T w e n t y S i d e d
I wasn’t going to write an article on this at all, but now people have forced my hand. In the comments of my previous post people were shocked, shocked(!) that I dumped on BioShock after playing just twenty minutes of the demo. I claimed it was shorter, shallower, and an example of what was wrong with PC gaming. Surely I needed I play for longer than that to make that sort of call?
No. Actually, I could have written those claims without even starting the game. I knew this was an empty husk the moment I opened the key bindings screen and saw it had about the same number of inputs as (say) Doom. Or Serious Sam. You can tell the experience is shallower before you even start it up.
No map. No inventory screen. No leveling. No research. No open levels with multiple paths. No economy. No hacking for supplies. As soon as you click on a food item you consume it on the spot. (Think about the many ways in which that flattens the game out. Suddenly instead of managing supplies, you’re just picking up healthpacks. Like Doom.)
I know what I’m talking about when it comes to System Shock 2. I can’t count the number of times I’ve played through the game. I could sit down and draw the entire floorplan of the Von Braun right now. I’ve explored every aspect and every activity the game has to offer. I know System Shock 2 personally, and BioShock is no System Shock 2.
And of course the game is eight hours long, instead of over twenty-five. Okay, I cheated on that one. I didn’t play through to check, I just listened to every single person everywhere who ever commented on the game length. Feel free to set me (and everyone else) straight if there was another ten to fifteen hours of gameplay tucked away in there that they missed.
Infected by DRM. Eight hours long. Stripped down to a shallower experience. Based on a popular franchise of the past, while abandoning key features and depth. BioShock is the poster child for everything that’s happening to PC Gaming. I’m sure the game is fun for many, and it’s certainly got more going for it than a straightforward shooter, but it needs a lot more than that to step into the legendary shoes of its System Shock grandsires. Which is exactly what it pretended to do.
It’s okay if you like it better. Maybe you don’t go in for all that leveling up nonsense and inventory management. Fine, fine. But the game is simpler. End of story. Full stop. I don’t need to play the whole thing to see that. If my comment “disappointed” you, then you must think I’m a profound idiot. Because you’d have to be pretty thick to need more that a few minutes with BioShock to notice that half the expected “Shock” gameplay is gone. Maybe you don’t miss those features, but they’re still gone and I noticed.
Someone even had the nerve to compare me to the idiots who denounced Mass Effect as SimPorn without ever looking at it, which is what set me off here. If you want to debate the merits of the game, go find some other site and talk about what an irresponsible hate-filled slacker Shamus Young is, because I don’t think I’m dedicated enough at this to hack my way through every tepid stub of a videogame before I’m allowed to tell you I didn’t enjoy it. I’d just as soon you write me off now than hassle me about this. I don’t need people telling me I need to eat the whole pizza before I’m allowed to point out that it’s three inches wide, cold, soggy, and covered in insects.
Juvenile and Proud
Yes, this game is loud, crude, childish, and stupid. But it it knows what it wants to be and nails it. And that's admirable.
DM of the Rings
Both a celebration and an evisceration of tabletop roleplaying games, by twisting the Lord of the Rings films into a D&D game.
How to Forum
Dear people of the internet: Please stop doing these horrible idiotic things when you talk to each other.
The Best of 2017
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2017.
Project Octant
A programming project where I set out to make a Minecraft-style world so I can experiment with Octree data.
Wow. Quite a rant there.
So, for someone who’s never played System Shock 2, would it be good?
Yeah, Bioshock doesn’t have anything on System Shock 2.. Pity, though, it could have been great instead of good if they just used their budget wisely (programmers’ salary, for example).
Kel'Thuzad: A good question. I actually WOULD have to play the game to answer that one. Although, my guess is that BioShock is a good pick for anyone who likes shooters but finds them a little shallow.
I went in hoping for something a bit like System Shock 2, which is a terrible way to approach the game. (Which is a shame, since that’s how they marketed it.)
Well, too bad with it. I don’t think I’ll ever enjoy your website again the same way..
Naaa, who am I kidding? I don’t think I’ll ever stop reading you, or liking d20. And you are right, I went way over the edge by comparing you with the SimPorn hunter, and I apologize. It was totally uncalled for.
(but I still think your love of SS2 gives you a biaised view of BS, which you don’t deny. Which is halfway sad, halfway good. Good, because people who loved BS may one day go and try SS2, and have their horizon widen because of it. Bad because the game it’s good in itself, and it’s main flaw is not to live up to it’s predecessor.)
I personnally myself stopped playing games having played less than 20 minutes into the game, sure. Because I freaking hated the game itself, the interface, the gameplay, whatever else. I had needed about 10 minutes of the thing before I stopped trying. Usually, it happened in a game with a new genre, new things, etc…
But.. Bioshock isn’t revolutionising the industry. Far from it. Actually, even the other way around, it was dumbing down the whole Shock gameplay! I stopped playing Morrowind after 2 hours because I couldn’t stand the absence of some Oblivion feature. And I am sure many people hated Oblivion because of some of the things it lacked (that Morrowind had), but I don’t think either of them gave up on the thing after a mere 20 minutes. The game may have been a different, dumbed-one, but they gave it a chance to try to like it until their frustration took over.
So… That what buzzed me. That’s all. Sorry if I have started something I shouldn’t have.
First time posting a comment here…
While I don’t really agree with you about Bioshock, Shamus, I hate people say you have to experience the whole of something before you’re allowed to have an opinion. There’s a difference between being ill-informed and simply not liking something for well thought out reasons. I don’t have to be stabbed in the eye to figure out I won’t really enjoy it.
For the record, I liked Bioshock on a different level to how I enjoyed games like Deus Ex (to my eternal shame, I’ve never got all the way through SS2 as I can’t get it to run on my current PC). The atmosphere was fantastic, the combat was as much fun as an FPS can offer, and I did like the story (up to a point).
To paraphase some famous guy’s quote, I may not like what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
I actually played BioShock, and I had this massive sinking feeling when I realized that there was no inventory screen. I couldn’t initially figure out where the first pack of chips was, and then I realized the crunching sound was that I had eaten it. I still loved the shooter side of the game, but at that point it lost any legitimate claim to having a role-playing element.
I’ve never played System Shock 2, but I’d like to give it a try sometime. Would it be on eBay for relatively cheap?
I have played both System Shock 2 and Bioshock, and while System Shock 2 had a lot more depth to it, Bioshock was still a lot of fun. The hacking and combat got a bit tedious, and the end dragged on a bit (yes, in a game with 8-10 hours of gameplay, it was dragging by the end…) but I still enjoyed exploring the environment and discovering the plot and what had happened to destroy this world under the sea.
Bioshock is in that weird category of game where I don’t recommend buying it, but if you can borrow it from a friend (like I did) then by all means play it, since it is a good source of entertainment for a while.
@Alastair
How can you rate Bioshock’s storyline compared to System Shock?
SolkaTruesilver: A biased view of System Shock? Are you crazy? Do you think I’m one of those fanboy nutjobs would would go and write a whole fanfiction novel about a game or something?
So yeah. Maybe. A little bit.
No map. No inventory screen.
Gee, not even up to the standards of Heretic?
Ouch.
To paraphase some famous guy’s quote, I may not like what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Yeah. He said that to me once. I told him to shut up.
:)
I never played System Shock 2, so I have no frame for comparison.
I enjoyed Bioshock quite a bit. It’s because I was tired of how shallow other FPSs are. Also, I got a real kick out of the Randian backstory.
@Stephen
Hey, I liked it. It was more realist not be able to carry around 50 kg of stuff and still run/jump, and not having a map writing itself as I go on while fighting mutants. Yhea, it’s a gameplay feature, but on the other hand, I actually got lost, and began worried about finding food to get some health back…
I don’t know, it gave a flair of survival game. If the whole game had been more difficult (because Yahtzee pretty much nailed the point about BS’s difficulty), I would have been panicking when freakies jumped on me when I was at half health.
@Shamus
You. Are. A. Freak. Seriously, I apologize. I should have known better than to provoke a fanboy on his home territory :)
(you have to admit that a fanboy’s “home territory” don’t happen often on the internet…)
Chris: I had the exact same moment. I clicked on some food. Then I went to open the inventory, remembered I didn’t HAVE one, and then noticed the munching sound.
Facepalm.
The whole thing is a major suspension of disbelief anyway… Even JC Denton is happy to scoff down a chocolate bar he found lying on the floor in some sewer or something. And how can eating crisps possibly heal up a flesh wound? Can we get them on the NHS?
So I haven’t played either system shock 1 or 2. However I only see people talking about 2. So does that mean I should avoid it?
I’m currently playing through SS2 for the first time, ever. A couple months ago, I started playing Bioshock. I put a few hours on, but it just never grabbed me. SS2 grabbed me from the moment it started.
