Video Game Assessment: Bioshock Infinite DLC: Burial at Sea Episode 1

I love Bioshock Infinite but did not like Bioshock very much. So, what happens when both games are combined together for a DLC? Well... *EXPLOSION*

BURIAL AT SEA IS WHAT HAPPENS

I've heard a bunch of stuff about this DLC. And it all seems rather overblown. People get upset over the dumbest things, something I can and will never understand. DLC comes in all different shapes and sizes. You can pay money for horse armor, story DLC, or just a bunch of enemies that you can shoot a bit. That's the nature of DLC, you never know exactly what you'll get, and many times you get something you might not expect. I don't see how people can be disappointed about a DLC, ripping it apart and hating it for no other reasons than it's DLC. And this DLC in particular, which by its nature is very much apart from its mother game. I understand that the practice of DLC and expansions is a slippery slope and something that can easily take advantage of the consumer, but if it's a fair DLC, it should be extra to the main game, something superfluous for the enjoyment of the core game, but also something that will add more to those who are willing to spend some money to buy it. And this DLC fits that definition pretty solidly.

I'm going to be a bit disjointed in my little conversation here about this DLC. I'm under the impression that most people think it is disappointing, upsetting, mediocre, or bad, and that's just plain idiotic. Okay, maybe I shouldn't be so harsh because the internet is so full of people being overblown about any and every issue, and I'm just confused by the backlash at this point. It's disheartening to me that people can't just enjoy a thing that's a good time for a while. They have to hate it just to hate it, point to it and say, "I don't want." But, I want it quite a bit and enjoyed it even more than that/

The story is simple: It takes place after the main game, some years after it more than likely. Elizabeth is offering Booker (from Rapture this time, Rapture-Booker) a chance to find his "girl," Sally, a young girl who he has taken charge of somehow for some reason. That's about it. The story is all about the two of them trying to find this girl and going to a city at the bottom of the ocean to do it.

I liked the DLC. The first episode of Burial at Sea was a superb success, blending the horror elements of Bioshock with the incredible writing and characters of Infinite. While not everything in the story made absolute sense to me, specifically the ending, the game itself was a really good time. I had fun playing it all over again, going back to Rapture and meeting back up with Elizabeth who is absolutely the headline of this game and well worth the price alone.

The combat is perfectly acceptable, but probably a bit on the difficult side with the absence of a great deal of ammo or EVE for restocking. I found myself playing with a very heavily melee game which made it that much more satisfying when I won. (I did much the same thing in the core game though. I can't get enough of the melee combat. It's satisfying.) The fights are pretty good, but nothing all that different from either of the other games. Combat is not why I'm playing the game, so I'm not sure how much more I can really say about it. It's perfectly fine, and I had fun. What more is there to say? Then again I like just about any kind of combat in games, as long as it works, I don't really care.

The music was great. Elizabeth and the new Booker are also quite good to see again. As a big spoiler I didn't quite get why Elizabeth wanted to lead Booker all the way to Sally to kill him. That didn't make much sense to me. If he were going to die anyway, why not have him die when she first met him? Why lead him along so long? Just so he can prove his ill intent by trying to grab Sally? Not sure if I buy that so much. But maybe she needed to know what kind of Booker he truly was. I'm not sure.

Seeing the Luteces again was also fun, but there is a frustration with the story the way it is. Booker is suddenly Comstock (yes, they're the same character, but they're also treated as different characters, aren't they?) and has his memories, and there is an insistence that he is a bad man and is running from something? I don't even know. It's very odd, and my answers are few and far between. The ending was the only thing that really took away from my experience and mostly because I didn't understand it or Elizabeth's motives. Is she killing all the Bookers/Comstocks? Is she searching out a very specific one who somehow found himself in another world? Again, why wait so long to kill him or grievously harm him? I don't get that. Did she not know he was Comstock until his reaction?

Man, while confusing, the lead-up to the end is very compelling, showing flashes to Booker/Comstock's former life at very inopportune times. It added some mystique and some actual creepiness to the plot. I enjoyed that quite a bit. It meant something to me, and while I don't understand it now, I assume the next part will clear some things up, but maybe not. And if it doesn't then that's fine too, just keep giving me a compelling reason to keep following the story.

