Sulphur on 19/12/2013 at 15:17

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Good job with the reading comprehension yourself. I don't really give a damn about #754 of GigoloTranny Cockmung's Gimbal Bollockstrophe, and I have a strong suspicion most of us here don't, either, so quoting that shit at me isn't going to aid your argument. So either take your Comic Book Guy persona back to whichever Simpsons' episode you inhabit and stay there, or choose to be a normal person who doesn't reference the sixty-fifth reissue of The Winkled Bumcleft which reinvigorated edgy pansexual BDSM in the medium when no one asked you to.

Alternate Universes are an over-used trope in comic books; you know why? Because that's the cheapest way authors can get away with retconning crap into shitty, shallow comic book universes when they're tired of writing more turgid bullshit for characters that were invented more than half a century ago and their original incarnations are barely relevant today.

This does not invalidate the fact that alternate universes are great ideas when used right, whatever be the form of media we're talking about. Bioshock Infinite managed a story out of it that didn't make me cringe, which is more than 99.678% of most comic books, so it's already done something amazing right there.

SubJeff on 19/12/2013 at 15:47

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Well this has been a bit of an indie year all around, hasn't it? I've really, really enjoyed the arty nature of so much stuff this year. It's what games were always about for me and long may it continue. The only sadness is I've not had the time to play as much as I'd have liked to, and then I got GTAV and all my game time went into that and I really enjoyed it.

I think you're being a bit harsh on comics Sulphur. I agree that dethtoll's opinions are perhaps a little coloured by all his comic exposure but that would happen to anyone, no? I know my opinions of games, films and books are altered by my exposure to other entertainment media. The Hobbit films would appear better to me if I hadn't read so much fantasy in the past I'm sure.

icemann on 19/12/2013 at 16:10

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First half I agree with. There are some excellent examples of AU's out there. Sliders was my favorite (the first 3 seasons only, went silly after that) and the AU that played through the majority of the Star Trek tv shows was also very very good. The classic black and white movie "It's a Wonderful Life" is another great example, even though that's more of a dream-based thing with that movie. MANY movies and singular episodes of tv shows have copied that movie.

The Red Alert series did the concept pretty well with time travel and the resulting AU's.

With BI though it had me going "huh that makes no sense at all" very often from a logical perspective. For example, all the containers in rooms that you'd checked in one would then still be empty over in the next one, even though you weren't there at that point to loot them. So technically they should have been refilled. And then the obvious paradoxes at the end of both the main game + Burial at Sea. By the end it felt like a big mess of circles within circles.

If it was a circle based paradox of bringing about the very thing you intended to prevent to which I can only think of one good video game example off the top of my head (inFamous on ps3, or that tv show that played out throughout Max Payne) then that's fine. But if you just say well their from a different universe so are unaffected by it then that throws a hell of alot of uncertainty into the mix, since there is technically infinite universes. Some with the most minute of differences, and others with massive ones, and so you'd never know exactly which one a particular character was from in some instances, and whether or not 2 characters were from the same one or not. Headaches soon after.

That's going very technical into it, but its what annoyed me about it.

My apologies for my part in derailing the thread somewhat, but I've always found talk on parallel universes quite interesting.

Aja on 19/12/2013 at 18:16

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I'll gladly acknowledge that Bioshock Infinite is a mess. Although I did find the gameplay to be more satisfying than most people seem to here, from a narrative standpoint it was largely incoherent and illogical.

But man, then why was I so affected by the end of it?

The other day I was watching Star Trek. Picard discovers a shuttle with himself from six hours in the future inside. Now, this is a silly plot, but that doesn't change the fact that the performances in that episode were strong. Watching Picard react in horror to seeing a weakened version of himself and empathizing with that reaction made it easy to ignore the logical inconsistencies of it all and still be moved by the dramatic aspects of the story. I think Bioshock achieves something similar.

Bioshock's greatest strength is that under its flashy, action-y exterior there is a pervasive sadness. By the time I reached the ending, it didn't matter that it didn't make logical sense because it made emotional sense. When "God Only Knows" played again during the end credits, I choked up without really being able to explain why. It hadn't hit me the first time, but it hit me now. The mood that was fostered throughout the game reached a peak that point, and all of the impending emotional weight came to bear. When Booker says "I'm both" it just doesn't matter whether or not you can work it all out in a diagram. The guilt, the regret, the sadness are what's important, and they make sense. The game was a mess, but in the end I loved it.

june gloom on 19/12/2013 at 21:52

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Congratulations, you have colossally fucking missed the point -- again. And you have catastrophically failed to read my entire posts -- again. You're so hung up on the comic books that you're refusing to listen to what I am saying -- again. I have said -- repeatedly -- that AUs are very common in sci-fi, not just comic books, and here you are going BUH DERRRPPP NOBODY CARES ABOUT UR COMIX FAGIT.

AUs and their variants are an overused trope. Period. Note that I'm not saying they're a bad trope, because it isn't, (but go ahead and ignore that little bit of nuance, because as we all know the only colors in the world are BLACK AND WHITE) but I am saying it is extremely common. Everything from Harry Turtledove to fucking It's A Wonderful Life to fucking (Tirant_lo_Blanch) Medieval literature. You want to feel superior to me because I read comics and you don't? Fine by me, BR796164, but don't mistake BSI's approach for anything besides categorically awful, uninspired, hamfisted and borderline incompetent -- i.e. it's as bad as the worst silver age comics from the 60s -- and throwing out the interesting plot for the uninteresting one. End of.

It's obvious you're not interested in an actual discussion and are simply looking to score points. Thank you for wasting my time. Again.

This conversation is over.