A couple nitpicks, though, and maybe I just have a terrible memory or I don’t understand what you’re getting at. But, “…no map… no hacking for supplies.” I could’ve sworn I remember looking at a map in Bioshock, but maybe there wasn’t a minimap? Also, I thought I remember hacking those supply machines to get stuff cheaper, as well. Then again, like I said, it’s been a couple months since I actually played Bioshock, and I’m currently going through SS2, so maybe things are getting mixed up in my head.
Edit: awaiting moderation? The man’s keeping me down! :)
Being a “casual gamer,” I like the simpler, shorter games more. (Though I do wish they cost less as well.) However, I’ve made up my mind one way or another about many games with MUCH less than 15 minutes of play.
Besides, isn’t that what demos are supposed to be for?
@Kel’Thuzad (#1): By a weird combination of events I never played System Shock 2, though from what I know of it I think I probably would really enjoy it (example: I love Deus Ex, but wish there were more RPG elements).
I think the key is that this isn’t an FPS/RPG, its an FPS that has some extra “stuff”, Tonics and Plasmids, that you don’t normally get.
The only real leveling is how you choose your Tonics and Plasmids, and you are only limited in that you can only equip ‘x’ number of them and you have to go to special locations to switch them out.
Before I started playing I went to GameFAQs, made lists of Tonics and Plasmids and mapped out exactly how I’d try to equip them and what kind of “build” I was going for. In the end that was completely unnecessary cause I only really needed two or three plasmids and by the time you have enough Tonics that you have to make choices on which to equip you are powerful enough that it doesn’t really make any difference.
Bottom Line: In the context of it being an FPS it was a good game. But I don’t think of it as an FPS/RPG at all.
EDIT: Oh and to address Shamus’ point: not only can you judge the whole game by 20 minutes of the demo, but you’ll actually get an inflated sense of how good the game is. The demo is the beginning of the game so you don’t have enough plasmids to just wander around without fear or caution. I felt game-play got less interesting as it went on (though in its defense the story and atmosphere were solid throughout).
I played through the demo of Bioshock a couple of times and I discovered the same thing, only with the booze. I kept getting myself “accidentally” drunk.
I’ve played System Shock 2 numerous times and I can say that Bioshock comes close to SS2 in creating an eerie atmosphere. I really got sucked into the the story and all the props and sounds. Those Splicers scared the crap out of me. But it has nothing on the depth of gameplay thet SS2 offers.
Bioshock was still a lot of fun though and when I eventually find it in the bargain bin, I’ll buy it.
I enjoyed Bioshock but not nearly as much as I wanted to. Having played System Shock 1 just a few months ago it seemed hopelessly shallow. It was certainly deeper than most other shooters though and I’d still recommend the game to people.
We should start learning Russian, I gather that the PC games market in Russia is everything ours isn’t. They still make lots of point and click adventure games! :)
Fenix: The original System Shock came out in 1994, and is usually priced like a collector’$ item on eBay.
And while I love the game, it has not aged well. The interface is horrible by modern standards. Plus, it can be tricky to get the sucker to run. SS2 is pretty much the same fun, but it’s cheaper, looks better, and has a much nicer interface. You could even make the case the SS2 is a little deeper when it comes to character-building.
Uh… Bioshock has a map. I know – I kept having to look at it when I was trying to figure out where I wanted to go next.
It also has a research component (through taking pictures), hacking of vending machines for reduced cost supplies, first aid kits, and a mechanism for building weapons and items using stuff you find (and keep in your apparently-non-existent-inventory). There’s leveling of plasmids (in that you can buy or not buy higher levels, just like SS2), gene tonics, research bonuses and available slots to put them in. Just like System Shock 2, I take my XP/ADAM/cyber modules to a machine and decide what part of my character I want to improve. There are plenty of levels where I’ve had more than once choice of how to approach things and where to go. And if it’s an eight hour game, nobody told me – I’ve spent way more than eight hours on it and don’t think I’m close to the end. Perhaps that time estimate assumes you don’t explore/sneak around/etc.
Now, a lot of these mechanics trickle in gradually over the first few hours of the game, so you may not have seen them. It doesn’t have SS2’s awesome tutorial/character generation sequence in the first 20m (which pretty much sold me the game). But you’re extrapolating from scene setting and tutorial in ways that just aren’t right.
I really like System Shock 2 – I’ve bought it more than once, played it a lot and have an unopened big box version of it in my collection. My impressions after an hour or so of Bioshock was that it was very much a successor to System Shock 2. And, yeah, I could pick up chips in System Shock 2 and carry them around with me. I never did, because the only time they were worth the space in my inventory was when I was low enough on health to want to eat them immediately.
Having played Bioshock and NOT System Shock or System Shock 2 I will add my 2 cents to the discussion (note that I am Canadian so my 2 cents are slightly less valuable! :) )…
I dispised Bioshock. The story felt like an afterthought. The levels were semi-interesting but incredibly repetitive. The enemies were one-dimensional and I never got why each faction had the same people and why EVERYONE tried to kill you even when you were helping them. I grimaced my way through the game waiting for the moment of AMAZING people had been talking about but it never came. I was glad I bought it on sale. It makes me reluctant to even try SS2 but since Shamus has clearly indicated they are different games, I will still try it.
/2cent rant.
Covered in insects?! Where the heck do you order pizza from?!
Bioshock does have a great story, one that pulls from Ayn Rand works. Excellent story if you get into it. The mechanics are less than compared to System Shock 2, but I felt both of the game’s stories were well worth it to experience. I also remember reading that the developers had to make the ‘story’ part optional for all the fans that just want a shooter. I’d have liked to see the game made more to the original developers intent.
Is it interesting that BioShock gets abbreviated to BS?
Coincidence? I think not. :)
I think we, as PC players, are somewhat strongly affected by the Console’s Golden Age of gaming. Since devs want to reach the wider audience, they feel like they need to make console version of their products. So, the dumb age of PC gaming is because of the Golden age of the other. Is this a zero-sum game?
Now, if they started to make intelligent(er) games for consoles, would the people buy it? Should they dare?
“While experience has told me that declaring a game shitty because of the first few hours is perfectly valid en completley proffessional, you should never assume a good game will stay good”
I think, stripped down does not neccessarely mean shallower. Lots can be done with very simple games, Shadow of the Colossus is a great example. I have nothing against short games either, as long the games work as short games, here, Portal is a good example.
Now, I’ve played neither System Shock 2 or BioShock. Which one would I like? I don’t know, some things you see giant differences in, I see almost none. You hate Halo, but likes Half-Life 2, they felt quite equal to me.
Bioshock being a disappointment is no surprise to me.
Ever since game graphics have gotten good enough to simulate the cinematic experience of watching a movie, gameplay and storyline have suffered. [Not that storyline was ever consistently good in videogames either.]
My theory is due to the profit-driven and highly expensive nature of videogames today, there’s too much of an investment to allow a bunch of random nerds to deliver something kind of experimental which explores the videogame medium’s use of gameplay and story as a unified thing. Instead we get cutscene emulations of an entirely different medium which people already have plenty of knowledge on how to experience (movies), and barely noticeable innovation in gameplay mechanics.
[@EDIT: Or no innovation in gameplay mechanics, or steps backward in gameplay mechanics. Wouldn’t want to step on the toes of the ‘cinematic’ experience by forcing players to fiddle about inside an inventory menu. Managing inventory isn’t cinematic!]
SS2 is the better game, but Bioshock is still one of my favorites. I didn’t really analyze games the way I do now when I first played SS2, so it’s hard to say what I would think of that game now. Maybe it would blow Bioshock out of the water. I haven’t played it in a long time.
Yeah, Bioshock was pretty short, but I said the other day that I felt like it was the right length for the story, and it’s not because the story isn’t deep (because I found it to be very thought-provoking). The story just wasn’t served by being a lot longer than it was.
Hi, first time poster, long time reader. Put me in the category of never having played SS2 but enjoying Bioshock. I’m actually not a big fan of shooters, but I enjoyed this one. I actually liked the story a lot and I really liked the retro environments. The game was a bit short I suppose, but fortunately I rented it, so that wasn’t a problem.
Not sure how I’d feel about System Shock 2, it was Bioshock’s Steampunk meets Jet age setting that made me want to play it. I’m not really a big fan of cyberpunk type settings.
Also, some other posters have pointed out that Bioshock does have a map, hacking, and a sort of leveling up system. I played the game on the 360 though, so I don’t know what the PC version is like.
I, too, played the demo for about 20 minutes and got sick of it. In my case, though, it was due to running Windows 2000 and the graphics looked like crap. Even though HL 2 + all the episodes looked great.
However, on the note of inventory management and all the other fiddly bits, I don’t think that it adds depth to a game or its enjoyment. For instance, I thought Warcraft 3 was a much better and deeper RTS than Sins of a Solar Empire. SSE is riddled with fiddly bits to much with. Yet, that may be a bad analogy.
You’ve been doing a lot of rants lately. Any particular reason?
As I understand it, the game itself is only 8-10 hours long. Which means that I’ll finally get the mechanics I want for the last two hours of gameplay?
Oh, that’s just spiffy!
I just wanted to add a second thing I just remembered.
