Comments on: An ubergeek's manifesto

An ubergeek's manifesto

mattholomew — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:48:04 -0800

Ken Levine, creator of Bioshock, gives a funny and inspiring speech about growing up geek before the internet and the era of 'geek chic'. (SLGV, and annoying age check)

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:06:56 -0800

does he explain why the endings to bioshock were so god awful?

By: mattholomew

mattholomew — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:11:23 -0800

does he explain why the endings to bioshock were so god awful? Dude, you just weren't playing it right. Kidding, I'm with you on that one.

By: Shutter

Shutter — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:36:42 -0800

I liked the ending. And I liked his talk. Though, that was the saddest hiccup ever.

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:56:24 -0800

Say wha? I really liked the endings to Bioshock. The last boss was a joke, however.

By: doctoryes

doctoryes — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:00:43 -0800

Would you kindly refrain from Bioshock spoilers? I'd agree the end isn't great, in fact I feel if you play about 80% of it, it's a far better game, but knowing the end can ruin the whole thing. His talk here on the other hand is pretty good all the way through. It seemed very honest, and was quite touching I felt.

By: jbickers

jbickers — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:04:59 -0800

does he explain why the endings to bioshock were so god awful? The "good" ending was absolutely pitch-perfect, I thought. Poignant and understated. I really envy people who have never played this game - I finished it about two weeks ago, and I keep thinking back on it.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:08:08 -0800

not finished watching yet, but so far I think Ken Levine is my hero. Even more than I did when I was playing Bioshock.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:31:44 -0800

okay, finished watching. That was pretty badass. I wish I could get out to Pax some year.

By: Lacking Subtlety

Lacking Subtlety — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:56:05 -0800

Bioshock was probably the best game I've ever played for mood and atmosphere. Maybe even design. The ending was imaginative at least and the game held a decent narrative. Which is better than, you know, almost every shooter ever. What do you want instead, Gears of War? NOW WITH MORE TOUGH GUY SWEARING!

By: hifiparasol

hifiparasol — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:10:08 -0800

the endings to bioshock I couldn't believe it when I found out that Bruce Willis was Luke Skywalker's sled the whole time. Underwater.

By: davros42

davros42 — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:11:01 -0800

Godawful camerawork though.

By: empath

empath — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:40:00 -0800

Bioshock was a horrible game for a variety of reasons. The 'moral choice' about the little sisters was a load of shit -- as if normal people even think about whether they're going to murder a little girl or not. The game is rather depraved for even presenting it as an option. Real moral choices are not that easy. And you get plenty of rewards for doing the 'nice thing' anyway. GTA IV had much better, and more realistic opportunities to make moral decisions. I actually almost shut the game off 15 minutes into it though, when you just grab a hypodermic needle and jam into your arm for no apparent reason. I did turn it off maybe 1/4 of the way into the game, when it was asking me to take pictures (stupid quest) and I sent all my ammo trying to take down a big daddy, only to find out that he didn't have a little sister with him. Between that and the stupid hacking minigame, I was done. The game was just not fun on any level, and the plot and writing were just offensively stupid. Not in the sense that the writing and acting were bad(some of it was actually rather good, taken seperately from the plot), but the entire world had gigantic, obvious plotholes that just made it impossible for me to suspend disbelief. I just didn't buy the reality of the world on any level and didn't care about what happened. I actually restarted the game several months later on the easiest level just so i could get through it, since my friends told me I needed to see the 'twist', which was, actually rather well done, but it still felt tacked on. The last sequence could have saved the whole game, but I feel like they didn't follow through on the ending that they seemed to have been going for, which was for you to actually become a big daddy at the end of the game -- to emerge 'victorious', but to be a soulless husk trapped forever beneath the ocean, wandering the halls. THAT would have been fucking awesome. The actual endings they put in the game were complete wank, and the 'good' ending was postively creepy. I understand why it got positive reviews, because at least it fucking tried, which most games don't. But Ed Wood tried, too. And that's what bioshock is, a fucking Ed Wood movie with a multimillion dollar budget.

By: humannaire

humannaire — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:29:16 -0800

And that's what bioshock is, a fucking Ed Wood movie with a multimillion dollar budget. Wow, that's what I thought of The Dark Knight!

By: humannaire

humannaire — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 22:11:37 -0800

Thanks for the post, mattholomew. Made my night.

By: dng

dng — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:32:36 -0800

Ken Levine looks and sounds like Tim Roth when he's practicing his cover story in Reservoir Dogs

By: papercake

papercake — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 05:16:40 -0800

Feel better, empath, having gotten that off your chest? I hope you can forgive us -- those who were duped by such a horrible game, and who got sucked into the world and loved the hell out of it, so much so that we mistakenly think IT'S A FUCKING FANTASTIC GAME.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 08:13:14 -0800

he didn't get it off his chest. he got it off tim rogers' chest. he's a big fan of tim's.

By: empath

empath — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:22:40 -0800

The only thing I said that was in Tim's review (as I remember it) was about the little sisters, and Jonathan Blow also said it much better than Tim did in one of his talks about integrating gameplay and story. I'm quite capable of having my own opinions about games, thank you very much. If you enjoyed the game, that's great. But games can be much better than that.

By: empath

empath — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:33:22 -0800

Seriously, it's pretty fucking classless of you to accuse me of plagiarizing. It's not worth a metafilter callout, but seriously, fuck you.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 10:49:34 -0800

i didn't accuse you of plagiarism. I accused you of biting your opinions from actionbutton. and you do. tell me to go fuck myself all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that your opinion of the game is someone else's and you chose to come in spreading some meritless haterade just because you love the hipster view of video games.

By: empath

empath — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:51:53 -0800

I'll cop to posting haterade, but I have IM logs with friends I can pull out saying exactly the same things that i just posted here from 3 or 4 months ago when I first bought the game and before I had even fucking heard of Jonathan Blow OR Tim Rodgers. I hadn't even heard of actionbutton.net until about 1 hour prior to my fpp about, and the reason that I fpp'd the fucking page was because he was saying stuff that I agreed with.

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:56:51 -0800

dude, chill. you came in here just to tell us that you hate a game the subject of the fpp made. that's your prerogative, but it's equally mine to get on your case for it. I think you're taking it too personally, though. If I were you I'd strongly try to relax a bit, think to myself "man, fuck shmegegge. he's just being a dick cause he likes shitty games," and move on. i'm really not trying to piss you off, here, I'm just busting your balls for coming in here to bust ours. You seem to think I'm taking swings at you, but in my mind I'm swinging a giant novelty boxing glove that should hurt about as much as a pillow. if you really feel that offended, then I'm sorry for offending you. but I really think this doesn't need to get that heated.