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Last of Us and BioShock Infinite are the same game
- Thread starter mindsale
- Start date
OP
OP
The analogy isn't perfect, both both factions are very similar and ultimately both characters meet their end because of a desire to kill a child.
I'd argue Daisy Fitzroy does indeed start innocently (as Lady Comstock's attendant), but she both she and Marlene use violence as a means to an end throughout their games. The very first time you meet Daisy she tasks you with amassing stockpiles of arms via gunsmith Chen Lin.
The real one is Zelda and Metal Gear.
Both series started as 8-bit top down action adventure games about exploring a seamless world, collecting items to further progress, defeating bosses that raise your health (Zelda, Metal Gear).
Followed up by an NES sequel that's considered the black sheep of the series, has numerous side scrolling elements, has a title with the hero's name in it (Zelda II, Link's Adventure, Snake's Revenge).
Next came a game that set the series back on track by being a bigger and better evolution of the first game, and basically became the blueprint for what was to come (Link to the Past, Metal Gear 2).
In 1998 the first 3D game is released. It's essentially the previous game in the third dimension, but overall it's considered a masterpiece that blends graphics, storytelling, and gameplay to become an all-time milestone. (Metal Gear Solid, Ocarina of Time)
A weird experimental follow-up is released that reuses assets from the original game is released. (MGS: VR Missions/Integral, Majora's Mask)
There's a Game Boy game made by a different team that a lot of people hold up as a secret gem that's better than many of the main games. (Oracles, Ghost Babel)
The first full sequel is released on next gen systems. It's hyped up with a trailer that does not reflect the final game. The protagonist is mocked for not being mature and cool enough. The level design is derided for being too repetitive. A large part of the story involves traveling over islands in the ocean, except they didn't have enough development time to let you see all of them so some of them get destroyed mid-story. A large part of the story is, in fact, about expectations and living in the shadow of the previous game, wherein the protagonist proves themselves to be their own hero. They descend to the bottom of the ocean to discover a dark secret about the world. They eventually have a sword duel on top of a stone building against a bearded former ruler of a country (who wields twin swords) who tries to explain that he has sympathetic reasons for his actions. (MGS2, Wind Waker)
The controversy of that game causes the next one to try and return to more familiar trappings. It's brown and dark and the main hero is a "badass" again. They start out the game being injured and having to team up with a mysterious woman who secretly has her own agenda and is just using you at first (you have to escort her when she's wounded). There's a sequence at the end where you and a woman are riding, and the other is shooting at the main bad guy who's chasing you around while riding himself. (MGS3, Twilight Princess)
There's this really weird moment where a shooting gallery spinoff is announced. (Link's Crossbow Training, MGS: Touch)
The next big console release is somewhat divisive. It's very cinematic, its world is compartmentalized, it's super linear. The story spends a lot of time trying to explain why everything in the series happened. (MGS4, Skyward Sword)
The series producers decide it's time to make a change. They begin experimenting with a handheld game that contains all new gameplay elements and radically changes the overall structure of the series to up-end series conventions. (Peace Walker, A Link Between Worlds)
Following the success of the handheld game, the blueprint is set for the big reinvention of the franchise on console: a massive open world game. The protagonist wakes up in a medical bed after being in a coma for years, suffering from partial memory loss. It turns out that prior to the game's start, they were attacked and nearly killed when the villain sprung their trap, also killing many of the hero's comrades in arms. They now need to get their bearings and build up their strength to avenge those lost. To do so they'll need to travel the world, scouting outposts and clearing them of enemies, gathering materials, avoiding or befriending wildlife, using their anachronisticly hyper advanced holographic tablet that's also a camera and map, and more. Want to use a classic piece of series equipment to slide down a hill? Sure! Oh, and he has a ponytail now for some reason. A lot of the cutscenes are sparse affairs where someone just talks while the protagonist just stares at them, which upsets people who enjoyed the story elements of the series, but it's treated as a masterpiece by most of the world (MGSV, Breath of the Wild)
Both series started as 8-bit top down action adventure games about exploring a seamless world, collecting items to further progress, defeating bosses that raise your health (Zelda, Metal Gear).
Followed up by an NES sequel that's considered the black sheep of the series, has numerous side scrolling elements, has a title with the hero's name in it (Zelda II, Link's Adventure, Snake's Revenge).