In regards to the length of modern games, I don’t think that having a shorter game is all that bad. With that flamebait, I’ll dive a bit deeper.
I played Final Fanatsy I when it came out countless times (including a party of all black mages). However, that was back when I was a kid, was broke, and there weren’t all that many good games out. Spending several months on one game was the norm for me.
A few months ago I went back and played Final Fantasy I on a NES emulator. Without the emulator’s save state function, I wouldn’t have had the patience to get through it. Just because it was a long game didn’t make it that much more enjoyable.
On the other end of things, I agree that a really short game makes me feel like I’ve been ripped off. But there’s a happy medium.
I could have played Oblivion in about 20 hours and been done with it. But, because it provided so many side quests, I clocked in over 200 hours playing them all (I mean all) before even touching the main quest. It may have its problems, but it’s a game that balanced the ability to play it in a short time, versus the potential to explore it deeply.
Another issue I left out of the BS discussion: Performance. I can run HL2 with the frame rate maxed out, but BS was choppy at the same resolution. Does one REALLY look that much better than the other? (I will admit the BS water effects were pretty sweet, but this applies even when you’re away from water.) I suppose in a side-by-side comparison I might give the edge to BS, but that could be due to stylistic factors as much as graphics technology.
It’s another graphics generation ahead for such a small gain in visual quality. Is it better? Maybe. I guess. Is it a $200 upgrade better? Meh.
Again, this doesn’t RUIN the game, and there are games which are much worse about this, but it is a good example of a problem that’s pervasive in the PC world.
Ben N: A lot of rants. Yeah. You’re right. Several factors:
1) Rants are the easiest type of post to author. Then I’m behind on my reviews (which I am) I can bang out a rant to help catch up.
2) BioShock. I always get tempestuous when this game comes up.
3) Category problems. A lot of these would normally go into “videogames”, but I’m re-organizing the site and trying to restrict that category to JUST reviews. Which means posts about the industry in general don’t really have a home right now. And I HATE putting things into “Random Thoughts.”
Seems to me someone needs a new category in their site.
I could not get the demo to run on a MacBook Pro… Go ridiculous specs!
Point of interest. In my experience, Bioshock is much more stable the SS2. I have never had a problem with BS, but SS2 required at least 2 patches and turning off a processor to work at all, and it still crashes regularly. True, I’m not running it on the expected platform, but from my perspective BS seems to be the far stabler game.
As for comparison, BS is far too easy, but SS2 seemed notoriously hard. I didn’t get much further then the second deck(where I was running through a maze of radioactive tunnels), though that was due to crashes then difficulty. But I noticed that SS2 was incredibly limiting in what you could do as a character. That is, there were plenty of choices, but they were so stingy with character points that it made things unnecessarily hard. Some middle ground would have been nice.
Oh, on another note: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/op-ed/5236-The-Needles-The-Gamers-Bill-of-Nice-Ideas
The Escapist also has it’s host of utter idiots. Worst text I have encountered in quite a while.
@SimeSublime: SS2 worked quite well in it’s days. ” and turning off a processor ” wasn’t much considered then, because machines did not have two processors. You can hardly blame a game from 10 years ago to not run perfectly well on current hardware and OS. That’s like using a car from the 20’s and putting lead-free gas in it.
SS2 has a difficulty setting which can be accessed even during a running game. On the lowest setting, it is *really* easy, since you basically only take half damage and do twice as much. Also, you get (a lot!) more character points on lower difficulty. You just missed that setting it seems.
I remember when the new Wing Commander games came out you knew it was time to upgrade your computer because the game was made for the latest hardware…I remember not caring at the time because the game was so good. At least back when I was a teenager that was what I thought. The $200 to upgrade your computer to ‘fully’ experience Bioshock might not reach the threshold of being enough to warrant the spending. Back then it did for me.
I’ve suffered through things to fully review them and it’s like torture. So I totally agree that you don’t have to endure several hours of anything when the first hour (or whatever) is painful enough. Yes, you might miss some silver lining later on, but life’s too short for that. it misses the point anyway. It’s like saying “The first three movies in this series were garbage, but 1hr 38min into the 4th installment there’s a really funny joke.”
Shamus, I think maybe you have to learn to ignore the rants from people that don’t understand that you’re providing a subjective opinion, and can’t accept that you don’t share their enthusiasm for a game.
I played both Morrowwind and Oblivion for about twenty minutes each. It was enough to know I hated them.
I sent my copy of Morrowwind off to some Canadian commenter here. Thank heaven I never bought Oblivion, just played it on a friend’s machine.
BioShock was very pretty and had some great moments, for a shooter. It also had some entertaining weapons, like the booby trap that launched enemies into the ceiling.
The storyline had one, maybe two real kickass scenes. The rest was, “Find the trigger to open the door. Hack the security bots. Freeze the bad guys. Shatter them. Repeat.”
Very early on you get an electric blast power that is almost the only weapon you’ll ever need. Once you get the “stand still and become invisible” power, the game is
effectively over, challenge-wise.
As far as Ayn Rand themes and depth go, they are window dressing on an otherwise simple plot. So the megalomaniac who built the city is a typical Libertarian extremist. Big deal.
Plus, eight hours is generous. An experienced FPS player could probably burn through the thing in five.
Ah, BioShock! Nothing seems to cook Shamus’ noodle like this bastard game. I actually love the game, but then, I’ve always been a console gamer and a Halo fan. I don’t feel like that makes me dumber, but allayall can make that call for yourselves. It’s true that I wished I could save a bag of chips for later. There was no map, but I didn’t get lost much because the world was claustrophobic. I know there are good reasons for that too, but still… I never played SS2, but from what I gather, it sounds like everything I wanted out of Oblivion. I’m a much bigger cyber-punk fan anyway.
As for the “hasty judgement,” I have dropped games in under a minute. I know what I like in a control scheme, and I know the difference between a new idea and a crappy idea. I know my tolerance for glitches, bad controls, and bad storytelling. In my opinion, a 5 minute demo is enough to know how good or bad something is gonna end up being. Soggy pizza indeed.
Justin: I certainly don’t think console games (or gamers) are dumb, but PC Games do get “dumbed down” when they move to a console. It works the other way as well: If you had to adapt Mario / God of War for mouse & keyboard, you’d likely have to do horrible things to the flow of gameplay to make it work. It’s hard to imagine how it could be done without ruining the thing.
And yes: BioShock is the Kirk to my Khan.
ok, so what if they took System Shock 2, and re-coated it with modern day graphics. Sort of reworked it for modern day technology. That would bring a great game to the millions who never played it back in the day (probably because they weren’t born yet >:)). That would save the developers the onerous task of writing a detailed story line (or even thinking) and alow them to concentrate on the only thing that matters to them these days ….. selling the latest hardware.
Never played SS2, but I did get enjoyment from Bioshock. After my initial disapointment of it being much less of an RPG than I originally thought, I managed to find my fun. I think what Chris mentioned earlier is true, a lot of what you said was missing *is* there, just later on. The parts of the game that were lacking to me were the RPG bits… story was lacking. The ending sucked horribly. The “choice” the game gives you is ridiculous and even though this choice is given to you multiple times in the game, if you go one way the first time, even if you decide to go another way for all the rest of the time, your ending is ultimately decided by that first choice.
But the environment was awesome (although very linear). The atmosphere is great. I did find myself getting immersed. The systems they had were fun to play with (bullseye plasmid on big Daddy and watch as security bots whittle him away until I can finish him off).
As a game, it was fun. An overall good experience. But no where near the hype.
Having played neither game, I’ll try to give just €0.01 instead of €0.02. Ah well.
First off, a big difference, of course, is personal expectations. Shamus’ expectations were made by their PR: a follow-up to a great RPG. A lot of other people went in with another thing in mind: an FPS with some bits added on.
While they’re essentially the same thing, “FPS some modification possibilities and a decent story” sounds like a great plan, while “RPG with most of its good elements ripped out and dumbed down” sounds awful. I do agree with Shamus that if they delivered this type of game – RPG-lite for Halo-players – they shouldn’t’ve gotten RPG players’ hopes up.
Secondly, while I do agree somewhat that some gameplay elements can’t properly be judged from just the beginning of the game (cfr. my position on the Witcher, where a *lot* of the good parts of the game really only start to shine after the first 5 hours or so), some aspects can be judged inside, say, 5 minutes. Character customization options, art direction, UI problems, control scheme, etc.
Thirdly, as far as games being dumbed down goes for consoles: we’ve been over this a million times, I think. Yes, games get “dumbed down”. Some of this is because of controller limitations (most FPS’s on consoles have auto-aim, because no matter what, an analog stick just can’t be moved as fast and as accurately as a mouse), some because of graphic differences (inventory screens showing just 5 items on a whole screen, because they have to be recognisable on a TV screen across the room vs a sharp and detailed screen in front of you, huge letters for the same reason,…),…This doesn’t necessarily mean – in most cases – that the game requires less intellect, but it makes every thing look simpler and dumber. Think Duplo vs. Lego.
