"It insists upon itself, Lewis. It insists upon itself."

17 years later, BioShock is still the most overrated game of all time. I can not think of a game more elementary relative to its praise. Fitting, then, that it would take at its subject matter Ayn Rand and libertarianism, something equally as elementary. Naturally, nerds will swallow anything up that pretends to move the industry forward artistically and maturely, even if it's on the same level as the Marvel movies.

Nevermind that the gameplay, especially the combat, is terrible. Yes, gamers, you have to have good gameplay to backup a good story. It's like if StanleyKubrick directed The Shining with just static shots and Jack Nicholson was phoning it in the whole time, but still calling it a masterpiece. That's not how this works.

I've never quite seen a game crash and burn so suddenly. Grounded starts off very strong, with a great premise and strong early progression. There's also a decent story littered with audiologs and a singular character. You soon realize everything you've seen in the first few hours is what you'll see for the rest of the game, and the story doesn't get much better. Worse yet, you have to grind for zone-specific gear, otherwise you will get stomped hard. It's borderline a hard block in what is suppose to be an open-world game.

I think Obsidian tried their hardest in venturing into new ground for them, but it's very obvious they're still playing by rules that don't apply to a game like this.