It seems like everybody is down on the world of Infinite, something I neither understand or agree with. This is the best game I've played in years and the DLC is also very good for a follow-up to that. It's simple and probably a little slow, but I loved playing it and feel the desire to go back and play the main game and the DLC all over again. So, it was a success to me.

Video Game Assessment: BioShock Infinite (2013)

Hello all!

Now this is going to be a spoiler-filled review, analysis, and interpretation of BioShock Infinite. Don't say I didn't warn you, and don't read on without heeding that warning. I have some ideas that will probably prove to be unpopular, but since I've never personally seen them raised, and I've played the game four times, I think I have very valid reasons to raise them myself.

Anyway...

It starts with a lighthouse.

And what is a lighthouse? A way to keep pesky travelers away. A warning. And what happens when one fails to heed a warning? I think that the answer must be: nothing good at all.

There's always a man.

But he barely matters. He's simply a man. Nothing more. Kind of generic really.

And there's always a city.

Columbia in this case. A city in the clouds. Kind of like Cloud City on Bespin except... uh... not centralized.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We have to start at the beginning or we're never going to get anywhere. So, let's begin.

What is this video game?

BioShock Infinite is a multi-faceted, complex, and brilliant game brought to us by the developer Irrational Games and Publisher 2K Games. It is a follow-up (or spiritual sequel) to BioShock and BioShock 2, which in turn are spiritual sequels and homages to the old System Shock games. Everybody knows that. It's a tired thing to say, but I have to start somewhere.

I personally can't stand BioShock. Not this game, we'll get to my feelings on this game later, but the first BioShock was a game I really did not enjoy in any sense of that word. It called itself  horror game, but had no horror. It attempted to parse Objectivism, but only ever touched the surface. It tried to create a new kind of narrative, but only fell on its face. My opinion on that game is fairly negative. It was one of my least favorite games that I actually bought in this gaming generation (alongside Alan Wake and possibly Mass Effect 3). I can't think of anything besides the stunning visuals and designs that I actually liked about the game. And the end of that game is one of the worst fetch-quest things I've ever seen in a non-JRPG. So, I don't have fond memories of BioShock, so much so that I had no further interest in the series.

BioShock 2 came out. I never played it, never even cared to play it. I heard it was more BioShock, a tired sequel in a generation of tired sequels. I didn't care. I was done with the series. A horror series that isn't horror that thinks it's more intelligent than it actually is? Yeah, not my cup of tea. And when the teasers and trailers started coming out for Infinite, I simply let them pass right over my head. How could I care about a series I never liked? And what did it matter that it would have nothing *really* to do with the other games? All I saw was fluffy pretty nonsense.

And I wasn't interested.

I didn't care.

Then a beacon, a light from across the sky. A review and a damn good one at that. Adam Sessler posted a video review that drew me in, and made me need to play this game. I hadn't had any inkling of interest before this, but in that moment, on the Tuesday this game came out, I knew I needed it. The game was my lighthouse, and I was like a moth to its brilliant light. I bought it, and I played.

I saw the true face of what brilliance could be.

And I was glad.

But I'm not talking about the game yet, about the rowboat, about the barely understood conversations with what seem like two crazy people, about the lighthouse, the mystery, and on, and on, and on ad infinitum...

It wasn't just that the game was brilliant. The game also touched on things never brought up in video games, played with ideas that were always left rotting in the attic of a creator's brain. It wasn't just that the game was intelligent. It was that the story was saying something other than: go shoot this, go save the damsel, and go get the reward. It was a deconstruction to be sure (and I love those), but one without pretext. And certainly one that didn't seem that way from the outset. It is a game that ages well with time and playthroughs, being confusing the first time through, and gaining traction with every subsequent journey through Columbia and its avenues.

I'm not going to waste your time and mine saying what people have already said. Go read other reviews if you want to hear dull praises and claps on the back for this game. It's a great game. Hell, in some ways and to some people it is goddamn near-perfect. It is for me. But saying that does not make it so. Yes, the visuals are stunning. Yes, the gameplay is like some crazy high-octane roller coaster ride. Yes, the narrative is good. Yes, Elizabeth is a wonderful character. But those are empty statements without something to back them up.

