#bioshock 1 spoilers

[bioshook-wynand]

Hello fellow Ratlas enjoyers

Textless under the cut

[quicksilverdaisyday]

jack wynand and the terrible horrible no good very bad day

[vinceres-a-loser]

BioShock (2007)

[subway-sandman]

Jacks activation phrase should have been "do it for the vine"

[damiansbioshockblog]

Cohen’s new show “Patrick and Moira” was meh I used to love the theater in Frolic but it’s falling off

[chadfallout76podcast]

"Deah Shroud!: A Nick Valentine Mystery" EXPLAINED and AMA

It never occurred to me to do this last year, but a lot of people have asked me questions about our Fallout 4 play in the last year in the Discord, so I wanted to open an AMA but also explain "Death Shroud!" and some of the broader themes involved in it.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

Part 1: Pre-production

Before I get into the story, I wanted to explain how this production even came about. Over the years after working together on some official community projects with Wes Johnson through Bethesda, we became good friends. I took a couple of his acting classes and he talked about the Fallout For Hope charity initiative I started and asked for help in organizing the gaming community for his Alzheimer's Association fundraiser. The idea was to host a month-long digital event of discussion panels, game shows, improv and a play with as many different voices of video games, film and TV as we could round up. In our second year of his VoiceAPalooza fundraiser, I wanted to do an original old time radio show and see if could bring back as many of the cast that we could from Fallout 4. It was Wes who first suggested an adventure with his Silver Shroud character (that he voiced in Fallout 4's radio plays) teaming up with Nick Valentine (voiced by the amazing Stephen Russell). Valentine is, for me, one of the best written, unique companions in Fallout lore.

So, I reached out to Stephen Russell who had joined us before for charity work and he was all in on bringing Nick Valentine back to life! After that things moved fast with Bethesda's Pete Hines and Emil Pagliarulo joining us to have some fun for a good cause. We tried to get EVERY companion from Fallout 4 that we could, but schedule wrangling is tough, and some people are just impossible to track down or find. Matt Mercer would've loved to have joined us as Macready, but unfortunately scheduling didn't work, so the best we could manage would be a holotape (the only reason our snarky gun running merc had to take the big sleep in the story).

After having everyone plugged in to reprise characters, it was time to put fingers to keys and find the story...

Part 2: The Deep Lore

The origin of this story started with a thought: how would the NPC's and characters we love perceive modification of their universe by us? We, as players aren't the true creators of this universe or these characters (Bethesda is). If anything, we the players are the equivalent of "lesser gods", reshaping it in new ways, unexpected and subjective ways, and sometimes even chaotic ways (I'm looking at you avalanche of adult mods with realistic jiggle physics and Thomas the Tank Engine Vertibird).

It started with a mental image of the small ways in which we start out modding games, or even the first mods we (using the "Engine of Creation) actually create. I had a mental image of Magnolia doing her thing, singing away sultry in a crowded and smoky third rail when she looks one way, back the next and sees new curtains. A subtle thing, something a little startling, but in a universe where recreational drug use is met with a YEEE YEEEE WHEEEE...a change you simply dismiss as being overtired or a little too juiced.

I'm a sucker for old time radio. I grew up listening to classic radio horrors like The Whistler, Suspense, and Lights Out on vinyl records and cassette tapes when I'd spend summers with my grandmother on a little island off the coast of Canada. Getting the tone, feeling and sound to stage an old-time radio show was the easiest part of this whole process...it's baked into my brain lol. The key of course is finding the right narrative voice.

Enter: Bill Lobley. If you play Fallout 76, he is the announcer for the "Tales from the West Virginia Hills" holotapes, but before that he's a prolific voice actor, maybe best known for his role as the truly vile Jeremiah Fink in Bioshock: Infinite. He has a FANTASTIC transatlantic voice for old time radio and was perfect as narrator in the script.

Part 3: What Is Going On?!?!

I had the base idea, the voices to pull it off, but what was the meaning and message of the whole thing? I always start there. From a meta experience level, the story is about dealing with subjective reality that’s being torn apart. After Fallout 4 launched in vanilla, we the players changed that world and reshaped it with mods. The small changes in perceived reality are meant for the omniscient player (us) and are not meant to be perceived by the characters themselves...and yet, what if they were? And if they were...WHY?! The answer was right in front of me: there's a difference between something born into a world and something MADE into a world.

