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BioShock: The Collection & Sequel Rumors

Lord Azlan

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Sometimes I wonder why there isn't a half way house forum between RPG Watch and the Codex.

I love all the Shocks like they are my own children. One blew my mind. Two might be in my top five all time. Bio One was just awesome up to A Man Chooses A Slave Obeys. Bio 2 was pretty good too.

Infinite was just lame gaming to a different level.

There are just too many games to play these days.
 
Joined
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I thought Bioshock was pretty awesome in first few levels. Then it gradualy became less exciting as it went on and by the final level I couldn't wait for it to be over. Sometime after that I finally played through System Shock 2. Started liking Bioshock even less. Couldn't even play through half of Bioshock 2 or Infinite.
 
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Leechmonger

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The first Bioshock is guilty of one of the most noticeable drops in quality I've seen in a game. By the time you're playing through the grey apartment complex it's hard to understand why they didn't just cut the shitty parts out.
 

Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Never played it that far, what is considered the shitty parts? And why are they shitty? Curious.
 

Ovplain

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RPG Wokedex
Fired Bioshock 1 up today, I was really excited about it, but then the whole thing went all screwy right off the bat.=( Some disturbing graphics glitches, made me think my monitor was crapping out even. And then the game crashed as soon as I tried to save too. So, I'm done for now.
 

pippin

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The first Bioshock is guilty of one of the most noticeable drops in quality I've seen in a game. By the time you're playing through the grey apartment complex it's hard to understand why they didn't just cut the shitty parts out.

That's near the end isn't it? The game is really in a downward spiral mode from the get go. I can't say I remember any part that could be described as "great", since it felt samey from start to finish, very linear and without options. It should have ended after you killed Ryan, the boss fight is so fucking ridiculous.
 

Leechmonger

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Fort Frolic is where things start to get worse, and that's halfway through the game. The next area (Hephaestus) is quite bad, the one after that (Olympus Heights) is atrocious, and I don't even remember the rest because I stopped playing at that point twice out of the 3 times I played the game (I only beat it the first time).

As for what makes them bad: everything. Mechanically the game stops introducing new ideas, so you're using the same weapons against the same enemies in the same way. Visually the areas are unappealing and monotonous. The story's twist has already been revealed and the remaining lore is boring. There's no more fun to be had and yet the game marches on, determined to pad itself out at your expense.

There is one gimmick left for the latter half of the game but it doesn't make up for the tedium you go through.
 
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pippin

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Well, the game really "stops" in a way when you meet Sander Cohen. The thing that really makes me angry is that you feel forced to hear every audio diary because half of the game is hidden there.
 

Metro

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I stopped shortly after you encounter Ryan (which I suppose is near the end). Definitely runs out of steam somewhere in the middle.
 

pippin

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You missed the last hour of the game. The very end of it contains this:

6d230f78a2a100081b3ed8ac17e56a4f-650-80.jpg


:prosper:
 

Metro

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Yeah I watched a playthrough of it before I actually played so I knew the boss fight was terrible.
 
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I've never actually finished Bioshock 1. Same as everybody else, I hit the half-way/two-thirds point with Andrew Ryan getting clubbed to death and then immediately realized in the next level that the only change in "end-game" gameplay is that I wasn't getting getting any new weapons or plasmids, upgrades were boring number boosts, and all of the enemies got inflated health bars instead of any new varieties appearing. I watched a buddy of mine beat the crappy-even-by-low-standards final boss, and I can't say I regret my decision.

I liked 2 quite a bit. Upgrades seemed more meaningful, there was much better enemy variety, and you get to kill mutant communists with a giant drill arm. Not really sure why the "hardcore" BioShock fans really hated it, but I've never understood the cult following mainstream approval that game got in the first place.
 

Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Communists in the second one? I thought the plan was to get rid of all ideologies down there.

I guess where there is people there is :russia:
 

adddeed

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Bunch of edgelords here. Played the game through twice and was good fun. Bioshock 2 is even better.
 

