T w e n t y S i d e d
And so it ends.
Hello, person from the future. This space used to have an embed from the video hosting site Viddler. The video is gone now. If you want to find out why and laugh at Viddler in the process, you can read the entire silly story for yourself. At any rate, the video is gone. Sorry. On the upside, we're gradually re-posting these old videos to YouTube. Check the Spoiler Warning page to see the full index. |
It may be apparent from the way I kept complaining about just about everything while I played, but I didn’t enjoy this season quite so much as Fallout 3. Hell, I was getting frustrated with Bioshock just from watching last episode while I was editing it together. I think the problem was (aside from terrible gameplay balance, boring enemies, and useless weapons) that there just weren’t enough opportunities to utterly break the game in Bioshock – compared to Fallout 3, where I could just walk around and ruin the game designers’ master vision. If they even had one. This is “you have to close all 495 Oblivion Gates that popped up while you were dicking around with the Dark Brotherhood to complete the main story”-Bethesda we’re talking about here.
Even so, I have to admit, I did smile every time I managed to freeze a splicer mid-air.
But that’s all water under the bridge now. In retrospect, this season did provide (in my mind, at least) a fairly compelling counterpoint to Bioshock’s overwhelming praise in the larger gaming community. Was it a good game? Sure, I think I can at least give it that. At least it had some fairly surprising twists – there are a lot of games with gameplay that’s just as bad (or worse) that have no redeeming factors whatsoever. But was it a great game? It seemed like the whole momentum of the game’s story relied on those few twists – or really just the one – and after that truly great moment, not only does the whole game spiral sharply downwards in an irrevocable stall, but I never felt any desire to play it again until we decided to do it for this season.
And yet to play devil’s advocate to my own devil’s advocacy, it is worth noting that the unanimous praise was largely aimed at the console version. I’m not sure if the gameplay was significantly better on the 360 or not – I probably wouldn’t be able to tell, playing shooters with thumbsticks is a skill which endlessly baffles me. But I think I can conclusively say that the PC version of Bioshock, at the very least, fails to live up to its hype. By far.
As an extra note, I had a montage sequence all lined up for the credits of this episode, but when I tried to encode the four minute long segment, Windows Movie Maker immediately attempted ritual suicide and told me it would take four hours to encode the damn thing. In an unrelated bit of news, I am now accepting donations to purchase Adobe Premiere.
Project Frontier
A programming project where I set out to make a gigantic and complex world from simple data.
Why Batman Can't Kill
His problem isn't that he's dumb, the problem is that he bends the world he inhabits.
Game at the Bottom
Why spend millions on visuals that are just a distraction from the REAL game of hotbar-watching?
The Best of 2011
My picks for what was important, awesome, or worth talking about in 2011.
Stop Asking Me to Play Dark Souls!
An unhinged rant where I maybe slightly over-reacted to the water torture of Souls evangelism.
HAHA! I remember to set the video to public before I posted this!
Josh: 1, Shamus: -234
Theodore Roosevelt is greater at the internet than Shamus! News to all.
Bully!
I doubt he’ll read this. I bet He’s too busy playing Minecraft. Or Chime.
Probably both. Probably added Chime to Steam and using Steam’s overlay to play Minecraft while he plays Chime.
I don’t believe this “Hex” business, he’s busy building a lava-based computer to play Chime in Minecraft.
Sure it is unrelated ;)
*Hasn’t watched the episode yet*
So… what game do you have lined up for the next round of Spoiler Warning?
Suspecting it may be Deus Ex. That would be so cool…
If it’s not Deus Ex or Half-Life 2, I’ll be a sad little boy. :(
Well, Josh said several times that he liked Half-Life 2 as a shooter, the Half-Life 2 comparison was made many, many, many times in this video and the previous one, and the hint – a game that Josh likes, + the repeats of the name, etc, plus the fact that I loved the game and Shamus would have a ton of non-bitching stuff to say about it, makes me hope that the next game is, indeed Half Lif…. Pokemon.
I’m hoping Dead Rising. A story with some good parts that’s incoherent with a bit of thought, easy to win, cool visuals, and easy to break into smaller parts for the episodes. Highly unlikely, but it would be good if they did do it.
OMG that would be freaking awesome. Dead Rising would be a great game for spoiler warning.
The only problem I can think of is trying to beat the story on your first play through is kinda hard. It’s good to have a play through just to screw around and level up a bit first.
But yeah, the story and game play for dead rising is almost too perfect for Spoiler Warning. Such a cheesy ridiculous plot that tries to take itself way too seriously.
Oh hell yeah, I would love to see a Spoiler Warning of Dead Rising!
They’d rip the undead flesh off of that game. It’s so awesome yet flawed in so many ways that it begs to be made fun of.
Also, the first one is only on xbox and they only do PC. DR2 would be fun though. Even Yahtzee liked it.
Yahtzee liked it… “sort of.”
I stopped watching this spoiler warning a few episodes in. The main reason being that while the fallout 3 episodes broke down to, most of this is quite stupid but look at the sparse good points, we like this game. This boiled down to, this is stupid, it has some good points but we don’t like this game.
You can do a thing like this with a game you don’t like but you need to get some enthousiasm in there. The internet is filled with reviews that burn things to the ground with a few laughs in there. But this came across as a real chore for the commentators and that isn’t much fun to listen to.
On the console vs. PC debate, one of the advantages of consoles are that you can hook them up to a 50″ television with a big surround set. In terms of atmosphere this really helps some games, like Bioshock. There are a lot of games that work a lot better this way (Dead space comes to mind) because you have a more movie like experience.
Well, you can hook up a PC to a TV, it’s just a lot more work. On a plus side, the PC is more likely to put out an actual HD resolution.
Certainly Bioshock does have the problem of being just bad enough to produce a steady stream of abuse, but not hilariously bad liike Fallout. Like they mentioned in this episode, Fontaine’s plan wasn’t really fleshed out at all, which sort of limited the humour. In Fallout 3 it was “How stupid is this plot, let me count the ways…” and they went over and over that and ran it right into the ground. Here, it was already half buried when they found it.
On a slightly unrelated not, I sometimes wonder if the vast number of elementary mistakes, in combination with the construction set, are a big part of why Bethesda games are so popular. They’re good enough to be worth playing, but have mistakes so basic that pretty much anyone can find a problem simple enough for them to fix, so they’ll get into modding that way. This expands the modder base and gets more mods made.
It makes one rather wonder if Bethesda’s whole plan is “Don’t worry about the complicated ‘balance’ things too much. Someone will write DLC to make it fun later.”
I agree actually. While I stuck through to the end, past around episode 4 or 5 the commentary boiled down to a broken record of ‘this sucks, that sucks, god the writers are dumb’. Its all valid complaints I suppose. It just got really repetitive.
At times some of the better commentary had nothing to do with the game at all *drink*. It was nothing but memes -and that’s not good.
However everytime the episode slowed down and highlighted something GOOD about the game was great ( I really liked Josh’s comment about how the game should have ended with the city being flooded)… And not all of that was commentary. Rather just showing off a set piece from time to time showed particular talent from the crew of commenters. Or even watching Josh completely break the game by examining and extrapolating game mechanics, what little there is here, was great.
On the flip side when everyone was talking at the same time, it showed how amateurish it seemed from time to time. Particularly when there was nothing inciteful at all to say. I understand the technical limitations, but I’d caution that there doesn’t always need to be dialog from the commenters, and that the sounds of the game and the plot itself, played out by itself, work well as a sort of ‘spoiler warning’.
