Topic: Team Knack Attack Six Pack Shack

@AdamNovice Blur. Very Important/Important

@AdamNovice I'll write up my thoughts a little later. Primarily I think BioShock Infinite is Very Important. Shall explain why.

@AdamNovice Can I suggest keeping the list like this? I liked how BAMozzy did this. Makes it a bit easier to read imo. Feel free to keep the other format if you don't like it

VERY IMPORTANT
BioShock Irrational Games / 2K Marin
Borderlands 2 Gearbox Software
Burnout Paradise Criterion Games

IMPORTANT
BioShock 2 2K Marin / Digital Extremes / 2K Australia / 2K China / Arkane Studios
BioShock Infinite Irrational Games
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Arc System Works
Borderlands Gearbox Software
Brütal Legend Double Fine Productions
Bulletstorm People Can Fly

EXISTING
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! 2K Australia
Brink Splash Damage

Remaining games:
Birds of Steel Gaijin Entertainment
BlackSite: Area 51 Midway Studios Austin
Blades of Time Gaijin Entertainment
Bladestorm: The Hundred Years' War Omega Force
BlazBlue: Central Fiction Arc System Works
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Arc System Works
BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Arc System Works
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII Ubisoft Bucharest
Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII Ubisoft Bucharest
Bleach: Soul Resurrección SCE Japan Studio
Blitz: The League II Midway Games
BloodBath: Fight for your life UIG
Blood Drive Sidhe
Blur Bizarre Creations
Bodycount Codemasters Studios Guildford
Bolt Avalanche Software
Bound by Flame Spiders
Brain Challenge Gameloft
Brave: The Video Game Behaviour Interactive
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway Gearbox Software
Brunswick Pro Bowling FarSight Studios

@Octane That's a good point, yeah it seems much cleaner that way.

Agree with most of the above, and want to add that Hell's Highway was a decent game. Not important, though.

BioShock Irrational Games / 2K Marin - VERY IMPORTANT

I actually don't think there's anything to add about this. Very influential in terms of its intelligent and mature story and high production values. Gameplay is dated a little, but I love it anyway. The PS3 version actually is a slight downgrade on the 360 one, but the game itself remained a s compelling as ever, with Rapture being one of gaming's all-time great settings. Now, would you kindly.

BioShock 2 2K Marin / Digital Extremes / 2K Australia / 2K China / Arkane Studios - IMPORTANT

I have a lot more to say about 2 simply because it is viewed as the black sheep of the franchise and has never got as much love as it fully deserves. I agree with its placement as "important", however.

I played BioShock 2 at launch (on the 360). Like many at the time, I was not massively impressed because of the familiarity of the setting and a story that lacked the enormous "wow moments" or Titantanesque characters of the original. Playing as a Big Daddy didn't seem particularly inspired to me, either. Nevertheless it was a game I enjoyed, but quickly moved on from. It certainly didn't stick with me like the first BioShock.

However, in the years since a curious thing happened. On repeat play throughs (I have now played it four times in total) my feelings towards the game radically changed for the better. It's true that it doesn't have the immediate oomph of BioShock and I think this is where much of the criticism stemmed. What it does have is a story and world full of nuance, with a sadder, more intimate and human tale weaved throughout. Rapture is now a world in near total ruin, the remaining populace - bar a handful of key characters - warped and mentally destroyed by over a decade of genetic splicing. The social order replaced by a cult headed by the nefarious Sofia Lamb, who's kindness and reason has twisted into something truly monstrous. By the end her constant radio interruptions start to wear a little thin and at one point I actually laughed because what she said was so ridiculous. Thankfully the game is mostly very well written, with largely engaging dialogue.
It can certainly be argued that BioShock 2 was not a story that needed to be told. The first game wrapped up nicely and Rapture felt "done". Further, there is some degree of retconning at work. However, that does not mean that the BioShock 2's story and world cannot be enjoyed on their own merits.

