T w e n t y S i d e d
This is a killer episode. If you’re playing the drinking game, you’ll be missed.
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Also, for those of you who have been looking forward to our little fits of indignant nerd rage: “HI! DID YOU MISS ME?”
This is the low point of the game. The mood and atmosphere are wrecked by the relentless combat, which is getting old. The random plasmid is an amusing idea that drags on for too long. The story has spent itself and is now just dragging along out of sheer single-mindedness. The cavalcade of splicers should have been about half as long as it was. And Fontane should have kept his yap shut.
We’ve got two more episodes left.
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Honestly, I kind of liked the random plasmid thing, if only because I got a free trial of some of the plasmids I skipped (most of them) a few of which I decided to pick up afterwards. However, like you said it got old quickly, especially when dealing with turrents/cameras and only having wind trap or hypnotized big daddy.
It would have worked a lot better earlier as a free trial of the plasmids available and thus giving you an idea of what to expect.
Except at any stage that seems bizarre and counter to what the game tells us about plasmids.
You need to buy new plasmids to use them, rather than the plasmid unlocking a capability within you.
Although I’m almost surprised they didn’t pull a “The power was inside you all along!” thing and give you everything for the final stretch.
Oh I completely agree. At first I was like, what’s going on I never even bought these powers (I only had hypontize, Pyro and Shock). The again, it’s not like the story was very good anyhow.
If they’re going to do it though, earlier would have been better.
At the end, you get a Ruby Slippers plasmid.
Only 2? aww.
Well I’m looking forward to your next project, whatever it may be, i’m hoping for one of the original fallouts.
That would be worth it just to hear them tear it apart like the other games :)
Wow that was a short season. Wonder if they’ll do a long game next to even things out. Or maybe this is a new theme.
I, personally, am hoping for Mass Effect 2 with the DLCs. I’d also like them to bring Randy back to be the player, you know, for old time’s sake.
Oh yes. I support this. Very much. Please do it.
Randy do want. Well and Conan Shepard obviously should be played by Randy. Though I do think it would be interesting if a they had alternate players every once in awhile. Watching different people’s play styles can often be very interesting.
Shamus, you made the comment that the game was becoming like an Art Deco Doom…which was pretty much what was going through my head at this point. The combat just gets tedious, dare I say unbearable. The grizzled gamer in me soldiered on, but like Josh, my memory on this part of the game is a little fuzzy.
EDIT: What’s up with Ruts letting the puns go by before Shamus can pounce? Speaking of Ruts, did he have is audio set up differently? It sounded to me like he was in a box of some sort, maybe his own Vitachamber or elevator.
I feel I must stick up for the game on your first point.
I mean…
Doom was neither tedious or unbearable!
Well – thats because when you play Doom, you expect the fight to be nearly non-stop. In the case of Bioshock, a game that relies on atmosphere, the constant combat continually causes cranial constipation. This part of the game is just such a let-down, because you can’t (or I couldn’t) really enjoy it.
Plus in DOOM you were sprinting around at 60 miles an hour with a plethora of fun to use guns. Which kept things fun.
It never tried nor pretended to be anything more than a mindless shooter. And its better for it.
Actually, the entire game is pretty much Art Deco Doom. The only difference is that the early game has a novel setting and a decent story. The late game has no such elements, and thus BioShock is exposed as the plodding, boring mess of a game that it actually is. It’s telling that the best parts are early on, when there is still an element of survival horror in the gameplay, and there’s still mystery in the plot and characters. At this point, it’s no different than any other boring space marine shooter.
Also, Doom is actually fun even without a bunch of shiny graphics and an interesting story. Go plug your old WAD files into Skulltag and have fun.
“If Josh would look up, instead of looking at dead bodies…”
and in the game…
As I mentioned in a previous episodes comment thread, I’m did what Mumbles did at this stage, which was to generally ignore everything and try and get to the end as fast as I could.
For a game that relied so heavily on it’s atmosphere and storytelling, this final part was a real let-down.
While the game on the whole was not quite System Shock, the ending played like something out of an Obsidian game. (hey-oh)
[And I am one of those deviants who actually ENJOYS most Obsidian games.]
Can’t think of an Obsidian game that ends like that… which did you mean?