Fourth: short games = bad. I’m a casual gamer these days, but frankly, that doesn’t mean I want a game to last 6 houyrs instead of 60. Some games these days have the story of a TV show, while before they had the story of a TV season. Some games aren’t really hurt by a short story (Unreal Tournament has a single player story, but who cares? it’s not the point of the game), while others are badly crippled by it (BS is a single-player-only game, right?). If the story’s not good enough to expand it another 10 hours, they should’ve made a better story.
Fifth, and addressed to Shamus: I’m being an asshole here, I’m aware, but you’re very specific. This gets blasted (and, imho, rightly so) for overly easy and uncomplicated interface and control scheme, no inventory, no map, no levelling decisions, too short a story, not a lot of immersion. The Witcher got blasted for overly complicated control scheme and interface, too slow a story, hard-to-navigate inventory,…pretty much the exact opposite. So a game needs to be complicated enough, but not too complicated. Interface where you can do a lot and access all kinds of stuff, but not so complicated you need to check the manual for reference. And so on. They need to hit a specific “sweet spot”, apparently. Now, I agree in principle – Fable is too stupid to be called an RPG, some games are more like calculus with spreadsheets and crap than having fun – but yours seems to be pretty narrow. So how many games do you know that are just right for you? (note that I’m *not* trying to suddenly make you realise the Witcher or BS is a good game, as there are other, irresolvable reasons you don’t like the Witcher and I don’t give two hoots about BS, and in any case, since you’re giving personal opinions, you’re quite right to dislike games outside your personal enjoyment bandwidth and so on and so forth; I’m just genuinly interested what games *do* fall in the right zone)
Sixth: I’m not sure if BioShock is the game Shamus gets most worked up over…It’s just one of those that don’t sit well.
I personally liked Bioshock but I agree with your rant. It is a dumbed down System Shock 2, it is short and the DRM sucks(which is why I played it on 360). But honestly of those three things the one thing that does not bug me is its shortness. Maybe I am getting old but a first person shooter(even one with a lot of depth) gets old to me after about 5 to 10 hours. So I personally think that is the ideal length for a FPS. Of course I also tend to rent and not by FPS because I can’t see myself playing them longer then 10 hours(I’d rather blow 40+ hours into a good sandbox game or RPG). So what do I know.
I’m sorry to hear that so many people are being so negative about one man’s opinions. You have every right to be pissed. They’re your opinions, and if all anyone has to offer as a counterargument is “Ur dumb Bioshok was T3H AWESOMEZORZ!” then they deserve to be ignored.
Personally, I’ve never played either System Shock game or BioShock. I never had any interest in BioShock simply because it looked like every other FPS out there, only for some reason it was getting massive amounts of hype. I’m curious about System Shock, though. At least they sound like great games.
Heph: A fair question. I think of complexity as a “cost” to playing the game. As long as it pays off, I don’t mind complex. XCom or other turn-based empire games make even the deepest RPG look tame, but they offer a ton of depth for all that complexity.
I don’t think the Witcher was “too complex” – I think it was too complex for what it seemed to offer. The bits of buttons and toolbars didn’t seem to have any compelling activities behind them. (As opposed to something like WoW, which is more complex than Witcher, but all that extra stuff translates into all sorts of different activities.)
BioShock wasn’t “too simple” – it was too simple to be a pretender to the System Shock throne. You nailed it with your second paragraph. If I went in expecting Doom and got BS, I’d be tickled. If I go in expecting System Shock and get something like Deus Ex 2… well, it sort of reinforces my belief that those deeper games are a thing of the past.
I mean, if the ‘Shock “series” isn’t going to give us an RPG – what game will?
Bioshock really does look like every other FPS out there. The RPG “elements” are extremely shallow. It is a poster child for what’s happened to PC games. I don’t know why I’m bothering posting when I just agree with everything Shamus said :P.
I don’t want incredibly long games any more, either. I don’t have the time, really. But I do want depth, and that’s really hard to come by these days.
I would like to see what you write on Mass Effect, since that one is in the same category as BS: Hyped, Pretty and (if you ask me) horribly shallow. But probably won’t happen due to funky DRM. Not that I was bothered by it for long, the second crack worked well, even though they actually added glitches to the game which would crop up if you cracked it. So yeah, defective game on purpose. Thanks for treating everyone a criminal (again), I might as well take you up on it.
I have to agree with Shamus here. I was likewise disappointed in the final product, I was expecting the same SS2 resurgence that they were toting in the marketing.
However, I will say, considering it as shooter, it was pretty refreshing experience. (Disclaimer: I’m a modern FPS hater; Long Live Q2!!)
Seeing how I loved the game, I feel the need to make a reply.
-> There is an inventory. It’s used to make some items (mostly junk tbh)
-> You can hack for supplies. Well, it lowers the price of items.
-> It’s only 8 hours but heck, what other game is > 10 hours these days… I’d rather play a great 8 hour game then a shitty 25 hour game.
-> It’s a shooter, HL2 didn’t have an inventory, research, economy, hacking either and still, it’s also a great game.
Now with all the negative vibes, give us a review of a good game :)
Well, I stopped playing System Shock 2 after twenty minutes. My experience of that game was me going through a bunch of doors to pick skills (No idea what those skills were supposed to do, but whatever) and then the game started, a bunch of crazy fast zombies ran towards me, I hit them until my wrench broke and then got brutally murdered. What a great game. :P
PS. There is a map in Bioshock. It’s just really hard to find. Which is something they probably should have looked into fixing.
BioShock wasn’t the first game I had ever played that could be completed under ten hours. Right now I’m thinking of the first of the newer Prince of Persia games. However, I agree that somehow, BioShock just…wasn’t all that great. The atmosphere was excellent and the story, though not entirely original by any means, wasn’t half-bad either. Great voice acting.
The two things I didn’t like was that it didn’t actually seem like you could be either good, okay, or bad at combat–you just mash buttons, drink some health potions (of which there were an abundance even on the second-hardest mode), and you win. I like to be rewarded for doing things like ducking behind columns, aiming well, and using the right weapon for the right enemy. If you can win just by shooting whatever weapon has ammo in the general direction of an enemy and just stand in one spot taking bullets by the dozen… :(
The other thing I didn’t like was that despite my new desktop with its fairly nice setup, it still had trouble running the game at a decent framerate, despite the fact that my system more than met the minimum system requirements. I understand that video cards can be finicky, but it’s too ridiculous to expect a consumer to have the right brand and model video card installed in order to play the game like…AT ALL. Mine wasn’t old at the time. It just wasn’t the “ideal” brand and model listed in the recommended system requirements. I had to ask my geekier friends for help with tweaking my video card settings just so I could have enough FPS to see what the hell I was doing!
I actually just admitted to myself last night that I’m not going to finish playing Bioshock. I’m most of the way through it, but I can’t stand the thought of playing through the rest of the game (and that I know it ends with an escort mission doesn’t help in the least).
I’m a huge fan of System Shock 2, and I was initially disappointed that Bioshock wasn’t more like System Shock 2, but I think that even on its own Bioshock fails as a game.
It’s easy to see where the designers were going with some of their choices. They replaced a lot of the numbers-based RPG elements of SS2 with more interactive designs that are theoretically dictated more by player skill. This is best illustrated by Bioshock’s hacking system where the largely numbers-based system of System Shock 2 that players could really only affect by raising abstract stat points was replaced by a mini-game that players could alter the mechanics of (flow rate, alarm frequency, etc.) with the plasmids that they chose to equip. However, because of balance issues, a handful of the hacking plasmids are strictly better than any combination of the others, and the entire system is made irrelevant by the player’s ability to easily invent any number of automatic hacking tools. Likewise, balance and implementation issues hamstring the efforts to make research interactive, and the designers didn’t even try to make weapon upgrades anything more than a free bonus.
Balance is actually Bioshock’s main weakness. There are few decisions the player makes that have any sort of consequence. Even death itself is largely obviated because when players die the worst that they have to deal with is running through a portion of the map again. If you choose to rescue the Little Sisters instead of harvesting them, you get regular gift baskets that give you experience, items, and special plasmids that make-up the difference between rescuing and harvesting. Plasmids and tonics can be regularly and freely swapped out, and upgraded plasmids and tonics are so cheap to purchase that by the end of the game you’ll have enough ADAM to acquire anything you want. What’s the point of allowing players to make choices if those choices are irrelevant? (And for a game with themes about the importance of choice and free will, that’s not a good question for a player to be asking. The extent to which Bioshock’s story’s themes are contradicted by Bioshock’s gameplay is astounding.)
Those gameplay and balance issues are enough to cripple the game, but for what it’s worth the flashy graphics and atmosphere are tiresome. The murky darkness of the game had me wishing for a flashlight, and after awhile the admittedly gorgeous art-deco rooms all begin to look the same. If this is a city under the water, why do I never get to see anything that seems remotely like a city? Why don’t I get to wander through those apartments and office buildings I can see out the windows? Don’t promise a city and deliver a submarine.
