Bioshock : A Defence

[url]http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=88881[/url]



[quote]You see, I was surprised to find BioShock's not my favourite game of the year. I'm also aware that perhaps the intensity of discourse around the game had something to do with it. When I think of BioShock, I have to wipe away pages of forum nit-picking and genuinely bitter pub-based rows before I can even start thinking about, at its best, how clever and elegant it is and how on its own grounds it makes everything else released in this incredible year for videogames distinctly second-rate. For most of this year, I've been too tired to actually do this.[/quote]



An interesting read, no doubt. I don't have the time to go through the entire article right now, but the author does bring up some interesting counter-arguments (although I don't entirely agree) to some the backlash the game has received.



Personally, I loved the game - similarities to SS2 not withstanding. It was just such a great experience in addition to the art deco + objectivism criticism I though I had a great time playing through it. The replay value on the other hand.....Bioshock : A Defence
No one said its nota great experience.. But most were lead to believe it was actually a deep game with meaningful decision making and rpg elements.. None such thing ever happened.. This imo was exact proof of console dumbing down in my opinion.Bioshock : A Defence
I read through the article, but it does miss one of the key points that was disappointing about the game in my opinion. The lack of replay value as previously mentioned. Bioshock's playablitiy was so closely tethered to its storyline that once finished, playing the game again felt like a chore. The fact that choosing a totally different moral stance hardly affected your interaction with the game world destroyed replay value as well. Also I played the game hardly using the camera and I still had way too much ammo.



With regards to Tenebaum, I disliked that by the end of the story she seemed to step out of the moral grey zone and move within touching distance of being a good person herself. The moral grey-ness of every character really appealed to me.
[quote=''article'']The first one's true. BioShock is both a more accessible and easier game than System Shock 2. But ''easier'' doesn't have anything to with it being ''dumber'', and hating ''more accessible'' is just petty elitism from people who'd actually like videogames to be a ghetto consisting of them - especially when some of the things to make the game more accessible can be turned off. As long as point two's not true, then the former really doesn't matter.[/quote]
It takes out depth. Some people, like myself enjoyed the depth that System Shock 2 offered. Just because you have a larger audience that you want to appeal to, doesn't mean you have to take out already successful game elements, just make those elements more accessible instead of completely removing them. I found BioShock good for a single play-through, thanks to the complete lack of depth an customizability that System Shock 2 offered. Taking a large step backwards from a 10 year old game is a wrong move IMO.

[quote=''article'']''And the second's not true. Mechanistically, you can do just about everything you can in System Shock.''[/quote]
Then what happened to all the character customization options? Where I could choose different stats that allowed me to take on different roles as a character. Where is the repair/upgrade weapon options? Where was the chemistry/good research? Nearly everything good in System Shock 2 was replaced with Plasmids/Gene Tonics, most of which were either completely useless or extraordinarily over powered giving the player really only one choice in which afforded them the best result.

[quote=''article'']''The formalised role-playing statistics are removed, but a system where you can create a build for your character allows you to vary the character in meaningful ways.''[/quote]
What meaningful ways? I could either be a wrench-toting gene freak or a wrench-toting gene freak. Like I mentioned already, most elements in BioShock gave the illusion of customizability but only resulted in one superficial ''choice'' that had the only good result.

[quote=''article'']''Sure, if you abuse the Vita Chambers in such a way, eventually you'll complete the game. But why the hell would anyone want to do that?''[/quote]
Because it is a game flaw. If it is put in there, it is part of the game and you are allowed to use it. You shouldn't have to force yourself to avoid using something that is built into the game mechanics to have fun.

[quote=''article'']''He didn't really like BioShock and claimed he played through with just the pistol. Which made me blink - because I was constantly scavenging for ammo, working out what I should be using, being forced into unusual tactics due to a temporary shortage and planning routes to go and manufacture the right rounds, right to the final levels.''[/quote]
Really? You sure you weren't playing System Shock 2? Because I was able to find more than enough ammo in every level to kill every enemy with... for every weapon. Its as if the developer wanted you to use the weapons as much as you could. Hell, go to a vending machine and buy yourself some more ammo... :|

Okay... the rest of the article kind of ends up like BioShock... rambling on with the same boring arguments and ending with an anticlimactic finish that leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth... how... ironic...

