I have a small goal set for myself, I’m going to play through the original Bioshock over and over again until this coming February when the sequel is released. At which point I’ll jump up and down like a 6 year old and then lock myself in the office for a few days with my prize.
Bioshock pretty much did everything right as far as a story driven FPS can. It’s not a perfect game however, I do have my problems with the way hacking is done, the clunky combat, and far too many plasmids that really don’t do much that one super powered Electric Bolt or Incinerate can’t do. In Bioshock 2 they have redone hacking entirely, the combat seems to mesh much better between plasmids and conventional weapons (no more sticky swapping and reload delays), and the targeting doesn’t seem to be so wild (no more spray and pray).
But the biggest pull in Bioshock has to be the story. Everything is voiced, the writing for the VO work is spot on and runs a wide spectrum from downright creepy to manic. Oh, and then there’s the Big Daddies.
My all time favorite character aside from Andrew Ryan? Why… the magnificent Sander Cohen of course…
I would have to say that the feeling of complete mania we attained here in Fort Frolic with Sander Cohen. You can see how when society crumbled in Rapture and everybody went insane with splicing and ravaging addiction, the deepest depravities were brought to the surface.
As much fun as I had with Bioshock, I was very disappointed with it. I know it was called a “spiritual successor” to System Shock 2, but in truth it’s just a watered-down, far easier version of SS2. While Bioshock had better graphics and more funding for advertisement ant production (hence how EVERYONE and their grandma knows of it), System Shock 2 is the better game. It’s harder, the enemies are more interesting and more varied, and most of all, System Shock 2 is one of the most terrifying games of all time. The enemies were like something out of a nightmare (if you’ve played SS2 you know exactly what I’m talking about) and some of the plot points were just fucking scary.
The worst of them for me was entering a room where you see the ghost of a woman on an operating table and a crazed doctor standing over her. She pleased for her life, the doctor laughs, and the ghosts disappear. In the room after that you encounter a Cyborg-Nurse and it’s pretty clear what happened to that woman. Another one was when a ghost of a crewman appears in front of you and shoots himself in the head. His ghostly corpse falls lifeless to the ground and disappears, and where he fell lies his actual, physical corpse. Bioshock has NOTHING that even comes close to that – the ghosts in Bioshock are poorly used, and rarely used.
Another thing – I just got bored of Bioshock’s enemies. They were simply annoying, not terrifying. Even though they had their moments (like the introduction to the game), by the second stage I had seen every variety of splicer and none of them were disturbing in the slightest. The splicers all look the same, sound the same and act the same. In System Shock 2 you had to listen for any nearby enemies (you always heard them before you saw them) and try to plan ahead to deal with them, which was always tense because ammo was so scarce and your weapons liked to break if not kept in shape.
Just my 2 cents.
I guess I must be the only person in the world who doesnt get the hype over Bioshock. The story is wafer-thin with only one good twist (the final one), but the whole “story unfolds as you pick up audiologs” has been donce since System Shock way back in ‘94, so nothing new there. The game itself was decent fun, but nothing really to write home about.
We’ll see how Bio2 turns out, but the fact that a differnt team is working on it and that a sizeable amount of devtime has been invested in Multiplayer modes, doesnt really bode well.
@Jim
Guess I wasnt the only one then, SS2 was indeed awesome, Shodan remains one of the creepiest and msot awesome characters ever made for a videogame. I guess most of my disappointment with Bioshock was that gameplaywise it was a step down from SS2 – dumbed down for the console crowd, if you will. Thats how it felt to me, the same way they fucked up Thief 3 after the awesomeness that was Thief 2. Adn the ame with Deus Ex 2 Vs DX1 :p
I also didnt particularly enjoy the hub-based level design In Bioshock, but thats just me.
I never really got into SS2 and I really can’t figure out why truth be told. Maybe it was just the setting /shrug
As for Bio2, it’s going to make MW2 multiplayer look like more of a joke than it already does.
Zero Punctuation’s Ben Yahtzee pretty much sums up my exact thoughts on Bioshock in his review of it: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/4-BioShock
If I wanted to play a game that scares me I’d play Dead Space. Bioshock has an incredible story and there’s a damn good reason it’s more successful and its sequel is more anticipated than System Shock (2).
Yeah, the reason is because Irrational Games went bankrupt and couldn’t afford to market System Shock 2 like the company that took over for developing Bioshock could. Bioshock being released on the X-Box, the console of choice for stupid, drunken frat boys, also helped. Bioshock is a LOT easier and more focused on balls-to-the-wall combat, and the graphics are great.
But that still doesn’t make it the better game than System Shock 2. SS2 is the better game by far, and guess what? There’s no escaping the fact that everything you might like about Bioshock, including the storyline, was directly ripped from System Shock 2.
By the way, LOL @ your comment about Dead Space being a scary game. Dead Space isn’t frightening in the slightest. Well, maybe to 12-year-olds…
BTW, I’m not joking about everything being ripped off of System Shock 2. I mean, EVERYTHING, from buying stuff from vendors, being able to hack said vendors, ADAM is the exact same thing as Cyber Modules, the splicers are dumber, less frightening versions of The Many monsters, the turrets are exact, steam-punk duplicates of the turrets in SS2, Andrew Ryan is The Many, except as a fanatical Ayn Rand follower, Fontaine is SHODAN, the plasmids are stand-ins for the Psy-Ops powers…
My God, they took everything from SS2, dumbed it down and made it a LOT easier and more fast-paced, updated the graphics and called it “Bioshock.” I’m not joking or exaggerating in the slightest. If you don’t believe me, look at who developed the game – the same team that worked at Irrational and developed (you guessed it!) System Shock 2.
Yeah a lot of die hard SS2 fanboys are knocking Bioshock, some rightfully so, but without legitimate gripes. Most games are designed to be judged on their own merit, and as such, Bioshock is fantastic, as referenced by the numerous awards and high ratings it received. Most fanboys in an attempt to not see their favorites by usurped tend to compare games and not let them stand on their own, hence the negative criticism.