Forbes: Future classics

Pugnate

http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/08/future-video-games-tech-future07-cx_mn_de_0211game.html

In pictures:

http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/08/future-video-games-tech-future07-cx_mn_de_0211game_slide_2.html?thisSpeed=20000

Surprisingly good, and fairly interesting list. The article on the whole appreciates the contribution of PC gaming, while the "in pictures" bit gets most of it right. Portal especially deserves the praise. A couple of things though...

Bioshock: This atmospheric first-person shooter game drew players in to a unique dystopian setting and broke ground with a storyline that forced players to make moral decisions.

Gotta love the mainstream press. While I loved Bioshock, moral decisions aren't anything new. And Bioshock felt a lot like a lighter version of System Shock 2, and even Deus Ex to some extent.

The Witcher: This PC role-playing game is based on a popular Polish fantasy book series. It's received praise for tackling social issues, including racism and sexual violence, and for forcing players to make complex moral choices.

Always good to see The Witcher get recognition.

The_Scarab

Bioshock is about as flawless as games come though. Portal even more so.

I mean yeah, you can nitpick each one till the end of time. But there are no glaring faults with either, and the problems that are there are swamped in the sea of awesome that is the games strong points.

Roshin

The Witcher deserves all the praise it gets. An astonishing RPG.

tofu

Bioshock: This atmospheric first-person shooter game drew players in to a unique dystopian setting and broke ground with a storyline that forced players to make moral decisions.

That's what they said Bioshock would do, too bad it failed miserably.

darleysam

Atmospheric.. yes
Unique dystopian setting.. yes
Moral decisions.. yes

Totally failed!

tofu

darleysam wrote: »

Atmospheric.. yes
Unique dystopian setting.. yes
Moral decisions.. no

I didn't say the game was a failure, on the contrary I had a lot of fun playing Bioshock. It did fail to deliver any any kind of unique moral decision though.

Antishow

I get the feeling someone didn't play all the way through

(gah, too slow. I meant Darley)

arod_77

Binary Choice that results in a 30 second cutscene is not a moral decision. Barely, maybe

Deaderinred

darleysam wrote: »

Atmospheric.. yes
Unique dystopian setting.. yes
Moral decisions.. yes

Totally failed!

yes the moral decision of being either a goodie goodie mary poppins or a completely evil bastard twatfaced monster, wheres the middle ground?

fail.

Speed Racer

I guess when I think "moral choice," I think something a LOT less black-and-white than Bioshock.

DarkWarrior

The_Scarab wrote: »

Bioshock is about as flawless as games come though. Portal even more so.

I mean yeah, you can nitpick each one till the end of time. But there are no glaring faults with either, and the problems that are there are swamped in the sea of awesome that is the games strong points.

Bioshock is not flawless. It is very much a flawed game with a nice aesthetic design.

The_Scarab

DarkWarrior wrote: »

The_Scarab wrote: »

Bioshock is about as flawless as games come though. Portal even more so.

I mean yeah, you can nitpick each one till the end of time. But there are no glaring faults with either, and the problems that are there are swamped in the sea of awesome that is the games strong points.

Bioshock is not flawless. It is very much a flawed game with a nice aesthetic design.

I would contend but this is not the place for such an argument. Especially as you would probably beat me, damn you.

Still, at least we can agree it is very good. Right?

Smasher

I saw my friend play through Bioshock as evil first, so I decided to play as good to see what was different. I was really hoping that

you wouldn't kill Ryan, but no luck

DarkWarrior

The_Scarab wrote: »

DarkWarrior wrote: »

The_Scarab wrote: »

Bioshock is about as flawless as games come though. Portal even more so.

I mean yeah, you can nitpick each one till the end of time. But there are no glaring faults with either, and the problems that are there are swamped in the sea of awesome that is the games strong points.

Bioshock is not flawless. It is very much a flawed game with a nice aesthetic design.

I would contend but this is not the place for such an argument. Especially as you would probably beat me, damn you.

Still, at least we can agree it is very good. Right?

It's worth it for the Andrew Ryan scene.

