With that said, there aren't but like 4-5 cutscenes anyway, and aside from the opening, and final scenes, there's nothing really to talk about.
You're better off not watching the final cutscene anyway; it's fucking atrocious. You might be able to see the opening cutscene in VLC or something, but it's not necessary.
With that said, there aren't but like 4-5 cutscenes anyway, and aside from the opening, and final scenes, there's nothing really to talk about.
You're better off not watching the final cutscene anyway; it's fucking atrocious. You might be able to see the opening cutscene in VLC or something, but it's not necessary.
Regarding the final scenes.
The whole, "Nah" *boom!* was so damn cheesy, even by 1999 standards.
Though I did like the whole Rebecca being possessed thing.
And on an entirely different note, my opinion on the game might have been different if I played it around the time it was released. I mean, I really liked it, but I actually still prefer Bioshock. Maybe that's because I played Bioshock first or something, I don't know. I just feel like Bioshock is a big improvement over SS2 while still not losing a lot of what SS2 did really well.
The big thing about Bioshock is that despite what it said the game didn't have any meaningful choices. "A man chooses, a slave obeys." Nice of them to let us know what they think of us, don't you think?
-The first thing you learn in System Shock is that you can advance your character in any way you'd like. You can amp up your endurance all the way in SS to max out your health. What's the corollary in BS? Oh, the next rank of HP unlocks every time you enter a new level. This is the same for nearly all of the powers. Yay for choice.
-System Shock presents you with an inventory system that makes you decide what is important to you and what you're willing to leave behind or recycle. Grenade Launchers are awesome, but have 5 different types of ammo and rape your inventory. In Bioshock, you've got your character carrying around an entire arsenal of everything he's ever encountered, but he can't choose to drop that gigantic flamethrower he's lugging around so he could pickup more than 9 medpacks.
-Then you've got freedom. Bioshock, you're once again led around by the nose. You've got bright neon signs pointing for where you should go. Although, there's only one path anyways so it doesn't really matter. It forces you to go from point to point and never gives you chance to deviate from the rails. System Shock instead says "reprogram the 3 Sim units that are somewhere" or "find a way to clear out the biomass" or "destroy all the eggs." You're given broad objectives, and free reign as to how you'll go about doing it.
-Lastly, repercussions. You die in SS and you might be respawned or you might just be completely dead. There's no luring the baddest monsters in the game to a respawner then just punching them once every time you come back. You mess up in hacking and at best you lose your money and your time (meaning, monsters will come up and get you while you're trying to hack). You mess up in bioshock, you just click really fast and you're right back in the hacking screen, no credits or time lost. No repercussions.
-Playing Bioshock on hardest means it just takes a little bit longer to reach max credits/hypos/ammo. Playing System Shock on hard means oh fuck oh fuck the spiders keep coming after me and I'm down to my last hypo and low on ammo SHIT! my gun just broke where can I find a closet and hide?
Bioshock isn't a bad game. I'm not trying to diss on it, but it is simply inferior to System Shock in every way except for graphics. Now I've got to reinstall system shock 2. Freaking thread.
With that said, there aren't but like 4-5 cutscenes anyway, and aside from the opening, and final scenes, there's nothing really to talk about.
You're better off not watching the final cutscene anyway; it's fucking atrocious. You might be able to see the opening cutscene in VLC or something, but it's not necessary.
Regarding the final scenes.
The whole, "Nah" *boom!* was so damn cheesy, even by 1999 standards.
Though I did like the whole Rebecca being possessed thing.
-Then you've got freedom. Bioshock, you're once again led around by the nose. You've got bright neon signs pointing for where you should go. Although, there's only one path anyways so it doesn't really matter. It forces you to go from point to point and never gives you chance to deviate from the rails. System Shock instead says "reprogram the 3 Sim units that are somewhere" or "find a way to clear out the biomass" or "destroy all the eggs." You're given broad objectives, and free reign as to how you'll go about doing it.
While the other are valid points that are viewed differently totally based on what your definition of fun is. This I'm not so sure about though.
There's not always one path in Bioshock, several of the levels are pretty open with lots of room for exploration. Some are more linear, but that's present in practically every game.