I enjoyed the series… But mainly I kept watching to catch Mumbles saying “Bees”
I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you there. Watching combat etc uncommentated sounds kinda boring. Certainly while a character is talking you can let them go free, and not need to fill up the dead space, but during combat or movement parts when nothing else is happening (especially in the last parts of the game where it seems to lose focus) is what keeps em watchable. It doesn’t help there’s been practically nothing new or interesting happening for ages, so there hasn’t really been a “oooh, this bit is interesting, lets talk about that,” it’s just been all combat. For instance, with the Escort quest, there was nothing interesting or positive to comment on. It was just hallway, corpse, defend sister, door, over and over. And ofc it’s an escort quest, which are rare to find things GOOD to say about them anyhow.
Bear in mind I haven’t watched this ep though, maybe this ep is like the escort ranting from start to finish!
And you’re right, the game deserved its bashing in the final act where it’s nothing but tedious combat. I’d tune completely out if it was just footage of this train wreck. It’s just the constant commentary sometimes seemed to drone on when there was nothing to say, or it was said earlier.
Given the preference between silence and letting the game speak for itself or hearing a repetitive statement from the comment crew, I’ll always opt to enjoy the game for its own sake and hopefully my own conclusion will mirror the commentary.
I actually plug my consoles into my computer A/V system.
I am tempted to say that it was considered one of the great FPS on console because console gamers have low expectations. Sadly, I cannot say that, as the XBOX360 (I don’t have a PS3, so I don’t know) has some truly great FPS games.
That said, I really liked Bioshock, but could not help being nostalgic for System Shock 2.
I would be curious to what you consider the great FPS of consoles. Most people talk about Halo and Call of Duty, which are very different beasts than Bioshock.
The “Having Played System Shock 2” syndrome I think greatly affects your perception of Bioshock. There seems a direct link between playing SS2 and how much criticism you lay against Bioshock.
I would say for certain the majority of game journalist have not played SS2. In fact, it might even be as high as 90% who haven’t played it. This is in part because most gamers in general are console gamers. As true then as it is now. Also, it came out 11 years ago.
Err… System Shock 2 only came out 11 years ago. Unless I’m 36, am I 36? System Shock came out 16 years ago.
This is what I get for trying to type something while working. Forgive my brain fart. Edited it to avoid further confusion.
1999 was only 11 years ago.
You know Halo gets a bad rap, (or it gets a good rap from the wrong crowd, which is almost as bad,) but I really liked them.
I don’t much care for multiplayer games in general, so I cannot speak for that portion of the games.
As far as FPS games on the XBox360, I suspect you are comparing them to FPS games on the PC. This really isn’t a fair comparison, the PC will always trump consoles in terms of games, that is a fact of life that cannot be helped.
But when comparing XBox360 to other systems like playstaion, N64, gamecube, even Wii, Xbox360 stands pretty tall. People really like PS3 as well, but I haven’t been paying attention to their games ’cause I don’t have one.
Halo is actually, secretly, a really good game. The whole “combat evolved” thing gets mocked now, but Bungie really did some good things with the game. None of the imitators really actually understand why the game was so good.
Halo was the first FPS that was actually designed to work on a Console.
Anyone interested in how games are designed should really read the Halo design stuff on Gamasutra, because it’s really amazing. Bungie had some brilliant people working on Halo.
The sad part about Halo was that it got ‘derived’ into the ground, with mindless duplicates that introduced nothing new and took out everything good. But the original Halo: Combat Evolved is a really, really good game.
Also, fun fact; the “Combat Evolved”? That refers to the fact that Halo was designed for the Console, with the interface, AI and combat systems all specifically designed for players using Console controllers, as opposed to the Doom and Quake style games which are designed for players using keyboards and mice.
Yeah, “Combat evolved” wasn’t just a marketing line. It had a real meaning and they really did something with the idea.
Actually Microsoft just added that like because they thought people would be confused by a game called just “Halo”.
You’re right on that last part. A lot of journalists in the industry don’t have much PC experience, and those that do tend to be older gamers. If your only standard for “shooter” is “Halo” then you’re going to be impressed with nearly anything – not that Halo is bad, but it’s rather generic in its universe, and anything that deviates significantly gets a lot of bonus points, even if it was already done better a decade ago.
This may seem unrelated, but you know what I want? I want a remake of Syndicate.
I bring this up because the scene where your character becomes a big daddy reminds me of people becoming agents in Syndicate…
From what I hear, you may be about to get your wish. However, I also understand that this upcoming remake has about as much in common with the old Syndicate games as the new X-com remake has with its glorious predecessors.
From what I remember, the first X-Com was really the only good one. But thats just my memory of the games at least.
Very true, the first, the underwater one, and the one after it were the best of the series. After that you had primarily shit. And action games.
Comparing the sequels of X-Com 1-3 is like comparing Fallout 1 and 2 to fallout:Tactics:BoS and fallout 3.
So, is four too many commentators now? What’s your take?
There are certainly times, especially in this episode, obviously, when you can hear people waiting for someone else to finish. I’m not sure if that means we’re getting a higher density of commentary, or we’re getting less back and forth as people listen to the others, say what they’d been holding in and then have to think up a response to what was being said before. We’re almost at the point where Spoiler Warning could be split into two units, which would be an interesting idea.
While it may be too many at times, all of the current commentators provide valuable insight and/or amusement for us so I would love it if they could all stick around, even if it means 10% of the commentary is lost on the trace ;)
You know what would make a good Spoiler Warning? Deus Ex. If you’re looking for a game that falls under the categories of both “good” and “able to be horribly broken”, Deus Ex seems like the ideal candidate. For instance, check out the un-walkthrough of the game here:
http://www.it-he.org/deus.htm
Also, it’s one of my favorite games of all time, and one of the few I replay every few years, like rereading a well-loved book.
Hooray for Doug the Eagle!
What’s next? Hopefully Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines…
Finished it five times and I’m still returning.
Though I won’t be complaining if it will be Deus Ex after all. :D
Bloodlines would be pretty cool, with the added bonus that it would be the first Spoiler Warning of a game that I’ve actually PLAYED.
But based on previous games, wouldn’t it be pretty much ‘low manipulation Brujah whacking things’: Bloodlines?
I mean, it is a way to PLAY the game…
I don’t know… Josh has a history of fighting in the cheapest, most underhanded way possible, and I’m guessing they would want to show off the Dominate conversation options, so I can’t help but think he would go with a Tremere. I doubt they would go with a Malkavian, just because it would make the game harder to follow for anyone that hadn’t played it, even if it would be completely awesome.
…Come to think of it, I’ve never done a low humanity, more-evil-than-usual run of that game, and I know Humanity affects dialogue. Hmm… I think I should go do that now.
You might want to look into Sony Vegas if you haven’t already. Personally, I find it much easier to use than Premiere (obligatory disclaimer: I haven’t used Premiere too much, but every minute of the experience was agonizing; it took too much work to do something really bloody simple), not to mention that it’s quite a bit cheaper, especially if you don’t go all-out and get the Pro edition.
There’s a nice feature matrix available that compares the features of the different versions of Vegas. The cheapest version goes for about $50 and it blows Windows Movie Maker out of the water. Even the high end consumer edition is only $100-130, depending on whether you get the few extras that come with the “premium suite” edition. I can’t really see you missing out on any features that are featured in the Pro version. It seems like most of the “missing” features are, quite literally, designed for professional equipment and media.
Having tried a lot of the major editing programs out there (Final Cut, Premiere, Vegas, AVID Media Composer) I have to say that Vegas is probably one of the worst (read: the most annoying) editing programs.
That said, everything is better than Windows Movie Maker.
You could also just… “find” Premiere on the internet. Not that I’m endorsing piracy or anything, goodness no…
I didn’t find anything about Premiere to be intuitive at all. I spent more time in the help screens than I did using the program. I was just able to just use Vegas without having to drive myself crazy, which I thought was a pretty good thing.
I’m curious, what did you find annoying about it?
First of all: I haven’t used very much Vegas, only like a few (maybe 2-3 hours in total.
