serum to free me of mind control. I'm assuming this is what you mean?
I'm noticing I need a full clip on the machine gun to drop leadhead splicers now so I decided to take a break.
Have you been keeping up on your research? You get bonuses to damage against the different enemy types as you progress through the research levels. I maxed the Leadheads long before the difficulty ramped, and it doesn't take anywhere near a full clip.
(Of course, I rarely shoot them anyway. I'm a Target Dummy / Wrench Jockey.)
I sure did and it sure does. But maybe my aim is terrible.
I agree, the setting was one of the biggest hooks for me to continue playing. It's an interesting premise and the collapse of a biodome like tlhat is bound to produce some interesting stories. But the audiologs were tightly focused on the struggle between just the main characters and supporting workers. The only good background story they had going was Masha. I'd like to hear more about other regular joes just trying to make it in Rapture who don't give a damn about either side. I liked the SS2 logs about escaping members of the station, compelling you to catch up to them to learn more. There were attempts at creating sympathetic characters through the Masha and Diane McClintock stories, but I thought they could've done better. "Too focused" is a great way of describing it.
I think Zero Punctuation nailed it on the head, it's a great game, but "it's just shallower than expected".
I found this best exemplified in the apartment complex. Hardly anyone lived there, and they just happened to be a collection of major characters as profiled in the audio logs.
I agree, the setting was one of the biggest hooks for me to continue playing. It's an interesting premise and the collapse of a biodome like tlhat is bound to produce some interesting stories. But the audiologs were tightly focused on the struggle between just the main characters and supporting workers. The only good background story they had going was Masha. I'd like to hear more about other regular joes just trying to make it in Rapture who don't give a damn about either side. I liked the SS2 logs about escaping members of the station, compelling you to catch up to them to learn more. There were attempts at creating sympathetic characters through the Masha and Diane McClintock stories, but I thought they could've done better. "Too focused" is a great way of describing it.
I think Zero Punctuation nailed it on the head, it's a great game, but "it's just shallower than expected".
I found this best exemplified in the apartment complex. Hardly anyone lived there, and they just happened to be a collection of major characters as profiled in the audio logs.
I have to agree with this. Bioshock is an excellent game but it never managed to make me feel like Rapture was a place where people used to lived, to me. In that regard both SS1 and SS2 was much more succesful in conveying the illusion of a place where people once used to live.
I just finished the game, far to quickly for my tastes really.
Although it didn't take long (No where near as long as say, Half Life 2) I was gleefully giddy in watching the ending I got for saving all the little sisters instead of killing them. Seeing them climb over Fontaine and stick him a thousand times was great. On the other hand, Fontaine was real easy to beat. He would throw fire or black balls of death at me and charge back and fourth trying to hit me. Kind of a let down. Now I gotta play through it all to see the evil ending.
I never played SS1 or 2 so I can't really comment on them, but to add into the discussion Rapture felt more like a shooting gallery and a shopping mall then a place where people lived. I guess the areas covered in the game are just a small slice of the city?
The bathrooms in the apartments were the same kind as the public bathrooms in earlier levels. That bothered me- real people don't have bathrooms like that in their homes.
I'm not sure I get all the comments about setting. Remember that apartment later in the game where
you find that with the parents and two-three kids sitting in front of the TV all dead with a bottle of poison on the table?
That was the most depressing part of the game for me.
Yeah, but thats kind of the problem. Moments of absolute brilliance drenched in a sea of mediocrity. It just reflects on how good it could of been if they had taken the time - like they did in System Shock 2.
Yeah, but thats kind of the problem. Moments of absolute brilliance drenched in a sea of mediocrity. It just reflects on how good it could of been if they had taken the time - like they did in System Shock 2.
I, on the other hand, came away with the impression that this was basically SS2... only it had less horrible bits.
I have not read back in this thread and this might have come up but I have a question about mid-game storyish stuff:
When you kill Ryan and then Rapture gets handed over to Fontaine, if you've killed the little sisters so far does the part with Tenanbaum and them all running around/rescuing you change at all (I've been letting them live)? Or is that only the VERY end of the game that that happens?