From what I got from BioShock was in fact a very similar and dumbed down experience to that of System Shock 2. Ultimately, I was never given any choice in the matter like I was in System Shock. I couldn't customize my character, I had to use the best available gene tonics in order to have the greatest advantage over the enemies (which really didn't matter because with the Vita Chamber flaw I could just keep ''dieing'' and coming back an eventually killing them). I was never given any ''moral'' decision. I either had to be evil incarnate or the goody-two-shoes, there was no middle ground. And every level consisted of practically the same thing: ''here is a simple objective, complete it while you kill the same 3 types of enemies (Splicers, Bots and Big Daddies)

I didn't hate BioShock as a game, I just hated the fact that it took too so much from System Shock 2 yet didn't use any of the best things that SS2 offered. People will go and tell me that there is new content out that deactivates the Vita Chambers... yeah, so? Why would I want to play a game I could hardly finish again to get the experience I should have had in the first place? BioShock is heavily flawed and can never be ''fixed,'' no matter how many patches are released. The game's design is a flaw and I was caught up in all the hype. BioShock could have been a cult cIassic but Ken Levine made the wrong choice, instead of reinventing the genre, he just further perpetrated the terrible stagnation it is suffering from. *sigh* Oh well, at least I got a cool resin figure for my time.
I only skimmed - but that's an interesting article with some merit. But he also does a good job of avoiding the major issues by hiding behind the minor - like ackhowledging how absurdly easy it is, then quickly trying to point out that that doesn't relate to the game's intelligence.Plus, he only touches on the story. BioShock makes some changes, but it more or less fundamntally copies the SS2 story. How can anyone defend - or even refuse to acknowledge that, regardless of how much they like the game? Would a film ever get away with that? Imagine if The Usual Suspects got a sequel, and it had the exact same story with the exact same ending, only it was a different setting and had different characters. No one would be able to argue a point like that down. Why is a game getting away with it?Also, he puts too much emphasison how shallow the game isn't - but I don't think that was ever really one of BioShock's weaknesses. It's not exactly like SS2 is crazy deep. Going from 4 strength to 5 strength is hardly anything profound. And as the article writer points out, mechanistically, BioShock makes several improvements over SS2. But he ignores arguing against the game's two great flaws. The first being that the gunplay is terrible (and that the game is all about the gunplay), the second being that the game is too damn easy.The reason SS2 was so great, in my opinion, is that it's a horror masterpiece. The enemies, the characters, the music, the level design, the atmosphere. It all just adds up to awesomeness. BS (an appropriate abbreviation) kills all of that dead. Bang. Because of how easy the game is - even on hard - and because the enemies never feel threatening or offend the senses, the combat is just a tired exercise in making them go dead. Which, thanks to some simple AI, makes it little more than any other FPS out there as far as gunplay is concerned.The plasmids are neat, but the problem is they're poorly balanced. Some are very clearly more useful than others, some are clearly designed to be used in conjunction with others. It's quite clear as you play that the developers designed certain areas with specific intention involed - like giving you a nice big pool of water for some enemies to path into. I have all these plasmids to choose from. Which am I going to use? Every fight is different. Pssch - yeah. BioShock's gunplay is just not very good at all. And the sad thing is that BioShock is all about the gunplay, because there is no horror and the plot - which is a copy - is quite poorly delivered.In Shock 2 I had a very pronounced feeling that I was killing victims when I killed the enemies. Innocent humans. And killing them, it felt hard at times. But I just didn't have that in BioShock at all. They just felt like baddies and I wanted them dead. Same with the corpses lying around in SS2. When I saw the expression on the hanged man's face near the beginning, I gasped. When I saw the slumped corpse surrounded by bottles of booze with a gun in his hand, blood splatted on the wall, I felt moved. In BioShock, the corpses don't tell stories and there's no feeling at all. The game is soulless.I think the single biggest problem with BioShock is money. Money could change everything. Firstly, make there be less of it. Secondly, make hacking and vita chambers cost money. Thrdly, make stuff more expensive. If you're paying for the things that help you, you will think twice about helping yourself. That immediately makes the game more challenging, which makes the fights more daunting. Which is definitely a good thing. With fewer resources available, every fight would be a challenge. Maybe have tons of money on easy for beginners, but don't make hard the equivalent of somewhere between easy and medium. That's just wrong.I don't think the hacking mechanic was a bad idea, but I do think it should have been in-game (because it pauses while we hack, which is dumb) and I think it should have cost money. The security system is fine. Plasmids are kinda gimmicky, but they don't hurt the game. Gene tonics are the smartest thing in the game, I think. It all just comes back to money, gunplay and horror.But anyway, I think the writer of that article sufficiently defends some of the most frequent points raised against BioShock, but he barely even acknowledges the most important ones.
*opens mouth*... On second thought, all my thoughts pretty much are summed up by the last two posters. Basically, Bioshock is a good game that has been vastly overrated to awesome status, and really doesn't live upto it's pedigree.
[quote]It takes out depth. Some people, like myself enjoyed the depth that System Shock 2 offered. Just because you have a larger audience that you want to appeal to, doesn't mean you have to take out already successful game elements, just make those elements more accessible instead of completely removing them. I found BioShock good for a single play-through, thanks to the complete lack of depth an customizability that System Shock 2 offered. Taking a large step backwards from a 10 year old game is a wrong move IMO.[/quote] That's what tonics tried to achieve. Their implementation was far from perfect however, but Irrational had the same concept you have in mind. [quote]Then what happened to all the character customization options? Where I could choose different stats that allowed me to take on different roles as a character. Where is the repair/upgrade weapon options? Where was the chemistry/good research? Nearly everything good in System Shock 2 was replaced with Plasmids/Gene Tonics, most of which were either completely useless or extraordinarily over powered giving the player really only one choice in which afforded them the best result.[/quote] I agree with the article here that the entire repair weapon thing was an unnecessary part of SS2, in fact even the devs said it was a mistake.. Removing repair was a step in the right direction. Unfortunately the same can't be said about upgarding, so I must agree, the upgrade option of Bioshock was pretty lame. Also the article states that the research option of Bioshock was better than SS 2 (camera vs chemical hunt) and I am inclined to agree. Did you read the article ? [quote]What meaningful ways? I could either be a wrench-toting gene freak or a wrench-toting gene freak. Like I mentioned already, most elements in BioShock gave the illusion of customizability but only resulted in one superficial ''choice'' that had the only good result.[/quote]