And as far as SS2 objectives, they may be more broad and sometimes harder to find, but there's still pretty much only one way to complete the tasks. It's not like there are multiple methods to completing the task, there's pretty much only one way to do all of the main objectives, hardly Free Reign. At most there's just a different path you can take, but that's not exactly free reign, or unique, either.
You know its kinda interesting, people are always talking about the Bioshock / System Shock 2 comparison. Saying BS is a simplified version of SS2. But if you look at System Shock 1 and compare it to System Shock 2, SS2 looks simplified. While you do gain a leveling system, you lose alot of ideas that System Shock 1 had, like cyber space and the complicated interface upgrades. While you can argue that this may actually be an improvement, I think its a good counter point to the "because it was on the consoles they dumbed down Bioshock". I think even if it was a PC exclusive, you would have seen bioshock take the stream lined approach. Not because they were dumbing it down, but because they were cutting out alot of arguable unnecessary complexity.
Just playing devil's advocate. All that being said I think as far as atmosphere goes, SS1 is actually more intense then SS2.
You know its kinda interesting, people are always talking about the Bioshock / System Shock 2 comparison. Saying BS is a simplified version of SS2. But if you look at System Shock 1 and compare it to System Shock 2, SS2 looks simplified. While you do gain a leveling system, you lose alot of ideas that System Shock 1 had, like cyber space and the complicated interface upgrades. While you can argue that this may actually be an improvement, I think its a good counter point to the "because it was on the consoles they dumbed down Bioshock". I think even if it was a PC exclusive, you would have seen bioshock take the stream lined approach. Not because they were dumbing it down, but because they were cutting out alot of arguable unnecessary complexity.
Just playing devil's advocate. All that being said I think as far as atmosphere goes, SS1 is actually more intense then SS2.
I agree. There was so much cool shit packed into the original System Shock that 2 actually feels like a major step back. Not just in the interface, but in the way you could interact with the world, and the way the levels/objectives were designed.
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
edited May 2008
"This is Edward Diego from TriOptimum. The charges against you are severe. But, they could be dismissed, if you perform a service. Who knows, there might even be a military-grade neural interface in it for you, if you do the job right."
NEO|Phyte on
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
-Lastly, repercussions. You die in SS and you might be respawned or you might just be completely dead. There's no luring the baddest monsters in the game to a respawner then just punching them once every time you come back.
Of your list, this is the only thing that really aggravated me. Bioshock is somewhat scary at the beginning, but once you realize you can zerg anything you'd like, it totally loses its danger. And playing without vito-chambers is too far on the other end of the spectrum when you first try the game since the early big daddies and such are designed with insta-rez in mind.
I think I liked the games about the same, but Bioshock would have been superior if the difficulty wasn't poorly implemented thus making it scarier. Also could have used slightly more variation in the later areas.
I have too many games to play but I'm still thinking of trying to get SS2 running and play it now that I have played bioshock recently.
I should probably clarify: the thing that made the original System Shock so great was the content, which wasn't inherently complex. The ridiculously over-complicated controls did nothing but get in the way and ensure that most people would never experience that content. There's nothing in System Shock that couldn't be handled better by SS2 or Deus Ex's much simpler controls. Hell, aside from the lack of an inventory, even Bioshock would do fine.
I'm not sure how it works in BioShock, but every time you die in System Shock 2 it costs you nanites. There are only a finite amount of them, and you need them to buy other stuff from vending machines like ammunition and health packs. One level in particular had me dying so frequently that past a certain point I couldn't resurrect myself anymore. Really added a level of tension, and forced me to adjust my tactics from "THIS IS SPARTA!" to something more considered.
Also, I for one am excited about the idea of Rebecca being possessed and otherwise modified to be the physical host for SHODAN. If done right it could be so cool, like the Nemesis in Resident Evil.
It would be really, really hard to die enough times that you wouldn't have the nanites left to recover. You could get enough nanites to recover from killing a zombie.
-Lastly, repercussions. You die in SS and you might be respawned or you might just be completely dead. There's no luring the baddest monsters in the game to a respawner then just punching them once every time you come back.
Of your list, this is the only thing that really aggravated me. Bioshock is somewhat scary at the beginning, but once you realize you can zerg anything you'd like, it totally loses its danger. And playing without vito-chambers is too far on the other end of the spectrum when you first try the game since the early big daddies and such are designed with insta-rez in mind.