Next came a game that set the series back on track by being a bigger and better evolution of the first game, and basically became the blueprint for what was to come (Link to the Past, Metal Gear 2).
In 1998 the first 3D game is released. It's essentially the previous game in the third dimension, but overall it's considered a masterpiece that blends graphics, storytelling, and gameplay to become an all-time milestone. (Metal Gear Solid, Ocarina of Time)
A weird experimental follow-up is released that reuses assets from the original game is released. (MGS: VR Missions/Integral, Majora's Mask)
There's a Game Boy game made by a different team that a lot of people hold up as a secret gem that's better than many of the main games. (Oracles, Ghost Babel)
The first full sequel is released on next gen systems. It's hyped up with a trailer that does not reflect the final game. The protagonist is mocked for not being mature and cool enough. The level design is derided for being too repetitive. A large part of the story involves traveling over islands in the ocean, except they didn't have enough development time to let you see all of them so some of them get destroyed mid-story. A large part of the story is, in fact, about expectations and living in the shadow of the previous game, wherein the protagonist proves themselves to be their own hero. They descend to the bottom of the ocean to discover a dark secret about the world. They eventually have a sword duel on top of a stone building against a bearded former ruler of a country (who wields twin swords) who tries to explain that he has sympathetic reasons for his actions. (MGS2, Wind Waker)
The controversy of that game causes the next one to try and return to more familiar trappings. It's brown and dark and the main hero is a "badass" again. They start out the game being injured and having to team up with a mysterious woman who secretly has her own agenda and is just using you at first (you have to escort her when she's wounded). There's a sequence at the end where you and a woman are riding, and the other is shooting at the main bad guy who's chasing you around while riding himself. (MGS3, Twilight Princess)
There's this really weird moment where a shooting gallery spinoff is announced. (Link's Crossbow Training, MGS: Touch)
The next big console release is somewhat divisive. It's very cinematic, its world is compartmentalized, it's super linear. The story spends a lot of time trying to explain why everything in the series happened. (MGS4, Skyward Sword)
The series producers decide it's time to make a change. They begin experimenting with a handheld game that contains all new gameplay elements and radically changes the overall structure of the series to up-end series conventions. (Peace Walker, A Link Between Worlds)
Following the success of the handheld game, the blueprint is set for the big reinvention of the franchise on console: a massive open world game. The protagonist wakes up in a medical bed after being in a coma for years, suffering from partial memory loss. It turns out that prior to the game's start, they were attacked and nearly killed when the villain sprung their trap, also killing many of the hero's comrades in arms. They now need to get their bearings and build up their strength to avenge those lost. To do so they'll need to travel the world, scouting outposts and clearing them of enemies, gathering materials, avoiding or befriending wildlife, using their anachronisticly hyper advanced holographic tablet that's also a camera and map, and more. Want to use a classic piece of series equipment to slide down a hill? Sure! Oh, and he has a ponytail now for some reason. A lot of the cutscenes are sparse affairs where someone just talks while the protagonist just stares at them, which upsets people who enjoyed the story elements of the series, but it's treated as a masterpiece by most of the world (MGSV, Breath of the Wild)
Yes, circa 2013 was the heyday of the burgeoning "Troy Baker-voiced badass becoming a father figure to a young woman" genre.
Love both games, Infinite is my favorite though. I hate all the revisionist takes in the years since that now regard it as a bad game.
Love both games, Infinite is my favorite though. I hate all the revisionist takes in the years since that now regard it as a bad game.
The comparison isn't just not perfect, it's a massive reach. Marlene is and always has been willing to make tough and violent decisions for the greater good, and as mentioned, her decision to sacrifice Ellie, someone she herself raised and deeply loves, to potentially save all of humanity, is a virtuous not murderous one. Could or would you sacrifice your daughter/adopted daughter for the potential cure for humanity?
It's also what Ellie's always wanted. It's literally the reason for the transport mission that is the crux of the entire games journey.
It's Joel who's (continually) murderous by killing the Fireflies and Marlene along with the chance to save humanity, just so he can selfishly continue to play father figure. Something Marlene could have selfishly chosen too, but didn't.
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Yeah I can buy that theme, it just gets messy when you're drawing so heavily from real world events. If you're setting up a conflict between a racist ultranationalist power structure and a far-left resistance group, and the conclusion you draw is "well actually power corrupts all, both are bad"... it just feels like you aren't saying much of value at all.
