"We swim in different oceans but land on the same shore."

as much as every BioShock game is fascinating, it does feel like Infinite is on a league of its own. such an ambitious, narrative driven sequel that flips the script in every way. while i miss some of the aspects of the first two titles, it's indeniable that this is a first rate shooter still, thrilling from beginning to end.

kinda shocking how head-on this game tackles period racism and religious hypocrisy, even though it ends in a pretty centrist and non-commited position. it does bear remembering that it tells it story through Booker's eyes, and Booker's pretty far from being a good person by any means. so when he says "there's nothing different between Comstock and Fitzroy" he's pretty much conforming to his own moral deficit.

after this game, the BioShock series can be everything and anything at all, and i honestly think that's wild.

"Love is just a chemical. We give it meaning by choice."

while it has just as much of a political commentary as the original, what i find fascinanting about Bioshock 2 is what it has to say about parenthood and identity.

top notch level design, especially considering how much more vertically you're able to explore rapture this time around.

got frustrated by a couple of encounters but as a whole the gameplay is even more smooth than the first one, making good use of the fact you're playing with a walking tank.

"Why are you so resistant to the traditional methods of separating a man from his soul?"

the thing about Bioshock is that everyone talks about it like it's this immaculate masterpiece of game design and narrative that'll blow your mind and when you actually sit down to play, it really fucking is.

Bioshock, to my mind, is to the fps genre what Resident Evil 4 is to third person action. a title so polished and well thought out that it unarguably inspires everything that comes after by its mere existence.

a gameplay so elegant in it simplicity it feels like a breeze to play through almost two decades later. mixing up plasmids with firepower remains a blast and rapture still is one of the most well realized locations in gaming history, with new secrets to uncover in almost every corner.

although it's plot twist often steals the spotlight, the whole narrative is incredibly well written and well acted. the characters perfectly emulate that sort of 60's speech pattern you seen in movies, and the whole visual artstyle immerses you in the time period. it's so surreal to me that there are people incapable of seeing the political commentary in games like these. a whole story about how rampant capitalism inevitably produces rampant poverty and gives rise to fascism. there's an entire building in rapture called OPTIMIZED EUGENICS!!!

Bioshock gives control to the players and asks them if they have what it takes to break the cycle, to act contrary to our own best interest, to care about the human life even when its more valuable to end it. a staggering achievement in interactive fiction and the way we interact with it.

we give Kojima and Naughty Dog a lot of grief for making "cinematic" videogames, but for my money the letterboxes of The Evil Within are the most egregiously criminal case of this trend. it's stupid, and the game gets 10x better when you take off the damn thing.

this was interesting. a lot of resident evil vibes, with some psychological horror sprinkled through. on paper, it's rad as hell, but for me it never really coalesced into something truly special. mostly uninteresting characters in a very thin plot that's way too easy to guess. game runs on pure vibes, but the vibes are great, though. incredible visual design.

"In a world without gold, we might've been Heroes!"

probably the most well written and acted AC to date. a story about how we must take responsability for the hurt we put out into the world, one way or another. edward is a wonderful protagonist and the story is engaging. the experience is tied together by the naval gameplay, a masterclass in open world design and in-world locomotion.

only hampered by a few outdated gameplay mechanics and the modern-day section.

even years later, i still cried when i heard anne singing at the end

i feel conflicted about AC Origins. on one hand, it's a beautiful, massive and brave vision of what AC could become. on the other, it feels a bit too ambitious for its own sake. the world feels so big that the sheer scale seems daunting, but at the same time we're given very little incentive to actually interact with said world. an overabundance of mediocre sidequests quickly makes you realise that the best option is to actually boost your level and focus on the main quest. the combat is fun to engage with once you actually have the tools to do so, but its semi-RPG systems don't quite come together as well as they could.

that being said, Bayek is one of my favorite characters in all of gaming and to see that the creed started out of two parents' unbearable grief was one of the most audacious lore choices this franchise has ever taken and i love it so much.

really sad that this is volition's last game. not because it's bad, but because i had a ton of fun with it. performance issues on the ps4 and a lack of endgame content aside, it had a really likeable characters and a more sincere writing than i remember earlier saints rows having.

i remember earlier this year seeing gamers marvel at how the same team that developed the RE3 remake were responsible for the RE4 Separate Ways campaign, and i got reminded how most of them have absolutely no notion that the people who make games are professionals doing jobs, and if everyone got laid off at the first fumble, there would be no room for improvement - ever.

anyways, thanks for the good times Volition. ya'll will be missed.