You take someone like Magnolia or Nick, both synths, that obviously weren’t naturally born from two people. They were conceived as an idea...a human idea sure, but still they were made, not born. Without even needing to say in the script, the Trickster from the Grognak comic books who shouldn't exist yet does IS also an idea. Some MADE into a world but not born...a different world sure, but still the creation of it. Nick, Magnolia, any synth as ideas themselves would sense that the world was wrong and being changed in a way no one else would because of fundamentally who they are and what they represent.

Everything that unfolds is because Nora as a keystone event in the Commonwealth, a focal point of the causal nexus making her a unique entity in that world. A causal nexus is the link between a cause and its resulting effects and ignore the science mumbo jumbo, because here's an example of how that works:

The Sole Survivor, Nora, listened to Kent's message, chose to answer him and put on the outfit of the Silver Shroud. As a unique figure she shifted perceived reality of everyone in the Commonwealth by becoming the Silver Shroud, acting like him and making people believe that a fictional character exists.

Unfettered belief and faith in an idea = manifested reality.

Rejected belief and faith in the idea = dispels that reality.

This HAS happened before in Fallout lore in the instance of people with horrifying backstories and personal tragedies choosing to become someone else such as the Mechanist (Fallout 3 and Fallout 4) or even the Ant-Agonizer (Fallout 3). This time however it was a unique figure who did this, a figure fated and meant to reshape the Commonwealth for good, bad or ugly.

This opened a door, the door through which another figure could influence and enter a new universe provided it take the form of something already in it...a reality side-step into the form of the Mechanist. Concurrently, the moment that happened, reality counterbalanced by making the Silver Shroud who was already believed to be real BECOME real as the ying to the Mechanist/Trickster's yang.

Now at home in reality, the Trickster found himself very much alive and unbound by story but had very little power to do much at all. He needed something more, an idea and faith that already existed in the Commonwealth with the infinite universe of ideas made, but not born like himself. His goal wasn't power, it was to sow chaos, reshaping reality into a realm for any and every idea despite the consequences to reality itself.

So what did he need? The belief in the Old Gods and a focus point of belief in the idea: a staff. The universe is as adaptive as it is remarkable and where the Mechanist had its opposite: the Silver Shroud, the Trickster needed its twin: enter Sheogorath...because what better staff to tear apart and reshape reality than the Staff of Sheogorath. There is a quest added in the new Skyrim Anniversary Edition in which you can build it for yourself with a few items: Branch of the Tree of Shades, Ciirta's Eye, Fork of Horripilation. In this universe it would have to fashioned with things FROM this universe.

Two eyes were needed:

The eye of a True Believer: Kent Connolly

The eye of a True Seer: Mama Murphy

Affixed to the top of a staff of the purest heartwood from a Twice Born Tree. Living wood from Harold, born a man who eventually mutated into a living tree.

Lastly, it had to be soaked in the tears of ages end: barrels of radiated blessed waters courtesy of the Cult of Atom.

The Trickster had no magic of his own in this universe in which to act, but thankfully courtesy of some powerful allies, he was able to make contact with shadowy cults and worshippers of the old gods who gave him the name of someone truly of faith in the old magic to make all of this work: Jebediah Blackhall, who in this spin of the universe did unfortunately get his hands on the cursed book: the Krivbeknah.

Finding allies was all too easy, as the events post main quest left the Commonwealth changed. To many, the Sole Survivor and his/her companions would be hailed as heroes. To others, they would be villains, particularly in light of what Nora CHOSE to do to the Railroad to end the synth threat for good. That's a lot of blood on the hands of heroes...

As the Mechanist/Trickster, Blackall and the Lombardos began using the staff, its changes and shifts in reality rippled backwards through time, as changing one specific thing would change its entire existence. You change some curtains and the manufacturer of those curtains only every made one pattern...the world object becomes changed universally. Tapping into the Engine of Creation to make these changes, leaves anyone MADE not born aware of them as they don't fit into the design as it shifts around them. Nick, Danse, Magnolia would all feel and see it, be thrown off for a bit before settling into the changed reality state.

