toblix

So, what's the deal with the Little Sisters disappearing? I attack their guardian and quickly die. When I come back and finish the job she's gone. Does she escape when there's fighting around or something?

What? I'm loving this game, come on! I just think the wharf area sucks, although with this talk of balconies I don't think I've seen all of it yet. I haven't gotten farther than the second room, with the rocket turret and gene splicer thingy. I'm sure the rest is fantastic, alright?

As much as I like this game, the wharf area is just terrible. The whole thing feels like something out of a mediocre 90s shooter.

So, when I get 3/3 gatherers, what does that mean? In that area?

So, like a good little nazi I preordered the Bioshock Collector's Edition last week. Went to pick it up today and found out that, guess what, preordering a game means nothing. Zero. Dim. Zilch. Zero. Nada. Bupkis. Goose eggs. Oh wait, it means that, instead of paying everything when I get the game, I get to pay part of it before I get it. I mean, I got the game, but only because one was already standing on the counter, with a note with some guy's name and number on it. Apparently he was going to come pick it up later, but the clerk said "I guess, since you preordered it..." and tore the note off. Also, the fuckwad clerk spent five minutes on the phone, walking back and forth in front of me, talking to his boss about not getting paid for the last two months. Well, guess what, fuckers. That's what happens when you run a low-rent fucking piece of shit operation like EBGames. Anyway, I'm typing this with one hand, because I'm going to install Bioshock and in preparation I'm loosening up my asshole with my thumb.

Anyway, the moral is I should start that section over and this time take it the fuck easy with the killing.

Yeah, I know that now, but the game never explained this to me properly, which is lame.

Does anyone else feel they did a really poor job of explaining the whole plasmid/tonic/gene modification stuff? I mean, it's pretty terrible that even when the game has a built-in help system, I still couldn't find out what the fuck was going on with these slots that always seemed to be empty. How was I to know there were categories of these things? And suddenly I'm forced to replace one of them with telekinesis, just like that.

Okay, am I misunderstanding something here? I just rode the second bathysphere, and...

The game begins with you on an airplane that crashes, and then you swim to a lighthouse and ride down into Rapture, which is an underwater art deco utopia with hilarious 30s ads everywhere, and where society collapsed because everyone modified their cells and went crazy. You can use both conventional weapons and plasmids, which are biological modifications to your body, to fight the enemies, which behave just like in real life: You can set fire to them and they'll run into the water, at which point you can zap them with electricity. The coolest enemy is the Big Daddy which is huge and powerful. It protects little girls who extract Adam, which is the stuff that modifies your cells. You can kill the girls or not, which is a moral dilemma. You find audio logs everywhere, which makes for an awesome story, and the graphics are great. Rating: [Five out of five stars]/[10/10]/[98%]

No they don't. They designed it for 16:9, and then instead of cropping the picture, giving 4:3 users a tele view, they just extended it vertically, like Pixar did filling in the letterbox bars on Finding Nemo. Thus, widescreen players get what they're supposed to, and 4:3 users like me see a little more, but that's okay, because it balances out with not getting the exact image frame the game was designed for. I think it's a way better solution than cropping it.

I disapprove because th-- What the fuck? Do those picture not show your Xbox 360 standing in between DVD boxes? Doesn't it explode and melt in there? I keep it at the point where mathematically the distance to all other surfaces are at their maxium, in fear of ventilation being obstructed, and you keep it in there?! How's it working out for you? Anyway, when just the front is showing, I think they're cool, but when the entire thing is visible, and the front is some crazy color and the rest of it is white I think it's lame.

Well, I wasn't complaining about the game being linear, I was just under the impression that it would have a more SS2-like open structure. Hey, I love linear games.

Yeah, I know. But that doesn't make it better, it makes it worse.

Wow, I also got something with my preorder. A big, fucking nothing. Right up the ass.

I hate how these fucking marketing assholes always screw it up. There's the Games for Windows bar that makes the case shit compared to what it would be without it, and then there's the game's score. Oh wait, in Europe the score isn't in the Collector's Edition, there's a fucking Moby CD with four tracks. Why, marketing people? Can't we Europeans handle your game's awesome score or something? Fuck this, I'm never buying a collector's edition again.

Another thing. Until now the game has been 100% completely linear. What's the deal with that?

Yeah, I'm talking about from stores, not online. Preordering online is just convenient.

Assuming isn't enough. You have to know how good it is!

I always assumed preorders were deliveries "guaranteed" by the distributor, and that they didn't sell more of them than they were certain to get on release day. It's especially worthless when a copy isn't even reserved. The guy who was supposed to get the game I got hadn't even preordered. I got it because I got to the store before him. I'm so done preordering games. Also, not preordering lets me know about these bullshit copy protections that they only release information about at the very end, so I can avoid the really bad ones.

...and then, an unknown server error occured! This is a fucking single player game! I'll never buy a 2K game again.

I'm sure it presents the player with "challenging tasks" and sends him or her on a "fantastic adventure" too.

What?

I'm sadder than ever that MGS3 is only good for me to poop on.