StaceyPowers

Thank you. “Strong grasp on reality.” That is exactly the matter in question here. If a video game really did “influence” a given person to commit a violent act, what that draws into question is the person’s psychology. That person must have a difficult time identifying the difference between the fantasy world in the game (where there are no real consequences) and the real world (where there are real consequences). Such a person is likely either 1-young and developing, and just needs more time and parental guidance, or 2-is an adult and requires psychological help from a professional so that they can learn the difference between fantasy and reality. It is this psychosis in their brain that ultimately produced their actions. Video games do not feature actual violence. They feature simulated violence. No harm is done on any entity. When you riddle your pixelated opponent with bullets, nobody hurts. Nobody bleeds. Nobody dies. Nobody’s will is violated. There is literally no commonality there with an actual act of violence which entails pain, harm, loss of function, death, etc. for an actual person. An actual violent video game would be one where if you push a button, a real living being on the other end would experience some kind of suffering. This thankfully is not something that exists. For a lot of us, gaming provides a safe psychological outlet where we can broaden our range of experiences without any actual loss of control. It’s also worth pointing out that there are violent video games that teach lessons in morality. I would say that the BioShock series or The Last of Us are prime examples. Both series send messages of hope, kindness, love, and protection of the innocents.

Excellent analysis, and you’ve expressed your thoughts really clearly. I completely agree with you that the entire philosophy behind Rapture was flawed from the off. The irony to me is that Fontaine did exactly what Andrew Ryan encouraged everyone in Rapture to do with its runaway cut-throat capitalist ideology. And Rapture ended the way that it would inevitably end. Ryan was surprisingly naïve in his belief that the system he put in place was sustainable. I hear a lot of people say this, though I liked it. It didn’t have any “twists” in it and lacked the cleverness of both BioShock 1 and Infinite, but I thought it still told a solid story, albeit one which was more interesting personally than politically. Although I did like that it took on collectivism and its dangers when taken to extremes. What do you feel would have made for some improvements in the plot? One thing that did irritate me was that I really wished Eleanor had killed her mother in my playthrough, but alas, the only way I can make this happen is apparently to make decisions earlier in the game that feel lousy to me.

Fast-forwarding to 2020 since @skyfire bumped this thread. Assuming the expected backwards compatibility with PS4 games on PS5, I can finally catch up on the current gen, lol. On my wish list are: RDR 2 The Outer Worlds The Last of Us 2 Innocence: A Plague Tale No Man’s Sky Fallout 4 BioShock: The Collection (because remasters)

The lighting in BioShock 1 was a lot dimmer, especially outside. Like you'd look out on the city, and it'd mostly be blackness ... and lights floating in the darkness. The illumination overall was brighter in BioShock 2, though the water was murkier. I think you're onto something. The city had more of an aura of mystery about it in the first game because of how it was lit.

Yeah, exactly. This whole situation was confusing and left me unsure how to react to it emotionally. Is this ending bittersweet, or is it just sad with respect to Delta? A contrast with the clear, straightforward ending of BioShock 1 (where I got the happy victorious ending when I played). Now I think about it though, it is yet another way in which the game paved a road of ambiguity for an ambiguous conclusion to Infinite as well (so many connections, despite Levine not working on BioShock 2). Though I felt like more thought and care was put into Infinite’s ambiguous ending, and that the end scene after the credits in that game was a bit of a reference to Schrödinger’s cat and whatnot. I am hoping that on my next playthrough of BioShock 2, there will be more clarity for me with the ending events. But … probably not =D

I'm glad you enjoyed it! I think there was something cooler about the lighting in the first game, but it's hard for me to explain why it was cooler. But Rapture still was awesome to explore more of, and I loved the story/characters. Also, it's almost odd Ken Levine didn't work on BioShock 2, given how strongly the themes seem to link to Infinite's.

Wait, I won last month? I completely missed that somehow =D Thank you to everyone, albeit belatedly! I nominate everyone already nominated along with @The Blackangel.

The really bad situation I was in was when it was the admins that needed to be reported. In an MMO, the admins played as “gods,” and we were involved in an “event” where we were at war with one of the gods and his followers. He was supposed to play by a certain set of rules so that we had a shot at winning, but he was cheating. We tried repeatedly to report him to the other admins, who ignored us. I found out years later he did eventually get fired for cheating, and felt both vindicated and annoyed that it didn’t happen earlier. In that same game, I had a friend who was being sexually harassed by a player she was pretty sure was the RL boyfriend of one of the admins. Not only did the admin refuse to do anything about it, but when another of my friends went to help her, the admin banned his character permanently. You can see some of the reason why I didn’t last there.

I actually heaved a breath of relief when I was not forced to endure a sex scene in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Oh, on this note, arguably the funniest clunky sex scene I’ve seen is in Origins when Morrigan gets it on with either the player or Loghain late in the game, and suddenly, out of nowhere, she is wearing a bra which she most definitely has not been wearing for the rest of the game. Like, what’d she do, walk up to Leliana and be like, “Need to borrow your bra? To be having sex, one Must be wearing a bra?”

Exactly, that sounds good to me. That is where I am at too. I mean, I won’t mind if there is an MMO, as long as there is not only an MMO. If for no other reason than “more cool maps to explore,” an MMO could be fun. In which case, I guess a straight up arena shooter would work for me. But there needs to be a single player game. People who play BioShock games come for the worlds, the stories, the characters, the political, philosophical and social commentary, and the ambiance. You can have ambiance anywhere, but you need a single player narrative to really create a top-shelf experience with the rest.