I have not read back in this thread and this might have come up but I have a question about mid-game storyish stuff:
When you kill Ryan and then Rapture gets handed over to Fontaine, if you've killed the little sisters so far does the part with Tenanbaum and them all running around/rescuing you change at all (I've been letting them live)? Or is that only the VERY end of the game that that happens?
No, they still rescue you if you're evil. The only difference is how they respond to you in that scene, and the ending.
That was the most depressing part of the game for me.
My most depressing experience was when
gathering the pheromones in the orphanage I saw that one girl's room had two tombstones, one labeled MOM and the other DAD, drawn on the wall. Whoever was roomed there had set a teddy bear in front of each of them.
Yesterday I flew home from a week in San Francisco. The guy who sat next to me on the plane turned out to be the Director of Infrastructure for Take Two Interactive. I didn't ask for details, but I think his position relates to internal IT rather than game development. Regardless, I thanked him for Bioshock and wanted to hug him, a little.
That was the most depressing part of the game for me.
My most depressing experience was when
gathering the pheromones in the orphanage I saw that one girl's room had two tombstones, one labeled MOM and the other DAD, drawn on the wall. Whoever was roomed there had set a teddy bear in front of each of them.
The bathrooms in the apartments were the same kind as the public bathrooms in earlier levels. That bothered me- real people don't have bathrooms like that in their homes.
real people don't live in cities underneath the sea
The bathrooms in the apartments were the same kind as the public bathrooms in earlier levels. That bothered me- real people don't have bathrooms like that in their homes.
real people don't live in cities underneath the sea
Ran into an interesting little bug in Neptune's Bounty today (or at least I'm assuming it's a bug). Somehow I managed to rescue 4 out of 3 little sisters (I have 4 little sister heads on my pause menu and everything) but right before I
go to give that one guy the 3 pictures of the spider splicers
the game tells me there are still little sisters to be dealt with and how I need ADAM and I should go find them
Ran into an interesting little bug in Neptune's Bounty today (or at least I'm assuming it's a bug). Somehow I managed to rescue 4 out of 3 little sisters (I have 4 little sister heads on my pause menu and everything) but right before I
go to give that one guy the 3 pictures of the spider splicers
the game tells me there are still little sisters to be dealt with and how I need ADAM and I should go find them
this is a bug fixed in a live update a few days ago.
sign into XBL and it will be fixed. its pretty minor, what happens is at one point in the level 2 little sisters are spawned instead of one. cant really complain, free adam!
I usually do that. Due to my job, my gaming time is Wed-Fri, 1 two hour chunk per night, no play on Sat/Sun, and 24/7 Mon and Tues... so I've taken my time with it (kinda forced) and enjoyed the art and story, even though I bought the game 2 days after it was released.
I beat it last night. O_o
Now, I want to be challenged. Overly challenged. I never went below 8 Health Kits or Eve Hypos... or maybe like once I did, because I was dicking around with a Bouncer.
I want all my money going to them this time. No guns, no plasmids save when you need them to progress the story, all TK all the time.
Though I may use the camera for researching. And Adam on Eve/Health upgrades I'll probably do. But no other plasmids or weapons.
The bathrooms in the apartments were the same kind as the public bathrooms in earlier levels. That bothered me- real people don't have bathrooms like that in their homes.
real people don't live in cities underneath the sea
Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
edited September 2007
Y'know, considering all the fucked up and disturbing shit that happens throughout the game...
the "saviour" ending really, really fills me with warm fuzzies.
I was all expecting a final betrayal by Tenenbaum, like Fontaine was hinting at, or something equally unexpected. I was suprised to get a cinematic that made me feel
Y'know, considering all the fucked up and disturbing shit that happens throughout the game...
the "saviour" ending really, really fills me with warm fuzzies.
I was all expecting a final betrayal by Tenenbaum, like Fontaine was hinting at, or something equally unexpected. I was suprised to get a cinematic that made me feel
I agree, the setting was one of the biggest hooks for me to continue playing. It's an interesting premise and the collapse of a biodome like tlhat is bound to produce some interesting stories. But the audiologs were tightly focused on the struggle between just the main characters and supporting workers. The only good background story they had going was Masha. I'd like to hear more about other regular joes just trying to make it in Rapture who don't give a damn about either side. I liked the SS2 logs about escaping members of the station, compelling you to catch up to them to learn more. There were attempts at creating sympathetic characters through the Masha and Diane McClintock stories, but I thought they could've done better. "Too focused" is a great way of describing it.