Where the game exceeds the original is in gameplay. The gunplay of the first always felt clunky and imprecise, forcing many players to rely on little more than the wrench. In 2, everything has been tweaked and overhauled. It handles better and aiming is cleaner. Still not best in genre, but a nice improvement. The combat options are also more elaborate. You can dual wield Plasmids and weapons, which speeds things up, and also lay Plasmid traps. In the "Little Sister ADAM" sections - where you must protect your LS while she collects ADAM from a corpse - you can prepare and lay elaborate traps before triggering the Splicer onslaught. In all it feels considerably more dynamic.
While Rapture lacks the visual impact of the first game, levels are more intricately designed. However, rooms are still relatively small - a drawback of using Unreal Engine 2.5.
Like the first game BioShock 2 has a stellar voice cast (excluding young Eleanor) and score, with a good selection of licensed period music.

BioShock Infinite Irrational Games - VERY IMPORTANT

BioShock Infinite is a game that hit me quite profoundly back in 2013, and that's not really diminished over the years. With each new play through the story still manages to hit like a hammer, and I would argue that in 2019 its social themes are more relevant than ever.
In a few ways the game thinks it is more clever than it actually is; the quantum physics infused story, with its butterfly effects and Schrödinger's Cats, is interesting and stimulates thought, but occasionally misses the mark, particularly at the end.
As a character focused story, however, it very much succeeds. Over the course of the game I found myself becoming very attached to the leads.
As with the other BioShock games, much of the world is fleshed out by numerous audio diaries dotted throughout the game. For me this encouraged exploration.
Unfortunately, as with BioShock 1 (but not 2), the game does find itself starting to run out of steam before the final act. Thankfully, like BioShock, most areas are very nicely designed from both an aesthetic and gameplay perspective. Columbia is certainly a visual treat.

Player choice - or the lack thereof - was something quite heavily criticised at release. The few choices the player is given seem trivial - and they are. Heads or Tails. Bird or Cage. But that's the point. In any game, the choices we are given are always within a finite pre-determined framework (they have to be). In most, the freedom is an illusion. In a game that is about how much freedom individuals truly have and how tied to pre-destiny people are, it was an interesting statement.

Gameplay is a further improvement on the previous BioShock games. This time the game is built using Unreal Engine 3, which enabled large environments. Gunplay is very good, and much faster; as a shooter it's perhaps the series at its very best. As before the game has special powers (called Vigors instead of Plasmids), which can be used with regular weapons. When playing I found myself using a wider array of abilities than in the previous titles.

One area I would like to point out for specific praise is the sound - both vocal performances and music. Much of the licensed music is idiosyncratic, with a number of covers of modern music performed in the style of something that could have been from 1912. Tracks are well selected thematically.

The DLC "Burial at Sea" saw us return to Rapture, which was a joy to go back to, this time with all the gameplay improvements from Infinite. There's some strange retconning of the lore and story from the very first BioShock, and a few mental gymnastics, but it's emotionally extremely hard hitting. It's grim to say the least.

For me Infinite is one of the very best games of its generation, and nothing less than essential.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Arc System Works
BlazBlue: Central Fiction Arc System Works
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Arc System Works
BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Arc System Works

I haven't played any of the BlazBlue games as I'm not particularly into the genre, but I do know that most of them are held in high regard by fans of 2D fighters - particularly Chrono Phantasma - which also had good critical reception. Might I suggest that that is moved up to IMPORTANT and the others not already considered to EXISTING, simply because of where they seem to stand in the genre?

• I have more to say about some of the other games in our list so shall do that tomorrow.

@mookysam Amen to your Bioshock opinions! Thank you for voicing it so I don’t have to. I won’t add anything more as you said it perfectly. Bioshock Infinite - Very Important! Couldn’t agree more.