While the visuals are stunning, there is nothing in them that makes or breaks this game. Yes, pretty graphics can be fun, but this game could have easily been another BioShock if it didn't have more than just pretty things to fall back onto. Columbia is a gorgeous world, but the visual porn will always be there. it doesn't go away, but is also frankly one of the worst and weakest parts of the game. And that should be read as elevating the other parts of the game, not denigrating the visuals. Columbia is gorgeous, and it only looks better the longer the game goes on. The character designs get better with time, the enemies become more compelling, with larger enemies having more unique designs, and even the smaller ones looking more interesting.  The absolute high point for visuals in the game would be after the final battle when Columbia is nothing more than a memory, but that could just be me.

The gameplay is unique, interesting, and fun. Yes, it is also kind of generic with guns in one hand and magic powers in another, but so many other games do the same that there is really no way I can complain about this doing what others also do. It would be a ridiculous argument. Some of the fights are pretty well scripted, but I think that works in the game's favor, having amazing areas in which to fight rather than tiny corridors. People have complained about the combat... and I have no idea why. What is annoying about this combat that isn't annoying about other FPS games? I get tired hearing about complaints without any merit. Let's call it personal preference. Or maybe those people were caught up in the hype and it didn't deliver the experience they expected and wanted. Or maybe PC gamers are a fickle crowd and like to be annoyed at everything. I don't know. All I can say is that I liked the combat quite a bit. The gameplay was fresh and exciting, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. This is not a horror game (all that much) so why not have some adventurous fun while playing? The sky-hooks are brilliantly fun. Yes, they put you on rails, but rails can be a ton of fun. I loved ninja-ing down on unsuspecting enemies. I could do that all day long. And my favorite part was smacking people with my sky-hook. Man, that was viscerally incredible.

I really think that way too many people talk about gameplay like it's the entire game. I've heard some even say that bad gameplay can kill a game. No. No, it can't. Games have evolved. They are not simply Mario jumping around for a princess or Tetris blocks needing to match up. Games are not just about fighting. How can they be with narratives, characters, and everything else besides filling up the game with so much else? This game has a perfect balance between combat and rest. I wish every game could be like that. It reminds me of Half-Life 2 without physics puzzles. And I don't think that's a bad thing at all. I'm also very forgiving when it comes to gameplay. I loved the original Deadly Premonition and was okay with its frankly godawful combat. So, full disclosure, I guess. Bad gameplay has never turned me off of a game. And it never will. Then again, I'm also good at video games. So, take that as you will.

Something seldom spoken of in videos games is the music and sounds. This game does music and sounds better than any game I've ever played before. The music is near-brilliant, with many anachronistic 1912 covers of radically different songs through time, from Tears for Fears "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" to "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper. And they're all so good and so worth listening to and being surprised by. The sounds are great as well- everything from vocal work (the Luteces are amazing, Elizabeth is the female voice to be compared against now, etc.) to what characters say, not only in their environment but also on the voxophones. There is an essence to the words and voices in this game that gives the whole thing credence. The rebellion plot in the story is greatly increased by such amazing vocal work. Seeing a Handyman lying killed in the streets, only to find that he still kept a voxophone of his wife telling him that she loved him? That's heartwrenching and beautiful, especially when the existential question of what they are comes up in the game as well.

The voxophones are an interesting way of giving us the backstory of the game. Yes, BioShock did it as well, but much less satisfyingly in my opinion. Perhaps it's the vocal talent here, or all the alternate universes, but I found what was going on in the background much more compelling throughout this game. I even found it more compelling than pieces of our own narrative. Saying that, I also loved listening to people on the street talking, saying weird and oddly racist things at times. It made it all that much better. It made it all that much more an actual world. It drew me into itself that much more.

And does the narrative of the game matter? You better believe it. It's amazing, with twists, turns, and things that don't quite make sense. The ending, I'm looking at you here. But even the things that don't make sense still work. There are questions that still hang over the narrative, and that's a good thing. It makes the story more interesting, more ambiguous, and more likely to be interpreted many different ways. It leads to debate, and that's never a bad thing.

The ambiguity of the story and the ending is what I liked most about the game besides Elizabeth. Yes, the twists were fun. But not knowing what truly happens in the end is what made the game worth playing, and I guess my interpretation of the ending (which seems different from everybody else's) made me love this game. I'll get to it later, but yes, prepare to be upset with me. I'm sure I'll get yelled at for not getting it.