I refuse to Spoiler tag these. If you feel offended by information like “You kill lots of baddies” … I really don’t know what to say.
VtM: Bloodlines – slaughter your way through wave after wave of helpless Sabbat recruits.
[I know, I know that game is done by Troika. As if there was any difference.]
KotOR II – slaughter you way through wave after wave of slavering Sith.
Neverwinter Nights 2 – slaughter your way through wave after wave of the King of Shadow’s minions.
Alpha Protocol – slaugher you way through wave after wave of security guards.
What I am getting at: The part of Bioshock in the video feels like the IKEA version of Dead Rising. Lots of dead bodies throwing themselves at you. The difficulty spikes somewhat, but at the same time you are still murdering the same five dudes over and over again that have been around since at least the middle portion of the game. Usually started by a sewer or subway level.
I would make referrence to Half Life 1 and its horrible alien world Xen, but that thing is a whole different kind of stupid.
At least in alpha protocol the last level can vary a lot depending on what you did before,so its not that generic as the rest.
Let’s be fair; slaughtering your way through all of the big bad’s remaining mooks at the end is pretty standard computer RPG trope. Name me one BioWare game that didn’t have that, for instance.
VtM also let you just bug out and let the ending take care of itself. Or side with the “bad guy” (at least, the one with a mook army), though I can’t remember if that significatly changes how long it is. And the final scene is legitematly awesome, no matter which way you side.
Actually, ahem, do you have several choices.
You can go in Solo, as a ‘Screw Everyone’ to everyone involved so far, you can ally with the Anarchs, Camarilla, or you can go to the Chinese vampires (Bad idea).
Then once you go to the top you can either finish of the Big Bad and open the plot item yourself or you leave him.
The problem is not the auto-switching plasmids. The problem is Fontaine’s “drain your health” ability, which compels you to rush straight through an otherwise interesting level, depleting your resources, only to find – surprise! – you now have Enrage and no way to hack turrets. What could have been a fun romp through a series of enemies with zany plasmid combinations you never thought of ends up becoming a grueling slog through a heavily padded level, with the most interesting bits tucked away past the bathysphere.
Once again, the sequel does this better, by putting the “apartment buildings” level towards the start of the game, and the “several themed areas” level closer to the end.
Wow. That little blue bar has no white dots on it. I’ve never seen it like this, it’s almost… magical.
Fixed.
Usually takes a few hours for it to stack up.
“We've got two more episodes left.”
Any ides if you’re doing another one, and if so, what you’ll be playing? Maybe Bioshock 2? :P
I hate to echo sentiments, but a resounding “This” seems in order. While I can still remember moments from the other sections quite clearly, this area was all one big blur.
So much so that I’m not actually sure about the answer to this question: Did you miss Sander Cohen’s room? I’m sure it’s around here or the next area, but I think I noticed an “unexplored” apartment on your map screen. Would’ve thought that would give you something to talk about, along with another Power to the People machine for…uh…crossbow and pistol? Yay?
Yeah, they passed it by. I almost groaned when I saw it in the frame, too… Josh was distracted by the rocket turret. Oh well.
On the plus side I’m fairly certain they have to head back to the area they just left at some point, so if they read these messages *hint hint!* they can make sure to tag it on the way back through…unless they’ve already filmed the next episode and haven’t done it, in which case I has a sad :(
Not that it was solicited, but for next Spoiler Warning I vote for something in third person perspective. This series was very difficult to watch because of the constant jerking and shooting. I usually found myself just switching tabs and listening like it’s a podcast.
I think a short run of some 4X game like Civ 5 or GalCiv 2 would be awesome to watch…just go through one full game basically. Even though they don’t really have a story, you could just make one up as you go along. I think that would be hilarious.
As fun as that sounds, it would be rather boring to watch.
You’ve got my support on that one.
Honestly I’m not sure how Josh is able to play TF2, because his twitch vision seems to throw off his aim a LOT.
I´d blame that on Bioshock. It has something awful about it that makes aiming horrible and painful. Twitch vision is often more useful in easier to aim-games, like TF2.
Makes sense I guess. I wouldn’t know as much, however, as I usually play Medic or Heavy.