You’re right to dismiss this one, Shamus. It’s not only a more shallow experience than System Shock 2, it’s a shallow experience without the context of the previous two “Shock” games.
Shamus, here are some corrections about what Bioshock does and doesn’t have:
Yes, there is a map. It looks just like SS2.
Yes, there is leveling up. It functions just like SS2, except you are forced to be a Psi character (no Navy or Marines).
Yes, there are open levels with multiple paths. The first level is linear, but so is the first 30 minutes of SS2.
Yes, there is hacking for supplies. It works just like SS2.
Bioshock is a simpler game than SS2, yes. I do wish there were inventory management and multiple classes. But I’m glad that they took away all the useless stuff like weapon degradation.
Got to mostly agree with Robyrt. “Just like” is maybe an exaggeration, but all of those factors are present in BioShock, and really pretty similar to the level they were present in SS2, from my memory. I chose to “level up” sneakier and better at hacking than shooting – it was a choice, and it affected the way the game played. Maybe not quite as much as I remember it affecting the game in SS2, but it certainly made a big difference.
And as for 8 hours; well I’ve heard that number from enough people now that I guess I have to believe that its possible – on a speed run. I don’t know what the fastest you could push yourself through SS2 would be. All I can tell you is my own experience. When I played BioShock I snuck around, and went back to explore places I hadn’t seen even though I had already found the level exit (so they couldn’t have been entirely linear levels) and hunted for different plasmids to “level up” in different ways… and it took me weeks to get through the game. I didn’t log the hours or anything, but my wife could assure you that they weren’t all 1 hour sessions. I think I only pulled an all-nighter once.
I’m not saying you have to like the game – obviously thats personal preference. And I’m not saying that you couldn’t work out that you didn’t like the game in 20 minutes. It just seemed out-of-character for you to be dinging a game on specific features like length and lack of a story from a 20-minute exposure (and I had somehow missed that you had even played the demo, so it seemed like you were commenting from hearsay only.) Wipe your memory and go back and play SS2 for 20 minutes and then stop. How long was it? How good was the story? How in-depth the leveling?
I started playing SS1 when it first came out, but got distracted (college or something) and never finished. I then re-played it, followed by SS2, followed by Bioshock, all back-to-back-to-back earlier this year. That said, Chris #23 above is absolutely spot-on and made essentially exactly the post I was about to make (disclosure: I played it on 360 ’cause I wasn’t about to deal with the DRM):
Uh… Bioshock has a map. I know – I kept having to look at it when I was trying to figure out where I wanted to go next.
It also has a research component (through taking pictures), hacking of vending machines for reduced cost supplies, first aid kits, and a mechanism for building weapons and items using stuff you find (and keep in your apparently-non-existent-inventory). There's leveling of plasmids (in that you can buy or not buy higher levels, just like SS2), gene tonics, research bonuses and available slots to put them in. Just like System Shock 2, I take my XP/ADAM/cyber modules to a machine and decide what part of my character I want to improve. There are plenty of levels where I've had more than once choice of how to approach things and where to go. And if it's an eight hour game, nobody told me – I've spent way more than eight hours on it and don't think I'm close to the end. Perhaps that time estimate assumes you don't explore/sneak around/etc.
Always cracks me up when people say a game is 8 hours long. Are these reviewers the top-of-the-food-chain FPS players who are so good that they never have to sneak around and/or use strategy because they can run in at a full sprint and within nanoseconds have spotted every single enemy in the room and plotted a least-time course through them all, while waggling the mouse/thumbstick back and forth with such accuracy & pressing “fire” with such rhythm that they vanquish all enemies in three-and-a-half heartbeats and proceed to sprint on to the next room? Do they never look around and enjoy what they’re running through, and stop to listen to the logs & radio messages, or do they just wave it off and say, “yeah yeah, where’s there more stuff to shoot?!?!”? ‘Cause if so, they clearly oughta be playing something else.
I mean, I played Bioshock for 21 calendar days and not much else during that time span ’cause I was hooked. ‘Course I only got to play after the wife & kids went to bed but that still averaged around 2 hours a night. I’m not saying I played it for 42 hours, but it was at least half that even after you take away time spent @ loading screens & reloading saves after dying. Not no paltry 8 hours.
Anyway…. SS2: awesome and engrossing. Bioshock: engrossing and awesome. IMO, SS2 was an RPG in a shooter milieu, and Bioshock was more shooter with slightly (a bit) less RPG-ish-ness, but (again, IMO) the narrative of each was just as fantastic in their own way.
I don’t know if it’s been pointed out, but Bioshock does have a research element to it. You get a camera that you use to take pictures of enemies which gives you a damage bonus against them and unlocks other bonuses and abilities.
I don’t disagree that Bioshock is a more simplified version of System Shock 2, I just don’t think that is such a bad thing. I am the hardest of hardcore gamer but I will be the first to say that added complexity for the sake of complexity does nothing for a game.
System Shock 2 is a mess. You spend the first several hours of the game whacking stuff with a wrench, shooting a pistol that breaks in five shots, or using a laser which takes 20 shots to kill anything. This goes on for hours and hours. You will die over and over again, through complete trial and error, until you figure out where to go and how to survive. Aren’t you the one that said you hated trial and error gameplay, Shamus? Everyone complained about the vitachambers in Bioshock but System Shock 2 had them first.
After you get through the brutal beginning you are still stuck in lame monotonous corridor land. The enemies drop shotguns which are always broken. Another type of enemy you have to fight is exploding suicide robots which take ten shots to kill (degrading your weapon with every shot). Ammo is nonexistent. The majority of psi powers are useless. The weapon categories are horribly balanced. On and on.
I love System Shock 2 but it is tough love. That game doesn’t get fun until you are many hours in. Imagine if someone judged System Shock 2 by the first thirty minutes, what would they think? Bioshock fixed all the problems with System Shock 2 at the small cost of an inventory screen and weapon skill system. It also sold a jillion more copies.
Heh heh, they really set you off. :D
I haven’t played Bioshock, or any of the System Shock games. I like RPGs, and I enjoy well paced shooters. I’m confident I’d enjoy Bioshock, because it has those elements that I like, and I have no preconceptions on what it should/could be.
I will defend the judging of a game based on a demo. You can’t completely understand a game based on a demo, but you can certainly make a buying decision. After all, for years we made buying decisions without demos. It’s not like Shamus is calling you a loser because you like Bioshock. He doesn’t like it, and he gave his reasons. People need to quit being children about it. I really dislike Shakespear’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I’m not offended by people who do like it. It’s all so childish.
@Shamus, I’m not sure what your views on abandonware are, if you have any problems with it or this post please remove the links; I offer my apologies if it’s an issue.
For all of you who never got to try the System Shock games, and don’t want to spend the $85.00 or more it takes to get them online, check this out.
http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php/index.php
Lots of help on getting both games to run as well as some excellent mods, I most recommend the System Shock Portable package, it has everything you need to get SS1 running on a modern machine, all you have to do is unzip it. Enjoy, they really do kick that much arse.
I’m having trouble editing my comment but I just had to reply to this:
My personal reaction after thirty minuets when I played it for the first time way back in 2005? HOLY CRAP! This game’s incredible!
My personal reaction after hundreds of hours later, HOLY CRAP this games incredible!
I don’t want to sound like a fanboy, the game has some problems, like predictable mutant spawn types, a greatly overpowered wrench, and weapons degradation being the worst in my opinion, but thats what modding is for. It’s a simple ini tweak to fix. Not that the ability to mod something out of the game in anyway makes that particular feature less bad, but none of it was at all game breaking.
Well, I was one of the people shocked(!) at Shamus’ dismissal of BioShock based on not finishing a demo and adopting other people’s opinions – I wasn’t shocked(!) because of Shamus’ opinion being subjective (there is no other form of opinion) but because his opinion was presented as if he had actually experienced the game in full. Call me old fashioned, but I am one of those people who think you can only really judge a film/book/tv show/play/game if you have seen/read/heard/played the whole thing. Sure, you can play 20 minutes of a game and decide you don’t want to continue playing, that’s what demos are for, but then you can only rightly say “I thought the demo was crap, that game doesn’t look fun to me” and that’s it.
To be clear – I hold Shamus’ blog in high regard, he’s a great writer, a smart guy with interesting insights – which is why I was a bit disappointed, I guess.
Anyway, on to the meat of this post – Shamus is absolutely right, there was much too much ‘leaning on SS2’ during the development of BioShock (although there were also multiple instances of the devs saying BioShock was supposed to be a kind of SS2 sequel in heart only). I played SS2 for the first time in the month before BioShock was released and I absolutely loved the game. It has that lovely sense of dread, of things are very wrong here that PC gaming especially tends to get right (STALKER, the Thief games, Pathologic to name a few).
Then BioShock came out and it was pretty clear from the start that BioShock is quite different to SS2, so I thought, why hang on to that comparison? I just let it go and tried to play the game on its own terms.