I think my biggest gripe with it is that I’m used to more “higher-end” programs, if you will, like Final Cut and AVID. Vegas just felt sort of dumbed-down. It was like using a midrange image editing program after being used to Photoshop, and you’re pushing hotkeys that are completely different and screaming because you can’t find the damn layer palette.
Plus I couldn’t for my life find where they hid the damned 3-way color corrector in Vegas.
Ah, that makes perfect sense. It kind of sounds like you had a similar experience with Vegas that I had with Premiere (i.e. instant turn-off). I’ll bet it’s because Vegas really doesn’t feel like Premiere or high-end programs like that. Like I said in another comment, it feels more like a prosumer product than a professional one, which is great for idio- err, amateurs like me. :) I ended up coming to Vegas from Windows Movie Maker, Ulead VideoStudio, and the like, so it fit like a very tricked-out glove for me.
Pretty much all of the post-processing effects in Vegas are stuffed into the Audio FX and Video FX sections, and can be chained and applied to either the entire scene or a specific track. I’m don’t remember if there was a 3-way color corrector stuffed in there, though (if there is one, it would probably be listed as an option in a unified color corrector effect), and I don’t have Vegas on the computer I’m typing this comment on.
I absolutely love Vegas. I managed to buy Vegas 6 preowned for around $20 a few years back, and it’s always had every feature I needed (though I don’t need a lot, just editing stuff I recorded in CamStudio, and some school projects).
I will agree with this. Vegas is way better than premiere from my experience.
Back when I bought it it was called “Ulead”, but Corel Video Studio is simple to use (though light on features), much more stable than Windows Movie Maker, and an order of magnitude cheaper than a professional editing suite.
http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/gb/en/Product/1175263344580#tabview=tab0
Just a thought.
Ah yeah, I’ve used Ulead VideoStudio a bit way back in the day. I seem to remember it being bundled with a TV tuner that I purchased.
Pinnacle Studio is another fairly inexpensive product that’s commonly bundled with tuner cards. I’m not sure how the later versions fare, but I seem to recall Pinnacle Studio 8 being horrendously unstable if you did more than the utter basics with it. YMMV, of course.
My favorite part about Vegas is that it’s fairly easy to use yet still gives you a ton of power. It kind of feels more like a prosumer product than an entry-level or professional-level program (obligatory disclaimer #2: I’ve used Vegas Premium and Pro, so I don’t know how the basic edition fares in that department). I seem to recall being stifled by Pinnacle Studio and especially Ulead VideoStudio in certain cases, but it’s been long enough since I used the latter that I can’t say for sure whether it’s still like that or not (I think the last version I used was from around 2001-2002, so it was probably one of the earliest versions of it).
I got Pinnacle Studio for free with my camera.
It was horrible.
Let us never speak of it again.
If you want to give an open-source video editing program a go, then this list may be a good place to start.
I agree with Josh when he says that this game crumbles at the last third (or earlier). Not only because of the turn with Ryan, but because they abandoned the storytelling through enviroment and scripted events that insteat predominates the first third of the game.
Just think about the beginning, and how many scripted events there were and how many things were scattered around the city that told the player the story of the city, then look at the end. There are corridors. Dark corridors. Dark corridors with splicers and turrets.
They began telling a story, a very interesting complex story about objectivism, science and the troubles about anarchy and the absolute free of thought. And then it fell apart.
Sander Cohen, I think, marks the end of the original intention, as his place in this society of geniuses it’s not really justified. It’s not like Suchong, a brilliant doctor that went crazy as the boundaries of society slowly faded. Sander is just nut. A crazy artist, with almost no talent. Gameplay-wise his presence may have some sense, but in the universe they were creating, he broke the immersion.
At the same time there were less and less things told by the enviroment and that impoverished the story.
Besides, it looked like, from that moment, that they were not geniuses, victims of a series of unfortunate events unleashed by a few rotten apples, but only a bunch of rich, bored, crazy people, who, at the end, received what they deserved.
And this is where it falls for me.
That said, I have a question for you: at the end what programs did you choose to use to make spoiler warning?
Besides Fraps, that is the most obvious… How do you stream from one computer to the others, and talk and record the voices?
Ventrillo, and fraps, and UStream, from what I recall.
So my thoughts on Bioshock are failry close to the consensus here. It was a very pretty game but mediocre otherwise. For me the half baked nature of Fontaine’s plan ruined the entire story for me. I mean what was the point of the submarine bay? What if Ryan hadn’t attacked it? Why did Ryan destroy the sub? Why did you jab yourself in the arm with that giant needle?
Pretty much I was taken out of the game fromt he start and the fact that the main adverasary was just a nut retroactively killed the rest of the story for me. Plus what was the deal with Fontaine at the end? He straped himself into a thing that allow you to easily take pot shots at him and only broke free once you hurt him. It just made such little sense.
The game would have worked better if it more emulated Metroid Prime, where its mostly exploration and less actiony. But seriously is it that hard to give Fontaine some end goal here. I mean Ryan is dead and he decides to take pot shots at you and then once you brake free of his control he then decides to do something that involves waiting for you to kill him.
Overall it wasn’t a horrible game, I did appreciate the art style invovled but one I would never bother playing again.
Moreso why did Ryan play along with Fontaine’s act? Surely it would have been in his best interests to set you against Fontaine there and then.
Did Ryan know Altas was Fontaine? I thought Fontaine “died” and came back as Atlas?
Ryan had no idea that Fontaine was Atlas.
Then why did Ryan have the sub blown up? If I understand things, Atlas was the one stirring the revolt, so if he left then Ryan could take back control. Then again didn’t Ryan control everyone by the time you arrive (since all that’s really left are Splicers and he’s controlling the Splicers). And I’m back to being confused again.
Ryan knew about about the character’s programming, and if I remember right one of the last things he says when you’re approaching his area is something along the lines of “Do you really believe Atlas is who he says he is?” This implies that he knew, or at least strongly suspected, that Atlas was Fontaine. However, we don’t know WHEN he became aware of this, per se.
Also, I was under the impression that Ryan got too close to Fontaine, so Fontaine faked his death, went to ground, and came back a few months later as Atlas. As Atlas, he gained the trust of the people through charities and such, becoming one of the major factors in Rapture’s downfall.
I have never played Bioshock, this is just what I have gathered watching Josh play.
Matt: Ryan was hoping to catch Atlas in the attack on the sub. Splicers are imperfect weapons at best, though.
Ewok: If Ryan figured it out, I suspect it was when he first saw Jack – when he gives that “face to face, blood to blood” schpiel.
Bathysphere travel was locked down for people who aren’t Ryan’s family, at the start of the civil war. The idea was that Atlas’ wife and child were hiding out in it, because as you see in the opening, it’s decently armoured, and is probably one of the safer places in Rapture an ordinary person could get to. Presumably, Atlas’ plan was to get his family and escort them somewhere safe, while Ryan’s plan was to ambush the biggest thorn in his side using his family as bait. I’m not sure if there were ever real people in the sub; either Fontaine had an original plan involving a woman and a kid, only to have it derailed by Ryan, at which point he improvised the whole “vengeance” routine, or he was counting on Ryan interfering in some way, and all he really wanted out of it was to get Ryan to act like a villain for you.
The biggest question I can see, is the fact that the bathysphere only explodes when you approach it. If Ryan was in control of that, then why not try and blow up Atlas, instead of messing around with all those splicers? Why wait for him to escape, and then destroy the only thing you have as bait, when you know that Atlas will walk into any trap you set for him to retrieve it? It doesn’t make sense.