*sigh*

Anyway, Elizabeth is one of the best female characters in video games. Look, if you want to take anything away from this game that's good, it has to be that. She is a non-sexualized, non-damsel, non-escorted NPC, who can take care of herself, interact with you in so many different ways, and has an effect on the way you play the game. I'd compare her to Alyx from Half-Life 2 and its episodes, but Elizabeth is more a natural progression of that kind of character. It's amazing to see that in this day and age when everybody seems to hate women, especially in their video games, and the only women they seem to allow are huge-breasted and vapid wank material. I'm glad for Elizabeth's existence, for her equal status to Booker throughout the game, and for her even transcendence into something near-God-like. To me her progression as a character made the game for me. Seeing her change as she changed costumes, grow as the game grew, become more serious as our situation did, it was amazing. It was compelling. It gave me something to care about within the game, something to get attached to.

So, as the game goes on, and Booker gets involved in a rebellion, steals a girl from her "prison," sees what Comstock (the antagonist of the game) really is, and goes from rugged antihero to broken man, I was entranced. The story was paced so well. It made me care. It made me want to see what would happen next. I didn't want it to end. But it had to. And the ending was... controversial in my brain. I fought long and hard to come to a consensus about what I thought about it. Was it all happening at the end, with Booker and Elizabeth going through the lighthouses, seeing all the untold amounts of universes? Or was it simply another deconstruction?

The way I see it was that each other Booker and Elizabeth, every other lighthouse as well, they are all other games being played. Some perhaps by yourself, but some but other people entirely. The game can never truly change. The big moments always have to happen. But the small things can very easily change. Each and every game is different. But they all come to the same realization and the same ending. That's brilliant and sad. And it works so well. We go through the game seeing Elizabeth grow as a character, seeing her go from eating cotton candy and talking about childish things to openly wanting to murder her "father." But the biggest and most interesting part of the game is when we realize that we can never find another ending. There is no happy ending. Elizabeth cannot change her fate just as Booker cannot change his. What I find most compelling about the ending is that it is about failure.

Neither Booker nor Elizabeth win in the end because the game was rigged from the start. Things cannot change therefore our game never changes. Elizabeth can try a million times to save Booker and herself or kill Booker and herself, but the game keeps being played, and the failures, each and every game, will always happen. I don't know if Elizabeth is wrong about being able to fix it or if she just wants to end it right there. I don't know. Is she God at the end of the game or some equivalent? Or is she a terrifyingly sad young woman who thinks she knows what to do and cannot? Maybe she succeeds like most seem to think, but that is so far-fetched to me. Killing Booker does not kill Comstock even if they are the same person. Killing Booker does nothing but kill Booker. So, either she kills him for kicks, puts him in the role of a younger Booker, or kills him to make the failure complete. I will mention that if she can put Booker in the role of his younger self, than why not create an entirely new Booker? Or kill the Booker who always becomes Comstock after the choice is made? She chooses to kill the player character, the one who has protected her and cared for her throughout the game. There's a reason for that. And to me the reason is that there can never be a winning scenario. There can never be happily ever after. Some see the stinger at the end being the happy ending of Booker and Anna living happily ever after. I see it as a drunken Booker before the game begins forgetting that he already gave her away. Nothing changes. The game is always the same. And that is why it is very close to perfect.

I can compare it to NieR, another game about failure that I also loved. It is so good so often, and people hating it simply makes no sense to me unless they either don't care about narratives or they simply don't get it. I will never be okay with a person ragging on a game because the gameplay isn't their cup of tea. That is such a stupid reason to hate a narrative heavy video game. It gets to me, this slagging the game off, because I did find it so brilliant and so fun. I can't even see how others cannot also enjoy it unless they are suffering from anti-hype which is literally so stupid it actually makes me angry.

As for real concerns, why doesn't Booker break his legs when jumping off of the sky-rails? Why? Seriously. Portal had the explanation of long falls being okay because Chell has long fall boots. But Booker can die if he falls to far regularly. So, why doesn't he die when he jumps from a hundred feet up onto concrete? Don't even dare say magnetism. I will lose all my mind. Seriously, there is no explanation. It's kind of dumb, but that really stuck out to me.

I wish we could have more than two guns at a time as well. This is something others have brought up as well. I kind of get it from a realistic point of view, but from where I'm standing it just makes me use fewer types of guns and conserve the ammo for the guns I really like. I don't mind it amazingly, but it isn't the best decision ever.