And it took a couple of hours for me to really start enjoying the game. It all felt a bit “meh”, not that exciting. And then suddenly I got into the game, I started experimenting with different plasmid/weapon combinations, with making the initially hostile environment work for me, with laying down traps, etc. It’s all there to be played with but the player needs to see those possibilities and make the choice to actually have fun with them – or you’ll become the guy who plays the game on an almost economic level (“what is the quickest way to win”) and end up only using one plasmid and one gun. I mean, I ended up actually giggling out loud at all the chaos I was creating. Or I would be a few corridors down and I would hear the muffled screams of someone walking into a trap I had left there. Endless enjoyment to be had! ;) I think it took me about 20 hours to play the game but I always take a lot of time exploring environments and if there’s one thing BioShock has, it’s environments to be ogled!
“No map. No inventory screen. No leveling. No research. No open levels with multiple paths. No economy. No hacking for supplies. As soon as you click on a food item you consume it on the spot. (Think about the many ways in which that flattens the game out. Suddenly instead of managing supplies, you're just picking up healthpacks. Like Doom.)”
1) There is a map, you just don’t have the option to put it in a convenient spot in a corner of the main screen.
2) A lack of a full inventory was disappointing to me too, especially since there’s no way to view how many invention components you have other than going to a U-Invent, but there is a whole menu for replaying recordings and conversations.
3) “No leveling.” This is just plain wrong. There is a levelling system: it’s called “get more Adam”. The more Adam you get, the more feats (tonics) and spells (plasmids) you can purchase as well as upgrading your health and mana (Eve reserve).
4) “No research.” Again, just plain wrong. While it’s a bit dumbed down like the inventory non-system, You need to explore and gather components to get all of the plasmids and tonics as there are many that aren’t available to just “buy” with Adam.
5) “No open levels with multiple paths.” The introductory levels are extremely linear for those who have never played a Shock or an Underworld (or even a Half Life), but later levels are extremely open with a ton of optional areas.
6) “No economy.” The economy starts off shallow but gets deedper and deeper as you get further in the game, especially when you can “invent” things (really more of a strategic scavenger hunt).
7) “No hacking for supplies.” Safes and combination-locks, dude.
8) “As soon as you click on a food item you consume it on the spot.” Yes, but health packs have to be manually applied and there are a bunch of tonics that affect health packs, food, and alchohol in different ways. Generally speaking, you can use tonics to make food and drink more useful, or you can ignore them unless you’re really in need of a health top-off and don’t want to blow a whole health pack.
9) “Feel free to set me (and everyone else) straight if there was another ten to fifteen hours of gameplay tucked away in there that they missed.”
Yeah, they obviously did absolutely no exploring whatsoever or they’re only counting their second time through. They probably never listened to any recordings or bothered to try and figure out all the bits and pieces of the back-story. They probably never tried to piece together a time-line of what order all of the recordings and news clips took place (all right, maybe that’s getting a little obsessive).
Anyway, you can’t appreciate this game only playing through it once, unless you have no capability to appreciate things like “plot” and “characters” in the first place.
10) “I know System Shock 2 personally, and BioShock is no System Shock 2.” True. But although it may have started out conceptually as “System Shock under the ocean in 1960” it simply isn’t System Shock any more than System Shock was Ultima Underworld 3. And yes, I was disappointed that System Shock wasn’t Ultima Underworld 3. But I got over it.
I’ll understand if you draw the line at DRM, Shamus, but don’t scold Bioshock just because it’s not just like it’s older brothers. At least you get to see some friendly characters face to face and experience some non-hostile AI in Bioshock, which is more than I can say about either of the System Shocks.
Adam Greenbrier: “What's the point of allowing players to make choices if those choices are irrelevant? (And for a game with themes about the importance of choice and free will, that's not a good question for a player to be asking. The extent to which Bioshock's story's themes are contradicted by Bioshock's gameplay is astounding.)”
See, this is the whole problem with Bioshock’s story. It’s an amazing story with an amazing twist in the middle and if you don’t get the FULL IMPLICATIONS of the twist, you’ll think that the gameplay is being contrary to the plot. It’s not. Go back and listen to what [Spoiler Censored] has to say when you finally get to his office. Go back and look around that area and listen to all of the recordings concerning the main character’s identity and what the other characters have to say.
The gameplay is completely consistent with who the main character really is and who he’s interacting with.
Besides, if you’re playing a serial killer, why complain when your character doesn’t get any teddy bears? Be satisfied with [MINOR SPOILER, read backwards] .dne eht ta nemdam live eht fo gnik eb ot teg uoy taht tcaf eht [/SPOILER] Seriously: what more do you expect?
Chris: “It also has a research component (through taking pictures)”
*facepalm* I can’t believe I forgot to mention that in my counter-rant. And halfway through the game, the main character’s photo-taking skills are temporarily made a central part of the plot!
The only disappointing thing is that you can’t save photos of any random thing you might want to. (You can always just take screenshots, but it would have been nice to include that ability with the camera.) But yeah, it’s definitely a “research component” even more than it’s actual photo-taking.
@ MadTinkerer (70) – you just posted what I was going to.
Shamus – as MadTinkerer has pointed out, you are actually wrong in pretty much all of your assumptions about Bioshock. This makes you look rather foolish, in my opinion. Perhaps you should approach the game with an open mind instead of immediately assuming it’s not as good as SS2.
I want to make a couple more points in addition to what MadTinkerer has said. The research system in Bioshock is actually BETTER than the one in SS2. In SS2 you find an enemy component and then have to put it in your lab, which requires certain elements to finish research at certain points. These elements are in special labs across the ship, and I often found that when I needed a particular element I had to stop what I was doing an wander through many halls and different levels just to get what I wanted. This was completely pointless and stopped me from doing what I wanted to be doing in the game – getting on with it. It also made it arbitrarily impossible to research some items until you got a certain distance into the game when the element you needed to finish research suddenly became available. The only other impact of research on the game was to suck up your cybermodules and implant slots. Once you had finished researching everything in the game, those modules were pretty much wasted.
In Bioshock, research is only available on enemies and not on objects like in SS2, but it is much more interesting and rewards daring-do. You do research by taking photos of the enemies, and the more interesting a photo is the higher your research score for that shot is. Multiple enemies, enemies in action (mid-attack) and close-encounters give you more research points. This greatly rewards you for taking risks, and makes enemy encounters into more of a “do I hide and take low-quality photos, or charge at them, take a shot and hope I don’t die?”. Also during research of enemies you could uncover new tonics which could grant useful abilities (like camoflage), so it was not completely just a “do research to get better at killing enemies” like SS2’s research was.
As for leveling up, SS2 wasn’t particularly remarkable in this regard, and I think players could make lots of bad decisions and ruin the game for themselves, which isn’t really possible in Bioshock. This would be a particular problem for people playing OSI – lots of the spells were pretty useless or only good in very few situations, so if you wasted your cybermodules on them you could end up screwing yourself over. Bioshock has leveling up in the form of plasmids, tonics and weapon upgrades. At the start of the game you can only equip just a couple of plasmids and tonics, but as you get more adam you unlock new possibilities. If you ever make bad choices about your plasmid or tonic fit-out, you can run to a machine and fix it up without much trouble. There are a limited number of weapon upgrade stations in the game, and you are rewarded for seeking them out. Weapon upgrades are a one-shot thing, so the first few that you find are very tricky to weigh up which weapons you should upgrade.
As for playtime, my second time through SS2 (knowing where to go and everything), completing all tasks (I cheated on the ‘find the codes for the transmitter’ on the rec deck) and finding most weapons, resulted in a playtime of about 10 hours. My first playtime of SS2 was probably over 25 hours or so. I’ve only played Bioshock once, but my first play through probably took about 14-15 hours. A lot of my initial playtime in SS2 can be attributed to being unfamiliar with the interface and game in general as I hadn’t played many FPS games at that point. I also got lost a lot of the time and had no idea where to go, especially on the hydroponics deck – that wasn’t particularly fun.
“There are a limited number of weapon upgrade stations in the game, and you are rewarded for seeking them out. Weapon upgrades are a one-shot thing, so the first few that you find are very tricky to weigh up which weapons you should upgrade.”
Note, however, that there are enough upgrade stations, if you explore everywhere, to upgrade every one of your weapons other than the wrench and camera (which are improved with tonics). ;)
Yes. I found 8 of the 9 upgrade stations, although I wasn’t particularly looking for them. Of the ones I did find, there was only about 1 of them that I almost missed. So I think even someone focussed on just rushing through the game would probably find 4 or 5 without needing to explore much.
Truly once I got my 5th one I didn’t care anymore, because there is so much ammo in the game that you never really need to switch weapons around in order to conserve it. I hardly used the crossbow or chemical spraygun, for example.
You know, I got Deus Ex based on a review on this site, and a friend’s decision to gift it to me on Steam when I was complaining about how I wanted an FPS with an inventory.