Maybe if you fucking suck they are, only the SuperRosies (or whatever they're called) ever gave me a problem that hammering the heal button or running away didn't solve. The entire vitachamber problem is solved by reloading the game when you die and trying again, the only people who used them either have no willpower, or liked it easy.
I actually managed to get the game running with SHTUP and Rebirth (texture and character model upgrade mods) on Vista without cutscenes. I tried about 50 things and have no idea what worked, but don't care as long as it runs.
One thing I loved most about it:
It didn't wait. A hybrid ambushed me 5 seconds after I entered Medical for the first time. Only time in a game that I've ever been surprised enough to jump. My mouse became airborne.
-Lastly, repercussions. You die in SS and you might be respawned or you might just be completely dead. There's no luring the baddest monsters in the game to a respawner then just punching them once every time you come back.
Of your list, this is the only thing that really aggravated me. Bioshock is somewhat scary at the beginning, but once you realize you can zerg anything you'd like, it totally loses its danger. And playing without vito-chambers is too far on the other end of the spectrum when you first try the game since the early big daddies and such are designed with insta-rez in mind.
Maybe if you fucking suck they are, only the SuperRosies (or whatever they're called) ever gave me a problem that hammering the heal button or running away didn't solve. The entire vitachamber problem is solved by reloading the game when you die and trying again, the only people who used them either have no willpower, or liked it easy.
I only ever played it on hard so maybe normal is gigantic step down in difficulty, but otherwise saying people have to fucking suck to not be killed a bunch of times by the first few big daddies (before you have electric buck or any of the other e-z big daddy killing items) is a joke.
I don't get the whole instant respawn issue. Every game has them, they are called quick saves. Is some one out there really going "darn, just got killed, time to start this bitch over again smb1 style".
I don't get the whole instant respawn issue. Every game has them, they are called quick saves. Is some one out there really going "darn, just got killed, time to start this bitch over again smb1 style".
I did that in FEAR. Once. :P
The issue is quick-loads reset the ENEMY as well. You can't just run out, get a few hits in, die, then repeat until they're dead.
Those are all issues that you run into when playing it on XP. If you want to play it on a moden PC then you'll need to do some research.
Yeah I know, I tried fudging with things and reinstalling for a couple of nights per advice from a few threads on the TtLG forums then I just said fuck it :P
Didn't see it mentioned, but System Shock 2 is available on Goozex (disc only has 3 ready sellers) for 750 points.
(SS2 link is game page, goozex link is my referral link)
My friends and I tried to play through this game coop so many times, but we would only ever get so far before it got late at night and the sound would just totally creep us out so we would stop. Then by the time we got together again, we would start all over.. Never did finish it (or get near halfway probably) but the LP was awesome.
I still have the disc around here somewhere. My backlog is too full though.
ArcSyn on
0
freakish lightbutterdick jonesand his heavenly asshole machineRegistered Userregular
edited May 2008
It was 800 when I checked it earlier today, it must've dropped with this round of point changes. Still, that's like $40 for a 9-year-old PC game, which is a hard pill to swallow.
Those are all issues that you run into when playing it on XP. If you want to play it on a moden PC then you'll need to do some research.
Yeah I know, I tried fudging with things and reinstalling for a couple of nights per advice from a few threads on the TtLG forums then I just said fuck it :P
I still can't figure out how the game refused to load at all past the main menu on one XP SP2, and then worked absolutely perfectly, with no changes needed at all on a different XP SP2 computer.
It was 800 when I checked it earlier today, it must've dropped with this round of point changes. Still, that's like $40 for a 9-year-old PC game, which is a hard pill to swallow.
Yeah, kinda crazy.. People want it though. 2 requests for full and 1 for manual, though no one is currently offering that.
Posts
Though I did like the whole Rebecca being possessed thing.
The big thing about Bioshock is that despite what it said the game didn't have any meaningful choices. "A man chooses, a slave obeys." Nice of them to let us know what they think of us, don't you think?
-The first thing you learn in System Shock is that you can advance your character in any way you'd like. You can amp up your endurance all the way in SS to max out your health. What's the corollary in BS? Oh, the next rank of HP unlocks every time you enter a new level. This is the same for nearly all of the powers. Yay for choice.
