BioShock reviews, penultimate roundup?

[Brother None]

As predicted, there were way too many reviews of Bioshock lately to cover them all (about a 100, in fact), but it's worth pointing out it aggregates at 96% on PC and Xbox360. Of more interest are the reviews that don't join the 90+% rank-and-file, like Killer Betties, 3/5:<blockquote>If the game was nothing more than an interactive story told with some beautiful graphics and amazing sound work, Bioshock would be an amazing accomplishment. However, the game has some actual gameplay underneath it too, which ultimately hurts the game immensely. The developers piled so many options and potential options into the game, that they failed to focus on the core, tainting everything that was attached to it. The fact that there is no death is also a huge problem, because it takes away the suspense, action, and ultimate satisfaction of a fight well fought and survived. Imagine your life and if you couldn't die – sure, it would probably sound good for a while, but wouldn't you eventually tire of the nothingness of it all. The reason life is so cherished and prized as it is, is because eventually it will go away and extinguish. Without sadness you cannot truly know happiness, and without death you can never truly know what life is. Much is the same with Bioshock.</blockquote>And the Escapist's Zero Punctuation piece. The Escapist seems to have been making a drive to turn from being intelligently critical to amusingly controversial, continuing here, noting Bioshock is dumbed down for the console tards, and that your only real choice is to be "Mother Teresa or a baby eater."

Link: Killer Betties Bioshock review.
Link: Escapist Zero Punctuation Bioshock review.

 

[Jonigigolo]

Bioshock is God.

 

[The Bigs]

I totally disagree with the "you don't die and that's bad" part (I didnt read the full review, just this part);
in fact, the guy doesn't even have a point there...

The fact that there is no death is also a huge problem, because it takes away the suspense, action, and ultimate satisfaction of a fight well fought and survived. Imagine your life and if you couldn't die

yeah, so? we do have quicksaves, you know? with quicksaves, you can't die
fool...
no death means not having to stare at the loading screen again and walking the same path all over again to reach the spot where you died. THAT, sir, kills the mood, because you already know what to expect, forces you to repeat a part of the game and extends the gametime trough old, boring repetition

death on games was made to make you put more coins in arcade machines so you could get more lives... we are talking about home computers and videogames... it's time we moved past this... bioshock and prey are examples of games that understand that (I'm sure there are more)

I remember gamasutra posted an article about this a while ago... if anyone wants the link, I'll be happy to search and post it here, it's an excellent read

Besides, you can easily create a mod to make the game end if you die... heck, you don't even need any skills, just open the script that controls death in notepad and find "onDeath()" and delete everything after that. this way, if you die, the game crashes. wheee!

just my opinion here... sorry for my any spelling mistakes, english isn't my first language

Comments, please?

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

The fact that there is no death is also a huge problem, because it takes away the suspense, action, and ultimate satisfaction of a fight well fought and survived.

So dying and having the last saved checkpoint auto loaded, or dying and being dumped to a menu screen really adds suspense, action and satisfaction? Yeah right

First big daddy I took down I had run out of ammo, not that you have much ammo that can hurt a big daddy at that point of the game, and had to use incinerate and the wrench. I died a lot, it took a while and probably wouldn't of been possible if the vita chamber didn't give you some eve. But the satisfaction of finally seeing him fall was immense, probably far more than if I had just kept dying and reloading.

 

[SuAside]

the vitachambers are well explained ingame... and give more consequences to your untimely death than loading would.

 

[Sorrow]

And the Escapist's Zero Punctuation piece. The Escapist seems to have been making a drive to turn from being intelligently critical to just obnoxiously controversial, and many feel they continue that move here, nothing Bioshock is dumbed down for the console tards, and that your only real choice is to be "Mother Teresa or a baby eater."

I love it . It's so beautiful !

 

[The Bigs]

And the Escapist's Zero Punctuation piece. The Escapist seems to have been making a drive to turn from being intelligently critical to just obnoxiously controversial, and many feel they continue that move here, nothing Bioshock is dumbed down for the console tards, and that your only real choice is to be "Mother Teresa or a baby eater."

I love it . It's so beautiful !