It’s old, clunky, in spots it can be really frustrating – such as the way doors seem to be absolutely invunerable to melee weapons even when you should damned well be able to hack a non-invul door off it’s hinges with the Dragon’s Tooth Sword – forcing you to choose between using a valuable explosive, using your dwindling supplies of lockpicks, or passing up on the potential goodies behind the door…
But it is still far and away the best first person adventure I’ve ever played. HL2 was a better FPS, and in all honesty was a story I liked just a little bit better (hey, it’s Gordon Fucking Freeman, he’s back in orange, he’s got a crowbar, and he’s PISSED, what’s not to love?), but Deus Ex, despite having graphics that are to say the least ‘dated’, and all it’s mechanical flaws…
Well, I’ve played it three times by now. I own modern games I got half-way through and just gave up on, like Anachronox.
The math is simple, to me. You want to make a blockbuster? Do a Deus Ex story and gameplay, use the Steam engine to do it, and don’t put in any goddamned DRM, and you will make a MINT.
Unfortunately, everybody who could have done this has been bought up and anally-raped by EA. Who owns the license to the Deus Ex franchise, anyway?
Half the people: You are wrong this game has everything SS2 did!
The other half: You are right, this game has the depth of a spoon.
Me: I do not care to sort this out further. I saw no hints of this alleged depth in my 20-minute drive-by, and the game utterly failed to intrugue me. And since the demo has no SAVE function I’d have to sit through the un-skippable beginning and play the whole thing in one sitting. Really. This game can seriously go F*** itself. I’ve already given it more attention than it deserves, as the only reason I even bothered with the demo was so that I could make some jokes out of it.
ShadowDragon: They actually are making (yet another) sequel, although last I checked nobody knows anything about it yet.
Hey, you guys remember back in the old days when it was possible to have a difference of opinion without poo and fans involved? Some of these comments are getting pretty… passionate?
Shamus: Though you’re free to skip the game, I think you’re missing out as well. I don’t think Bioshock was the second coming, but it was an excellent, atmospheric game.
That being said: WHO PUTS UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENES IN GAMES ANY MORE?!
I have Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth for my PSP. By all accounts, it’s an excellent game. It takes something like 12 minutes to actually play it. I have yet to get to the game, because I keep getting annoyed and killing it off.
Shamus: All I have to say is I played through the whole damn demo and had the exact same experience as you.
In all honesty, Bioshock had the bare minimum to get me to play a FPS. It was all fine a good in Doom when you shot everything that moved and just went room to room. However now I require a little depth in my games to keep me occupied. Otherwise I’ll just go back and play some good old game (like PS:T which I played once years ago and have been meaning to replay or Deus Ex or a host of other games) which is better use of my time since those are great games. Then again minus DRM, at full price Bioshock was not worth it. Firstly, I’m not spending $50-60 for a 8-10 hour game. Secondly, if the game is only 8-10 hour long and doesn’t pick up until 2 or so hours in, then a decent portion of the game is crap and or at the very least I have to slog through it to get to the good parts (and possibly given up well before then thus a waste of $50).
Overall, Shamus was more than fair to the game. Good design is starting off the game with the good parts. If I’m starting linearly then I won’t look for the branches later and find the game shit well before I get to the juicy bits.
Bioshock isn’t dumbed down. It’s streamlined.
Wow! Remind me not to have my blog ever get popular. Seems to be a great way to invite disagreeable people into one’s living room.
Shamus, I really enjoy reading this blog, and I get lots out of it (eg I’ve just resurrected Betrayal at Krondor on Dos Box thanks to the recent post on old classic games – I’ve been waiting years to do this). I like the odd rant too – we all get to feel righteous about a cause for a bit. This time I’m actually worried that you’re going to have a coronary or something. Seriously, net whingers aren’t worth getting worked up about. Probably they put way less thought and time into their comments before hitting “send”, as compared to the effort you put into your posts.
(Actually, I’ve sent my fair share of flame emails in my time, ie the ones that read like the last paragraph of Shamus’ post here. I’ve learned over time just not to hit send. It usually brings more grief than good – and I can get the bad stuff out of my system by writing the rant email and not sending, then maybe coming back later and seeing if I still care enough to write anything at all.)
Oh god, I have exactly the same problem. Just… can’t… make it… through…
I didn’t really play Bioshock for the depth, not that such a thing isn’t good. But for me it was much more about the mood and the gameplay. Yeah it’s sad it’s not as complex as System Shock 2 but the things that itched me was more that a) Way way way to easy and b) No multiplayer leading to c) Almost no replay value whatsoever which is just sad. Not that it isn’t System Shock 2 which I guess is one thing I’m disagreeing with you there Shamus because for me it doesn’t really matter. It’s predecessor was awesome, this game is still good, but it has all these… flaws that stops it from being truly great. Very sad.
I absolutely understand how disappointed you can be if you’re told to expect one thing and get another instead. Whether it’s a good game or not, whether you like it or not, Bioshock has less gameplay depth than System Shock 2. Being told for months that we’ll be getting the latter game, just better, and then getting what we did get is disappointing.
What I don’t get is bearing a grudge to the extent that some people do. Shamus wrote: “If I went in expecting Doom and got BS, I'd be tickled.” If this is the case, why is it that some people can’t or won’t at some point look beyond their disappointment and see a game for what it is? It may still be a bug-covered slice of pizza, but I don’t necessarily see the point in seeing any product in any of the media solely as what it isn’t (i.e. “It’s no System Shock 2). Clearly that comparison will always influence how we value something, but using that as the only standard strikes me as odd.
@Shamus: As a SS2 freak, I’m sure you already know this, but there is a mod for SS2 out there called SHTUP that significantly upgrades the graphics so they’re not as pixelly.
@Shamus “And yes: BioShock is the Kirk to my Khan.”
You know, Khan lost…
Uh, wait. Some of what you cite is pretty much wrong, so I’m going to agree that you didn’t play it enough. If you only played 20 minutes, you may not have gotten far enough for some of this stuff to show up.
There IS a map. And there IS hacking for supplies (playing the pipes minigame is a much better hacking sim than System Shock 2’s random-clicky-thing, too). There IS research (with a mechanism slightly less shallow than System Shock’s “find some chemicals and click on them” method).
Now, I ALSO think that BioShock is a much shallower game than Shock 2– it’s smaller and shorter, and the options for character customization have been cut down. Coming in as, well, not QUITE as huge a Shock 2 fan as you but still a pretty big fanboy, I was disappointed in BioShock. Overall it feels kind of like System Shock 2 Lite– it has a lot of the same mechanisms, but simpler and shinier.
But, dang, if you’re going to just up and say it stinks, try to actually do the research– you got enough wrong in your paragraph-long summary that it’s clear that you have neither seen nor read enough about the game to know what you’re talking about. You don’t need to play the whole thing through, but you could go read an FAQ or something first. BioShock has enough weaknesses that you could write those up and still have a solid article without having to make things up as well.
I don't know, it gave a flair of survival game.
I think it’s the exact opposite. Survival is, at it’s root, resource management.
When I played BioShock I snuck around
That’s one of the things right there.
You’re not the average player.
I’ve noticed average playtimes being shorter than what I use because I tend to sneak around.
This happens ONLY when sneaking around is in fact unnecessary.
When sneaking is mandatory or unavailable than my playtime roughly matches the average.
Wipe your memory and go back and play SS2 for 20 minutes and then stop. How long was it? How good was the story? How in-depth the leveling?
Imagine if someone judged System Shock 2 by the first thirty minutes, what would they think?
God I got the crap scared out of me from the first “through the window” scene.
And then the first ghost made me waste my ammo, as well as making my literally jump.
Story was excellent, and the leveling felt like an actual RPG.
The problems (weapon degrdation and other things listed) in fact only show up AFTER the initial impression. It’s after you find the 20th broken shotgun that you go “WTF?”
At the beginning, the game rocks.
-> It's a shooter
You’ve more or less hit the point right there. It’s just a shooter. Which is fine for those who weren’t expecting an RPG.
BS is an excellent modern FPS, not an RPG. Let’s hope Fallout 3 doesn’t end up like that.
It also sold a jillion more copies.
Compare RPG sales with FPS sales, and you’ll see this more or less re-enforces the “Bioshock was an excellent FPS, not an RPG” theme.
@houser2112
My friend and I used that to play through SS2. There needs to be more cooperative shooter RPGs, heh.
I’m just going to repeat what I said earlier for the benefit of those who don’t bother:
Half the people: You are wrong this game has everything SS2 did!
The other half: You are right, this game has the depth of a spoon.
Me: I do not care to sort this out further. I saw no hints of this alleged depth in my 20-minute drive-by, and the game utterly failed to intrigue me. And since the demo has no SAVE function I’d have to sit through the un-skippable beginning and play the whole thing in one sitting. Really. This game can seriously go F*** itself. I’ve already given it more attention than it deserves, as the only reason I even bothered with the demo was so that I could make some jokes out of it.