As for other things I liked. Well, the sidequests were fine. The other characters in the narrative were great. The insane asylum interlude was one of the best pieces of a video game I've seen in years. That whole sequence was terrifying and compelling. It was simply so good. I love the murder of crows vigor too. Man, that was a ton of fun to use. And I really liked the multi-dimensional plot, where eventually you have no idea what reality even is anymore. I liked that a lot too. The Luteces were fantastic, characters that give the G-Man a run for original and interesting characters that have an otherworldly presence.


And that's that for the review. There are probably a ton more things I could say, but... nah... not really. I made my big points. I might do a podcast on it eventually if I get the need to talk about it more. I have a few other things to just mention about this blog in general.

I'm mostly just glad to finally be posting stuff again. Over a month hiatus is quite long enough for me. It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, with fifty+ hour work weeks (my job is exhausting and I work six days a week), a long-distance relationship (and I'll be getting engaged soon), and trying to actually sleep some days, I basically haven't had a ton of time or energy to update this blog. I apologize for that, I really do. I'm going to try to update more often, but... I doubt my schedule will change, but I'm intensely trying to push myself to bring some content out. It may be a bit more scattered, but I'm going to try.

I do have many different reviews I'm planning, and October (although months away) is very much on my mind for my next 31 reviews. Anyway, the next Goosebumps/Fear Street review might be coming soon hopefully. And my next game review will hopefully be coming out in a few weeks at latest. I hope everybody is okay with me not putting out as much content as before. This blog will always update, it simply might be slower than usual from now until my schedule frees up a bit.

Video Game Assessment: BioShock (2007)

Okay, I'm seriously very sorry for doing this, but this is a game I've been wanting to review for a very long time and I only just remembered it existed while I was going through a pile of games I finished. I say that I'm sorry because I'm sure there are people out there who really like this game. There are probably even people (perhaps) reading this review who REALLY like BioShock. Well, I'm going to say something that's probably going to make me very unpopular to those people.

I hated this game.

I hated it with a severe passion I usually only reserve for Dark City, Finnegans Wake, and The Martian Chronicles.

I'm not even kidding. This is my least favorite video game OF ALL TIME. You may think I'm going way overboard with that statement or something... but I'm not. I cannot think of a single video game worse than this piece of absolute crap. I'd rather play anything instead. I'd rather play a freaking Barbie game, or one of those freaking Pet Vet games or whatever they're called where the vet goes and pets the animal a lot until it gets better, or whatever the hell those games have in them. How should I know what's in them? I don't play them for a reason and if I did play them I'd kind of know what to expect.

This game is a pile of turds. Why? Well, because of what it claimed to be and what it turned out to be, of course. I mean, if you tell me this'll be the game that innovates first-person shooters with many elements of horror for years to come, I'd understand what you're saying... then I'd play the game and slap you in the face for this affront to humanity.

Did I say "affront"? I meant blight.

Seriously, this game is terrible. And I'm sure all these people who are into "mainstream" games like the Halo crowd are probably slobbering all over this game calling it a masterpiece of horror, sci-fi, and video games themselves... but those people are idiots. They have no idea what's going on at the best of times, and even though I consider myself quite mad most of the time, I'm not mad enough to call a turd a piece of gold. I'm sorry, it's just not something I feel comfortable with. It goes against the basic rules of everything.

BioShock feels like a game that wants to be something better. It wants to be the older kinds of games with a great plot and some puzzle elements and a WHOLE LOT of horror... but what it comes off as is pretentious bullcrap.

I love great stories. Love great twists and turns. Look at my Silent Hill 2 review or my Deadly Premonition one if you don't believe me. Seriously. Those show that I love great stories, even when the game is ultra-hyped. Silent Hill 2 is often called the scariest game of all time, and you know something? Despite my insistence on hating most things well-loved by the populace, I love Silent Hill 2. I think it is the scariest video game of all time without a doubt in my mind. And saying that makes me hurt a little knowing that I agree with so many other reviewers out there... but it's true and I cannot deny the truth despite my obvious mental defects.

But this game... oh, this game... I can't even like it. Sure, I tried to like it. I played levels and had a little fun from time to time. I killed weird people stuck in the underwater city of Rapture, and I didn't feel anything. The scares WEREN'T SCARY! How can a horror game not be scary? How is that even possible? How can people like this game?