Doesn’t stop me from absolutely hating the twitch-vision though. Sorry Josh.
Agreed, I think a run through a civ game could be quite good although probably has less to talk about than story based (see what I did there?) games. Entertaining to hear the SW cast acting as a committee/parliament while building an empire. Question would be which timescale though.
Im all for a joke(or not really that of a joke)single episode of spoiler warning about a strategy game,or one of the insane games like nethack or I wanna be the guy.It would be novel,and fun to watch.But no more than one.
Oh,and is it time for mass effect 2 yet?If not,how about alpha protocol,or even better,fahrenheit.I really would love it if you were to play a game with so much potential,but screwed so badly.
Or,how about a run of postal 2?Reginald cuftbert in his natural environment.
I would argue Reginald in his natural environment is not quite as interesting as him out of his natural environment. Fallout 3 was so funny because nobody saw it coming and still desparately tried to paint him a the non-mercenary protagonist. It wouldn’t have the same impact if everyone already knew he was…well, him.
Well,in postal your missions are buy milk,pay bills,and similar.Really just an average day of a fucked up trailer trash.
I don´t think that would work for a video Let´s Play. They are better suited for After Battle Reports.
Add my vote on the “We want something less frenetic”, though.
I played the game on easy, but does Atlas really drain your health? I remeber playing a seeing some effect but my health didn’t seem to go down. The again I didn’t pick up any health upgrades until after this (not realizing you had to pick them up at each station and couldn’t just power load at the end).
Your maximum (not current) health goes down a couple of millimeters.
If you picked up the health upgrades, he starts eating those first. If you don’t have any, he’ll only do a small hit to your maximum health.
Fortunately, you get them back after you get the first dose of cure.
I’d like to add my voice to the growing list of suggestions for the next game to play, and to be honest, I’d like to see one of Shamus’s high scores in Chime. If only for one episode.
Longest episode ever.
“Wait, we’ll wrap this up after one more game.”
We really, really need Deus Ex here. Just saying.
Also, yes, this part of the game is basically just a train wreck. I really like some of the level design, but they failed in actually giving the player anything interesting to do anything in it. The pacing just grinds to a halt, and as much as I enjoyed seeing some of Rapture’s more residential districts… well, you know the game is losing it when all the developers can think of to spice things up is “now you lose all your items and have to regain them” and “this power is exactly like the other one, but does more damage”.
It doesn’t help at all that the entire point of the story (the player operating under the illusion of free will) is directly contradicted by the second half, when the only actual motivation for doing anything is because the designers said so. Instead of taking a radical turn and making the game open-ended, which would have fit into the narrative, they settled to make it even more bland and generic than it was before. A totally bungled opportunity, so much so considering the quality of the rest of the game, that I have to imagine that this was a case of “shit, we’ve gotta release this game at some point” and Irrational just didn’t have the time or money left over to properly justify anything that was happening.
Please do KOTOR! It’s one of my favorite games ever! I got it like 3 years ago and still play it!
Josh – speed machine
Shamus – loves kitchens
Rutskarn – unbearable
Mumbles – heavy drinker
And I vote for Mass Effect 2. I long to see Conan screwing the galaxy again.
Second choice goes to Fable The Lost Chapters.
Third goes to Crysis.
Seconded. Do Mass Effect 2 (although if you want an ending that doesn’t suck it might take a while, so I’m not sure)
This one is actually pretty quick – this’ll only be about half the episodes you did in Fallout 3 or ME1.
I’d actually kind of like to see a playthrough of the game where it gets screwed up completely and everyone dies… but many of the loyalty missions are also my favorites and I wouldn’t want to miss them either.
Loyalty missions arent that long in mass effect 2.Or was my perception screwed by the awesome dialogue with tali and mordin?The only one I found boring was mirandas.So I wouldnt mind watching them all.
You forgot:
Kevin – shoots random funk out of his hands
And I agree Mass Effect 2 would be really nice to see, plus we would have a chance to catch up with Conan.
Noted. I’ll include him in the future :P
You guys should do Dwarf Fortress for your next season.
Depending on whether the player knows what he’s doing and luck, that could be a very short and very hilarious game.
Why did no-one groan when Shamus asked them to paws the bear puns?