New theory: Ryan had nothing to do with the bathysphere exploding. His trap just involved siccing a bunch of splicers on you, as per his usual methods. The sub exploded because Fontaine had filled it with bombs. He never planned for the rescue attempt to be successful, nor was the disposal of the evidence a stroke of luck. He leaked intel to Ryan, informing him that Atlas was guaranteed to turn up at a very specific bathysphere in the fisheries very soon, knowing that Ryan wouldn’t miss the chance to set a trap for his advesary. Then, Fontaine waited for you to be within spitting distance of your objective, and blew up the sub, pinning it on Ryan. This explains what Fontaine’s intentions with “Patrick and Moira” were, it explains why Ryan set up the trap like he did, and it also stands up as a planned series of events better than any alternative I can think of.
Unfortunately, the only in-canon evidence that suggests this (that I found) is only that it’s not stupid. Which, given all the incredibly stupid things both Ryan and Fontaine do at various points throughout the game, isn’t something we can assume as intentional on the part of the writers. So it’s just conjecture.
I know you already picked the next Spoiler Warning, so it suggestion would probably need to apply to the next next one. But could you pick a game that none of you have played yet? Bioshock started off much like Fallout 3 did: you constantly repeated the same collection of complaints and praise over and over again. I didn’t make it more than a few episodes into either one. You might have stopped repeating yourself, but even Josh comments on the complaining in the post. To me, that “general complaint” point of view would be far better served in a series of posts, rather than tying it to gameplay videos.
As a comparison, I watched Giantbomb play 100 hours of Persona 4, and probably another good 50 or so playing Deadly Premonition. Part of the appeals of their Endurance Runs is that the commentary is about them experiencing the game for the first time. Thus it is more about what is happening in the moment, rather than commenting in a more general sense. It also connections far better to the action on screen. This was much more enjoyable for me to watch. I think a fresh game would do that for Spoiler Warning as well.
As always, the standard “this is only my opinion” disclaimer. There is much other awesomeness here (and free awesomeness at that), it doesn’t bother me that this isn’t tailored specifically to me. If everyone else likes it as is, don’t change it on my account.
Persona 4 certainly has a lot more material in it, but whether it’s got proportionally more or not is kind of debatable. IMHO, out of 100 hours of gameplay, there’s 30 hours of plot-relevant exposition and action, 25 hours of grind to level oneself enough to have a hope of winning the plot-relevant action, 15 hours of inventory management (including shopping and persona card fussing), 15 hours of side-quests and relationship management, 10 hours replaying some of the above because you discover that you screwed up something two game-weeks back that has not become critical, and five hours fishing.
‘Cause *every* game has to evolve until it has a fishing mini-game, right?
30% actual game advancing seems to be about par with the rest of the industry. What the studio has done well with Persona 4 is breaking all of that 70% up in ways and into parts that don’t put you completely to sleep while doing them. They’re padding, but they’re comfortable and squishy padding.
Some of the best Let’s Plays I ever watched are Lord Vega’s videos for Silent Hill 1-3. He’d never played any of them before and I haven’t either, so it was really interesting to see someone wander around town and try to solve puzzles without prior knowledge. Also, his commentary is very good. Check YouTube for them, I highly recommend it.
Wow…that guy just doesn’t know how to play adventure games. My first run through wasn’t nearly that bad. When he started getting indignant with the comments after the first boss, my patience had well run dry and I was TOTALLY on their side!
Maybe not having played the games coloured how I perceived his playthrough. I remember thinking SH1 was exactly the kind of game I would hate, with unintuitive puzzles and no clear direction of where to go at times, but in the end he said it was really fun and a great game.
I think mostly, though, I just liked watching someone play honestly and not doing a speed run or using a lot of exploits, or solving puzzles before he even got to them because he knew what to do. If he was struggling with the game, we got to see it. I appreciate a non-perfect lp…it’s more real.
There are plenty of ways to break Bioshock – but Spoiler Warning decided not to use them, and instead to freeze and/or shotgun as many dudes as possible for some reason, then die repeatedly and turn the ending third of the game into a long, annoying slog. No wonder everyone is so mad!
I own both console and PC versions, and Bioshock is definitely better on the console. Here’s how:
1. Generous auto-aim means using the “underpowered” weapons (machine gun, pistol, crossbow) is easier and more rewarding.
2. Clunky Pipe Dream controls make the minigame tense and thus less onerous.
3. Analog stick controls force you to look around and notice the pretty views more often.
4. Auto-pause to select specific weapons gives you more breathing room and helps prevent surprise deaths. (The PC version binds this to Shift, which is super awkward.)
5. Graphics, sound and storyline are very impressive in the Xbox context, like Halo was ten years ago.
6. Controls are much more intuitive. You are expected to use 2 abilities in tandem, and pressing LT then RT feels natural. The PC’s “Left mouse, Right mouse, Left mouse” nonsense is frustrating.
One really important design thing I noticed while watching Spoiler Warning is that Bioshock’s reload animations are all way too long for a fast-paced shooter. This means lots of downtime during fights, and with no cover system that means you take lots of damage unless you are constantly switching weapons. The sequel fixed this very nicely.
1: I don’t think Josh has a problem aiming. I doubt he left auto-aim on. (I don’t know what this game’s auto-aim looks like, so maybe he did.)
2: Fighting the controls is never more fun than playing a real game :(
3: Again, this is basically “it’s more fun because your controls suck”.
4: No clue on this.
5: Fine, but the graphics are not something that people are complaining about here.
6: The fault of the port, then. There are good ways to do things and bad ways. If they want to ignore the good ways on PC then PC gamers are going to find that unenjoyable.
Wait, TERRIBLE controls improve pipe dream, how the heck does that work :O
Console Pipe Dream sucked. PC Pipe Dream would have been much better.
The Pipe Dream minigame is inherently boring, especially since you are expected to play it dozens of times with only slight variations. The only part that gets your pulse racing is the thought that you might fail and set off the alarm. Because the Xbox controls are so bad, this is a real concern. Of course, I suspect the developers were trying to make this minigame a break from the action, instead of forcing you to move faster than you do in-game…
Wow! I just realized that in all of Bioshock there is not a single place where you can drown to death. A city underwater and they completely overlook that one aspect.
And on a different note, even if it isn’t your next Spoiler Warning, I vote you put Deadly Premonition on the list of Spoiler Warning candidates because it seems like a perfect match for the show.
So, that’s the end of the album, eh…oh wait.
Some final thoughts –
1) I think Ruts the nail on the head when he compared the game to Doom 3. The first two acts less so, but the last couple hours absolutely. The endless monotony of the combat got tedious – and it showed in the last few episodes. I am also reminded of some D&D campaigns of old where everyone is tired but wants to get through the adventure so they stay late to do so.
2) I think Bioshock was a good game that had the potential to be a GREAT game. It just fell short (or perhaps money to pay the devs did)
3) Thank you, Mumbles, for joining the team. Hope to hear you back for the next go around.
4) While we all have our distinct play styles, for the next game (assuming the SW crew didnt play like Josh did and that Josh is indeed still driving) it would be nice to see some of the “lesser” weapons/aufderkaboomerschnitzen (in whichever game you decide to play) used in addition to Josh’s regular style. Just for funsies. I’ve noticed as we slogged through Bioshock that several of the comments have noted that “I used XYZ instead of freeze and shotgun.” Would just be nice to see sometime. Obviously, doesnt have to be an entire episode of it.
5) Want to eviscerate an otherwise good game for its controls on the PC – try Dead Space.
6) While there are certainly games I would like to see you play for the next go around, since I asked for Bioshock this time, I’ll just wait and see what you do.
7) All in all, I have enjoyed all of the SW series thus far. Looking forward to the next one.
Yes, yes, yes at Dead Space. I got that game recently and had fun with it for a while (despite the downright painful writing), but the controls killed it for me. Even with an Xbox 360 gamepad plugged in it feels off, and isn’t the same as the original console version. Really sad too, because it does a lot of good things that I’d like to not have to suffer to see.
