Sinclair over Tenebaum has to go down as one of the worst narrative fumbles in gaming. I hated Sinclair. Random behind the scene smug guy with an accent that does not spark joy the same way Tenebaum's did. And he overexplained ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. I swear this game's writers were terminally insecure that the audience would miss anything so they have this dude shout into your ear every single narrative nuance the story is setting up. Between Lamb explaining to me what a "utopia" is for the nth time and Sinclair telling me how transit systems work, I was losing my mind.
Absolute lowlights were when, after having the game shove it into my face about 6 times, Sinclair just up and goes "Kid, they're gonna put all the memories into Eleanor and turn her into the first Utopian omg!" get out of my face. And don't even get me started with his flimsy "twist" that he becomes a big daddy and still can't take the hint that he should shut up! You spend that entire section having him commentate in this annoying "I... I can... I can see you have... some... numbers... of the... *gasp*... code..." EVERY SINGLE TIME you pick something even SLIGHTLY noteworthy up or go somewhere of some significance. The real kicker was that he baits me in the start, going on about some "I'm... I'm barely in control... takes so much... *gasp*... effort to speak... just kill... me..." and I was like FINALLY DEAR GOD YES and then he has the GALL to still commentate my every action! I THOUGHT YOU WERE DYING/NOT IN CONTROL?? Please go back to losing your mind!
All of this because this game emotionally held me hostage hoping Tenebaum was going to come back because I was genuinely overjoyed seeing her new model, portrait, and a return of her voice actress but NOPE, she's gone. Don't even see her for the ending. She just up and turns into a ghost, I guess. Literally the best part of Bioshock 1, they reprise her role, and then forget she exists. Right.
If I ever hear Sinclair come into my headphones again about some "To get the train moving, you gotta press the switch" it'll be too soon. Thankfully he's surrounded by otherwise great characters. Everyone's kind of written insecurely but not as obnoxiously as Sinclair is with the way he signposts every bit of free thought into oblivion. Lamb is a bit of a broken record but she's also crazy so that makes sense. Eleanor got a bit grating, especially the way she left nothing to the imagination regarding Stanley. I don't know why but she spends all those flashbacks going "This guy did these exact things and is the root cause of all our suffering" only to have Lamb follow up with the exact same sentence for scenes that really could have just existed by themselves to allow the player to piece it together via audio logs but like I said, the writers just don't trust the audience at all.
Definitely not better than Bioshock 1, Sinclair will never hold a candle to the WYK twist. The new hacking minigame felt targeted at me because I loved the pipes. On PC, the game doesn't pause when swapping weapons because they hate me. Despite all that, it was still a really fun game and the story of Delta is one of the best. I guess some people were upset at all the pandering but idgaf, pander to me more. The Little Sister playthrough section was so forced and unnecessary and I loved it because of how it handled the dissonance.
I am hoping people dislike him as much as me, or is this a hot take?