They can't be the same game because I enjoyed Bioshock Infinite and I couldn't be bothered to play more than about three hours of TLoU.
Yeah! While there are some similarities in the narrative, Marlene suddenly turning murderous is not one of them.
Even if we don't know much of Marlene's backstory, it's quite safe to assume she's exactly the same in the beginning as she's in the end, only circumstances were different. She would've done the same right at the beginning if presented with a situation that put the end goal in danger.
Even if we don't know much of Marlene's backstory, it's quite safe to assume she's exactly the same in the beginning as she's in the end, only circumstances were different. She would've done the same right at the beginning if presented with a situation that put the end goal in danger.
"You know Lutece, the real Constants were the Variables we encountered along the way."
It all makes sense.
It's there!
All there!
Though, to my recollection, TLOU doesn't have a big fuck off metal bird.
- Troubled grizzled Dad suffering with loss and Daughter (surrogate)
- Cartoonishly evil villains to compensate for the Main Character's violence and unlikeability.
- Stupidly large amount enemies in a world were there shouldn't be (Clouds/ supposed apocalypse)
- Insufferable discourse and think pieces by people who have just learned the phrase "ludonarrative disonnance"
- Both being entertaining enough whilst being about as "deep" as Olympus Mons.
- Both have story DLC that is infinitely better than the main story.
- Troy Baker!
It's there!
All there!
Though, to my recollection, TLOU doesn't have a big fuck off metal bird.
This is all very selective though, you don't mention minish cap or 4 sword games. In MGSV
you don't even play Big Boss
this is a baaaaaad take on marlene... I can't even begin to describe how bad
OP
OP
Nadine Ross is the woman of color in Uncharted 4. Marlene?
whoops, yes.Marlene. This is a baaaad take on Marlene. My bad.
you know, because Marlene wasnt just out there being a murderer and She wasnt an antagonist.
OP
OP
Journey to the West and Journey and Hard West are all a sequel to Data East.
While playing through Infinite was a bit of a disappointment, I will always be enraptured by the studios use of imagery to evoke the player's response.
There's so many things going on visually in Colombia (beyond bad fruit), so much that the game is trying to impart on you. The use of art and propaganda within the game truly fascinates me, with the Hall of Heroes serving as a testament to the use of both as a means of control.
(This is me saying something nice about Bioshock Infinite, because lord knows it could use some nice words every so often)
There's so many things going on visually in Colombia (beyond bad fruit), so much that the game is trying to impart on you. The use of art and propaganda within the game truly fascinates me, with the Hall of Heroes serving as a testament to the use of both as a means of control.
(This is me saying something nice about Bioshock Infinite, because lord knows it could use some nice words every so often)
I feel like there are a ton of surface similarities, but anyone who seriously thinks Bioshock Infinite has writing on par with The Last of Us, just LOL. And obviously, gameplay and level design are very different.
Okay, this isn't for real. You cannot compare holding a child hostage at gunpoint to the unexpected fact that the cure will kill ellie.
Last of Us is actually Children of Men
- Dystopian world that is in ruins
- Remains of the government held in place by fascist military rule
- Disillusioned hero who lost his child
- "chosen one" a young girl that is immune to what affects everyone else
- Hero reluctantly decides to escort this girl to safety
- Heroes best friend, a tough woman, dies on the journey
- Rebel group that opposes the military, and uses an animal as moniker (Fishes/Fireflies)
- Rebel group that wants to use the girl for their own purposes and turn out to be no better than the military
Specially when the first has such a strong racial implication when both siding them
It's not a bad game but it doesn't deserve the scores it got. Maybe it's revisionist for some people just now jumping on the "Infinite bad" bandwagon but I played it when it came out and my thoughts on it have always been the same:
+ Amazing visuals and art direction
+ Great soundtrack and voice acting
+ Skylines are a novel addition and a ton of fun to use
- Unsatisfying gunplay compared to other popular first-person shooters
- Fake deep story and ham-fisted use of themes
- Shallow world design compared to BioShock 1*
- Bafflingly poorly thought-out weapon progression**
- Disappointing and frustrating boss encounters (disappointing = Songbird, frustrating = ghost of Lady Comstock)***
* To elaborate, in BioShock 1 the superpowers had an in-world justification for their existence. The development of plasmid technology is a core part of the story in BioShock 1 and so of course you find them throughout the world and get to use them yourself. In BioShock Infinite, the vigors exist because it's a BioShock game and they couldn't just not include superpowers in a BioShock game. The same issue is present to a lesser extent with the audio logs. It makes sense that people were recording their thoughts and feelings during the fall of Rapture as the city was going to hell and they didn't want the knowledge of how it happened to die with them. In Columbia, there are audio logs all over the place because... I don't know why.