I honestly did not get that one until it was pointed out in the comments.
I want to see them go through VtM: Bloodlines, personally.
Wow, you guys weren’t kidding around. Just mentally keeping track of the different ‘Drink!’ moments in this episode was enough to give me a hangover.
This part is so frustrating, design wise. I disagree that the removal of the mystery wasn’t a bad thing, in theory. It gives the plot an opportunity to really explain everything at a depth not possible before. Reflect on the choices of past characters from a different angle, get you really riled up with anger for the final moment. And it totally does, with some interesting audio diaries from Suchong and Tennanbaum about your creation, and some cool stuff about the civil war in Apollo Square. But all of this is completely and utterly ruined by the moronic decision to purposefully rush you through the place! And by the time you’re under control of all your abilities and no longer rushed, you’re so sick of the place you have zero desire to explore it! Why the hell would you end the game like that?
Oh yeah, and this episode was HILARIOUS.
TBH it feels as if the writers run out of ideas for things to say. You get Fontaine who constantly utters variations to the theme of “it’s nothing personal kid, just business”, Tenenbaum’s “I was bad, now I’m better but you’re really good” (at least if you’ve gone with saving the Sisters), and a bit of Suchong’s pseudoscientific babble and spite for everyone who isn’t him. While the main mysteries of Rapture have already been revealed they could’ve still salvaged the mood by moving some of the info from earlier audiologs here. Now that we know who was behind what we could actually witness the backstories behind some names we got earlier in the game (well, if they managed to make them more memorable) and the slow descent of rapture from the undersea utopia into the madhouse it is now. Especially since we’re touring the residential areas, such a great place to introduce some little details, personal touches and perhaps an easter egg or two.
I forget who it was that pointed out, astutely, that in Bioshock there aren’t really any satisfying weapons. You get the best weapons very early in the game. The shotgun continues to kick butt throughout the entire game, and it’s, what, the third or fourth weapon you get? Same with the plasmids. You HAVE to get two of the most useful plasmids, Electro Bolt and Telekinesis, just to get through the second level of the game. You can get two more of the best plasmids, Hypnotize Big Daddy and Winter Blast, by the beginning of level three. So your absolute most powerful abilities are the ones given to you almost immediately. It’s possible to get some interesting advances out of tonics, but those are honestly fairly minor and don’t compare even slightly to the thrill of getting a new badass weapon or plasmid.
Similarly, you see every foe by the time you’re out of Neptune’s Bounty, with a couple tiny exceptions. I think the only enemies that you haven’t seen by the time you reach Arcadia are Spider Splicers and the final boss. If you just look at, say, silhouette, the game has three distinct enemies. Splicers, which all have the same “human” form (modified by a bunch of unique little things that are, sadly, REALLY hard to differentiate when you’re actually playing the game. A Leadhead Splicer and a Nitro Splicer look different, but if you’re running around and getting set on fire and trying to actually fight, they both look like humans.) There’s the Big Daddies, who are hulking beasts. And there’s the final boss. Oh, wait, I guess there’s security cameras and turrets.
There are a few games that do pretty well just pitting you against humans, really hulking humanoids, and maybe a few epic setpieces. But they’ll change up how the enemies are presented, or what you need to do. Bioshock has you charging straight forward through hallways, all the time. The enemy density is pretty much constant, except for the spike in this episode. The enemies engage you from pretty much the same range all the time. Very occasionally, you’ll get a chance to have some verticality, or some useful cover. It’s relatively easy to ambush a Big Daddy, since they’re peaceful. But by and large, the game has absolutely zero tactical variation. And its enemies have virtually no aesthetic variation that can be detected just by playing. So, the combat is incredibly same-y. You’ve seen everything the game has to offer, combat-wise, by the end of Neptune’s Bounty. (And no, the escort mission at the end doesn’t offer new things either. It’s still you running down a corridor fighting the exact same splicers and turrets, it’s just you have more HP and less peripheral vision.)
Fortunately, it looks like Bioshock Infinite is addressing this. If nothing else, the gameplay trailer showed you engaging enemies at significantly different ranges (very close up and very far away), in different concentrations (two at a time, a dozen at a time), and with different environmental factors affecting the tactical situation. In the interviews, Levine seems to be aware that “Electro Bolt + Shotgun” or “Winter Blast + Wrench” or any of a few other combinations could, quite easily, apply perfectly well to every encounter in Bioshock, and is actively rectifying that for Infinite.
