On Bioshocks quality

[Cybren]

To prevent further derailment of the other thread I am making this to continue the discussion of quality of Bioshock.

Will edit/add as i form a response

[IntensiveOrange]

Bioshock isn't a terrible game, but it was over hyped and over-rated, which in itself isn't so terrible, since most games are.

On a scale of 1-10 it gets about an 8.5 from me. The visuals and atmosphere are compelling, the story is decent, and the gameplay, if not perfect, is for the most part good fun, and in a few areas, it's somewhat innovative.

However, the fact remains that in some areas it failed. The game was touted as the spiritual successor to system shock 2, and the areas where that game excelled are the areas bioshock tended to let down the most.

The game was intended to be set in a survival horror atmosphere, and indeed for the first twenty minutes or so, it was somewhat scary. Then you realize that there's absolutely no penalty or reason to fear dying in game, and you never feel scared again. As well, there's no real need to desperately scavenge resources - weapons never break, and by the time you're out of the first area you never have to worry about running out of ammo. This is opposed to SS2, which is a truly terrifying game the first time you play it, and which has a decent but not game breaking death penalty and a classic survivalist mentality with regards to resources. (You respawn as in bioshock - AFTER you activate a respawn machine. If you don't activate it before you're killed, tough luck. And I think you take some kind of item/equipment hit too, I can't remember.)

It was also supposed to be a FPS/RPG hybrid, and instead of combining the two to create something better than the sum of their parts, it ended up with a pretty standard FPS layout. Plasmids ended up mostly being just a secondary weapon, and it never really mattered whether you, say, used the fire, ice, or electrical plasmid, except in the case of some rather cheesy and unreliable environmental effect like needing to melt a frozen door or if your enemy is in water. The non-combat plasmids were all pretty uninspired and didn't do much. The few creative plasmids (like the bee one) suffered because they just weren't as efficient. The weapons, while adequate, were never really that interesting either. This again is in comparison to SS2, which had excellent RPG and FPS system: skillsets that controlled everything from hacking and stealth to weapon use and repair to psionics (which would be equivalent to plasmids if there were 40 kinds of plasmids and some of them did interesting things like teleport or create walls) and a complex inventory system that went a great deal towards making the game seem more survivalist, since you frequently had to balance more powerful weapons or ammo with inventory space and couldn't just hoover up every resource in site. It also had better FPS mechanics, including a plethora of weapons, most of which had multiple modes of fire, and diverse enough so that instead of just the standard "pistol, shotgun, grenade launcher, wrench etc" it had quite a few variations of each - for example, instead of just a machine gun, there were laser rifles, assault rifles, sniper rifles, etc, each of which had their own distinct advantages and disadvantages.

The story was decent, and while I didn't see the main plot twist coming, it's a little frustrating because while you're something of a pawn in both games, in bioshock you're a pawn because you're literally genetically designed that way - it's like finding out you're a robot programmed to take commands you can't disobey, which is frustrating, whereas in SS2, you're a pawn because you've been cleverly manipulated all along by someone more intelligent than you. Bioshock also had a very lackluster ending that bordered on downright silly.

The bottom line is that while Bioshock is in no way a terrible or bad game, it's not the 10/10 that most reviewers gave it, and it's not as good as the game it's supposed to be a spirtual successor to.

[masamune]

i got bored and stopped playing after the first bit.

[RobertMc123]

Bioshock was the first game I played on my 360 and within a week I had finished the game, I rarely finish any games and what compelled me about the game was the story. The story of Bioshock and of Rapture is a great and gripping story, the game is so-so.

The graphics are awesome to look at and it is very hard to find the flaws in the looks so it does not fail there. Where Bioshock fails is that it was and is incredibly incredibly easy. I played it on medium and on hard and find little or no challenge to the game. I also got both endings and was amused by both but what I wanted was to feel fear when I heard a big daddy walking past but I didn't because I figured out how kill them. Shock them with your electric plasmid, this staggers them, unload buckshot into their asses until they come at you, shock them again, rinse and repeat.
Also the end boss was a complete joke, I took him down quicker than the hardest big daddy in the game.