Antoher suggestion: Lost Planet for PC. It is funny because all the prompts for controls are set up for the xbox controller, and I still cannot figure out how to use many of the advanced functions of the Vital-Suits becasue I cannot figure out what the keyboard analouge is supposed to be…
:crossed eyes: Dead Space, good, wut? Moderately amusing, yet incredibly tedious, sure. But calling it good is a massive stretch.
It’s fun to cut off limbs for a few, but then you realize, you’re not playing a horror game, you’re playing a shooter with gibs and things the fly out at the screen really fast. Where the only sense of tension comes from wondering whether or not the control’s will actually work right this time. Where you can pretty much call out the enemies as they come. “Oh, you appear to be well in front of me. Bugger, that means, *turn and put down the one that pops out from the vent behind you* got you you cheeky bugger. Now back to you, *nut shot, thigh shot, alt fire decapitation*”
Really what this underscored was that I was correct in walking away from the game after golfing with Ryan. I recently came back and played the third act out, just to “finish” the game. I regret that choice.
But remember, a man chooses…
And he chose to walk away. Good man.
This is the same choice that Prince of Persia ’08 offers. The credits even roll at the point where you can turn the game off or “finish” it with a different ending.
That game was actually not that bad. Certainty didn’t deserve all the hate it got.
Yeah, I also abandoned the game right after the Ryan scene. I got bored with the combat. After watching these last few episodes, I see I made the right choice.
The problem with Bioshock’s story is pacing more than anything. It’s pretty much nonstop combat unless you clear an area and decide to run around looking for items and audio logs. This is a game that desperately needs a few points where you stop and have a conversation with a person that isn’t immediately interrupted by their death.
That would have sufficiently slowed the pace of the game that maybe they wouldn’t have felt it necessary to make those last two levels so long and un-fun.
I will confess to liking the part where you become a big daddy, though. The game has a pretty weak justification for it, but if you’re actually listening to the radio conversations with Tenenbaum and Fontaine it makes for a very conflicting experience. I rather enjoyed that feeling of “geez I know I HAVE to go through with this and become a big daddy…but will I ever turn back? This is a really horrible idea…but I have no choice.”
I think it’s one of those moments that works best when you’re actually NOT fully immersed in the game. If you allow yourself a little bit of meta-gaming it becomes an experience where YOU are choosing to allow your character to become a big daddy so that you can proceed to the ending. I felt like it was a semi-profound out of character moment…and I always think it’s cool when a game can subtly break immersion and make you think about something.
The problem of bioshock is that its just a bland average game.Sure,it has a nice atmosphere,but that cant hold you for the entire game.Its forgetable,like the new wolfenstein.It tries to implement so many things,and masters none.And that is just boring.
Contrast that to fallout 3 which is so bad that it is good.And such games are easy to remember and enjoy.
Concerning the Big Boss, I notice that you got about 1000 adam from skewering fontaine… several questions then arose in my mind.
1. If you gain the adam just by using the syringe, why the need for little sisters? The game contradicts itself again…
2. 1000 adam isn’t as much as it seems, considering how much you must have gained up to that point, which leads to part 3…
3. Why is he so “powerful” comparative to you? You’ve been drinking up as much adam as you can take for the whole game… which brings me to part 4…
4. I really wish the game had presented you with a choice in the beginning. Do you go the plasmid route, or the gun route? That could have opened up large amounts of gameplay differences. I’m fairly sure in SS2 (drink!) you could get manage pretty well by choosing either PSI powers or weapons skills.
Anyway, thanks folks for an enjoyable ride through the world of Bioshock.
So… Thief next?
It’s explained that Fontaine takes control of most of the central ADAM supplies of Rapture (or something), and since he’s so freaked out by you coming to kick his ass, he starts juicing himself up on it. At the end he’s basically got so much in his system that he’s basically turned into a golem.
Also, System Shock 2 is more or less an RPG, whereas BioShock is a shooter. The dual plasmid/weapon system was mostly there in order to allow players to augment the use of their guns. You might notice that many weapons function better when you combine them with plasmids, but few plasmids actually do much damage themselves.
Apparently BioShock was never even supposed to have dual endings and the moral choice stuff in it, but executive meddling pushed Irrational into adding them – probably explains why they conflict with the rest of the game so much.
Makes me wonder if back then the chosen route was the harvesting or the rescuing of the sisters.
Probably neither.
Considering how unsatisfying most found the Bad Ending, I’d put my money that Rescuing was the original intention.
Almost makes me wonder if killing little girls is a writers revolt gone horribly wrong.
“Some shithead from marketing’s come down at the last minutes and told us we need to have moral choices in the game.”
“Well, why don’t we suggest ripping bits out of little girls instead of saving them and maybe he’ll leave us alone?”
“Brilliant, that’ll shut him up!”
The reason you can take Adam out of Fontaine, but not out of normal Splicers, is because Fontaine was literally spilling with Adam; there was so much going in him so fast that it hadn’t yet started properly circulating through his system. Normal Splicers, on the other hand, probably find Adam only rarely and in small quantities, so its fairly pointless trying to fish it out of their bloodstream even after they just got a fresh dose.
It just struck me how ugly the little sisters are. They don’t look like little girls they look like ghouls. I mean no one has eyes that big and that far away it looks really scary… And these girls were supposed to be cured. Here’s a hint for Bioshock’s art team: the creatures in Oddworld weren’t human!
In art, making kids eyes bigger than usual is a way to resalt that they are in fact kids (or to resalt innocence). It is done so that your mind won´t confuse them with midgets.
They DID exagerate the eye size, though. I think it was to make sure the player got the “THIS GIRLS ARE INNOCENT!” message.
Yeah I get that and I sympathise with the intent but the result just makes me want to run away screaming when they zoom in on them in the end credits.
I agree in the running and screaming part. The problem there isn´t the size of the eye, thoughs, but their position and the face they put them. It doesn´t look like the face of a girl of that size and age at all.
The in-game ones look better, curiously.
Conclusion: Little Sisters are gremlins.
On hacking minigames: How about a minigame where I press a button, and my character does a little animation, and then the door is opened? How about we don’t make the player go through an onerous match-two or Pipe Dream puzzle every fifty feet? I have yet to forgive ME2 for this. [/bitter]
Great series as always. I’m eagerly awaiting season 4. Bring on more funny!
Such a game exists: it’s called Dungeons and Dragons Online (and, to be fair, a bunch of others, like Morrowind or Ultima Underworld. To be fair, though, those are RPGs, so that probably wouldn’t work on games that are liable to be “Spoiler Warning”ed. And no, ME1 wasn’t an RPG.
Ultima Underworld would be FANTASTIC for spoiler warning.
All the differences in the lore from the main games (not that those are consistent either), the way you can annihilate large parts of the dungeon (I usually cleared the first level of all life), and of course it had a rather nifty engine for it’s time.
Of course, given the small viewing window and low resolution, I expect a compressed video of it would be nigh-on unwatchable.
@wtrmute: Morrowind’s lockpicking was great like that, and I shed a single tear each time I try to get into Oblivion again and see (sigh) a lock-picking minigame. The games you listed aren’t just RPGs, after all: they’re old. Tedious minigames to progress are the wave of the future, apparently.
Eh, I actually disagree with this. I HATE HATE HATE Morrowind’s lockpicking being RNG style, I enjoy Oblivions lockpicking (it isn’t actually all that long, much shorter than pipe dream anyhow) especially since I actually have a chance to open even the very hard doors while I’m still at level one (it focuses on player skill rather than Random Number Generator “keep hitting the use key until the RNG god smiles upon you”)
Actually, I didn’t like MOST of Morrowind because nearly EVERYTHING was RNG, so instead of any sort of real combat, lockpicking, or even speechcraft, you simply had several variations of “wait for your lucky number to come up” (Oblvion’s speechcraft could get tedius, but at least it *worked*)
I really don’t like RNG in a computer game, it just becomes a tedius wreck most of the time.
