A game that recklessly engages with the impossible through pure Spielbergian bombast, embodied as a cacophonous display of constantly moving variables. Unwieldy in its power and scope but undeniably contains some of the most breathtaking visual/aural spectacle ever devoted to the medium. Despite the Emporia section feeling mostly superfluous, this fixes Bioshock's drab third act dilemma and finds creative ways to open up its combat in a manner that feels intuitive and increasingly chaotic (despite some tiring enemy types). Those looking for concrete answers with its flimsy politics or consistency with its maze like plot logic may as well move on because Levine and his team are more fascinated with how these thematic devices feed into the machinations of an indelibly romantic and contemplative blockbuster mold. It feels boundary pushing in every regard and its a shame its reputation has been diminished over the years. For every bit as brutally wonky and ostentatious as it is, it's just as much genuinely poignant with its fixation on gradual world building from beginning to end. For any misgivings I may have right now its pleasures feel like the stuff of dreams.

Reviewed on Sep 19, 2020


2 Comments


Besides the ridiculous almost unreadable prose you seem to divulge in this review for English class or some shit, you do a lot of postering on how thematically “contemplative” the game is yet go into zero detail, all the while coloring legitimate grievances of its disgusting thematic loose ends and literal character destruction, as well as the overbearing fucking racism with pushing slave uprising as equivalent to complete fascism, as “might as well move on.”
Get off whatever brainworms have decided that this is a platform worth defending, because you are arguably the worst component of the game itself that you think is worth considering, that being your own ignorance.

3 years ago

Seeing as I’m an English major I use this site as a way to work out the kinks in my personal writing. If it’s not for you, then I can’t help you there.

The way I see the game is that the politics are derived entirely from the intimate perspectives of characters that have never engaged or care to engage with such ideas before besides using their surroundings and it’s denizens as tools for their own gain. Agency and moral standards shift constantly as well as their understanding of the ludicrous time traveling logic. It’s foundation of science fiction is laced shakily with racial and class politics and that in itself is built into the game’s core concept of “ignorance” in its multiple forms. That idea appeals to me. I believe the game itself doesn’t equate the uprising to the fascism that coated the rest of the game as much as its Booker/Elizabeth that rewrite and appropriate it as such; and for a story that’s about the rewriting and appropriation of history itself, it makes sense that the protagonists are complicit in acting as overlords over the fates of the oppressed and in due time that cosmic meddling leads to consequences and eventually Booker/Comstock’s demise. For me I don’t see either of them as heroes in this story but casual observers, which in its own way is toxic and counterintuitive. It’s when they finally engage by killing Daisy that the infrastructure of the narrative begins falling apart and I think that was a deliberate choice.

I can’t go into minute detail because it’s been a while since I played and this review was written long ago when I was first starting to write capsule reviews so I apologize for any inscrutability. My review isn’t meant to dismiss anyone’s grievances but seeing as the game’s reputation has already soured since release I don’t see any point in harping about the same shortcomings as most others have better articulated for something I quite enjoyed myself. In the end I’m charmed by its overzealous spectacle and eagerness to impress despite its problematic and prickly nature.