So Bioshock was a good game in its story and presentation, the tale it wove made you think about what people see as a utopia, made you think about free will and delievered some of the best in game voiceovers and acting ever seen. It deservses accolades of being awesome just for that. It is not, however, the best game ever because it was in fact too easy and I think that it was essentially dumbed down for the console generation, had it not been I would probably still be struggling to complete it now like I am with other games.

[Jillers]

Or you could try for the Brass Balls achievement.

I can agree with what everyone's saying. I beat the game on easy using just the wrench (seriously, I killed Big Daddies with the wrench too). But I appreciated the ease. Instead of seeing it as a failure, I saw it as a boon to people, like me, who played it for the atmosphere and story, and not for the FPS quality (as I don't like them).
I didn't die once in easy mode - but I was always terrified I might (because I didn't die, I didn't know there was, basically, no consequence to dying, just a minor inconvenience).
There may not be a consequence for dying, but the atmosphere does an excellent job of immersing you in a decaying Rapture that you don't need a penalty for dying: it's scary enough. There's an incredible amount of detail put into this game, and it shows.
For me, where it failed is the good/evil mechanic/ending thing. The endings were all lame, and you were either saintly good or horrendously evil.
..But I'm often disappointed in video game endings...which certainly didn't take away from the overall enjoyability of this game.
..Why yes, the Medical Pavilion DID give me a nightmare or two (I learned my lesson: don't play Bioshock in the dark, alone)

Of course, I, somehow, managed to steer clear of the hype for this one. Except on the word of 3 of my friends, who loved the game, but only ever recommended I try it (ie, they never went ZOMG This is the GREATEST GAME EVAR!!), and one clip on X-Play, I didn't know much about the game, therefore I was lacking any expectations, except that three people thought I should like this game. And I did.

[iEatNinjaZ]

so you guys are giving your reviews on bioshock...

COOL

back in the day (2007) we had shit games.
of course there was the "fantastic overhyped 4" Call of duty 4, halo 3, orange box, and Bioshock. rest were horrid.

that made those 4 games stand out. cod and half-life were great and deserved their praise, halo was treated like a god -even tho it doesn't deserve to lick the piss off of a hobos foot.

Then there was bioshock...
i kinda felt it as the runt of the litter. it was praised for everything but nobody played it as much as the other 3
after i played the demo i agreed with the hype. it was great
and i bought it.

the game looks beautiful. the water effects are the best in a game i have ever seen. and the story was a change in pace from terrorist and aliens.
the first 3 playthroughs were awesome

then it got old, fast...

the whole game is extremely scripted. there are too many cinematic events, all of which are too cheesy and can instantly bore you.
it is a bit challenging but as soon as you learn that shotgun to face= death then you can play through without dying once.
the characters mutter the same words every minute, enough to make you like even oblivions dialog.
the whole game is linear no matter what anyone says.
every place seems the same, every level is a small box for you to play in. then you travel to the next.
but the worst part about it is that. the whole game is a treasure hunt.
u just go find stuff. thats it.

enter level
find guy
find thing for guy
leave level

its fucking annoying

bioshock is a load of fun tho. i enjoyed playing it and i cant wait for the next game. there are a few things they need sorted out but if you try to ignore them. the story and atmosphere will suck you in and give you one hell of a ride.

9/10

[Mr. Ambiguous]

I agree with most of the stuff said here. it feels too scripted, and for me the good vs evil thing didn't work at all. the presents you get from Tenembaum almost make up for the loss of adam from not killing the little sisters. and the game became not scary after the first level.

However...

i still thought it was a great game, because it was atmospheric; the storyline was good,especially the big twist (although the final boss battle was terrible) and it was accompanied by fantastic voice acting; and i felt that the gameplay was generally quite good and satisfying, if perhaps a bit too easy.

i also never played system shock 2, so i didn't really have any specific expectations for the game in terms of it being an FPSRPG or anything, so i wasn't let down by anything. and the graphics, especially the water effects were straight up AWESOME. some of the art, like the big daddies, was so cool i wet myself...

so yeah, i'd give it about a 9.2 / 10

[Cureless_Poison]

Kicks ass, disagree = kill yourself.
That is all.

[CyberTractor]

I liked the game a lot, but I really didn't like that I payed full price for a game that had no replay value whatsoever. Playing the entire game over again for a less than thirty second clip at the end to see what the other ending was like wasn't worth it, so I youtubed it.