At the climax when everything starts falling apart and you get everyone from GlaDOS and the Joker strolling on in, the only way to end it all is to separate the Trickster from the Staff and restore the saved intended state of reality. The Silver Shroud finds himself powerless against the Trickster...only someone from this universe would be able to intercede, hard wired into the Engine of Creation itself as an existing element connected throughout its framework and history. After sending the Trickster off packing to the moon (thanks GlaDOS), but its a little too late for reality. It collapses around them, finding themselves elsewhere...the point between the mind, creation and the outcome of reality.

After the Shroud fades away, Nick has the power and choice to roll the universe, his universe back along the tapestry of choices that led him here. They all were haunted by the choices they made the first time around, something Nora couldn't live with...that ultimately led her relationship with Danse to fall apart. So Nick decides to go back further, as far back as he can go and he finds himself back in his office with Ellie waking him up.

There are consequences to what he's done, that he's not yet aware of, ones that will become clear in our next episode. The synths remember, as he remembers...Danse, Magnolia and everyone else remembers the fall of the Institute. They all find themselves at their starting point, moving towards their intended fated position to encounter the Sole Survivor. For Nick? He's starting down the path that will led him to be held prisoner and meet the Sole Survivor for the first time.

As he'll soon discover however, things don't play out the same way this time. Moreover, while he was rolling back reality to an early saved state, he made a huge mistake and completely forgot about something and someone so incredibly important...

You'll have to wait to see what that is...

[hubristicassholefight]

Round 1 Part 1a

Andrew Ryan (Bioshock) vs Elias Bouchard/Jonah Magnus (The Magnus Archives)

Propaganda below the cut (Spoiler warning!)

Andrew Ryan

So you’re an objectivist tired of the world. So you build a city underwater for everyone who shares a mind like you. You think you’re so great. Then shit starts to happen. You watch people become monsters because you added zero drug regulations to your city. You have people be imprisoned and then turned into big daddies just for disagreeing with you . Third. At the end of it you just become a dictator, and go against your own beliefs. You send a woman down into the slums of rapture for disagreeing with you. You focusing so much on being so much of an Ayn Rand fanboy leads the woman with a completely different ideology than you to rise to power after your death. That’s, that’s Andrew Ryan for you.

Elinah Magchard (?)

Dude learned about evil fear gods and went "hmm power" and proceeded to feed all of his friends to fear gods, kill people to make himself immortal, emotionally kill and traumatize so many other employees, make his most manipulatable employee experience the horrors of the earth, and then force them to end the world, all so he could be his fear god's specialist little guy... and then still ended up begging for his life from said traumatized employee (who's coworkers he also got killed). The gall of this guy.

So like...he thinks he knows everything and can control everyone and he's an asshole and then one of the people in his office who he thought wasn't dangerous shows the police the recordings of him killing two people and he goes to prison and he's like "Buahh???" So yeah his hubris was thinking he was above being overthrown by the people under him ig. He's super duper obviously gay and is like really manipulative and he's a bitch but he's OUR bitch

[blond-jerk-tourney]

Blond Sweetheart Tourney: Round 1, Poll 28

Propaganda from submitters Under Cut

Sierra Petrovita

Please she is so sweet and kind and just wants to collect nuka cola (her special interest). I would burn the whole world down to get her another bottle of nuka cola quantum

Jack

My Ella Enchanted coded son!!! Look he’s committed many crimes but that’s because he didn’t have a choice mega spoilers iykyk Of course if you don’t go the good ending route hes kinda an ass but I went good ending and he was just a baby that wanted to help people

[gwenthebard]

brb going to rate every single video game ever based on the only scale that matters. Let's start with a few basic ones Bioshock Infinite 1/10, unplayable. Literally no horses or ability to ride any sort of animal. There is a single ability that has a horse based name and symbol, but that's it. Why is this so popular? Elden Ring 10/10, fucking perfect. You get a demon horse thing and you can ride it literally any time you want, he can't even die. Torrent is the best fucking thing in the world. Red Dead Redemption 2 8/10, great but has issues. You can own multiple horses, and can even groom, feed, and compliment them all you want. You have all the horsies you crave. Problem? they sometimes are out of reach of your whistle and can die and (SPOILERS) your horsie dies at the end no matter what you do Half Life 2, 0/10, no horses, no sign of horses, literally no mounts except vehicles????? What was this game thinking, why does everyone want Half Life 3 so much if there's not even a horse in these games Breath of the Wild, 9/10, horsies abound. You can love your horse as much as you want, and even get it armor that lets it teleport to you whenever you want. Lots of fun colors and designs of horses. They can die, but this is only a particular threat if you're fighting certain enemies or going out of your way to hurt them