I haven’t played ME2 yet, but the “hacking” in the PC version of ME1 is just…dumb. Even dumber than the quick-time event that the console releases have.
Honestly, I’d like to see a game that has rare, but fun hacking (perhaps something like a subset of the game Uplink, if anyone’s played that) and, failing that, just a simple button click like Deus Ex has if you skilled up on hacking. Apparently, Deus Ex 3 is supposed to have something like the former, so I guess we’ll see how it works out.
From what little I’ve played of Bioshock (honestly, I couldn’t stand that game; the scenery was nice but I found the gameplay to be boring and unengaging), I actually liked the Pipe Dream puzzle…the first ten times I did them, anyway. They should have either put in more puzzles or just laid off of them a bit.
Personally the problem with Bioshock’s Pipe Dream was that you had to do it too often, and it could’ve been solved easily: drop most of the turrets and other assorted “management says it has to be more like System Shock 2”-crap.
The problem with the minigame in ME1 is that the PC version is poorly designed and stupid, yet the console version is lazy design topped with tedium. And the both versions could’ve been made more tolerable with some simple tricks.
In consoles make it so that the amount of buttons you have to press (and the timing window) is directly correlated to your hacking level. The higher, the less buttons and more time. That way having it maxed would make it a “press A, ok done”.
In PC change the time limit to limited lives. 1 life base, 1 extra for each point over the minimum. 2 points in hacking means you can’t attempt Medium, but you have 2 lives in Easy. I can’t remember at what level Medium hacking is enabled, but let’s assume at 4 points. If you have 6 (assuming Hard is at 7) means 3 lives at Easy (3 points, then you get the first life for Medium) and 3 lives at Medium (first one at 4, each next one gets you another).
This way I wouldn’t have to quick load three times because the randomiser pulls Medium grids where I’d need about 2 seconds more time so the moving parts get into the right position. Talking of which: what kind of an idiot designed the Frogger’s look? The still parts cover the moving ones so it’s impossible to catch everything on a single glance. Make the moving parts clearly thinner and put them on a higher layer, that way you can see everything all the time.
I really feel that BioShock was a game that had too many divergent ideas to fit into a single package in a consistent manner. Apparently early development was very conflicted, and the tacked-on feel of some of the features makes a lot of sense when you take that into account. It’s very much like they couldn’t decide if they wanted to make a shooter, a survival horror game, or an RPG, and so just stuck all the hallmarks of each genre into a pot and hoped for the best, without the fundamentals ever being solid enough to stand up on their own.
If you were to push BioShock in one of those directions, I think it would have been a much stronger game. RPG is the most obvious – you have a strong and lengthy narrative with lots of characters and backstory, plus character development and choice/consequence. Had Irrational focused on these aspects, the game would have been much more cohensive, but it also likely would have limited market success due to the smaller audience hardcore RPGs have.
Survival horror is also another option. The atmosphere, story and characters are all there, but they are so defeated by the gameplay beyond the first couple of levels. Had they really focused on strong resource management and given the game more scares, maybe slowed the pace down a bit, it would have been moody, tense and brilliant, not just with regards to atmosphere, but gameplay as well. Your struggle means a lot more to you when it could very well mean life or death…
BioShock definitely leans closer towards being a pure shooter, but it doesn’t really go far enough for it to be satisfying. A good shooter will have a variety of enemies, weapon types with very different roles in the game, lots of variations on the fundamental gameplay to keep things interesting, and a relatively quick pace with level design that accommodates that. Instead, BioShock is kind of slow and plodding, the guns aren’t that satisfying and there are few situations where one is more effective than another, the setting and level design don’t really work (too open and exploration-based, can lose momentum), and beyond beefing up the health of the enemies, there’s very little variety in how you fight them, what guns you need to use, etc. You do shoot people, yes, but if it’s no fun then the story can only take you so far.
BioShock Infinite seems to be leaning much closer towards shooter territory, and from what I have seen (the first trailer and a 45-minute interview with Ken Levine discussing the game), it seems like a much more focused project. They understand where they went wrong with the first BioShock, especially with regards to the shooter gameplay. Already they have said their goal is to have one weapon corresponding to every enemy type, so you’ll have a sniper rifle for X, a shotgun for Y, a rocket launcher for Z, etc., so that sounds promising, though it runs the risk of feeling a bit too structured if they don’t handle it right. The big thing I’m worried about, though, is story. I don’t know if Irrational are aware of the major faults and inconsistencies within BioShock, but I really hope they are, because I don’t know if I can handle another plot that breaks down halfway through the game.
“It will be a game that I like more than [Bioshock].”
I guess we’re going to be playing “Shoot at Josh’s groin with a nailgun”?
/I keed.
Hope to see more from you guys – and gal – in the near future; once Josh finishes therapy of course.
You know mentioning the minigames for hacking in ME2 brings up something interesting. I played through that game what… three or four times? I don’t remember the hacking minigames at all, as in I can’t even tell you anything about them. I don’t even remember what colours things were, what you did with them, anything involved with the hacking minigames.
I do remember the irritating tumbler minigame from Oblivion and Pipedream from Bioshock though, with irritation and doubly so for the original Mass Effect minigames — though that one with the spinning things on the PC? That wasn’t so bad.
Anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that a good minigame is one you have no recollection of later on — alternatively of course they were just so bad I had to repress the memories.
You mean that good minigames should have the same effect as getting heavily drunk?
Sounds like a good minigame to me. Assuming it doesn’t cause hangovers.
An interesting theory, sure, but I can’t think of any examples where that’s tru- oh, right…
Yay, you finished; the slog is over. Now go play something fun. :)
There’s nothing more I can say that hasn’t been covered already, except perhaps this: I tend to hate boss fights — they often feel very unfair and poorly balanced — but even for me, this one was waaaaay too easy and I felt cheated that the Little Sisters finished him off for me. What a terrible way to end the game.
Never thought the game was all that great. some1 explain to me y it garners so much accolade when the only memory i had of this game was Ryan getting clubbed to death. Nothing about the gameplay or story or decisions EVER made me want to replay the game.
I literally played it and forgot it. Among all of my games this was the one game i uninstalled immediately after playing it simply because I knew i would never revisit rapture. Looks good, but its just not a very fun game.
I think part of it is the subtle painting of the fourth wall. After all, the basic message of the game is that you’ll do pretty much whatever the questgiver wants you to do, slavishly. Fourth wall shenanigans seem to have quite an effect on some people, perhaps because they feel as if the writer is talking to them directly, rather than making two characters flap their mouths at each other for our entertainment.
Adobe Premiere sucks, what you want donations for is a Mac loaded with Final Cut Pro. Anything less isn’t worth the money, extra time, and extra headaches associated.
Don’t bother with Adobe Premier, get Camtasia Studio instead!
Now that I’ve gotten my inner video editing fanboy out of the way, I’ll just say that Bioshock on the consoles was special, because we’d never gotten an experience like it before, whereas on PC it just felt like System Shock with prettier graphics and dumbed down gameplay.
Personally, I saw no reason to dumb down the gameplay beyond expanding the audience, but considering how well it sold I think we can safely say that the audience was expanded, and now hopefully they’ll be able to provide that deeper experience SS gave us when they release Infinite.
I doubt it, though.
Much as I like your writing, I don’t think you know where to look to find great games, Shamus. For all those mainstream games you keep taking the piss out of (in my mind sometimes, for the right reasons) there’s a slightly more obscure counterpart to it that’s by many orders better.
Starcraft 2: Pissed off with Blizzard splitting up the campaign into 3 games and their sudden dip in story-telling quality? Get Dawn of War 2 (Spess Mehrines who are actually badass, and the Protoss and the Zerg are a bunch of pansies compared to the Eldar and Tyranids respectively).
Fallout 3: Tired of nonsensical art and level design? STALKER is up your alley, shaky localization and slightly incongruous engine stability be damned.