** Unlike in the previous games, in Infinite you can only carry two weapons at a time. This is already a downgrade from the previous games since being able to carry multiple weapons added some much-needed variety to the decidedly limp-feeling shooting. This wouldn't be the end of the world on its own, but BioShock Infinite carries over the upgrade system from previous games despite it being straight-up incompatible with the 2-weapon limit. Got a favorite weapon? Don't bother upgrading it, because once you reach a certain point in the game, you'll stop running into enemies that drop ammo for it. At that point, you'll be forced to drop it and pick up something else you can actually find ammo for. This problem could have been avoided or at least alleviated massively by the removal of the Vox Populi weapons which are basically just reskins of existing weapons from earlier in the game.
*** Infinite spends the whole game teasing an epic final showdown against Songbird, and in the end it never happens. You just press a button to make it attack blimps. The ghost of Lady Comstock is incredibly frustrating to fight on higher difficulties because she will spawn enemies to fight you INFINITELY and if you keep dying, you'll eventually run out of ammo and at that point you're basically screwed. It's been almost 8 years and I still remember how infuriating this encounter was.
I could go into greater detail but at this point I think people have made up their minds on whether or not they like the game. It does some things well, but it also does some things very poorly.
Ellie is in The Last of Us' artbox. Elizabeth isn't on Bioshock Infinite's. I'll never forget this bizarre thing.
OP
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I completely agree. It was a shitty decision to pander to male FPS enthusiasts. I really loved the reverse cover art on the initial run of Infinite (Songbird against a red background) and the Saturday Evening Post art and the in-game Elizabeth / Prophet murals and the Collection art with both cities. A shame they didn't use any of this for dedicated box art at launch, but the least they could've done was have Elizabeth on there.
OP
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I love your post and I completely agree with your points.
Weapon and vigor upgrades are so arbitrarily metered out in terms of availability. Also, yes, weapon upgrades mean it's best to splash your money around on Damage upgrades because you're never guaranteed availability. And there's really only in-game justification for Shock Jockey as far as plasmids go (to power various pylons), unless you count Fink's collaboration with Suchong as justification for the various plasmids' existence. And yes, a Gauntlet end-boss is a terrible substitute for the showdown they've teased the whole game, though I do find Songbird's death heartbreaking and beautifully foreshadowed (he dies by water pressure / drowning - like the baptismal deaths of Booker [both the final one and the ones becoming Comstock] and the bird-bath drowning of Comstock).
I still adore the world and the game.
Hmm, nah. Just the difference in world building and storytelling is enough to set them apart. I much prefer Bioshock Infinite's cutscene free approach and its fantastical yet scary world.
You forgot the main one, during the end scene when Booker looks at Elizabeth and says "You know Elizabeth, we really are BioShocked"
People are dismissing the similarities but they exist and you did a good job of laying it out there. Yes they are not exactly the same but you could definitely see the trend forming of pandering to older male gamers by making them the big strong man leading a fragile girl by the hand through a dangerous environment, and of course shooting a few hundred people in the face along the way.
At the same time as these were coming out you had the Tomb Raider reboot devs talking about how you would 'want to protect Lara' and save her from being raped, one of the most iconic action heroes in gaming and now you are some kind of external overseer that's protecting her through a harrowing journey.
And people wonder why 'sad dad' and 'dadgame' became terms in the gaming lexicon, this shit was so obvious and pandering to a specific demographic of consumer.
At the same time as these were coming out you had the Tomb Raider reboot devs talking about how you would 'want to protect Lara' and save her from being raped, one of the most iconic action heroes in gaming and now you are some kind of external overseer that's protecting her through a harrowing journey.
And people wonder why 'sad dad' and 'dadgame' became terms in the gaming lexicon, this shit was so obvious and pandering to a specific demographic of consumer.