[bioshook-wynand]

Jack isn't big because of the ADAM experiments, it's all just his mom's genetics

[purecalcium66]

holy shit furries eeeewwww

Bioshock 1 cast as doggies part one

Ok, so i need to make this post as spoilerless as possible cuz my friend who i forced kindly convinced to play Bioshock reads my posts and i really dont want them to find any spoilers

Jasmine is a cocer spaniel becouse of that one Atlas quote, you know which (i am so clever and deep wow)

Ryan is an eastern european shepherd, i know that it looks exactly like the german shepherd but it's not, you will have to trust me on this

Frank Fontaine is an american bulldog, i dunno it just fits

Brigid Tenenbaum is a rottweiler, now Jasmine is the small one heh

Atlas is an irish terrier (Steinman does wonders!) and he turned out adorable

Jack is well, a mutt

[fortressnebula]

hi! if you're already a follower, you may be confused why I'm making this - it's cause I still don't have an intro post. if you're not a follower, then hello! i'm nebula.

[a banner saying FORTRESS NEBULA, made when i was about 12]

IMPORTANT THINGS!!!1!1!

i go by he/him (they/them is cool too!)

i am bi and taken (love you cecil <3)

MEDIA I ENJOY????//??

the amazing digital circus

hazbin hotel

helluva boss

bioshock (NO SPOILERS THOUGH >:( IVE ONLY PLAYED THE FIRST GAME)

i have no mouth and i must scream

portal

outer wilds

minecraft (duh)

deltarune

so if any of those seem like your thing, feel free to shoot me a message and we can chat :D

BUT WHAT DO I POST!?!?!?!?

probably art, mostly. im an art kind of guy. you probably won't see stuff from all of those media mentioned above? but expect to see more stuff about deltarune, bioshock, IHNMAIMS, and portal.

if you've seen a little watermark that looks like this, that is me! my art will be tagged as #nebula's art

have fun, hopefully you enjoy my stuff! ^_^

[jamisonwritestf2trash]

Just finished BioShock Infinite, and oh my god, did it feel like a chore.

I see why most people tell you to play it like it isn't a bioshock game.

Spoilers below by the way

The fact that rapture, the little sisters, big daddies, and pretty much anything that has to do with BioShock 1 and 2 is only really given a throw away scene for maybe 3 minutes in the base game and given two dlc stories instead of a spotlight is insane to me.

Also, the fact that they jumped from two games with a very heavy "choices matter" and have an impact on the games ending." To "well nothing really matters so fuck it." Hurts.

It was also very convoluted, and it tried to go for this deep message without giving us a reason to care.

Also quick fire-

• I don't understand the racism aspect in the game, like maybe I'm just missing something or its period typical, but it made me uncomfortable.

•The religious aspect is tiring after about five minutes. It was just. So. Boring.

•Elizabeth gets super unlikable after the main story. I have a hard time feeling bad for her.

EDIT- ALSO the replacement from plasmids, EVEs, and ADAM to salts, vigor, and the drinks was also jaring an upsetting.

However

I know people love this game, and I don't exclusively hate it. I was just underwhelmed and disappointed.

I did like Booker and his character design/ voice actor. All the designs in infinite are very unique and visually appealing. I love the idea of Columbia being the opposite of rapture. There's probably more but I'm very tired lol.

[bodyguardbracket]

Round 1: Big Daddies (Bioshock) vs Gorilla (Miraculous Ladybug)

[Propaganda Under Cut]

Big Daddies:

This contain spoilers for bioshock the

Basically they go hand in hand. The little sisters were orphaned girls turned into creatures that collect Adam (a gene changing drug) from dead corpses. The big daddies are their body guard and the alpha series is a type of big daddy that could only pair themselves to one girl. The first example is Subject Delta (who you play as in bioshock 2) and Eleanor Lamb. Wanna know what happens if the pair bond is broken between them Yeah he will die.

But continuing with the alpha series. They’re the only hostile big daddy in the game. Every other type is neutral. Only attacking if you hurt the little sister or the big daddy himself. Why are they hostile? Because they lost their little sister.

Now the big daddies weren’t turned into big daddies by choice. Usually they were prisoners and they people Ryan suspected to be spies by the governments around the world. There’s only one case where someone turned themselves into a big daddy and that is the case for Mark Meltzer, who’s story is very tragic so I won’t go into full detail okay.