I agree, the Escapist's Zero Punctuation is pretty funny, especially the very last thing he says
Only thing I don't agree is the death thing again, but he only mentions it briefly, so I can let that pass

 

[MrBumble]

So dying and having the last saved checkpoint auto loaded, or dying and being dumped to a menu screen really adds suspense, action and satisfaction? Yeah right

Well...In my opinion, it does...It's basically like the difference between Prey and Alien Versus Predator. In Prey, once you understand that nothing but a system crash can prevent you from finishing the game during the next hours, since you cannot die, it becomes tasteless. In AVP, technically nothing prevents you from saving your game every 2 seconds ( but only a retard would do that ) but still, you have that funny feeling that something terrible could happen at any moment and that's why you proceed with caution. In Bioshock, it almost doesn't matter if you suck at FPS, you can get "killed" 789 times in a row by a big daddy, in the end you know that you'll still have the final word against him, the chrosoms, and eventually the game without the shadow of a doubt.

There are games that really have terrified me ( mainly Call of Cthulhu, Killing Time, and Shadow of the Beast ) because you could die at any moment and it was so much more satisfying to beat those games than games like Prey or Bioshock. That's just my opinion though.

 

[Wild_qwerty]

I remember playing system shock, when you first went to a new level and you died then you were screwed because SOHDAN had rejiged the medical machines to convert you to a cyborg, once you unconverted it the medical machines worked sweet and brought you back to life again, the game rocked and it worked sweet.

Anyway, I just use the quick save like every 5 seconds for other games, so whats the catch there? Disable save games?

 

[MrBumble]

Me thinks the best save system is something like Dark Corners of the Earth's :

It autosaves after important plot events and then let you save only in pretty specific places. It may be frustrating sometimes because there are tough scenes and you have to go through them five or six times in a row but it forces you to actually care about your avatar, your ammo, your health. Not to mention that everything gets extra scary and that some of the scripted events ( i.e : the hotel scene ) simply wouldn't work with Prey' or Bioshock's system.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I have not yet played Bioshock to see how this works in this specific situation, but I really don't like this direction games are taking of making everything easier and easier.

Not to mention games where your health regenerates over time, without any input from you.

I'm not saying that saving is the perfect system, and I absolutely hate console-style saving, but playing an "immortal amnesiac" in each and every game gets really boring.

 

[Ausir]

And the Escapist's Zero Punctuation piece. The Escapist seems to have been making a drive to turn from being intelligently critical to amusingly controversial, continuing here, noting Bioshock is dumbed down for the console tards, and that your only real choice is to be "Mother Teresa or a baby eater."

Mother Theresa was a hypocritical bitch, not the epitome of goodness. But that's off topic .

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Well...In my opinion, it does...It's basically like the difference between Prey and Alien Versus Predator.

I've not played Prey but BioShock isn't going for the same scare factor as AvP and it's system wouldn't of fitted the continuity of the Aliens universe anyway. But that doesn't mean that BioShock's system is any worse than AvP's just different. So few games make anything of your death, even having a disembodied view of your corpse as it's ravaged by your opponent would be better than auto reloading or a menu screen.

In Bioshock, it almost doesn't matter if you suck at FPS, you can get "killed" 789 times in a row by a big daddy, in the end you know that you'll still have the final word against him, the chrosoms, and eventually the game without the shadow of a doubt.

Except for Big Daddies most enemies will heal themselves (or more will come along) then you've still got to defeat them but with less ammo, first aid kits or eve. And even with Big Daddies just because you've defeated one isn't the end of it under the right circumstances. How is that not more engaging than just dying and reloading with the same amount of ammo etc? Even with a restrictive save system you will still get the killed 789 times in a row and eventually succeed syndrome.

There are games that really have terrified me ( mainly Call of Cthulhu, Killing Time, and Shadow of the Beast ) because you could die at any moment and it was so much more satisfying to beat those games than games like Prey or Bioshock. That's just my opinion though.

Games don't all have to be about being terrified though, just because I didn't have to reload or go back to a checkpoint didn't mean that I care any less for keeping my character alive. The only time I deliberately got killed was when I was totally out of eve and needed to use the electric bolt plasmid to open a door. And that was just tactics, much more fun than reloading and saving my eve.

Me thinks the best save system is something like Dark Corners of the Earth's :

It autosaves after important plot events and then let you save only in pretty specific places.

Me thinks that's very similar to GRAW 2's system where it auto saves after completing objectives and only allows you to quick save when there's no danger. Which makes it sound like pretty crap system because the autosaves aren't always in good places and it's annoying as hell when after a pretty intense battle you've got to keep on playing until you find a checkpoint or safe spot, when you want to take a break, and can't save because there's still a few enemies around.

The best save systems are the one's that allow you to save where and when you want, how often you want. Because no one forces you to save fail and reload.