I'm so angry I could spit staples out of my teeth as hard and fast as my staple-gun. I don't think any game has ever made me this angry before... no, I know that no game has ever made me this angry. I can't believe how many people liked this game. I can't believe enough people liked it so that there was an even more terrible sequel made which I will never play even under threats of death and bodily destruction. I'd rather die painfully than play a game that hurts my pure visions of video games.

I played this game for about an hour on my first playthrough. It seemed a little tense from time to time and I didn't hate it. I thought it was all right. I thought that maybe I'd like the game even... but after a little time playing through the game, I found that instead of liking it more I was just bored. I knew what was coming before it came. I could kill everything without a blink of my eyes. I don't even like first-person horror games all that much because they make me nervous, but this game just made me sigh for the game to throw some kind of challenge at me... anything to keep me from falling asleep in front of my television.

I mean, there are some good ideas... like the plasmids and everything, but they're implemented so poorly. It's like a rip-off of the Fallout series or something with all the little cutesy 1950's era doodles. It just makes me angry. Nothing here feels original. Nothing here even feels good. It's like vomit in video game form and that... well, that just isn't right in any circle.

The big twist is stupid and happens way before the end of the game. I couldn't care less. I might not have seen it coming exactly, but I didn't care about these characters I never saw except when I listened to them talking over a radio at me and saw a little picture in the corner looking at me. How stupid is that? Show me a cutscene if you're going to try to be Half-Life... I mean, Half-Life did that whole playable cutscene thing perfectly, showing me the characters involved without feeling distant from everything. It made use of the special weapons (e.g. The Gravity Gun) and used them effectively. This game instead goes for the whole, "Yeah, go use this fire plasmid to melt some ice. Yay!"

Whoopdee-doo... A one-year-old child could figure that out. A dog could figure out that warmth is bad for ice. What the hell kind of game is this that treats me as if I have the intelligence of a one-year-old child dog thing? IT MAKES ME ANGRY!

And the worst part is the ending... well, that and the item collection to become a BIG DADDY, which has to be one of the most hyped up easy enemies ever. I mean, when I first saw the trailer I was all like, man those things are going to rock!And then they didn't. It was quite the let down. It was like somebody telling me they were going to give me a puppy, and then instead they ritually sacrificed the puppy there in front of me and gave me the poor thing's fur as a final gift. I don't want dead puppy fur, I want a living puppy that will make me giggle and be happy! BioShock, why did you have to give me a dead puppy's fur? (Yes, I'm going to go with this analogy as long as I can. Hopefully you're getting a fraction of the amount that I abhor this game.)

Why does this game exist? Why is it so popular? Has the mainstream become so hopeless that this is seen as GAME OF THE YEAR material? I can think of many better games of 2007 right off the top of my head: Assassin's Creed (which I didn't even like all that much), Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, The Orange Box, Lost Odyssey, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Peggle, even Silent Hill: Origins, which was absolutely terrible mostly! I can't even think straight... This game is making me so angry...

I will admit one positive aspect of this game just to calm my absolute rage. It has outstanding visuals. The graphics are outstanding mostly, and the water effects are beautiful. Okay, that's about it... and you know what? I guarantee that almost everybody who loves this game love it for its "innovative weapons" and "cool graphics" and that's sad. Games should be measured by more than just what they look like and how you kill the enemies. But no... stories don't matter... characters don't matter. The only things that matter are graphics and gameplay and if that's all that matter than yes, this game is a fricking gem among an ocean of gems. ALL GAMES ARE PLAYABLE OR THEY WOULDN'T BE GAMES! GOOD GAMEPLAY IS LIKE SAYING A MOVIE SHOULD BE WATCHABLE! OKAY!? AND GRAPHICS SHOULD BE TOPNOTCH ON NEW CONSOLES, BUT THAT'S NOT ALWAYS THE CASE, ALL RIGHT!? AND IF IT ISN'T THEN THAT GAME THAT DOESN'T SHOULD HAVE SOMETHING EXTRA SPECIAL LIKE A REALLY GOOD STORY! Okay... take a deep breath...

My point is that games should have all these things... just because this game has some decent graphics and gameplay doesn't make it GAME OF THE YEAR. What made it GAME OF THE YEAR are douchebags who consider it art rather than seeing it as pretentious bullcrap that should be flushed down the nearest toilet.