I loved the games visuals and atmosphere. It was Silent Hill in nature: it tended to scare you because of the unknown rather than what you could actually see.

I didn't like how you being killed had no effect on the gameplay. While I do admit I get frustrated with games when they have a part that I have to keep retrying to finally beat, having me take absolutely no penalty for recklessly rushing into a big daddy fight was a bad call.

[Genghis Ares]

I really loved Bioshock. I played through it on Easy to get most of the achievements and its definitely very easy. But After that all I needed was Brass Balls and one other achievemnet related to the Hard difficulty and it is really challenging and you definintely fear for your life, and you really need to find ammo and use it well.

[Graham]

I really, really love Bioshock.
Having never played SS2, I wasn't setting myself for some sort of let down by comparing the two, and after watching someone play it just the other day, I intend on going back and improving my achievement score.

In cases like this, I like achievements a lot because it gives me a goal to replay a game I've already beaten but thoroughly enjoy.

[Stroggo]

Bioshock was a toughie for me, after seeing how high profile it was and watching a couple of developer features I wasn't expecting much. Thankfully I was surprised in some areas, but in others it let me down faster than a hot air balloon in an Arctic blizzard. Being with system shock since its conception (1994) I have to sadly say that Bioshock is a step Backwards in my opinion.

Here's why:

PRO'S
-Amazing setting, I haven't seen such a unique art deco themed world since Grim Fandango.
-Strong Plot. This gets a big thumbs up for me, simply because far FAR too many games fail in this area today.
-No Weapon Degradation.
I have honestly never seen this work correctly in any game without heavy modding.

CON'S
-Far too easy, not just because of the vita chamber malarkey, but primarily because you start to get the feeling that Rapture was some kind of arms factory with the amount of loose ammo rolling round.
-Useless Plasmids, yep I just said it, they were pointless in their execution. Apart from the three that you actually need to progress in the game, the rest are just very cleverly discussed guns, so I never really used any others.
-Lack Of Consequence
This is perhaps the biggest one. To me System Shocks biggest strength was in it's decision making with an "either or" philosophy. Forcing the player to carefully think about where he's investing his skill points and how he will approach each scenario because of this. Sadly Bioshock lets the player hack, blast and and sneak his way into anything.

However all of these cons could have easily of been wiped if the Dev team had of made one little decision. Not to call it System Shocks Successor. That one little change would have left me praising it's game play, graphics and plot unanimously. But to try set it next to any System Shock makes it seem like a Vegetative Clone rather than a true successor to the series.

P.S. I'm not a negative ass I still really enjoyed Bioshock Just not in the ways I expected to.

[tak197]

I never played bioshock (no console), but I read the plot synopsis online. The game is REALLY intriguing based solely on the plot points. I don't even like scary games, and I thought Bioshock would be kinda interesting to play.

Also, you really can't compare the Orange Box as one game, seeing as it has TF2, Portal, AND Half-Life, which are very different games.

[notomtolose]

Bioshock isn't a terrible game, but it was over hyped and over-rated...
The game was touted as the spiritual successor to system shock 2...
The game was intended to be set in a survival horror atmosphere...
As well, there's no real need to desperately scavenge resources...
This is opposed to SS2...
It was also supposed to be a FPS/RPG hybrid...
...it's not as good as the game it's supposed to be a spirtual successor to.

I know it's pointless to respond at this point, but these are the complaints I hear from most of BioShock's detractors. Funny how they're ALL about what THEY THOUGHT the game was supposed to be like.

My own main complaint is similar, that there's no penalty for taking the 'good' path throughout the game - in fact, you end up with more Adam and exclusive plasmids/tonics that way.

On the other hand, even though I had planned to, there was just no way I could bring myself to take the evil path. So if that penalty had existed, I would have just complained about not being able to get all the achievements.

As for the difficulty, I always prefer that a game not punish me a lot for failure. Just knowing that I died is enough for me to want to avoid dying again. I don't need an electric buzzer to zap my hand, and I surely don't need the game to make itself even harder just when I'm hitting a rough patch.

