One year of blogging: a personal and heartfelt note from Stev3L

On the 20^th of February, 2017, while in despair at my previous job, I decided to make a gaming blog. I was worried at first about how it would go; I knew that the market for videogame writers was vastly saturated. In the end, however, my need for an outlet won the day and I made my first post in earnest; a messy little article geeking out about how Resident Evil 7 brought back a sense of horror authenticity to its franchise.

Starting my blog was the best decision I ever made. As I wrote more I quickly found a passion in what I was doing and though the click count was low, my blog quickly became a much-needed source of pride and hope.

It wasn’t until I started my Twitter account, however, that I began to experience just how great the gaming community as. While growing my own presence, I quickly fell in love with how friendly and welcoming the gaming community was. I really love using Twitter to catch up with the little circles in which I’ve found myself, and I get to enjoy so much more about what I do. I realised that I didn’t just want to write, but I wanted to become a part of this great community and engage with it as much as I could. 

I met the excellent editor of Pressquit, another gaming site that I found inspiring and fun to read, and even wrote a couple of my own articles on the site. I am most proud of my Aven Colony review on Pressquit, as it gave me a taste not just of writing for an audience, but also with getting demo copies of games for review. I felt immensely proud as it felt like a seal of approval on my work that I could write articles that got developer attention.

While I went quiet in the latter end of 2017, as I had a holiday with my fiancée and also needed to concentrate on my new job which became increasingly busy around the festive period, I got back to working on the blog as soon as I felt the writing bug take me again. One of my proudest moments came from previewing It Lurks Below, an inspired survival game built by the industry legend that had a big hand in creating Diablo. Again, it felt like a seal of approval to get attention from such an important developer. 

My proudest moment, however, was in writing my charity article for PixelGirl. This amazing streamer was one of my earliest inspirations as I joined the gaming community. Her infectiously friendly and kindhearted nature made Twitteran uplifting experience every time I saw her post something. To have the privilege of collaborating with such an influential advocate was one of the greatest moments of my blog, even more so that it was for a worthy cause. 

Today, my blog is in the middle of being tweaked for compatibility with my future plans. What started out as Stev3LGaming is going to become XYZGaming, as my focus continues to shift on the gaming community. The most important thing to my online identity is that sense of community that I found; the networks of people I have met along the way have been inspirational. If I can be half the person that these people are, I would be a very happy man indeed.

I wrote this blog post with a sense of newfound pride; XYZGaming is more than just a blog for me now. It’s my gateway to an awesome community, and a much needed creative outlet. My little hobby is now an achievement I can look upon with no small amount of pride. 

I’ve seen some amazing things this last year and met even more amazing people, but what has been the most humbling part of all of this has been the people that make the gaming community what it is. Whether developers, streamers, fans, other bloggers or Let’s Players, the game community has been an absolute inspiration to join and I thank you for being so welcoming to me. I find myself humbled by how the gaming community has shown what it’s truly capable of, and now that I’ve seen a glimpse of this greatness I am filled with elation and pride that I get to be a part of that. So from the bottom of my heart, to every single visitor to this little corner of the internet:

 

Thank you.

-Stev3L, editor and writer of XYZ/Stev3LGaming.

Bioshock Remastered Review

Would you kindly cast your mind back to 2007? Bioshock, at the time of its original release, was a revolution in game artistry. It was perhaps the first game to seriously make the argument for videogames as an art form. The setting of Rapture was a fascinating study in its dystopian vision mixed with iconic sci-fi 50’s flavour, and the premise explored themes such as genetic modification, free will, and objectivism that are still strongly relevant 11 years later. 

 

The game's aesthetics are still spectacular and affecting, even today. Source: in-game screenshot

11 years on and two sequels later, does the original Bioshock hold up? This question is especially relevant as now the idea of videogames as art has taken root, particularly in the indie scene, and where 11 years of advancement in technology takes us to more fantastic and graphically-astounding places than ever before. With the remastered edition of Bioshock, I took the plunge to explore the ruined city of Rapture with fresh eyes. 

The first thing to note on Bioshock Remastered is, of course, the graphics. While the remaster offers a fresh coat of paint to offer higher resolutions and frame rates, the fact of the matter is that the game doesn’t look a world apart from its original state by any means. Bioshock does benefit, however, from the finer attention to detail, especially in the twisted facial expressions of the Splicers. However, as a remaster goes, the graphical overhaul has achieved very little more than the minimum to meet modern standards.

 

The first look at Rapture is still a breathtaking sight. Source: in-game screenshot

This is arguably because Bioshock was a stellar-looking game to begin with. Yes, it is a last-gen games and yes, this does occasionally show in the odd muddy texture or in some of the detail of level backdrops. But the aesthetic of Rapture as a location is so good that the game is still a marvel to look at. Each pocket of the city is fleshed-out and lived-in and you get a sense of authenticity from the run-down bars all the way to the optimistically-built, abandoned farmer’s markets. Rapture still feels and looks like it was once a living, breathing city and this is in no small part because the artistic direction of the game was spot-on. Rapture is to gaming what Gotham City is to comic books; a realised and authentic vision of an exaggerated and tragically-beautiful, ruined city. 