I think Zero Punctuation nailed it on the head, it's a great game, but "it's just shallower than expected".
I found this best exemplified in the apartment complex. Hardly anyone lived there, and they just happened to be a collection of major characters as profiled in the audio logs.
I have to agree with this. Bioshock is an excellent game but it never managed to make me feel like Rapture was a place where people used to lived, to me. In that regard both SS1 and SS2 was much more succesful in conveying the illusion of a place where people once used to live.
All good points, but here's the thing: there was a mass attempt to abandon Rapture. We saw this at the beginning of the game--the luggage clustered at the bathysphere, the protest signs. I'm guessing more folks got cut off a long ways before getting that far and ended up being the lootable corpses you come across throughout the game. My impression while playing this game was always that it was like any given post-apocalyptic flick, and Rapture was definitely post--the shit already went down:
children were poisoned, plenty of people died, anything left isn't even a reasonable facsimile of a "normal" society... anybody left is just scrounging for scraps off the dinner table. The biggest rulers down here are the LSs and BDs, and they're even further removed from being human than the insane Splicers are
All that being said, if people can grab their history (pictures, books, clothes, etc.) and take it with them--especially to a better place, like... THE SURFACE--they'll do that.
tl;dr: Rapture got fucking raped... the fact that it didn't feel like people used to live there... people wanted to get out so bad that they didn't leave the impression of ever having wanted to live there--if a physical location is a source of pain for a large group of people, those people will collectively erase that pain by ignoring the location's existence. At least, that's the impression I got from the game. Of course, I could be full of shit. 8-)
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Even if that is a legitimate excuse, and I don't really feel that it is, the game would have gained so much from seeing the remnants and ruins of all those lives that I'm still disappointed.
Honestly, what did SS2 to make people more than "just a collection of audio logs"?
It was almost the same game, but with worse presentation and a more generic setting. I really can't understand the insistence that it just has this special aura about it that made everything super wonderful.
The body of the many sucked, people. The ending was the worst, period. The game was unbalanced, and the ship was oddly constructed. Central power powered one elevator. Well, two (thanks, Let's Play). It was really really good for the time. It is no longer the best game of its type, because every part of it except the damn GamePig was improved upon in Bioshock.
Yes, I too came to the same conclusion- with a few exceptions, Bioshock does everything SS2 did, only better.
That being said, I like SHODAN and The Many a lot, and there were definitely fewer sympathetic audiolog characters in Bioshock.
I mean, no one like Prefontaine or Bronson or Diego- true badasses. And there were no real side plot stories in the audiologs- it was all main backstory.
Yes, the body of the many sucked. We all know the body of the many sucked hard.
But it was the "more generic setting" that really helped it out. The audio logs that we're superfluous details seemed a little more mysterious because they were written by people who lived in space. Any any of the weird stuff that didn't quite fit was more easily excused by the sci-fi setting. It's like Zero Punctuation said, how the fuck does a steam powered turret develop any idea of allegiance? Rapture didn't score "suspension of disbelief" points nearly as well as the Von Braun did.
I mean thats just a part of the reason, but its a big part.
apotheos on
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Der Waffle MousBlame this on the misfortune of your birth.New Yark, New Yark.Registered Userregular
edited September 2007
Really.
You've got a setting where you're in an underwater city full of the planet's most brilliant minds, in the 1960's, and you can shoot bees at people and light them on fire Roy Mustang style.
And the issue of a gas-powered swivel-chair turret's IFF strains suspension of disbelief?
Hurm... So I played through this on a friend's 360... and now I'm going to buy a 360. I kinda want to buy this for the achievements, but I don't think I'd be able to play through it soon.
I'm not disputing that, I'm just saying it worked better then. Take hacking. It was a lot better in SS2 because they really just said well fuck this, just play this contrived minigame.
Posts
I sure did and it sure does. But maybe my aim is terrible.
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I found this best exemplified in the apartment complex. Hardly anyone lived there, and they just happened to be a collection of major characters as profiled in the audio logs.
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I never played SS1 or 2 so I can't really comment on them, but to add into the discussion Rapture felt more like a shooting gallery and a shopping mall then a place where people lived. I guess the areas covered in the game are just a small slice of the city?