Again we return to the debate of efficiency vs fun. Personally I never even bothered with the wrench in my playthrough. I just found it boring. Not to mention SS2, in its own right was pretty unbalanced, psychic powers for the most part were pretty useless.



The rest of your arguments are rather rambling, I won't bother replying / arguing with it. However I am sad you got caught up in the hype, I personally took Bioshock to be its own game, not a spiritual successor to anything.
its very easy to make a defence imo if you don't have anyone to point out the flaws or missed points.
[quote]In Shock 2 I had a very pronounced feeling that I was killing victims when I killed the enemies. Innocent humans. And killing them, it felt hard at times. But I just didn't have that in BioShock at all. They just felt like baddies and I wanted them dead. Same with the corpses lying around in SS2. When I saw the expression on the hanged man's face near the beginning, I gasped. When I saw the slumped corpse surrounded by bottles of booze with a gun in his hand, blood splatted on the wall, I felt moved. In BioShock, the corpses don't tell stories and there's no feeling at all. The game is soulless.[/quote]



I agree with most of the points you raised, although calling the game outright soulless. Bioshock is more the tale about specific people and their lives, it's a lot about objectivistic ideals and the flaws of human nature. Also the splicers at first did evoke a certain amount of sympathy (specifically the first time I heard one of them sing ''Jesus loves me this I know...''), but when they just wouldn't stop respawning, my sympathy went right out the window.