But the little sisters and big daddies are basically a scary and tragic tell him of two groups of people ripped of their identity and experimented to the point of no return (as seen with the big sisters in bioshock 2, who are grown up little sisters). Just to fulfill the research and capitalistic ideas of a few

Gorilla: His main job is to keep Adrien from harm, but other than that, nothing else. He chooses to be kind to Adrien, to lie to Adrien's father if Adrien wants to go out, to let Adrien see his girlfriend. He lets Adrien be his true self, and is almost like a father to him.

[bioshocked]

Hello, friends!

In spite of the advice of three Tumblr people, and - unbelievably - one random guy in a coffeeshop who overheard me talking to someone else about this, I played Burial at Sea.

And, well, yeah. You were all right. Guess I'm glad I played it once, but I'll never play it again. The sneaking element in Part II was a fun aspect, at least. No shade to those who enjoy it - it just ain't the game for me.

But I have a quick question for the BioShock tumblr; I'm not well-versed in BioShock lore, so bear with me, but can someone tell me how BaS contradicts the canon events of BioShock 1 and 2? I think I know why, but I'd like to wrap my head around it with people who know more than me.

Spoilers for all games under cut.

One of the main arguments against BaS was that it goes against established canon. Was this because of BaS!Atlas/Fontaine not knowing much about BaS!Jack? Because I was under the impression from the first game that Fontaine's whole schtik was that he was the person who single-handedly planned Jack's existence more or less. I was working under the assumption that Suchong and Tenenbaum worked with Fontaine on Jack, which is also how Fontaine knew about the 'Code Yellow' activation phrase about halfway through BioShock 1. Am I incorrect, or is this the contradiction? Or is there something else I'm missing?

Also I keep hearing about how BaS goes against 2 entirely, but I'm not entirely certain why. I googled it, and the answer seems to boil down to the bond between the Big Daddy and the Little Sister, and how Elizabeth was in Rapture two weeks after the NYE party where Delta was killed. But I can't get an actual, concrete answer that I fully understand - I was under the impression that the bond between Delta and Eleanor was of a different kind than the regular Big Daddy/Little Sister bond.

Thanks in advance. <3

[aortaplatinum]

Bioshock Infinite Review and Analysis

As I'm typing this, I've just completed my second playthrough of Bioshock Infinite. While I initially hated it with a passion upon finishing it for the first time, that hatred mostly stemmed from the ending, and I've actually come around on the game hard in the weeks after finishing it and in my second playthrough. I will say, if you're going into this game expecting Bioshock, you will be disappointed. I enjoy Bioshock 1 and 2 for their player choice, horror elements, toolbox-esque RPG gameplay, and deep-dives into political and sociological philosophy. Bioshock Infinite has next to none of these elements. It's an incredibly fun linear cinematic shooter with simple Halo style mechanics and an arsenal of super powers you can use in combat- but it's a horrendous Bioshock game, and outside of its title and Vigors [the equivalent of Plasmids] shares nothing at all with it's predecessors save for one fanservice scene during the ending sequence of the game.

The rest of this review contains spoilers for Bioshock Infinite's base game.

The removal of the morality system is one of the biggest hits to the game. Due to its story themes, Bioshock Infinite completely removes the binary morality system that Bioshock touched lightly on and Bioshock 2 expanded somewhat. Despite this change, there are still moments throughout the story where the player is given a choice between two outcomes. This seems to be an intentional rug-pull, considering the story's theme of determinism, but when the first two games in the series hinge on choices like this and you present them to the player in a very similar way without at all even implying that these choices don't matter, when the player realizes they DON'T, it's going to feel like an insult. I spent 10 minutes trying to decide between the bird or the cage choker Elizabeth asks you to pick for her because I was so certain one of these choices would lead to a better outcome than the other. You can let the player be a bad person here guys, the first two games had a mechanic where you could choose to murder little girls for personal gain and they rightly punished you for it. Canonically, Booker DeWitt, your player character, IS a bad person, and considering his past as a Pinkerton and at Wounded Knee, a version of him likely would do horrible things like throw the ball at the couple when at the raffle during the opening hour of the game. But all of your choices lead to the same outcome. You can be a dick and shoot innocent rando NPCs and steal during the few events where doing so has consequences, and the ending will be exactly the same as a player who did his best to be a perfect saint, without so much as a different line of dialogue. Individual, small events change immediately after your decisions, but nothing else does. Booker being indecisive at the ticket booth soon after meeting Elizabeth and getting stabbed through the hand has no bearing on the game outside of Elizabeth bandaging it for you and the aesthetic difference of Booker having a bandaged hand for the rest of the game. Mass Effect 3 has more drastically different endings than a Bioshock game, and that's a fucking travesty.