The main annoyance with Bioshock graphically is in the vision-altering effects. While it does make sense and adds to the game’s authentic feel that getting soaked by water will make your vision alter appropriately, or that drinking three bottles of vodka instantaneously would cause blurry vision (and probably a severe hangover and liver poisoning), but the execution of the vision-impairing effects is more of an annoyance than anything else; perhaps they last just a few seconds too long, but I often found that I avoided waterfalls with more fear than I avoided the enemy’s iconic Big Daddies.

Other than those small niggles, and the fact that as a remaster the improvements to the graphics feel insignificant, visually Bioshock is a joy to behold; from its bright neon lights to the grimy reality of underwater dystopian life, every part of Bioshock’s aesthetic is authentic, atmospheric and artistic in all the right ways.

 

The locations are authentically built to look ruined, and are powerful visual clues as to Rapture's downfall. Source: in-game screenshot.

In terms of the sound design, Bioshock presents excellence in some areas; particularly as fitting music plays while you take in an important visual spectacle, or when a hidden enemy whispers sinister threats at you from out of sight, or the spine-chilling moan of a Big Daddy. The result is that the sound leaves you feeling totally immersed in Bioshock’s setting; you truly feel as if you are in an underwater city and the atmosphere is as oppressive as you would expect.

The main issues here, however, are in the volume settings. As one of the most important aspects of the story, it is such a shame that the audio diaries wind up constantly drowned out by the cacophony of chaos going on as the player fights off waves of enemies; I ended up turning every other audio slider down to the minimum setting and the voice turned all the way up, just so I could listen in. This is a shame, because the voice acting performances are stellar and emotive, giving the player a real sense of what it was like to live and die in Rapture. Another issue is with the variety of the voice clips being played; too often, you will hear the same line being uttered by Little Sisters and Splicers over, and over again.

The gameplay of Bioshock is impressive and is perfectly in tune with the story. For those unfamiliar with Bioshock’s formula; the game mixes FPS gameplay with RPG-style progression in the form of plasmids: abilities the player can use either in combat or in puzzle-solving, such as the ability to cast fire or lightning at enemies, pick up objects with telekinesis, or even hypnotise Big Daddies to make mincemeat of anyone in the player’s way. Plasmid use is dictated by the EVE bar, which is implemented as a mana system, showing the player how many plasmid uses they have left. On top of this, the game borrows from survival horror in that ammo must be carefully conserved lest the player end up under-equipped for tough encounters. The result is an engaging, complex game that rewards clever use of abilities. Instead of just being levels, Bioshock’s maps become sandboxes for players to experiment with different strategies for dispatching enemies. There are many ways to make it through a level; by hacking security cameras and turrets to kill enemies for you, by enraging splicers to kill each other, or just blast through as an unstoppable, genetically-enhanced killing machine. Because of this, gameplay is largely emergent and always has the potential to surprise. 

 

The game is atmospheric and often-terrifying, especially with its enemies. Source: in-game screenshot

There are a few of the gameplay elements, however, that have aged poorly; hacking, for instance, quickly becomes tedious with its take on Pipe Mania gameplay. Often, I preferred just to destroy cameras and turrets, just because I was so fatigued from hacking, rather than for any strategic reason. Also, the use of the camera to research enemies for greater damage and bonuses becomes an annoyance that leaves little strategic value. 

It is in Bioshock’s story, however, where it truly shines. The narrative is powerful and asks many probing questions of the player; about free will, objectivism and morality. The story of Rapture is a tragic tale told through implication and in-game voice recordings that are acted emotionally and authentically. The result is that players feel immersed and affected by the plights of Rapture’s denizens and are drawn deeper into the world. The narrative of the player, however, is without question excellent, with plenty of surprising twists and turns and allowing for multiple interpretations on the many characters they meet. 

 

Little Sisters may be an eponymous part of Bioshock, but the choice they represent is one of the stories' weaker aspects. Source: in-game screenshot

The one area where the storytelling falters, however, is in the moral binary choice that Little Sisters present to the player. They can either be brutally murdered for more in-game currency to buy plasmids, or saved for only slightly less. The result is an unaffecting no-brainer of a choice, because the consequences of choosing to save the Little Sisters is tiny, leaving little reason for the ‘evil’ decision. This is the school of the Fallout morality system, where not being an evil monster suddenly makes one an angelic hero worthy of worship. It is ironic that in a game where many probing areas of debate are explored in their many shades of grey, such an obvious binary decision becomes the central morality choice that the player makes in the game. 

 

Even from the beginning, Bioshock's atmosphere and story is masterfully-executed. Source: in-game screenshot.