Dragon Age: Sure it’s an awesome game and ranks up there with my top ten of 2009. But let’s face it, it’s nowhere as good as the beautiful insanity of King’s Bounty.
Yeah, Agiel, he’s actually reviewed STALKER pretty extensively. Unless you’re suggesting he get Call of Pripyat, or something. I’d suggest Metro 2033, but I haven’t played it.
Metro 2033 is still a fine game as well, as is Call of Pripyat. A bunch of STALKER fans are saying that CoP is a massive improvement from the past two games.
Call Of Pripyat is a massive improvement, in that CoP is what Stalker – indeed, any game that dares to call itself Stalker – should have been in the first place.
The emphasis is on atmosphere and exploration. Like Lord Of The Rings, the real star of the show is the world. While you are never master of all you survey, you are also mostly alone, never engaging with another being for very long. The hazards of the zone are alien and sometimes unearthly, yet natural, inscrutable and impersonal. Survival is the underlying unifying experience, and success does not feel guaranteed.
There is an aching melancholy that permeates everything, and the pace is fast enough to be always engaging but slow enough to be contemplative.
By contrast, the design process of Shadow Of Chernobyl and Clear Skies consisted essentially of building a bunch of cool post-apocalyptic terrain maps and then over-populating them with NPCs drawn from the most obnoxious Counterstrike servers possible.
It’s also worth looking at some pics of the actual zone.
http://community.livejournal.com/abandonedplaces/2192680.html
Funny as it may sound, these photos actually make me want to visit the place. It’s haunting as much as it is oddly beautiful to see a place largely untouched by man for almost three decades. To see symbols of the old republic wasting away, the schoolbooks of children left behind, nature slowly but surely reclaiming what’s hers. For me, more than Bethesda ever could, GSC manages to portray the real nature of the post-apocalyptic world, the ultimate reward for man’s hubris.
You’re recommending DoW2 over SC2 for storytelling? Wow. Just…wow.
I think a lot of people take “there’s a shitload of Games Workshop background out there” as “games based on GW properties have brilliant stories”.
When, most of the time, even the novels based on GW properties have rubbish stories. The fact that they have a wealth of material to draw from only condemns their lack of decent storytelling further, really.
(not that I’m suggesting Starcraft 2 has an awesome story or anything; I haven’t played it. Starcraft’s was okay, though)
I’ve reviewed both STALKER and Dragon Age.
I structured my post to try and emphasize that King’s Bounty was a worthy alternative to Dragon Age.
But one is an RPG, the other a tactical turn-based game with rpg elements. One is alternative of the other the same way Diablo is an alternative to Neverwinter Nights:Hotu.*
*Editted with some better examples.**
**Twice!
I’ll leave the commenting on the series to other people who care more. I enjoyed it, thus I watched it.
Are all four of you going to be a part of whatever the next game is?
Mumbles fails video games.
“Come on, get serious!” is one of Terry Bogard’s (ridiculously engrish) lines. It’s not Street Fighter! It’s King of Fighters! Terry Bogard would never show up in a Street Fighter game, that’s ridiculous! (Except for like that one time he did. Or two or three times i suppose.)
Come on, get serious!”
Of course the rest of you fail harder for not even recognizing the line.
Oh. Why’d you have to be “that” guy. Now i have to try to keep the mean things away. ohh, why’d……
Consoles. It’s like an entirely different market, so things that make console gamers go “OMG!” make PC gamers go “Wha? What’s so special about that?”
It’s kind of similar to Japanese PC gaming vs American/European PC gaming, different mindset and expectations.
For reference, there’s a Let’s Play for System Shock 2 here.
Luckily I played Bioshock first, before I saw the SS2 LP, so I got to enjoy them both. I can see how someone who played them in the other order would just see Bioshock as a reskinning and feel ripped off.
Now I just have to find a copy of the game (and a copy of Windows 98 to run it on)!
Also, Kudos for making your commentary interesting. Mostly I only watch LPs when I’ve not played the game in question and want to know about it, but I’ve been glued to Spoiler Warning just to hear your rantings. And beezz.
Bioshock, when you get down to it, is simply annoying to play. All the interesting story bits, environment setpieces, combat opportunities and so on, are all generally off the beaten path. The beaten path which the game is constantly shrieking at you to follow. It’s so frustrating as a player knowing that there’s so much good stuff here, but you’re simply compelled in so many ways to just skip it. Grawr.
Anyways, enjoyed this season, looking forward to the next one. As for my mandatory “what game will it be” shot in the dark… uhm… plot driven, not too dark or detailed visually, not terribly new but still in the modern consciousness, generally excepted as good, but still heavily flawed, easy to break, somewhat interesting level design that won’t slog on the player or viewers that much…
…
PSYCHONAUTS!
…
It’s not going to be Psychonauts, is it. I am sad.
Psychonauts would be great but that last part with the platforming and the water rising is killer on a PC. The controls just don’t handle that precise platforming that well. On the other hand everything up to that point is pretty great especially Googola.
I got through the water bit of Meat Circus pretty easily on the PC. The only problem with it is that it’s buggy as hell. And Josh can always just plug in a gamepad.
Also, Lungfishopolis would be so epic in Spoiler Warning.
“Stop shooting me!”
*picks up tank and blows up three others with it*
Okay, Imma rant noaw!
Specifically regarding the comments comparing this game to HL2 ‘n Doom3, both of which I’ve played multiple times. The mechanics and design behind those games and Bio are so radically different, that I don’t understand how you CAN compare them.
The main difference…the largest really, between these games can be summed up in the fact Bio requires a map and others do not. HL2/D3 are focused on a specific A to B path and control the story through this design. What they lacked in freedom, the games made up for significantly in pacing and focus…especially with Doom3, which was practically a rail shooter! Point is, you knew where to go and you knew what to do for BOTH games without checking your inventory screen under the ‘goals’ tab.
Bioshock had you move two feet, have the path blocked and then require you to wander around doing multiple fetch quests before unlocking the plot door and moving to the next bulkhead/bathysphere. Then doing it all over again. FOR EVERY. SINGLE. LEVEL. It wouldn’t be so bad if the level design of the game wasn’t so shitty. How often was it that Josh got lost in that game? He even had the goal arrow on, which is proof enough of bad level design, AND IT DIDN’T HELP!
Each level was a random mish-mash of corridors and chambers with no overarching design or focus to allow the player to organically navigate it. It was so fucking poor I was (and still am) flabbergasted at how people can enjoy it, let alone praise it!
It was repetitive and poorly designed, things I can’t really apply to HL2 or Doom3. You can argue about Doom3 being repetitive as a shooter I suppose, but I kinda give a free pass in that regards as that element almost comes off a secondary to the atmosphere the game was trying to create, which I feel it did so splendidly (Betruger notwithstanding).
I will say it’s rare, in internet game criticism circles, for the comparison “Bioshock was basically Doom 3” to be met with, “Sir, that is an unwarranted attack on the virtuous and pure Doom 3!”
I’ll do ya one better! I also take issue with Josh’s comments on HL2 being an awesome shooter.
It was a fantastic story and the best example of the time for video games as a storytelling medium and it holds up remarkable well from that standpoint. The grav gun puzzles were well implemented and fun as hell. As an actual shooter though – with the guns ‘n the bullets ‘n stuph – yeah, that part was weak as shit.
The main issue was always the weaponry. I’ll break it down as follows:
Pistol/Mag:
– Despite having the shortest barrels, they’re the most accurate and have the longest range, making them the default ‘sniper rifles’.
MP:
– Easily the gun with the most ammo to carry and find.
– So it has the largest spray radius and weakest bullets making it completely useless.
Pulse Rifle:
– Easily the most accurate and powerful projectile weapon in the game.
– So the game drops almost no ammo for it.
– Allows only 90 bullets to be carried.