ChewyWaffles

Bioshock was boring...so, so boring to me.

darleysam

tofu wrote: »

darleysam wrote: »

Atmospheric.. yes
Unique dystopian setting.. yes
Moral decisions.. no

I didn't say the game was a failure, on the contrary I had a lot of fun playing Bioshock. It did fail to deliver any any kind of unique moral decision though.

My take on the moral choice wasn't necessarily the good or bad ending, but each time you picked up a Little Sister to choose to save or harvest her. "But it doesn't really benefit you either way!"
No, it doesn't, so the decision is entirely down to you, and whether you yourself want to save or harvest her. Save her and get a little less Adam, but not enough to cripple you. Harvest her, and get a little more. There's no great weight either way, save your own personal moral choice.
Oh, right..

The_Scarab

ChewyWaffles wrote: »

Bioshock was boring...so, so boring to me.

http://www.google.com/products?q=soul&btnG=Search+Products

Hope you have some spare cash.

tofu

darleysam wrote: »

tofu wrote: »

darleysam wrote: »

Atmospheric.. yes
Unique dystopian setting.. yes
Moral decisions.. no

I didn't say the game was a failure, on the contrary I had a lot of fun playing Bioshock. It did fail to deliver any any kind of unique moral decision though.

My take on the moral choice wasn't necessarily the good or bad ending, but each time you picked up a Little Sister to choose to save or harvest her. "But it doesn't really benefit you either way!"
No, it doesn't, so the decision is entirely down to you, and whether you yourself want to save or harvest her. Save her and get a little less Adam, but not enough to cripple you. Harvest her, and get a little more. There's no great weight either way, save your own personal moral choice.
Oh, right..

Yea, moral choice without consequence is totally realistic.

Oh, right...

darleysam

I'd rather a moral choice left up to my morals than "choose door A and get this prize, choose door B and get this prize!"
Then it just becomes a case of "which reward do I want", and takes you away from the decision you're trying to make. Yes, I would've liked more grey areas in the ending, and I think Ken Levine himself has said he wanted that too, but I certainly felt I was making moral decisions while I played.

Food

Bioshock was a fantastic game. The thing is, I don't think it would have been any less fantastic if they had completely removed the little sister system altogether. The "moral-choice" part of the game was completely over-hyped.

bongi

I think it's a pretty good sign that the only part of Bioshock that people can realistically pick on (over and over and over) is the squiffy 'moral choice' thing.

Pb

bongi wrote: »

I think it's a pretty good sign that the only part of Bioshock that people can realistically pick on (over and over and over) is the squiffy 'moral choice' thing.

Yes, certainly the respawn system taking any and all challenge out of the game is a welcome addition.

tofu

bongi wrote: »

I think it's a pretty good sign that the only part of Bioshock that people can realistically pick on (over and over and over) is the squiffy 'moral choice' thing.

Well there's actually a lot more problems with it, and I certainly wouldn't consider it a future classic, but as I said earlier it was definitely fun.

DarkWarrior

bongi wrote: »

I think it's a pretty good sign that the only part of Bioshock that people can realistically pick on (over and over and over) is the squiffy 'moral choice' thing.

And the piss poor ending. The lack of area to actually roam in. Linearity.

It was a good game but really, you can;t just ignore the fact it had a lot of issues for everything it did right. I enjoyed playing it but compared to what was hyped, it was a terrible let down.

bongi

Pb wrote: »

bongi wrote: »

I think it's a pretty good sign that the only part of Bioshock that people can realistically pick on (over and over and over) is the squiffy 'moral choice' thing.

Yes, certainly the respawn system taking any and all challenge out of the game is a welcome addition.

Except that you can turn that off now.

Dr.Funkenstein

Pb wrote: »

bongi wrote: »

I think it's a pretty good sign that the only part of Bioshock that people can realistically pick on (over and over and over) is the squiffy 'moral choice' thing.

Yes, certainly the respawn system taking any and all challenge out of the game is a welcome addition.

You do know that you can disable it?

Edit awww shucks

Muramasa18

For some reason the article likes to crash my browser. Can somebody post what games they listed?