Someone did make a mod based on the same idea. I think it's called the BIoshock rebalance mod or something like that, never tried it out. It does the same things essentially, makes the enemies tougher, and plasmids and ammo more expensive. Too bad it couldn't fix respawn times and ammo drops. Although less and touger enemies would make the enemy AI's flaws all the more obvious.
[QUOTE=''DerekLoffin'']*opens mouth*... On second thought, all my thoughts pretty much are summed up by the last two posters. Basically, Bioshock is a good game that has been vastly overrated to awesome status, and really doesn't live upto it's pedigree.[/QUOTE]This really shows the matter of perspective. In my review of Bioshock, I gave it 9 or 9.5. Let me tell you why:I have been playing PC games for 20 years. Mostly I play RPG's, adventure and strategy games (HoMM type). I have played few FPS's, and most of those have been Jedi Knight-type games. I have tried DOOM etc. but frankly never progressed more than a few levels before I got bored.So from my perspective, this was a damn good FPS. A story that kept me wanting to continue. A atmosphere that was suspenseful and some light RPG elements (plasmas/tonics) that appealed to me desire to see character development.I see now, that not having played the Systemshock games might have been an error on my side, and that might have set my expectations differently. And that may have led to some sort of disappointment.As for replay value, I never replay story based games. OK perhaps 20% might be different, if I am lucky, but replaying the ther 80% again, fully knowing to expect is not my idea of fun.We all have some preconceptions. When I review RPS's, I use ''Plansescape: Torment'' as my standard. And that is hard to beat. 8)
[QUOTE=''belboz''] [QUOTE=''DerekLoffin'']*opens mouth*... On second thought, all my thoughts pretty much are summed up by the last two posters. Basically, Bioshock is a good game that has been vastly overrated to awesome status, and really doesn't live upto it's pedigree.[/QUOTE]This really shows the matter of perspective. In my review of Bioshock, I gave it 9 or 9.5. Let me tell you why:I have been playing PC games for 20 years. Mostly I play RPG's, adventure and strategy games (HoMM type). I have played few FPS's, and most of those have been Jedi Knight-type games. I have tried DOOM etc. but frankly never progressed more than a few levels before I got bored.So from my perspective, this was a damn good FPS. A story that kept me wanting to continue. A atmosphere that was suspenseful and some light RPG elements (plasmas/tonics) that appealed to me desire to see character development.I see now, that not having played the Systemshock games might have been an error on my side, and that might have set my expectations differently. And that may have led to some sort of disappointment.As for replay value, I never replay story based games. OK perhaps 20% might be different, if I am lucky, but replaying the ther 80% again, fully knowing to expect is not my idea of fun.We all have some preconceptions. When I review RPS's, I use ''Plansescape: Torment'' as my standard. And that is hard to beat. 8)[/QUOTE]
Im in total agreement with bellboz here..Its going to get game of the year..It should out of originality...Some of you may say oh ya mass effect will..I say nah..Mass effect is a good story..Its stuff ive seen in other games though...Bioshock had some originality to it...Im dissapointed in only myself for not playing system shock 2..Way back in the day but thats my loss...
[QUOTE=''belboz''][QUOTE=''DerekLoffin'']*opens mouth*... On second thought, all my thoughts pretty much are summed up by the last two posters. Basically, Bioshock is a good game that has been vastly overrated to awesome status, and really doesn't live upto it's pedigree.