– Has gun eat through said bullets in less than five seconds.
The way the game segregated weaponry selection was also extremely unintuitive and largely pointless. I’ve never seen it implemented in another shooter and I’ve never been worse the wear for it.
Well that was a, um, season.
And I learned things. I learned that Rutskarn has an alter ego that starts flame wars.
Also most of the praise was centered at the console version. Since it was a game that console players haven’t really seen before. While the console players were all “Holy shit this game is one of the greatest things ever made!” PC players were like “eh, its good, but we’ve played better. Both in terms of story and gameplay”.
And finally:
Josh – Now hates vending machines
Shamus – Pokemon master
Rutskarn – Needs a dispenser here
Mumbles – <3 Bioshock. I think.
Kevin – Bought the Funk Plasmid
I hope they can do The Witcher next, that game is a pretty awesome RPG.
That would actually be pretty neat.
The dialog and voice acting in that game is so hilariously bad… oh man.
But it would be sweet. Plus I know Shamus hates the main character, so it would be fun seeing Shamus having to put up with him.
Did you play the updated Enhanced Edition? It has a much improved translation, though it’s still a bit awkward at times. Give them credit, it’s CD Projekt’s first game and it’s not like they wrote it in English. :P
Thats the one I played.
I know, its cool that they did all that, but it was still funny :P
This is “you have to close all 495 Oblivion Gates that popped up while you were dicking around with the Dark Brotherhood to complete the main story”-Bethesda we're talking about here.
No, you didn’t. You had to close 2 Oblivion gates. Every single other one was optional. 7 of those you are encouraged to close in order to get more forces for the final battle, but the rest are randomly opened each time you enter the area and cannot be permanently closed. Not sure where you got the idea that you have to close every Oblivion gate, since it’s not even possible.
I think my best personal experience with Oblivion Gates was when an Oblivion gate opened about 10 metres from one of the city Oblivion gates.
All those ‘extra’ forces being completely useless when it came time to enter the last gate was kinda a jerk move mind you.
It´s Bethesda. Their games are jerk-o-centric. And the player doesn´t get to be the jerk.
It’s strange, because this is also the mental image I have of Oblivion: that of the main quest being boring and pointless, and eventually dissolving into “Hey, here’s a gate, go close it. Ok, cool, now here’s another gate.” It was the third time around, I think, that they sprung this nonsense on me that I quit forever.
I guess bad game design stands out more easily than good.
I just thought of a potentially entertaining Spoiler Warning. Provided he hasn’t played it before, it might be highly amusing to listen to Josh play The Path.
Played it with Randy once. Not as entertaining as you’d hope.
I would absolutely love to see a Spoiler Warning on Amnesia: Dark Descent, especially if the person playing it hasn’t played the game at all before.
It would be glorious.
I should offer to play it, you’d all laugh yourselves to death PLUS get motion sick in seconds, because I twitch violently every time I get startled. I couldn’t even finish the demo…
I enjoyed this season more than the last one, The latter 3rd of the Fallout 3 one just got damn tedious.
As to guessing what the next season will cover, I have no idea although I know that Mass Effect 2 and then later Mass Effect 3 will be covered.
So I’m looking forward to that, and especially when Spoiler Warning does Mass Effect 3 as we’ll get a chance to hear Shamus point out flaws or achievements that the “Shepard” story carries over a trilogy.
I.e. BioWare better not let any loose threads from ME1 or ME2 hang around unresolved in ME3 or Shamus “will” rip those apart. *grin*
The Mass Effect trilogy is also interesting in that way, great voice acting, good production, good story, good writing, but at times a bit too campy (cool by me), odd humor in places (sometimes involuntary I’m sure), and the story spanning a trilogy and books and comics, plus the fact that save games carry the “personal” story the player makes to the sequels makes it ripe for mistakes to crop up.
So it’s either one more game before Spoiler Warning does Mass Effect 2, or it’s possible Mass Effect 2 IS the next game, since it’s not that long until Mass Effect 3 is released and I assume that Shamus wishes to do at least one other game (or two) in-between ME2 and ME3 to avoid giving Spoiler Warning a Mass Effectitis.
But as I said, I’m looking forward to Spoiler Warning doing ME2 and ME3 as this will allow a interesting view by the Spoiler Warning crew on what I see as “the” trilogy of game trilogies, due to the fact that the save games actually do carry over larger choices the player does.
And we’ll see in ME3 if the large choices in ME1 and Me2 will have the consequences to match those choices.
After all, ME3 is the end of the “Shepard” story, so they can go all out on the ending there, including a alternative ending or two as there is no sequel to ME3 that choices will affect.
What BioWare has planned for ME4 though I have no idea, although I suspect it’s kinda similar to have BioWare did with Dragon Age I and Dragon Age II, different character, different story, some larger changes to the concept, but still within the same universe and with the same “rules” established earlier.
So if BioWare makes ME3 a mix of ME1 and ME2 and allows us to play ME3 and let our choices from ME1 and ME2 affect the “endgame” of ME3 at the very least, then BioWare would have made the trilogy of trilogies that other companies must compete against.
Which is really cool, because too often savegames hardly ever bother carry story choices to a sequel.
(Obsidian kinda did with KoTOR2, which was cool, but had no impact other than slightly alter the backstory to match your playthrough of KoTOR1).
If BioWare are smart they’ll also release a Mass Effect Trilogy pack some time after ME3. (all 3 games for the price of two, with all updates/patches and DLC’s included. It would easily grab all Game of The Year awards out there.)
PS! BioWare, here’s a pack title idea. “Mass Effect: The Shepard Trilogy” ;)
Good ending, even if I do feel you guys were a little mean to BioShock (and use the damn crossbow a little more if you’re going to bitch about it! I’m telling you, it can be a really good weapon if you spec yourself out for it.) Personally, I found at least the Point Prometheus Big Daddy assembly line pretty interesting, and conceptually I like the struggle that’s present in the third act of the game to gain a free will, but the fact that the designers just replaced Atlas with Tenenbaum ruins it.
Anyway, my guess for next game is ME2. That said, the games I would really like to see on Spoiler Warning, in no particular order:
System Shock 2–I’d like to see Shamus be the one defending a game for once.
Fable–the original, expanded edition that came out for the PC. I’m really conflicted on this one and its sequel, and I think Shamus nailed it when he said that the main storyline is crap but the gameplay and sidequests are fun.
BioShock 2–I’m not sure what I would like to see come out of this one, since again I’m conflicted on it myself. Would be interesting to watch.
Deus Ex–never played it. Would like to, but never have. I’m slightly afraid that if I watch it from you guys without playing it myself, you’ll ruin it for me though–it’s already happened with Fallout 3 and BioShock.
Half-Life 1 and 2: My exposure to the original is solely through Freeman’s Mind, so it should be interesting to see someone de-constructing its design in addition to copious cursing. The second one, however, I absolutely love (with the exception of those goddamn striders in “Follow Freeman!”) and I understand I’m not alone, and I’m kinda curious to see what nice things you guys can say about a game.
Mumbles is, in fact, Gary Motherfucking Oak.
I’ve just finished watching this, after being introduced by binging on the Mass Effect 2 series, I played and disliked ME2 and so I can’t really comment on the series there, because I was just grateful at last that someone else felt there were mistakes and I wanted to see criticism.
I was surprised by this series, the first few episodes were shaky because it felt you were trying to lay into it and hadn’t really settled down yet and the last few episodes were painful to sit through but that was just because the game really did seem that painful to start with.
But you know, I enjoyed watching this series, and (having never played Bioshock) despite what you make out, I really felt the positives that you were giving out on the game up until Ryan and from what I watched the criticism of the end seems just as justified, I really think you gave off the most full comprehension of the game possible and it was fun all the whilst. Good luck with New Vegas, and I’m hoping there will be many more series to come that I can have the pleasure of watching