I quote:
“Me: I do not care to sort this out further. I saw no hints of this alleged depth in my 20-minute drive-by[…]”
Yeah, but, see, people trust your opinion and read your blog for a reason. Like I said, there are plenty of reasons to go after the game, since after SS2 it was a huge disappointment.
Here’s what I wrote about it:
http://solipsistnation.livejournal.com/431009.html
It includes things you pointed out. We mostly agree!
But, you know, if you want to post things that are wrong and ill-informed where people who trust your opinion and form their own based on yours will read it, then go ahead. It’s too bad, since I mostly enjoyed reading your blog, but if you don’t care about what you write, there’s no reason I should either.
“But, you know, if you want to post things that are wrong and ill-informed where people who trust your opinion and form their own based on yours will read it, then go ahead. It's too bad, since I mostly enjoyed reading your blog, but if you don't care about what you write, there's no reason I should either.”
That’s a harsh way of putting it, but he’s not far off, Shamus.
“Really. This game can seriously go F*** itself.”
Really? It really can? I know it’s your blog and everything but he’s not the only one being harsh here.
The demo portion of Bioshock is unfortunately short, ending at the equivalent of the point in Half Life 2 where Alyx rescues Gordon from the cops. (Before Red Letter Day starts.) It’s only really good for demonstrating the graphics engine and verifying if your computer can run it.
Admittedly, the demo should give you a good idea of what the rest of the game is like, and the fact that it doesn’t is a failure on 2k Games’s part, but the fact remains that you just haven’t played Bioshock, Shamus.
I’m not saying you have to love Bioshock or you’re wrong. (And incidentally, my brother hates Half Life 2, and I’ve had to grudgingly accept he has some good points.) In fact, I think BS has quite a few flaws that keep it from true “I love this game!” status. But I do really like it, and it has a ton of depth story-wise even if it’s a bit shallow game-wise compared to past Shocks & Underworlds.
At this point, though, it would probably be pointless for you to force yourself to play it all the way through. You aren’t going to like it with that attitude. But your attitude isn’t 2k Games’s fault.
(Now you might point out that if they hadn’t DRMed the game to death you wouldn’t have the attitude you have now. Maybe you have a point there. But that has nothing to do with the demo, and my point remains that you simply haven’t played Bioshock at all.)
Actually, it might be a good idea to borrow someone’s PS3 and play BS on that when it comes out. Or XBox 360 now.
Then you won’t have the emotional link between Bioshock and DRM sabotaging your potential enjoyment of it. And you’ll be playing it on the sort of machine it was actually designed to be played on(which is why the gameplay is “dumbed down” to begin with).
Really? It really can? I know it’s your blog and everything but he’s not the only one being harsh here.
That was a not-too-subtle hint that I am simply unmoved by the arguments that I should play more of the game. I have no intention of playing the DRM version, no intention of giving EA my money for a console version, and no desire to play the successor to one of the greatest FPS games of all time using thumbsticks. This I will not do.
Man, I was ready to love this game’s guts out before the DRM thing happened. I would have written about this game until Ken Levine himself jumped on here and begged me to shut up about the thing.
And now everyone thinks I’m the one being unfair.
(Which is true. And I AM being harsh. And I mean to continue doing so.)
I hate demos. They’re supposed to represent the complete product, but the very fact that they’re not the complete product means it lacks a lot of the things that might very well make that product great/worth paying today’s outrageous video game prices for.
Then there’s the matter of deciding the nature of the demo. You can choose a random spot midway through the game to show off some of the cool moments and features, but risk scaring off players who need to be eased in and get a firm understanding of how the game works. Or you can start off at the beginning with fewer options, and take baby steps with the player to get them accustomed, at the risk of warding off the hardcore types who don’t need to be told how to play, and wish there were more depth involved. Either road will leave a bad taste for half of the people playing, and it leaves everyone with the wrong impression for when the product hits store shelves. If the demo is short and easy, then surely the entire game will be, amirite?
I remember the Final Fantasy XII demo packaged with Dragon Quest VIII. It was one of the worst things I’d ever played, and it was by a AAA developer that rarely ever falters in the console market. FFXII: The Retail Version is still pretty mediocre, but the difference in quality from the demo is night and day.
A demo should be representative of the entire product. It should be a slice of the pie, so to speak. But the truth of the matter is that a demo is often an independent creature, rarely indicative of the kind of experience the game it advertises will offer. So while I too have only played the demo to Bioshock, I’m going to have to agree with the people here who think maybe, just maybe, it’s not a great idea to proclaim the complete game as crap because the demo doesn’t have the depth you craved. Just the very idea that one thing should, in definition, represent another doesn’t always make it the case. There’s a good chance that everything you wish was there in the demo will be in the final product. Sometimes it’s worse. That’s my point, you never can tell with a demo.
I’m not going to say you can’t make an opinion about the finished game based on the demo. You don’t need our permission for that. But making a firm, final opinion on the retail product based on the demo’s performance is an exercise in futility, and doing so does make it harder to take you seriously. It also comes off as stubborn and narrow-minded, things I don’t normally associate with Shamus Young. =/
Shamus – then might I suggest, instead of ragging on BS for not having a map, research, non-linear levels etc, which it clearly DOES, you actually rag on it for having DRM and leave it at that?
I don’t always agree with everything that you write on this blog, but this is the first time I have lost respect for you over something that you’ve written.
“I don't always agree with everything that you write on this blog, but this is the first time I have lost respect for you over something that you've written.”
I think Shamus’ point is that he doesn’t need to (and does not) give a flip about what any individual person thinks of what he writes. Or at last he tries not to… which, really, it’s his blog so sure that’s fine. This isn’t his job, we’re not paying him to entertain us. He could post jibberish every day if he wanted to.
I agree that his post disappoints me… not because his position isn’t mine but because it always bothers me when people attack something on stuff they are willfully ignoring, as opposed to the real problems it might have. But ultimately, it doesn’t really matter what we feel about it…
And I still don’t understand the kirk/khan thing… I can’t decide if the names were transposed or… what…
Two questions:
1) Am I the only one who didn’t like Bioshock as a GAME. As in, the actual play experience. The problem was immediate once I moved my mouse and centimeter and the camera rotated a full 360. I had to enter into the games Godawful control menu scheme, swap down the sensitivity. It helped, but it wasn’t anywhere near as good as pretty much EVER OTHER FPS I’VE EVER PLAYED…NONE of which EVER had to have the sensitivity adjusted. It only got worse when I had to muck about the controls to get ’em set up the way I wanted! Who thought this horrible interface up? How hard could it POSSIBLY have been to script a PC friendly (or LOGIC friendly for that matter) setup?
And this isn’t even talking about the gameplay, which was boring, repetitive and clunky. It’s striving to be something more lead it to become too complex to just run ‘n gun the bad guys, but too clunky to allow for precision or stealth. I used more brain cells taking down bad guys in Far Cry! At least then, I had more options on how I wanted to tackle them.
And the level design never impressed me either. The art itself and art direction is fantastic, but the actual DESIGN of the levels (up until I quit on the game) were basically one or two floors of a main ‘lobby’ area with a bunch of rooms ‘n tunnels attached. It made the place confusing as hell to run around in since there was no clear direction designed into the levels to guide you on where you needed to go (no WONDER they implemented the Arrow!)
That said, I really enjoy the story of the game and want to see it to completion, but getting through all that gameplay in order to do so is beginning to look like too much of a hassle.
***
Right, so I had a second question, but now that I got that first one outta the way, I’m kinda bushed. Prolly for the best, I’m figuring the other question was gonna get me permanently banned from posting.
And that’s absolutely fine!
But that’s not what you said in your initial post – you made it sound like you actually played it. And that’s what this about, for me – I’m not trying to convince you to play the full thing, do whatever you want, it’s your choice. But I am saying when you’ve hardly played the demo and say “BioShock is shallower, shorter, and less fun than System Shock 2” is just a bit ridiculous, and I’m sorry to say, it just makes you sound ignorant, relying on other people’s opinions.
On Kirk vs. Khan: That was intentional. I do see myself as the smarter one who was unjustly punished and harbored an obsessive but futile vendetta against a stronger foe. This fight meant a lot to me, but 2kGames hardly noticed. And they won. They never gave in with regards to their idiot DRM, and in the end they pretty much stated that they were keeping it forever.
I really don’t know what is wrong with you people. Am I not making myself clear here? I don’t care. You have summoned an apathy monster, and your demands that I be nice to this game aren’t going to get you anywhere. I am not obligated to be “fair” to this game.
I stand by everything I said. The game is indeed shorter and shallower. You have done nothing to refute this, and in fact keep agreeing with me. All you people have done is bite my ankles because I didn’t play the demo “long enough” to be able to JOIN you in saying this. Like I’m supposed to root around in that pathetic excuse for a demo looking for goodies so I can justify myself to you people.
Or you want to split hairs over bullshit features: Oh, it DOES have some leveling, only it’s shallower, and it doesn’t have as much of an effect on gameplay, and it never leads to interesting choices, but it’s still there so you’re all wrong Shamus!
Piss off. Comments closed.