@Th3solution It's a wonderful game. I can't praise it enough and could probably write a whole lot more! (I won't though 😂)

i see nobody in your team had the misfortunte to play bodycount. i've played it, it's a terrible game.

as for bioshock.. you must all be delirious or something, bioshock infinite is the best of the three! bioshock 2 is mediocre, imo, didn't even bother to finish it. maybe because i saw the 'twist' in the original bioshock coming a mile off, i thought that it was a bit overchoreographed, more so than infinite, imo, so i don't rate it as highly.

@mookysam @leucocyte Yeah, I pondered the story of Bioshock Infinite for months afterward. For some reason the whole thing resonated with me and although I like Rapture as a setting a little better than Columbia, the artistic design was still top shelf. And Infinite contains nothing quite on the level of significance to gaming history and culture as the Big Daddies, but the narrative was much more griping and having Elizabeth as a companion was such a breakthrough at the time. NPC companions had been done before, but never quite as successfully as Elizabeth (until The Last of Us).
We take it for granted now, but it was really uniquely done at the time.
And the ending was just fantastic in my opinion. BS:I is one of my favorite PS3 games, period.

I can tell you BlazBlue: Continuum Shift (2nd game) &
BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma (3rd game) have much the same framework as Calamity Trigger.
The only difference is each game tends to add an extra move or three to each existing character, a few more playable characters are added to the roster. You also get around 20+ hours of story content for each game and maybe a different mode to play. But the way the game plays doesn't change much.

And then the final game, Central Fiction (4th game), the main difference here is they skipped on the English voice acting. Which is a real shame in my opinion.

Sorry for the late input...has been a busy week.
Welcome to the team @mookysam !

I've played & or have experience with:
BioShock Very Important
BioShock 2 Existing
BioShock Infinite Very Important
Bleach: Soul Resurrección N/A
Borderlands Existing
Borderlands 2 Very Important
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! Existing
Burnout Paradise Existing

I played through the BioShock Collection once more on PS4, sometime last year & it re-affirmed my opinion that the BioShock Trilogy might just be the best trilogy in gaming.
However, while BioShock 2 is a very good game, imo it's pretty easily the worst of the bunch. BioShock Infinite is my personal favourite (if you couldn't tell by my sig. ). Not only does it have Ken Levine back at the helm but the DLC- Buried at Sea, essentially closes out the BioShock Universe while ignoring all the events of BioShock 2. Also I found Elizabeth to be pretty easily the best AI companion around...she had her own button prompt, was useful & couldn't die= perfect- I think Sony Santa Monica took some pointers there when designing Atreus in GOW PS4.

Borderlands (1) was a good game for its time. However Borderlands 2 does everything the original does, but several levels better. It's somewhat interesting to see Borderlands 2 being brought up in discussions with the recent influx of 'Looter Shooters'- as it's still the game to beat. Tons of content. Playable offline. No Micro-transactions. Weapons with identity.
While I enjoyed the pre-sequel, it's pretty inconsequential.

I'm not the biggest Burnout fan, but I like arcade racers & Burnout Paradise is easily my favourite.

More thoughts!

Blur - Pitched as a cross between Mario Kart and Bizarre's own Project Gotham Racing, it actually looked rather good. I remember pondering buying it, but was put off by the difficulty and my ever-growing backlog. A commerical failure, despite being critically very well received, this was Bizarre Creations' last game before Activision closed them down. Testament to the nature of the industry - particularly where mega-publishers are involved - and a reminder that great developers are often only one game away from being shuttered.
For trying something new whilst also being a competent racer, I'd place this as EXISTING.

Borderlands - Played this entirely in split-screen co-op. I felt the game was over-hyped and ultimately repetitive and a little dull, although as always playing in co-op improved the experience. The repetitive environments and battles as well as a dull story dragged it down for me. Although battles rarely change, the shooting is very competent.
I actually really enjoyed the DLC - particularly The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned. The setting was interesting and everything was just sillier. So big thumbs up there.

