Ken Levine

Misunderstood genius or overrated hack?

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He's a hack and he outright admitted to it. He purposefully writes about shit that goes over his head because he likes when "smart stuff" confuses him.

This can't be real

Talentless hack who ripped off Marathon 1 for the one good game he made.

(While I’m at it, BioShock Infinite has vague similarities to Marathon Infinity beyond the odd title scheme)

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>ideas guy

cringe. he was lucky enough to have overseen some very talented teams who made the art and programmed code for very good video games. don't ever fawn over some "design lead" or director types, not even Kojima. they all get exposed when the talent isn't around them anymore. look at that vaporware walking simulator Death Stranding, now that Konami's legion of worker bees are not around to make a good game.

That being said, he seems like a really nice guy. Just an irrational idiot with a lot of luck. I've seen him on a few live streams and he was the most down to earth and laid back dev involved.

>irrational idiot

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Bioshock was a fun.
Infinite was a game that tried to appeal to smart people yet simultaneously dumbed itself down by stripping the RPG mechanics and curbing the exploration. It used to piss me off how mediocre the game turned out, but now it only makes me sad. It could have been so much more than an okay corridor shooter with a pretty skybox.

He was a big help in creating the concept of Thief(didnt really dev for it but helped think it up and shit), made System Shock 2 and Bioshock 1.

Hes alright in my book. Infinite would have been amazing if they could have given us what it was really gonna be like.

I think his vision for Infinite was too beyond the hardware of 7th gen of consoles but they had to go release it anyway

>Misunderstood genius
>I like to write about things that make me feel dumb

Infinite was a game put together in about a year and a half because Levine couldn't decide what he wanted to do and 2K got tired of spending money on Irrational so they sent someone to make a playable game out of Levine's prototypes.

He's a good writer but he's not a genius. Basic problem with Infinite is that you can tell 95% of his effort went into Elizabeth, the other characters are so barebones and bland.

He is a fucking hack but he can still redeem himself.
He didn't fall like Cliffy B or Randy.

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That doesn't entirely explain a nonsensical plot with holes. BioShock also had tons of cut content and yet it was largely praised and remembered for its story.

I missed the part where he had a claim to genius

>you can tell 95% of his effort went into Elizabeth
Although this seems true based on how he's talked about her in interviews, this is embarrassing. Elizabeth is shockingly shallow. Shes been locked away, essentially abused by her father, for her entire life, and she's completely socially adjusted without any notable kind of mark outside of her being "naive". She's worse than a Disney Princess. Horrible writing.

What the fuck is this guy even up to nowadays?

Being old and rich

A George-Lucas type hack. Some good ideas, some bad ideas, shouldn't be given free range. That kind of thing.

A TBA game under the rebranded Irrational 'Ghost Story Games'

He restructured and rebranded Irrational under a new name "Ghost Story Games". They're working on a first person game with non linear storytelling.

a bit of both, but misunderstood hack and overrated genius.

misunderstood hack

these
bioshocks are fun

This is probably closest to the truth. He was heavily involved with Thief. He's not completely incompetent, he just shouldn't be running the entire show.

He's the kind of designer that thrived when games weren't so fucking expensive to make. Infinite's original concept was most likely too ambitious to be feasible so it got cut down a lot. Probably still has good visions left in him but we'll see

>99% of all games are corporate-made assembly-line shit
>Yea Forums spends all its energy shitting on the dozen or so games made by actual artists

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I know him personally. He is a genuinely good dude. Lots of fun to talk to.

It's purely due to public response. When infinite is being shoved down your throat as GOAT circa 2013, and people are unironically talking about how it's an intellectually stimulating and important game, it really shines a light on how depressing the entire industry is, and how bad the state of players is. These are the people everyone wants to sell to and it's not only terrifying, but has shown to be a negative thing tenfold since Infinite released. It's not Levine's fault his game did really well, but it makes people who disagree put it under a microscope and Infinite does not fair well when you do that. Especially compared to the original concepts they had for it.

hack.

Sorry but I've never found the Bioshock games to be fun or inspiring at all. The only thing interesting these games have ever done was the undersea environment, that was it. The games were an absolute bore to play through.

Oh and Elizabeth I guess, he can be credited for kickstarting SFM with Elizabeth

I don't get how Bioshock 1 was so good yet Bioshock Infinate was so fucking bad

1 - smaller team, didn't have to pander to casuals, no expectations based on brand

Infinite - big team, pander hard to casuals and dudebros, high expectations

Most of the team left after 1 due to the torrid development.

You can make some amazing Lego sculptures, but you’re going to get laughed out of the building if you try to submit it to an art museum. Any “artistic” merit in games Kevin makes are undermined by how the gameplay is meant to appeal to the absolute lowest common denominator of consumer. You can sing the praises of Infinite’s story or visuals all you want, but in the end it’s still an overly simplified shooty game meant for the “WAIT A MINUTE, THAT PICTURE” retards who lapped it up.

Weren't they moved to 2K Marin for 2?

Nah, the late development cycle of Bioshock was a mess, people being shut out of meetings, a 5-6 month crunch time, most of the people left the studio entirely.

>You can sing the praises of Infinite’s story
You can't even do this. It makes no sense if you think about it at all and the portrayal of racism and revolution was ridiculous.