2016 and Spec Ops: The Line. Both games have great singleplayer, but fail in in the multiplayer department. So, at that point, how do you weigh the product's rating? You could go ahead and give the game the highest ratings possible, but then that's misleading because that would also imply that the rest of the game shines just as well as the single player. However, when ever a reviewer does give a game an apropriate rating (Because they're rating the game as a whole), they're attacked left and right for not "understanding" or "correctly playing" the game when, really, some aspects and gameplay for the game were not that good.

Then, there's also those nuts out there that attack anyone and everyone who doesn't give Skyward Sword, Uncharted 4, and/or Gears of War 3 anything lower than a 10/10.

I guess the moral of the story is actually read the reviews, do not just go by the score or positive support.

[Rafael Freeman]

Originally posted by Transdude1996:

Originally posted by rafaelherschel:

There is a difference between a plot and a story. The story of BioShock Infinite is amazing, but not everybody gets it or cares about a great story in a video game.

And that is fine. But professional critics tend to care about a game with a great story and rated the game accordingly.

The game does have a few problems though and one of those problems is that the story is primarily told through the audio logs.

That's been a huge problem with reviewing games everywhere.

Take for instance Doom 2016 and Spec Ops: The Line. Both games have great singleplayer, but fail in in the multiplayer department. So, at that point, how do you weigh the product's rating? You could go ahead and give the game the highest ratings possible, but then that's misleading because that would also imply that the rest of the game shines just as well as the single player. However, when ever a reviewer does give a game an apropriate rating (Because they're rating the game as a whole), they're attacked left and right for not "understanding" or "correctly playing" the game when, really, some aspects and gameplay for the game were not that good.

Then, there's also those nuts out there that attack anyone and everyone who doesn't give Skyward Sword, Uncharted 4, and/or Gears of War 3 anything lower than a 10/10.

I guess the moral of the story is actually read the reviews, do not just go by the score or positive support.

A rating-system is always going to be problematic, but I think the real problem is that it is so difficult to describe what a game is.

I sort of understand the criticism of BioShock Infinite, because what makes Infinite great, lies outside of the strict definition of what a game is.

You mentioned Doom and that game is really an odd duck. I can't understand why it was heavily marketed as a multiplayer game and why it wasn't given to reviewers before the launch date. It seems that sometimes even the publishers get confused.

[☢ GoldFish (SVK) ☢]

Originally posted by Konijn:

this game is UNDERrated

How can a game, which was a huge commercial and critical success and won tons of awards, be considered as underrated? O.O

[Rafael Freeman]

Originally posted by Goldfish:

Originally posted by Konijn:

this game is UNDERrated

How can a game, which was a huge commercial and critical success and won tons of awards, be considered as underrated? O.O

It wasn't a huge commercial success. Although the game has sold over 11 million units, the initial full-price sales number of 4 million units was a disappointment, considering the huge development and marketing budget.

There has been a discussion about how much was spend to make and promote the game, but my guess is that the game should have sold at least six to eight million in the first four months for it to be considered to be a financial success. And I suspect that the publisher was hoping for a solid 10 to 12 million copies.

[Solarmech]

It has been stated by Ken Levine that what some people have said was cost of the game and marketing (100 million for development, 100 million for marketing) was way *way* over the actuall budget. While the game may not have been considered a *huge* financial success to some people, it certainly was success. 2K probably had overinflated expectations for the game. sm

[Rafael Freeman]

Originally posted by Solarmech:

It has been stated by Ken Levine that what some people have said was cost of the game and marketing (100 million for development, 100 million for marketing) was way *way* over the actuall budget. While the game may not have been considered a *huge* financial success to some people, it certainly was success. 2K probably had overinflated expectations for the game. sm

We'll never know. It took 5 years to develop the game and costs do tend to balloon. It depends on how much additional staff was used.

Based on the number of developers and designers on the regular staff, plus overhead (bookkeeping, office space, and human resources) I would say that 40 to 50 million in development cost for the core team would be not unexpected.

Then there is stuff like licensing the engine, translations, voice action and using freelancers / short trem staff to meet deadlines.

As I understand it there was a lot of stuff developed that wasn't actually used in the game.

And the price we pay for a game is not revenue for the publisher. Retail takes a cut and there is sales tax.

[The Black Baron]

People buy into the hype of the media . The dev studio ran out of money half way through and obviously fired the people with the great design choices. This is sadly what it devolved into a boring pretencious hallway shooter with regenerateing armour. The twist of the story was obvious for everyone who played the 10 and 15 min demos wich came out years ago.