 

[psychosomatic]

The Bigs: I remember gamasutra posted an article about this a while ago... if anyone wants the link, I'll be happy to search and post it here, it's an excellent read

Hey bigs - could you post the link please?? I'd really like to read that article!

Is this death system similar to Planescape: Torment's, where you die and get resurrected at some spawn point that's safe from the enemy combatants? I guess the game is so smoothly done that there's no loading screen when you are reborn then, because otherwise it would be as immersion-breaking as quickloading is.

But as long as the game can justify a lack of true death in the game with setting, it would definately make things more challenging (what with the dwindling of supplies and the alteration of the battlefield), assuming the player doesn't just override that challenge with a quickload to a previous point. Otherwise you may as well have autoloading to avoid the menu screen, like in Deus Ex.

I just hope Bioshock has provided that setting - in Torment you were brought back to the Mortuary by people who collect 'deaders' for money, and you wake up on some slab of wood or an operating table where you are being prepared for your delivery to your final resting place. I hope its not a system where you suddenly wake up, somehow far away from the enemy (or maybe he's left you and he/she walks away), because that idea in itself is sort of breaking the believability factor of the game, which I would think makes immersion in the game difficult. Or maybe not? I haven't played the game yet, but maybe that system becomes the new acceptable save game system, and is considered separate from the game world, or somehow ignored.

All I know is that the immortality scheme in Torment had a pretty big impact on how I viewed the gameworld, and I seem to recall that being one of the defining factors that set the game apart from most other RPGs at the time.

 

[Morbus]

I haven't played any game that deals with death better than FarCry does. Long live checkpoints on FPS's, long live I say! Yarr!

 

[maximaz]

I like that you don't have to load the game each time you die but it's not very ideal to simply be revitalized. When I'm killed by a Big Daddy and go back for revenge, it's kind of disappointing to find him barely alive from our previous fight, it becomes less satisfying to finally beat him than it would be if I had to fight him over again. It doesn't bother me too much and It's great that you can get back into action almost instantly but it's not the best system there is.

 

[Wex]

I hate this system.
At the beginning, there is few supplies. On a couple occassions I tried to hurt the last enemy of a group to near-dead status and letting him kill me just to save health packs. I didn't notice that they respawn (more than usual) as requiem_for_a_starfury implies. Some may call such tactics valid, but I find it unrealistic. Granted, I didn't find any explanation yet to how and why the chambers work, so I cannot say how realistic it really is in the end, but the game is still easier and the feeling of accomplishment is still diminished.
I restarted on an easier setting in order to bypass the chambers altogether ( ie. zombies were killing me ).

I hated the checkpoint system in Far Cry as well. It is all fine and good, you have to be careful and all that, but death is swift even on easiest difficulty when fully armored. The checkpoints are well placed, but not all of them, and they discouraged exploration for me. Not to mention that there is never one in sight when you have to leave the game in a hurry.

I would say that the system in Soldier of Fortune is superior to this. You get a limited number of saves, but it is your choice where you wish to save. I don't remember if it nudges you to do it as Sniper Elite does. It should anyway.

 

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

The system fits well with the game, in both terms of storyline and gameplay it's not perfect but what is. The only change to the vita chambers I would encourage would be to not transport your inventory, just you and your plasmids.

Unless you get killed right by a chamber you're going to have to backtrack a ways to reach where you were. That's enough reason to avoid dying right there. With this system I still felt a sense of accomplishment when I emerged victorious from a conflict.

It was a lot less disruptive of the game than constantly reloading and really shouldn't be compared to save systems. After all it also has a superb (as in non-restrictive) save system.

 

[SuAside]

I restarted on an easier setting in order to bypass the chambers altogether ( ie. zombies were killing me ).

there is a difficulty slider in settings?

i havent used it, but it looks like you can change the difficulty ingame.

 

[Lexx]

Me thinks the best save system is something like Dark Corners of the Earth's :

It autosaves after important plot events and then let you save only in pretty specific places. It may be frustrating sometimes because there are tough scenes and you have to go through them five or six times in a row but it forces you to actually care about your avatar, your ammo, your health. Not to mention that everything gets extra scary and that some of the scripted events ( i.e : the hotel scene ) simply wouldn't work with Prey' or Bioshock's system.

I have to agree. The hotel scene (and some parts before and after) was the best action/horror/survival thing, I ever played.

But in general I like to quicksave so often I want.