[Genghis Ares]

I don't get why everyone gets this wrong, but if your evil in BioShock you actually get more ADAM. You get about 280 more ADAM by Harvesting all little sisters. It's just math.

[Cybren]

What I didn't like about Bioshock, this is spoiler laden:







1) The narrative (and the narrative style): The game leads you around on a leash, and then, in a slightly interesting but ultimately pointless twist says "HA YOU HAD TO DO IT BECAUSE MIND CONTROL!!!", which wound up being more pointless then clever since there's nothing to do even if you could refuse the orders.

In addition, the story is told entirely through omnipresent audio-recordings, as apparently everyone who is anyone underwater keeps audio-diaries and this is really the only way the plot is driven.

2) The setting: A lot of people were taken in by it, but I found it boring. Obviously subjective, but still, I do think there are elements to it that were poorly executed. Like the fact that despite taking place in the 50s, they used iconography of the 1930s, such as the thompson sub-machine gun with a drum barrel. The entire steampunk setting itself was boring in my opinion, as it didn't lend itself well to the gameplay. There's AI's and you can hack them, but they run using steam technology (and idea I had for a parody of the cyberpunk genre, not a 'serious' deconstruction of objectivism in an underwater horror game). System Shock was a space opera style science fiction world, Deus Ex was a "fifteen minutes in to the future" conspiracy laden setting, and both wound up having more interesting and more engaging worlds.

3) The weapons, enemies, and powers: they all sucked. The weapons were both standard and uninteresting, and, as many games are wont to do, increasingly ineffectual at higher difficulty levels. The enemies boil down to a handful of splicers, big daddies, and turrets, which is just lame as well, and out of all the powers you can get, all of two of them are really useful, with a handful having an arbitrary situational use.

4) The fact that at no point is the idea that "plasmids destroyed this society by driving everyone mad" ever brought up in the context of your rampant use of them. Meddling with nature is wrong, but the protagonist is always allowed to use the super powers that someone else developed by doing so.

5) The complete lack of RPG mechanics: The System Shock games (which Bioshock claims to be a spiritual successor to), featured a synergy of RPG and FPS. As a horror game, it also featured more resource management than simply running out of ammo. And, for another purely subjective statement, I found psi just more interesting than the plasmids in bioshock. Deus Ex, another game made in the System Shock vein, didn't ignore the RPG elements, allowing for various ways to develop your character and its equipment than the arbitrary vending machines that doll out plasmids in bioshock

6-9) the difficulty: Bioshock use of the respawn points, while not unprecedented, severely impacted the difficulty. SS2 had the same mechanic, but required you to first reach them before you can use them. Bioshock instead just makes you immortal (which oddly never comes up much in the plot, (like, Ryan controlled the spawning chambers or whatever, so couldn't he have beaten Fontaine via simple war of attrition? Speaking of that conflict? What were they even fighting over? Seriously? The only citizens it seemed were the splicers and the occasional little sister/big daddy)

10) The little sisters and big daddies: Just a lame 'alignment' system combined with their lame 'super powers' system. All together lame. I'm also really still not sure what adam is and why they needed to shove slugs inside little girls other than to further their alignment system. (Or perhaps they're Dune fans, but really, if there's something to steal from Dune, it's not the Axotl tank)

[Cake]

I really, really love Bioshock.
Having never played SS2, I wasn't setting myself for some sort of let down by comparing the two, and after watching someone play it just the other day, I intend on going back and improving my achievement score.

In cases like this, I like achievements a lot because it gives me a goal to replay a game I've already beaten but thoroughly enjoy.

Graham pretty much said for me.

[Genghis Ares]

In Reply to Cybren

!SPOILERS!

1) I thought the idea you were being subconsciously controlled was kind of clever and very surprising when you find out about "Would You Kindly". Also, the narrative isn't told with the Audio recordings very much at all. All the tapes give you is background for the characters and ideas of how things occured before you arrived. The narrative is told through events and actions taken, as well as through NPCs.

2) The setting is a backdrop to the events and the society that spawned said events. Also, it probably took a long time to build Rapture, probably long before the 50s and maybe even the 40s so of course they wouldn't have the same technologies and iconography as the rest of the world. It was all self-contained and therefore untouched by the outer societies as far as how a culture would change.