Very minor correction: You meet Spider Splicers in the Fisheries when you do the Camera Quest. It’s Houdini Splicers (Teleport, Hadouken) you meet in Arcadia.
Also I don’t think you can get Hypnotise Big Daddy if you’re evil, but I might be wrong.
You’re correct on both points. Thank you.
However, I’m of the belief that the Evil path in Bioshock is just staggeringly pointless. You get an absolutely trivial amount of extra ADAM, and as we’ve seen in this playthrough there’s not even anything worthwhile to spend it on. Sure, you could load up on tonic slots, health upgrades, and gimmick plasmids. But when I did a recent Hard difficulty playthrough, I was basically spending ADAM for the sake of spending ADAM–I never felt like I needed to get more.
This game is overflowing with resources. Josh is actually playing in a really exceptionally spend-happy way–taking tons of damage, usually not bothering to research splicers, buying out tons of hackable machines, not exploring every nook and cranny. And he’s still got ADAM (and, less often, cash) out the wazoo.
It doesn’t help that your ammo caps are so low. You can carry a maximum of six proximity mines, for example. Twenty-four rounds of electric buck. Twenty-four armor-piercing pistol rounds. And so on. Even on weapons you use routinely, it’s pretty easy to have your ammo completely maxed out. If you use health stations regularly, it’s easy to have your health kits maxed out. If you have Bloodhound or EVE Link or eat a lot of food, it’s easy to have EVE Hypos maxed out. For the better part of the game.
It acts like you’ve got to manage resources, especially with all the hints that pop up about how much you need ADAM and how you can go craft ammo and how you can save money by hacking stuff, but you’re really pretty ridiculously flush for most of the game.
It might be a good idea for future playthroughs for Josh(or whoever) to play through once for Spoiler Warning. After the day’s filming is done, then he goes back to his initial save of the day and plays through again, trying to make basically the same decisions, but do it more…conservatively for better resources and such. That might let him avoid running out of cash and health packs at a time when he should be rolling in both.
In this level, of course, it would be cruel to expect that of him, but it would be a good way to avoid some of these constant deaths.
I actually applaud this decision. Since it is entirely possible to be flush with cash on Hard difficulty, I don’t feel the need to save and reload every 2 minutes like I do in Half-Life where you can seriously cripple yourself by making a single mistake.
I wouldn’t want to play Bioshock as a survival horror game, where you are constantly running out of ammo and health – the combat mechanics are finicky and there is no real way to avoid taking any damage, and having to scan every corner for spawning enemies hampers all the gorgeous ambiance. Better to have broken abilities that let you max out your ammo than underpowered abilities that force you to use the Boring Assault Rifle for most of the game.
Having watched the Gameplay trailer for Infinite, I found it very confusing.
I mean, I can understand the need for big set pieces, but it played out at a very odd pace to me, and the set pieces themselves could probably have done with a bit more space to breathe.
Dear people who made Bioshick
MY LIVER! (well, it would be if I’d actually decided to play the drinking game this episode. Which I would’ve but for the warning)
Did you guys seriously play through Bioshock without using Target Dummy? It’s one of the top 5 most powerful items in the game. (The others are Telekinesis, Electric Buck, Winter Blast and Damage Research.) Let me count the ways:
It prevents enemies from shooting you, especially Big Daddies.
It lets you hack turrets.
It lets you get headshots, which in turn makes the pistol and crossbow more useful.
It lets you run through hordes of splicers, like the ones you slogged through for an hour for our benefit.
But ehhhhh, this way gives me an excuse to drink. :-P
The games that did this “The guy leading you was just using you and now you have to hunt him down” better:Jade empire,thief,heck even summoner did this better.This is just so boring to watch.Im so glad I didnt play this far.
Spoiler warning, dude!
Dude!
Drink!
I…um…er…who am I? I’m at home and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to take away my own keys in case I try to drive here. I think you guys managed the bear minimum amount of puns for an episode this long.
Awesome! I went through a similar experience trying to get an iPhone 4.