[/QUOTE]This really shows the matter of perspective. In my review of Bioshock, I gave it 9 or 9.5. Let me tell you why:I have been playing PC games for 20 years. Mostly I play RPG's, adventure and strategy games (HoMM type). I have played few FPS's, and most of those have been Jedi Knight-type games. I have tried DOOM etc. but frankly never progressed more than a few levels before I got bored.So from my perspective, this was a damn good FPS. A story that kept me wanting to continue. A atmosphere that was suspenseful and some light RPG elements (plasmas/tonics) that appealed to me desire to see character development.I see now, that not having played the Systemshock games might have been an error on my side, and that might have set my expectations differently. And that may have led to some sort of disappointment.As for replay value, I never replay story based games. OK perhaps 20% might be different, if I am lucky, but replaying the ther 80% again, fully knowing to expect is not my idea of fun.We all have some preconceptions. When I review RPS's, I use ''Plansescape: Torment'' as my standard. And that is hard to beat. 8)[/QUOTE]I'm actually not that different from you, but I have played the likes of System Shock, System Shock 2 and Deus Ex, and while I can give Bioshock big props for presentation, it fails to really live up to it's current rating on any other aspect (RPG elements are simplistic and limited, FPS are okay but not upto the standards of today, and niether is upto 9+ game bar). The presentation, as good as it is, just doesn't make up for the rest of the weak qualities of the game.I usually don't play story driven games over again either, but typically that is because these games are easily 20+ hour games and I've gotten my fill of them on the first playthrough. I finished bioshock in less than 15 getting darn near everything without even the benifit of a walk through. That's not to say I'm unforgiving on short games. For instance I absolutely love portal, and that game shouldn't take you more than 3 hours to finish and a good player could easily do it in about 1 or less, but portal actually hits that spot where you can replay it for fun now and then, while bioshock just doesn't and on top of that, portal even sold individually is far cheaper a game than bioshock.
[QUOTE=''Gladestone1''][QUOTE=''belboz''] [QUOTE=''DerekLoffin'']*opens mouth*... On second thought, all my thoughts pretty much are summed up by the last two posters. Basically, Bioshock is a good game that has been vastly overrated to awesome status, and really doesn't live upto it's pedigree.[/QUOTE]This really shows the matter of perspective. In my review of Bioshock, I gave it 9 or 9.5. Let me tell you why:I have been playing PC games for 20 years. Mostly I play RPG's, adventure and strategy games (HoMM type). I have played few FPS's, and most of those have been Jedi Knight-type games. I have tried DOOM etc. but frankly never progressed more than a few levels before I got bored.So from my perspective, this was a damn good FPS. A story that kept me wanting to continue. A atmosphere that was suspenseful and some light RPG elements (plasmas/tonics) that appealed to me desire to see character development.I see now, that not having played the Systemshock games might have been an error on my side, and that might have set my expectations differently. And that may have led to some sort of disappointment.As for replay value, I never replay story based games. OK perhaps 20% might be different, if I am lucky, but replaying the ther 80% again, fully knowing to expect is not my idea of fun.We all have some preconceptions. When I review RPS's, I use ''Plansescape: Torment'' as my standard. And that is hard to beat. 8)[/QUOTE]
Im in total agreement with bellboz here..Its going to get game of the year..It should out of originality...Some of you may say oh ya mass effect will..I say nah..Mass effect is a good story..Its stuff ive seen in other games though...Bioshock had some originality to it...Im dissapointed in only myself for not playing system shock 2..Way back in the day but thats my loss...[/QUOTE]But, what is original about it? Story, nope, as has been said it's story follows SS2's general story very closely to the point that you can easily predict it. Gun play, nothing new there. Super powers, been done before in the likes of Jedi Knight and even the original SS. Horror setting, nope done by Doom 3 and SS2 (and frankly, as much as I hate doom, as a horror game it actually did the job better than BS did). Really, the only modestly original thing to it is setting, but that could be said of many games this year, and the setting isn't that original as what makes it interesting is mostly the time period.I have no real doubt it will win GOTY awards given the gushing the reviewers seem to do over it, but frankly it doesn't deserve them.
I find it surprising when people claim that Bioshock is innovative or original, besides setting, it's mostly just an evolution of the genre. Implementation of some of the concepts wasn't as great as it should have been nevertheless, it all came together quite well IMO.