3) I just simply disagree. Weapons are fine in that they are weapons, just like any other game. I don't know what you would be expecting, plus they all had upgrades and special ammo, but whatever. Enemies are limited, but it doesn't really make sense to have anything other than the 4 or so Splicer-types, the Big Daddies, as well as turrets and the security bots. Plasmids are just another way to harm or kill your opponent. Sure some aren't really that useful, but I liked playing around with a bunch and I think I used like 4 or 5 for a lot of the game.

4) I'm pretty sure Jack was geneticially enchanced so he could use the Plasmids and ADAM more effectively, but I do think they should have delved more into its adverse affects.

5) Its an FPS. With upgradable supplies. It didn't have to have RPG elements or mechanics really.

6-9) Difficulty is what you make it. Easy is Easy, Hard is Hard. I suggest you try playing on Hard with the Chambers turned off. Also, the reason you could use the Vita-Chambers is because you are Ryan's illegitimate child genetically enchanced. Ryan probably never did any fighting himself, and he and Fontaine were fighting over Rapture and control of everything. Fontaine was "killed" and Ryan took his company, Fontaine was actually in hiding and was using you, part of his grand scheme to get everything. All the Splicers were Citizens of course, most are rogue, some are loyal to Ryan and some to Fontaine and his fake resistance.

10) They found the slugs when a guy at a fishery had suffered an injury that was healed by the special sea slug he found. Both Ryan and Fontaine saw it as a huge discovery, but Fontaine jumped on it full speed. There is no real Alignment system. Its just something that determines the ending cutscene you see. THe little sisters were created to go around the city and take the ADAM out of dead bodies, ot go back into circulation. Since ADAM is highly sought after, the Big Daddies were created as protectors. This system continued into the present game time.

[notomtolose]

I don't get why everyone gets this wrong, but if your evil in BioShock you actually get more ADAM. You get about 280 more ADAM by Harvesting all little sisters. It's just math.

Really? Well, the point still stands - playing 'good' still gives you more than enough to get everything in the game. You also have to factor in the Adam cost of buying the plasmids that good players get for free - assuming it's even possible to buy them?

I do wish there had been more humans, and that the enemy splicers acted a little more like they had once been humans.

Man, I am excited for BioShock 2. No, the game doesn't need a sequel, yes, it could be disappointing - but it can't retroactively ruin the first game, and it could be SO GOOD.

[Matt]

I don't get why everyone gets this wrong, but if your evil in BioShock you actually get more ADAM. You get about 280 more ADAM by Harvesting all little sisters. It's just math.

Really? Well, the point still stands - playing 'good' still gives you more than enough to get everything in the game. You also have to factor in the Adam cost of buying the plasmids that good players get for free - assuming it's even possible to buy them?

I do wish there had been more humans, and that the enemy splicers acted a little more like they had once been humans.

Man, I am excited for BioShock 2. No, the game doesn't need a sequel, yes, it could be disappointing - but it can't retroactively ruin the first game, and it could be SO GOOD.

but you get a ton of extra adam from the gifts you get for rescuing the little sisters. way more than 280.

-m

[whyarecarrots]

WARNING! MASSIVE TEXT WALL AHEAD!

I'm a bit uncertain on Bioshock. I only played it recently after it got reduced to £3.50 in Steam's ridiculous new year sale, and I was expecting something good, which was what I got, and yet I still felt underwhelmed.

First up, the good:
The setting, atmosphere, storytelling and voice-acting of this game are all top-notch: there was a wonderful sense of the destruction of the city and the near insanity of some of Ryan's ideas. The scene in Ryan's office still ranks for me as one of the best storyline moments in a game I've seen (beaten perhaps only by the ending of HL2 Episode 2).

