I'm interested in this. I haven't played this one, yet, but I've played Leviathan. I wonder if the two were planned as appeals to two different market segments. Leviathan contributed a Hell of a lot to the story, but was light on the action. Many reviewers, on the other hand, are saying that Omega is an action spectacle that's light on the storytelling.

This game was made by the best kind of weirdos.

@bill2theE The problem is just personal. There's plenty to appreciate in the action, but very little to respect. Appreciable is the fact that cancer research now has more money at its disposal.

Respectable would be a company that uses business for social improvement, not social improvement for business. It's just personal, not a criticism that I expect means a lot to everyone.

It's a bummer, though, that the decision to support cancer research seems to be grounded mostly in business principles. And, I should say that I only think that because there is nothing on EA's website that indicates any long term partnership with anyone but the media ("press room") and their investors ("investor relations"). It could be that their social partnerships are so earnest that there's no way anyone but an employee would know about it.

Good video. I think the only turnoff about campaigns like this one is that the company isn't doing it for altruistic reasons. EA is doing this because it hopes it will help them make more money off of games in the future.

In other words, it seems EA aren't using their position in business to do good, but rather are doing good to further their position in business. I think this because a) they aren't a partner in cancer research and b) they are making a big deal out of this, publicly. If they were the type of business that leverages its position in the economy to do good, then it seems to me a full-time community support program would take them far in the right direction. Also, it would let them put a "community relations" link next to the "investor relations" "corporate info" and "press room" links in the footer of their website.

From a utilitarian point of view, though, this is definitely a good thing.

@gilldominic The incentive technical deductions creates is pretty good, though. Docking a day 1 review points because of patchable issues encourages developers to make sure the game runs well before launch, and discourages them from relying on patches.

I think the purpose of the review business is to encourage perfection in the games industry, so scores that seem unfairly low (or nitpicky) make sense to me.

@Kevin-V @Conscrumptured @rykeut Also, I'm reading my first comment, and if read a certain way I think it might sound sarcastic. It's not. I really this is review is interesting and liked reading it.

@Kevin-V @Conscrumptured @rykeut Because of Levine's track record, and because you make a lot of sense in your review about this DLC's faults, I'm wondering (hoping?) if maybe this series of DLC will play with metagaming like the first Bioshock did with the linearity of first person shooters. It would be cool if these episodes' natures as a) DLC and b) episodic content are somehow tied into the narrative and the story's message.

It seems like this DLC is falling prey to an issue that hurts a lot of story driven DLC released for complex, involved games (things like rushing character progression v. having the same super-powered character from the original game, rushing the narrative to make a short installment feel substantial, ham-fisting the original's mechanics into an installment which may not need them). They all seem to be compromising this DLC's integrity, but that seems strange for a game directed by a person who's as creatively obsessed as Ken Levine. It would be really cool if they've written the game so that analyzing the game is a part of the game itself, kind of like what they did with Bioshock 1.

Wow, this was a great review. It's especially interesting, since many other reviewers are loving it, as if they just forget about the issues that Kevin quite rationally points out.

One argument, though, and maybe this is something about which Irrational will learn just as much as we. This is episode one in a series of multiple episodes. Ken Levine's style is typically about confusing us until the end of his story. Perhaps many of the things which don't make sense in Ep 1 are supposed to make little sense. Maybe the questions Kevin is asking are what the devs intended (Booker inherently understands Tears, characters act inconsistently...). Maybe, by releasing Burial at Sea in segments, Irrational are asking for each of a larger game's acts to be analyzed and reviewed individually. And maybe that will hurt each installment's score, even though the aggregate experience will still be phenomenal.

@FaustXII Ha, a little cynical?

I do agree with you a bit, though. That Hunger Games reference was totally contrived. That mode has existed forever--it's called "Free for All."

@malintenby Instinct is probably genetic, just like eye colors. Over time, the sea turtles who survive are the ones who naturally derive reward from the behaviors that are optimal for survival. I think that learning is just a way of conditioning the reward sensation--i.e. you don't know what something is before you learn what it is. Afterward, you're able to associate it with something you naturally find rewarding, and therefore you find that new thing rewarding.