I may have died, but I got better. At any rate I'm not dead now so I might as well write something. I have, of course, played a lot of games in the past 6+ months of no posting so I'll mention some highlights. At least the ones I remember.
BioShock - The first one.. no, really. Despite having owned the game on PC for years (thanks Steam) I never bothered to play it. I picked up the Xbox 360 version in anticipation/preparation for BioShock Infinite. Surprisingly, I managed to play through it this time. It was a very fascinating game. It even inspired me to purchase and attempt to read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Yeah, I haven't finished that yet (someday...). I also picked up BioShock 2 and my plan was to finish that before Infinite as well but that didn't happen.
Star Wars: The Old Republic - When SWTOR went free to play I saw it as an opportunity to play through the story at no cost to myself. I mean, it is a BioWare game, after all, and I had prior experience with the beta so I was always curious to play (or rather finish) the Jedi Knight story. The free to play thing last just a few days before I upgraded to Preferred status. That lasted just a few days before I subscribed. I played the game for about 5 months. During that time I had a level 50 (and recently a level 55) Sentinel and a 55 Sorcerer. I think the game itself is a lot of fun and the stories were, naturally, quite interesting.
The reason I quit, though, is the community. Unfortunately to do things like PvP, Flashpoints or raid (Something I did very little) I have to play with other people. That means I have to deal with incredibly stupid people. Worse still, I have to deal with incredibly bad people in a game that is absurdly easy to be good at. I quite literally grew tired of grouping with people I had to carry through Flashpoints. I grew tired of seeing people complain in PvP about this or that when it was pretty clear to me the problem was simply they were a bad player. It was particularly frustrating taking my level 50 (pre-expansion) Sorcerer into a PvP Warzone and doing the highest damage on our team despite having the worst gear. That during a time when gear trumped player skill. It became even more ridiculous when the expansion came out and I took her into a 55 Warzone and topped everybody with over 1 million damage. The next highest person on the team managed 400k.
I spent very little time outside the game doing research to be a better player. The time I spent doing the research was paid for many times over by my efficiency at the game. Yet every time I visited Makeb (the new planet added with the expansion) I would see level 50+ people asking basic mechanics questions. It was rather disheartening to be surrounded by so much stupidity. So I quit.
Tomb Raider - I was very worried about the new Tomb Raider game. I wanted it to be awesome. I was afraid of what they were going to do to Lara, though. For years, Lara has been one of the shamefully few strong female leads in games. Yes, she was over-sexualized with her appearance. The designers always put her in impractical swimsuits. Her personality, though, was strong. In the lead-up to the new Tomb Raider, though, I was hearing stuff like "you'll want to protect her". That, however, is exactly what I don't want from a Tomb Raider game. I don't want to protect Lara, I want Lara to take care of herself.
Fortunately, that's exactly what happened. Lara grew as the game progressed and was quite capable of taking care of herself in a pretty believable way. Yes, there's self doubt and disbelieve in her but she overcomes it. She grows into the strong character she's always been and it all happens in an amazing game that's a lot of fun to play.
BioShock Infinite - Confession, this is the reason I made this post in the first place. I just finished up BioShock Infinite about an hour ago. The game is pretty amazing, of course. Why wouldn't I like it? It features Jennifer Hale. I learned during the credits it also had Laura Bailey in it. Those are my two favorite voice actors, I'm on board already.
I have seen one major criticism of the game, though, and that's the extreme violence. Disregarding the fact that I have no problem with violence, I think that complaint is a bit silly and short-sighted. Indeed I think it's about as absurd as people who took issue with the baptismal scene. Why? Because I believe it is part of the narrative and central to some of the game's ideas. You have the bright, beautiful utopia of Columbia juxtaposed with the horror and brutality Booker commits. One of the running themes in the game pertains to the horrors Booker has committed. Elizabeth even has reactions to some of the things Booker does (Skyhook executions in particular). The violence isn't there just for show, it serves a purpose. It's unfortunate that some people can't see that, though, and pass up on a game that could make them think and grow as a person just because of some arbitrary moral quandary. I daresay it would even be ironic, except knowing the plot of the game, in this case, it's completely apropos.
Now, of course, we must see to the elephant: the ending. What did I think of the ending? The ending was what I expected. It was the ending I pieced together on my own - mostly. There were little details here and there all throughout the game that I didn't quite pick up on but all the big stuff like the Luteces, who Elizabeth and Comstock are and what will happen at the end were in my head before I saw them. A lot of the stuff is hinted at in the Voxphones before they are explicitly stated. Some of the other things I was able to piece together from the hints and thinking orthogonally about the story.
That doesn't really answer what I think about the ending, though, does it? I think the ending is good because it makes people think. However, I don't think the ending itself much cares what I - or anybody else - thinks about it. It is both a concrete and abstract ending. An individual can take away from it what they wish. I think the ending is bad because it requires the player to think. I think it will go over a lot of people's heads because it isn't clearly spelled out in bright letters. Heads... or tails?