-System Shock presents you with an inventory system that makes you decide what is important to you and what you're willing to leave behind or recycle. Grenade Launchers are awesome, but have 5 different types of ammo and rape your inventory. In Bioshock, you've got your character carrying around an entire arsenal of everything he's ever encountered, but he can't choose to drop that gigantic flamethrower he's lugging around so he could pickup more than 9 medpacks.
-Then you've got freedom. Bioshock, you're once again led around by the nose. You've got bright neon signs pointing for where you should go. Although, there's only one path anyways so it doesn't really matter. It forces you to go from point to point and never gives you chance to deviate from the rails. System Shock instead says "reprogram the 3 Sim units that are somewhere" or "find a way to clear out the biomass" or "destroy all the eggs." You're given broad objectives, and free reign as to how you'll go about doing it.
-Lastly, repercussions. You die in SS and you might be respawned or you might just be completely dead. There's no luring the baddest monsters in the game to a respawner then just punching them once every time you come back. You mess up in hacking and at best you lose your money and your time (meaning, monsters will come up and get you while you're trying to hack). You mess up in bioshock, you just click really fast and you're right back in the hacking screen, no credits or time lost. No repercussions.
-Playing Bioshock on hardest means it just takes a little bit longer to reach max credits/hypos/ammo. Playing System Shock on hard means oh fuck oh fuck the spiders keep coming after me and I'm down to my last hypo and low on ammo SHIT! my gun just broke where can I find a closet and hide?
Bioshock isn't a bad game. I'm not trying to diss on it, but it is simply inferior to System Shock in every way except for graphics. Now I've got to reinstall system shock 2. Freaking thread.
While the other are valid points that are viewed differently totally based on what your definition of fun is. This I'm not so sure about though.
There's not always one path in Bioshock, several of the levels are pretty open with lots of room for exploration. Some are more linear, but that's present in practically every game.
And as far as SS2 objectives, they may be more broad and sometimes harder to find, but there's still pretty much only one way to complete the tasks. It's not like there are multiple methods to completing the task, there's pretty much only one way to do all of the main objectives, hardly Free Reign. At most there's just a different path you can take, but that's not exactly free reign, or unique, either.
Just playing devil's advocate. All that being said I think as far as atmosphere goes, SS1 is actually more intense then SS2.
It's just a shame about those controls...
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Of your list, this is the only thing that really aggravated me. Bioshock is somewhat scary at the beginning, but once you realize you can zerg anything you'd like, it totally loses its danger. And playing without vito-chambers is too far on the other end of the spectrum when you first try the game since the early big daddies and such are designed with insta-rez in mind.
I think I liked the games about the same, but Bioshock would have been superior if the difficulty wasn't poorly implemented thus making it scarier. Also could have used slightly more variation in the later areas.
I have too many games to play but I'm still thinking of trying to get SS2 running and play it now that I have played bioshock recently.
Maybe if you fucking suck they are, only the SuperRosies (or whatever they're called) ever gave me a problem that hammering the heal button or running away didn't solve. The entire vitachamber problem is solved by reloading the game when you die and trying again, the only people who used them either have no willpower, or liked it easy.
One thing I loved most about it:
I only ever played it on hard so maybe normal is gigantic step down in difficulty, but otherwise saying people have to fucking suck to not be killed a bunch of times by the first few big daddies (before you have electric buck or any of the other e-z big daddy killing items) is a joke.
I did that in FEAR. Once. :P
The issue is quick-loads reset the ENEMY as well. You can't just run out, get a few hits in, die, then repeat until they're dead.
Yeah I know, I tried fudging with things and reinstalling for a couple of nights per advice from a few threads on the TtLG forums then I just said fuck it :P
(SS2 link is game page, goozex link is my referral link)
My friends and I tried to play through this game coop so many times, but we would only ever get so far before it got late at night and the sound would just totally creep us out so we would stop. Then by the time we got together again, we would start all over.. Never did finish it (or get near halfway probably) but the LP was awesome.
I still have the disc around here somewhere. My backlog is too full though.
Yeah, kinda crazy.. People want it though. 2 requests for full and 1 for manual, though no one is currently offering that.