That was the most depressing part of the game for me.
SE++ Forum Battle Archive
Yeah, but thats kind of the problem. Moments of absolute brilliance drenched in a sea of mediocrity. It just reflects on how good it could of been if they had taken the time - like they did in System Shock 2.
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...so these forums DO have more in common with Bioshock than rampant physical deformities!
I have not read back in this thread and this might have come up but I have a question about mid-game storyish stuff:
My most depressing experience was when
There isnt a
real people don't live in cities underneath the sea
BURN
this is a bug fixed in a live update a few days ago.
sign into XBL and it will be fixed. its pretty minor, what happens is at one point in the level 2 little sisters are spawned instead of one. cant really complain, free adam!
I also spent 2 hours looking for the little sister the game was telling me I left.
In my defense that happened on the day the game came out.
Now, for Hard. Only using Telekinesis for kills.
I didn't get tired of using it the first run through... we'll see how it goes the 2nd.
Boo, no good.
I beat it last night. O_o
Now, I want to be challenged. Overly challenged. I never went below 8 Health Kits or Eve Hypos... or maybe like once I did, because I was dicking around with a Bouncer.
I want all my money going to them this time. No guns, no plasmids save when you need them to progress the story, all TK all the time.
Though I may use the camera for researching. And Adam on Eve/Health upgrades I'll probably do. But no other plasmids or weapons.
I do.
Great wireless reception down here, oddly.
I was all expecting a final betrayal by Tenenbaum, like Fontaine was hinting at, or something equally unexpected. I was suprised to get a cinematic that made me feel
Which is frustrating, considering how:
All good points, but here's the thing: there was a mass attempt to abandon Rapture. We saw this at the beginning of the game--the luggage clustered at the bathysphere, the protest signs. I'm guessing more folks got cut off a long ways before getting that far and ended up being the lootable corpses you come across throughout the game. My impression while playing this game was always that it was like any given post-apocalyptic flick, and Rapture was definitely post--the shit already went down:
All that being said, if people can grab their history (pictures, books, clothes, etc.) and take it with them--especially to a better place, like... THE SURFACE--they'll do that.
tl;dr: Rapture got fucking raped... the fact that it didn't feel like people used to live there... people wanted to get out so bad that they didn't leave the impression of ever having wanted to live there--if a physical location is a source of pain for a large group of people, those people will collectively erase that pain by ignoring the location's existence. At least, that's the impression I got from the game. Of course, I could be full of shit. 8-)
Ng Security Industries, Inc.
PRERELEASE VERSION-NOT FOR FIELD USE - DO NOT TEST IN A POPULATED AREA
-ULTIMA RATIO REGUM-
It was almost the same game, but with worse presentation and a more generic setting. I really can't understand the insistence that it just has this special aura about it that made everything super wonderful.
The body of the many sucked, people. The ending was the worst, period. The game was unbalanced, and the ship was oddly constructed. Central power powered one elevator. Well, two (thanks, Let's Play). It was really really good for the time. It is no longer the best game of its type, because every part of it except the damn GamePig was improved upon in Bioshock.
That being said, I like SHODAN and The Many a lot, and there were definitely fewer sympathetic audiolog characters in Bioshock.
I mean, no one like Prefontaine or Bronson or Diego- true badasses. And there were no real side plot stories in the audiologs- it was all main backstory.
But it was the "more generic setting" that really helped it out. The audio logs that we're superfluous details seemed a little more mysterious because they were written by people who lived in space. Any any of the weird stuff that didn't quite fit was more easily excused by the sci-fi setting. It's like Zero Punctuation said, how the fuck does a steam powered turret develop any idea of allegiance? Rapture didn't score "suspension of disbelief" points nearly as well as the Von Braun did.
I mean thats just a part of the reason, but its a big part.
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You've got a setting where you're in an underwater city full of the planet's most brilliant minds, in the 1960's, and you can shoot bees at people and light them on fire Roy Mustang style.
And the issue of a gas-powered swivel-chair turret's IFF strains suspension of disbelief?
Damnit.
I'm not disputing that, I'm just saying it worked better then. Take hacking. It was a lot better in SS2 because they really just said well fuck this, just play this contrived minigame.
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