One interesting thing I don't often see in discussion on this game is how Columbia's society slightly differs from the equivalent early 20th century society of the United States of America, and one of the biggest differences I noticed is that the white women of Columbia seem to have the same rights and power in society as the white men do. There are even female soldiers among Comstock's army, roughly 1/3 of the Comstock-allied enemies you fight are women. This very likely stems from Rosalind Lutece and her contribution to both Comstock's life and to Columbian society, as the one who discovered quantum levitation through the use of her Lutece Field, and the one who created [half] of the machine that can open tears in spacetime and between dimensions. Rosalind's work paved the path to a better life for the white women of Columbia, and it makes me wonder about all the timelines where Rosalind was born black or Chinese, and the timelines where she was born male as Robert Lutece. Seeing as how the game explores multiple alternate timelines, it's a shame this concept is left untouched, and in both alternate dimensions Elizabeth opens and goes through with Booker, Rosalind is exactly the same, and Columbian society is identical.

Infinite bears that irritating late 7th gen Western game design trope of "main character who comments on everything", which works fine when Elizabeth joins you, but when it's JUST Booker for the first few hours it gets grating. I'm not at all a fan of the regenerating shield or the two weapon system with conveniently placed weapons in fight arenas. They turned Bioshock into Halo or Call of Duty.

A mark of a Japanese RPG that's made its way into this one is the animations- a lot of them are gorgeous and very detailed, but most of the time during gameplay and less important story scenes, characters will recycle canned animations [possibly mocap], and tween from key pose to key pose with no easing, it looks like a Dreamcast game at times. And they stare through you with their dead, unblinking eyes that don't actually focus on you. This is VERY noticeable with Elizabeth, since she's with you all the time. This face/eye animation problem was already solved in Half-Life 2, hell it was solved in Sonic Adventure, just have automated head and eye tracking so you don't walk up to Elizabeth to see her take on something and she's just staring out at nothing with unblinking eyes. It's uncanny and inconsistent.

With the animations and the lack of choice in mind, this is a Western RPG designed like a Japanese RPG; you're EXPERIENCING this story, not being a part of it.

That said, the well-balanced, engaging gameplay of the first two games is improved upon here, and the PC release itself is VERY well optimized, letting me play at max settings with no frame drops on hardware that would have been considered mid-range when this game released. The new Plasmid replacements, Vigors, are fun to use and, again, balanced.

One thing that's REALLY cool is the dynamic soundtrack- the battle tracks have lead-ins and lead-outs that play seamlessly with the start and end of fights, and a sting that plays when you get a kill, which makes sniper headshots that much more exhilarating.

It is VERY easy, and quite dumbed-down. I've already talked about the 2-weapon limit and the automatically recharging shield making the gameplay feel like Halo, but the lack of manual saving shows just how little faith Irrational Games had in their audience. So of course game journalists loved the game lmao

People complained about Bioshock 2 feeling like an expansion to Bioshock 1 instead of a sequel, and it seems like the development team took those criticisms to heart, making a game so far removed from what "Bioshock" is as a series, that it's more enjoyable as a standalone game that's a spiritual successor. I think I would have enjoyed this game MORE if nothing but the title was different. If it were called Columbia: City in the Sky or if it were called Spacetime Tears, I wouldn't have gone in with Bioshock expectations, so I wouldn't have been disappointed. I'm very glad Ken Levine's next game is titled Judas- even if it sucks, I won't be expecting Bioshock out of it, so I'll be able to judge it on its own merits instead of comparing it to the other three games.

It's a terrible Bioshock game but a really good narrative-focused shooter.

I did spend more time having fun with it than I spent groaning at its story and presentation though. It's a great game wrapped in a confusing and poorly presented story, I like it a lot but after my second playthrough on hard difficulty it seems to me that the further you get into the game the lower the quality is. It starts strong and could END strong but drops the ball.