Great story, and exactly on topic with what I was talking about. And a refreshing point of view too. I actually originally was that newbie who was going and razing some low level town for XP in that same game. I didn’t even think about the bad RP logic. I was playing “evil,” but I hadn’t really thought that through in any meaningful fashion—it just looked like a cool guild to join and they were aligned that way. A high level player came along and proceeded to disable me while lecturing me about the evil of my ways for the next five minutes before actually killing me =D It was the most “real” thing that had happened to me in the game, so I ended up switching sides and joining his cause. I ended up spending a ridiculous amount of time defending that village over the next RL year. Good times.

I think there is a specific cognitive bias which causes people to be prone to liking that which is familiar--i.e. if a person hears a pop song on the radio enough times, they may lean toward liking it by default over time, even if they originally did not.

Have you ever played a game that changed your life in a dramatic fashion, whether directly or indirectly? I can say that a couple of video games changed my life permanently. The first was Myst, which changed how I looked at the world and what might be possible. It also steered me toward becoming a writer. The second was an MMO I used to play. None of the friendships I made there lasted, but I took so many lasting life lessons away from the experience which have impacted everything from how I build personal relationships to how I conduct my business with respect to customer service. Playing that game was one of the defining events in my life, however silly that sounds. What about you? Has a video game changed your life?

Yes, that won't work in a video game =D I can only bluff via betting patterns, i.e. by creating a false trail based in logic. Though you'd be correct in ascertaining I'd be interested in your bluffing lessons IRL :)

I was reminiscing with someone recently over an MMO we used to play like a decade ago, and I laughed when I found out that in some respects, the essential conflict is still the same. Basically, most of the players kill villager NPCs to level up, which then re-spawn. But if one is trying to RP logically, the villagers must be treated like real people. Thus, one might feel compelled to wage a war over the villagers (if playing “good”). But then, all the other players complain that one is being unreasonable by protecting them. This sort of thing drove me crazy back when I played. I just couldn’t get over how illogical and inconsistent it was to throw a fit in an RPG when someone (like me) behaves in an IC way by protecting the villagers. Yes, it makes leveling harder, but that’s an OOC complaint. But somehow, I could never get these people to grok that. Does anyone else get annoyed when they see inconsistencies in how other players RP in MMOs?

I can relate to that. Nothing more annoying than an escort mission with a useless NPC that does nothing but drive a person crazy until they are delivered to their destination. What really sucks is when the game doesn’t allow you to kill them later.

I think I could go for a game that takes place in Rapture before the fall, just so we could see a bit more of what it was like than we did in Burial at Sea. But I also would prefer a new city. It's a big multiverse, after all. Not sure how I'd feel about an MMO ...

For some reason, passive abilities always confuse me, and I tend to forget to set them up to use in games where they exist. It’s almost like I see them as an administrative hassle =D

The moment I read the title of this post, I thought "zombies and skeletons." I'll also add spiders to the bunch.

Alas, money, and not logic, rule the day … Or, to paraphrase what I heard Marston say last night in RDR, “So long as there is money and guns, there will never be freedom.”

For years it has seemed (to me at least) as if console companies have done their best to push gamers forward, always encouraging us to buy new games, and to do that, they have encouraged us to stop playing our old games by not supporting a lot in the way of backwards compatibility. I’ve never thought that this was a great business model, and neglects the fact that most of us are going to continue to try to find ways to play our old games if possible while still purchasing new games. I know that Microsoft has been better in this respect than Sony for a while. I never upgraded to a PS4 because of the lack of backwards compatibility with PS3 games. But I have noticed a change in tone lately from Sony and Microsoft both (particularly Sony). Both companies seem to be moving more and more in the direction of increasing backwards compatibility, and they seem less “grudging” about it. But I could be wrong in all this, and it might just be my perception. Do you all think that backwards compatibility is going to become a bigger deal going forward, and that it will be more available? Or do you think that Sony and Microsoft will continue hoping that we’ll lose interest in our old platform games?

BioShock Infinite features a number of cool song covers, including this memorable cover of God Only Knows by the Beach Boys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7ogV49WGco What other video games feature song covers that you have enjoyed? Anyone have any videos to share?

Does anyone have any useful tips for bluffing the AI opponents in RDR when you are playing poker? So far, I have been getting away with the continuation bet from time to time, but I still have a hard time executing a successful bluff. Does anyone know if there are, for example, bet thresholds where AIs are more likely to be successfully fooled? Or specific scenarios where the bluffing is most likely to be effective (i.e. like my continuation bets)?

What is an obscure classic PC game that you really love which most people don’t seem familiar with? One I miss a lot is Heaven and Earth, a puzzle game that ran in DOS. I’ve never run into anyone who knows it. In fact, every time a puzzle makes me angry in another game, I lament the loss of a game that made me actually enjoy puzzles, and wish there were a way to play it again. I’m curious if anyone here played Heaven and Earth. What obscure old PC games do you miss?

Sometimes I am tempted by deals on PS4 games, even though I do not have a PS4. I reason that I should be able to play them later on PS5. But I usually talk myself out of making the purchases. Do you buy games for platforms you don’t possess when you spot them cheap, just so you have them?