Pb

bongi wrote: »

Pb wrote: »

bongi wrote: »

I think it's a pretty good sign that the only part of Bioshock that people can realistically pick on (over and over and over) is the squiffy 'moral choice' thing.

Yes, certainly the respawn system taking any and all challenge out of the game is a welcome addition.

Except that you can turn that off now.

First God-damn thing I did after I experienced it for myself. It really is a good game, but I don't know if I'd ever call it a "future classic." The only part of the game that really gripped me was the atmosphere, but obviously tastes vary greatly.

darleysam

Even the vita-chamber complaint is one I don't really get. Me, I hate wandering into a roomBLAMMO killed dead, and having to quickload. That's a whole barrel of fun. So they've got a system in the game that negates this system, which you can abuse if you like, by "lol I can wrench a Big Daddy and die a million times!", if you so choose to do so.
Or, you know, you can not choose to do this.

Why people think that endless quicksaves/quickloads is fun, I will never understand.

Speed Racer

I liked Vita-Chambers, but I think they should've been spread further apart, to create a large penalty for dying and to make the first aid kits more worthwhile.

Roshin

Remember when this thread was not about Bioshock? Those were good times.

Dublo7

Roshin wrote: »

The Witcher deserves all the praise it gets. An astonishing RPG.

I completely agree. The game was amazing.

Æthelred

My beef with the Little Sister dynamic was that I logically concluded harvesting was the fairest thing to do in the circumstances, so I was a little upset for the final cutscene to assume I was incredibly evil..

LewieP

Bioshock is really really good and if anyone thinks otherwise they are spoiled.

Zombiemambo

You know, the moral choice was there. Hardly complex or challenging to decide what you're going to do (want the good ending or the bad ending?), but it's still a moral choice regardless.

The change that I think would have made it work is if saving a Little Sister gave you basically no ADAM, and eventually, if you didn't want to struggle through the game, you'd have to kill one. Still, how many people played the game and thought the Little Sisters were more than ADAM factories? Because I didn't.

Dr.Funkenstein

Zombiemambo wrote: »

You know, the moral choice was there. Hardly complex or challenging to decide what you're going to do (want the good ending or the bad ending?), but it's still a moral choice regardless.

The change that I think would have made it work is if saving a Little Sister gave you basically no ADAM, and eventually, if you didn't want to struggle through the game, you'd have to kill one. Still, how many people played the game and thought the Little Sisters were more than ADAM factories? Because I didn't.

Thats because you have no soul and didn't care about them

Blake T

The moral choice in Bioshock is there.

I feel so Goddam bad killing the little sisters that I've only done it once. And I felt so goddam bad about it I reloaded the game again and saved her.

Crimson King

The problem with the moral choice was that it doesn't cost you anything to be a good person and save the sisters. So the complexity of the choice was no greater then good or evil, which isn't really a moral choice in a video game context, because very few people in real life would ever pick evil. If it was something that was actually debatably good or evil or in a moral grey area I would have been very happy.

reach42

yeah, there actually was no extra cost for being good, only more reward in terms of free extra tonics and adam.

Speed Racer

Generally I really don't think that the moral choice jives very well with the rest of Bioshock thematically.

I also question a lot of the other choices on this list. PH really wasn't anything special. Brain Age is an important game, but when I think "classic," I think a game that people will be coming back to years and years from now, like Pac-Man or Super Mario Bros. I think Brain Age is much more fleeting than that.

tofu

Zombiemambo wrote: »

You know, the moral choice was there. Hardly complex or challenging to decide what you're going to do (want the good ending or the bad ending?), but it's still a moral choice regardless.

The change that I think would have made it work is if saving a Little Sister gave you basically no ADAM, and eventually, if you didn't want to struggle through the game, you'd have to kill one. Still, how many people played the game and thought the Little Sisters were more than ADAM factories? Because I didn't.

Yes there is a moral choice, but only in the same sense a game like Splinter Cell is where killing is optional. The only difference is Bioshock really hyped up that whole angle and it fell flat on its face (in that regard).

EDIT: Hell, I'd say Splinter Cell even gives you more moral choice. You can choose to sneak around almost everyone in the game. In Bioshock the choice only pops up with a little sister, which is pretty heavy handed.