Where it deserves some recognition is for moving shooters towards a more modern open-world structure, and for its fully integrated co-op. Whilst open-world isn't always something I'm terribly keen on wirh shooters (I much prefer a tightly designed linear campaign with forward momentum), I have to recognise its influence in populising the style.
The art style - bland desert environs notwithstanding - is pleasantly cel-shaded, demonstrating that shooters didn't have to be gritty brown and grey.

For me Borderlands is an IMPORTANT

I haven't played Borderlands 2 but I do know that it is well loved, and was very well received. If it's an improvement on the original (which it seems very much to be) I'd also give it an IMPORTANT.

Brütal Legend - Another one I haven't played. Double Fine's last "big" game. It had a troubled road to release, being dropped by Activision after their merger with Vivendi, before being picked it up by EA. The game has nice production values with a fantasy heavy metal setting, and utilises the voice and likeness of Jack Black (he annoys me). Apparently a mix of action-adventure and RTS that doesn't always quite work, it was generally well received but didn't set the gaming world alight - EXISTING

Bulletstorm - Puerile, stupid and gross, but otherwise a competent, well made and colourful shooter. EXISTING

Burnout Paradise is a stupendously awesome open world arcadey street racer that is great fun to play in both single and multiplayer. There's oodles of content including races and stunt jumps. It looks and runs brilliantly and has a great soundtrack too. - IMPORTANT

Unfortunately I haven't had time to go through the other games (most of which I've never heard of).

To summarise my ranking so you don't need to read through walls of text.

Bioshock - VERY IMPORTANT
BioShock 2 - IMPORTANT
BioShock Infinite - VERY IMPORTANT
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger - IMPORTANT
BlazBlue: Central Fiction - EXISTING
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift - EXISTING
BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma - IMPORTANT
Blur - EXISTING
Borderlands - IMPORTANT
Borderlands 2 - IMPORTANT
Brütal Legend - EXISTING
Bulletstorm - EXISTING
Burnout Paradise - IMPORTANT

Next week I should be able to devote more time to researching games.

@Fight_Sora_Fight Howdy! BioShock probably is my favourite gaming trilogy too (and Infinite is my favourite in the series). Overall, the last generation was excellent for new IP and trilogies in a way we haven't seen on the PS4, probably because of ever increasing costs and the risk of failure. The Mass Effect trilogy is certainly a very close second for me, and though it's not a PS3 series, I also really liked the Gears of War trilogy.

Damn, looks like I'm going to have to play Bioshock Infinite at some point

AdamNovice

@KALofKRYPTON @Kidfried @Gremio108 @Fight_Sora_Fight @Octane @mookysam Here is the latest summary based on your recent feedback

VERY IMPORTANT
BioShock
Bioshock Infinite
Borderlands 2
Burnout Paradise

IMPORTANT
BioShock 2
BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger
BlazBlue: Central Fiction
Borderlands
Brütal Legend
Bulletstorm

EXISTING
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift
BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma
Blazing Angels 2: Secret Missions of WWII
Birds of Steel
Blur
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!
Brink Splash Damage
Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway

UNIMPORTANT
Blacksite Area 51
Bladestorm: The Hundred Years War
Blades of Time
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII
Bleach: Soul Resurrección
Bolt
Bound By Flame
Brave
Brain Challenge

POINTLESS
Blitz The League 2
Bloodbath: Fight for your life
Blood Drive
Bodycount
Brunswick Pro Bowling

@AdamNovice you ready to stamp that in place ADF? Place the result in the main thread.

@mookysam Top BioShock write up! Read your thoughts over breakfast 😁.
Pretty much agree with all your points. Couldn't put it better if I tried.

@KALofKRYPTON @Kidfried @Gremio108 @Octane @mookysam @AdamNovice I believe I'm heading up the court of appeals as our teams representative?
Any games that may need to be bumped?

@Fight_Sora_Fight Agree on all points.

@Fight_Sora_Fight Blur!