In the end, Bioshock is still an excellent game, whether you are playing it remastered or not. The narrative is still a masterclass in world and character building and Rapture is one of the most accomplished settings ever in a videogame. That Bioshock presents a campaign that is over 10 hours, most of which is a deep and non-linear FPS experience, is particularly encouraging in a world with lootboxes and multiplayer shooters that offer tired variations of deathmatches. The value prospect of the remastered edition of Bioshock, as well as its status as still one of the most artistically-powerful and engaging games ever created (unusual for a AAA videogame), makes it one of the most important must-play titles of modern gaming. Bioshock is a title I would recommend to almost any gamer, as it shows the true potential of a high-production value FPS made with excellence in mind.

Bottling Lightning Twice: the challenge of following up a phenomenon

Occasionally a game comes around that surpasses all expectation. Such games become phenomenal, smashing genre conventions and presenting critically-acclaimed, excellent mechanics that other games scramble to replicate. I like to call such successes ‘bottled lightning’ games, as these titles tend to hit at just the right time and scratch just the right itches that make such phenomena practically impossible to feel ‘for the first time’ again. 

One example of such a game is Minecraft; in a games industry that at the time was dominated by linear action experiences and cutscenes, this game created a unique mix of survival and free-form creation unlike any other experience at the time. The true measure of the game’s bottled-lightning status was in its imitators; Minecraft clones became a dime-a-dozen; before it went multi-platform, developers raced on consoles to have their own ‘Minecraft-like’ experience to capitalize on the game’s immense popularity by presenting near-imitations. A renaissance of sorts happened in the genre of ‘survival games’ (a genre I’d argue didn’t so much exist pre-Minecraft), where hunger and thirst meters, as well as the mechanic of crafting from gathered materials, became commonplace in the market, even in games where it made no sense. 

With Minecraft being a billion-dollar product nowadays, and therefore the go-to-target of hipster scorn, it’s easy to forget the game’s early status as a pioneer that launched many modern trends we see today. Like it or not, Minecraft indeed bottled lightning. Who doesn’t remember the unique feeling of discomfort and newness as they launched the game for the first time, and how exciting the community was when they were discovering and re-telling every little legend and myth that formed around the game? It’s impossible to recreate that feeling in the game today; to play Minecraft for the first time again is impossible.

Dark Souls exists in a similar vein to Minecraft, and achieved widespread popularity in a similar, albeit less extreme way. As mainstream RPGs, such as Skyrim, became perceived as being simplified and ‘too easy’, and with the industry suffering from a perception of being ‘dumbed down’ to fit with an increasingly mainstream audience, Dark Souls came along as a punishing, opaque experience that offered deep, complex systems and a high barrier to entry. The game was a celebration of everything that had, up to now, been accepted tropes of videogames being so niche. As a phenomenon, Dark Souls gained notoriety rather than outright affection at first, as a difficult game accessible only for a certain kind of gamer and unapologetic of that fact. But as an industry trend, Dark Souls was a bona-fide cult hit, and it was undoubtedly helped by its unique flavour of gameplay that was rare to see in the games industry. 

Arguably, Dark Souls was the only game of its kind to truly strike its own unique formula that has been difficult to replicate, even for its sequels from the same company; for all the love Dark Souls II and III get, most fans now agree that the original Dark Souls is undoubtedly the quintessential experience of its gameplay. Even the game that preceded it, Demon’s Souls, doesn’t quite scratch the same itch. Dark Souls is certainly not without its imitators, many of which are excellent games, such as the sublime Japanese mythology-inspired Nioh. 

This leaves the problem of how to bottle lightning a second time; how does one follow up such phenomenal success with the weight of expectation? Fans would arguably want a sequel which would bottle lightning a second time and so uniquely feel new and exciting to play. But the sad reality is that this is, by definition, impossible to achieve with a sequel. Even if it succeeds in being so unique that it becomes its own phenomena, much like how Dark Souls did with its following-up from Demon’s Souls, a quitter hit that didn’t quite match its successor’s dizzying heights, it’s arguably because that game is so uniquely its own that it is instantly set apart from anything else. Instantly a game like this would set itself apart from its predecessors. Such games may bottle lightning in their own way but not their original inspiration’s lightning. So maybe the best way to approach such sequels and follow ups is not to expect this to happen and instead be happy creating new and interesting interpretations of the lightning formula; arguably, Dark Souls has already found some success in doing this with its sequels and with Bloodborne. Its sequels are successful and well-liked by critics and present interesting takes on the formula their predecessor founded. While not quite the same as playing the original, sublime title, what these games do is create unique interpretations of their own that make for great videogames. 

Bottling lightning may be something to aim for, but for audiences to expect the same to happen with follow-ups to the game would be foolish; a Minecraft 2, for example, would probably not nearly be a successful venture because it wouldn’t go off on quite the same tangent that Minecraft did and scratch the unique itch in quite nearly as impactful a way as the original. But instead creating new formula that expand on and interpret gameplay in new ways is still a worthy aspiration for any sequel and can sometimes be its own bottled lightning.