However, when we get past the wonderful atmosphere, setting and art direction, we reach the gameplay, which is a resounding meh.
- As an FPS it feels very clumsy: this is soemthing I can;t really quantify, but the gunplay as a whole just felt somehow clunky, especially compared with the wonderful tightness of the controls on any Valve fps and cod4 for example. Indeed, it feels to be set up far more in the ilk of Fallout 3, which has vats to compensate.
- Further to this point is the general uselessness of many of the guns in comparison to the wrench. Now normally in a single player game I'd try to avoid using the single most effective tactic at all times and be a bit more varied, but after my first playthrough in which I made use of the weaponry, I had got so frustrated by the inability of the guns to kill anything without utilising several magazines of ammo, combined with the clunky controls that the gameplay was just not fun. Then, on my second playthrough (which I still haven't finished) I tried to use only the wrench, and suddenly found the game had got far easier, and utterly boring. When you can survive a mass ambush by splicers by merely standing still and hitting them with a wrench, after they get shocked by hitting you in combat thanks to a tonic you get quite early on, occasionally hitting them with a wrench which, later in the game, heals you and restores EVE as well, you get the feeling something's gone a bit wrong with the design.

- This brings me neatly onto the actual fights. While I applaud their attempts to make Rapture seem more natural by making the encounters less scripted and open, it's not realyl conducive to good gameplay in my opinion, as the nature of the maps and the unstructured nature of the fights can lead to combat just becoming one great clusterfuck, without any real opportunity to act tactically. I'm sorry to come back to HL2 again here, but I felt that this was one of the greatest strengths of it's combat: given that every enemy encounter was scripted they were able to design the encounters around the levels (and vice versa), making the combat more structured, interesting and varied.

- RPG elements. I personally think that Bioshock struggles most in this department because it's taken a few ideas from rpgs, such as irritating, repetetive fetch quests (GRARJARAHRar), and the unstructured nature of much of the combat, it doesn't add in any of the other aspects of it. While the 2 flaws I just mentioned are present in Fallout 3, and yet did not annoy me to the extent they did in Bioshock, I think that Fallout 3 makes up for them by having a world you can truly immerse yourself in, along with the vast array of weapons, skills, perks, and the fact that you have an inventory system, all of which are RPG aspects that were not included in Bioshock. Regardless of whether I'm talking nonsense about the RPG thing or not, surely you cannot deny that forcing you to go through an area to kill someone, go back, then go through the same area, but further, to kill another person, go back, and then go yet further along the same path to kill a third person is anything but rather lazy level design (Fort Frolic btw: interestingly, one of my favorite sections of the game, primarily for the character of Sander Cohen).

While I can admire the game for it's storytelling and atmosphere, it needs to be a good game as well in order for me to consider it great, and unfortunately I think there are games that have done the combination of story/atmosphere and gameplay far better in the past, such as the HL2 series* (Episode 2 in particular).

TL;DR: Whilst Bioshock is, in my eyes, a good game, and a refreshing change from the norm, it isn't a good enough all round package to deserve the critical acclaim that it has recieved.

**expects vehement disagreement from Matt*

[notomtolose]

but you get a ton of extra adam from the gifts you get for rescuing the little sisters. way more than 280.

I assume he's factoring that in. I could be wrong, though.

[Cybren]

I mostly agree with whyarecarrots. Bioshock was mediocre and underwhelming. It further enrages me when it gets acclaims like "game of the year" when something like The Orange Box (and thus Portal) was also released that year.

To elaborate on some of my points: The story was told mostly through the the tapes. A lot of the time something you'd hear in a tape would just be restated by the NPCs you talk to, which was annoying.

The problem with the weapons and enemies, are these are kind of the point of an FPS. Even if you try telling an ambitious story, I expect more than "generic shotgun, generic machinegun, generic pistol, generic big gun". Likewise the enemies did have some variety, it's just that most of the variety was exhausted very early on.

[iEatNinjaZ]

but you get a ton of extra adam from the gifts you get for rescuing the little sisters. way more than 280.

I assume he's factoring that in. I could be wrong, though.

If you harvest them you end up getting about 50 more adam all together.
Its best to save them because not only do you get adam, but every 3 saves you get a new tonic/plasmid and special ammo. along with some more adam.

[Cybren]

10) They found the slugs when a guy at a fishery had suffered an injury that was healed by the special sea slug he found. Both Ryan and Fontaine saw it as a huge discovery, but Fontaine jumped on it full speed. There is no real Alignment system. Its just something that determines the ending cutscene you see. THe little sisters were created to go around the city and take the ADAM out of dead bodies, ot go back into circulation. Since ADAM is highly sought after, the Big Daddies were created as protectors. This system continued into the present game time.

Just like every arbitrary alignment system