Deleted member 7219

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Bunch of edgelords here. Played the game through twice and was good fun. Bioshock 2 is even better.

This is the Codex. I'd be horrified if the majority of people here liked Bioshock.

It has plenty of good points, but it doesn't have any depth (ironic considering the setting), and the story is good if you like Ayn Rand (e.g. mentally retarded).
 
Self-Ejected

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I thought the story was cool for what it is (something that happens while you go places and shoop stuff) and I don't know Ayn Rand besides a paragraph or two discribing her book.
 
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RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
Didn't like Bioshock that much. The gunplay felt shitty (even compared to SS2 and I played after Bio), the enemies weren't varied enough, the environoments were very similar for the most of the game, the moral choices were laughable and I really coudln't care for the plot, or the characters or anything at all.
 
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The dumbest thing about Infinite was that Booker (or anyone else for that matter) doesn't recognize his own face. Yeah even with a beard and aged to whatever extent 'Comstock' was aged (there isn't a radical difference in your facial features between the ages of like 40 -- Booker's rough age -- to 60ish -- Comstock's rough age.

Eh, I'd dispute that being the dumbest thing.



Oh look a sign;



63eeba58c9857957106af7cef48f0fb9.jpg



That looks a lot like this brand on my hand, the one I just put in view. Oh well.



*Five minutes later*


What's this guy talking about? Beware someone with a symbol on his hand? Everyone here is on the lookout for someone like that? Guess I better do fucking nothing about the one I have swinging out in the open.
 

pippin

Guest
When you arrive to Columbia you don't really know your own face. The hand tattoo is more of a giveaway though.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/bios...ogys-creation-2k-infinite-bioshock-collection

There’s Always a Man: BioShock’s Jordan Thomas Discusses the Acclaimed Trilogy

The BioShock series takes place across different cities, different periods and even different dimensions. But the three games are united by one thematic constant: change. In the original BioShock, Rapture changes from an underwater utopia into a nightmarish battlefield. In BioShock 2, mostly set eight years later, the city has fallen into absolute ruin; Eleanor Lamb, once a little girl, ultimately becomes a terrifying "Big Sister". Most drastically, BioShock Infinite's flying city state of Columbia is constantly in flux, with different elements, places and people either materialising or vanishing from reality itself, depending which timeline protagonist Booker DeWitt – himself changed by life in the Army – finds himself inside.

Even the title, "BioShock", implies significant, violent change. Variously in these games, it is characters' very biology that is rewritten. The first time the player-controlled Jack, in BioShock, picks up a Plasmid, wretches and screams, we know he has been painfully, irretrievably changed.

Games, too, have been changed by BioShock. Since the original's release in 2007, questions about how stories might best be told, and how players may or may not interfere with plot, characterisation and consistency have been predominant in the minds of critics and game-makers. Its philosophies may be basic, its violence and action gratuitous, but undeniably, for anyone working or with an interest in video games, the BioShock series is pivotal.




bioshocks-jordan-thomas-discusses-the-acclaimed-trilogys-creation-2k-infinite-bioshock-collection-body-image-1473944326-size_1000.jpg

A scene from 'BioShock 2' (unless specified, screens are from the original 'BioShock', remastered)

Of that, perhaps nobody is more acutely aware than Jordan Thomas. Originally a level designer on the first BioShock, Thomas was later promoted to creative director on BioShock 2. After that, he returned to Infinite as an advisor, and theBioShock Wiki lists him as a senior writer on the third game.

Alongside Dishonored's Kain Shin and two fellow BioShock alumni, Stephen Alexander and Michael Kelly, Thomas, in 2013, founded an independent studio named Question. Now, with the launch of BioShock: The Collection, featuring remasters of all three games, Thomas considers how working on the transformative game series, specifically, changed him.

"Right up until BioShock 2, I really wanted to be that classical auteur," Thomas explains. "Afterwards, I had so many questions about, firstly, whether that was right for me, secondly, whether that was a good way to build a video game. I was very happy with the game we finished, but in terms of my own contributions I will always be hyper critical."

Thomas' first major design credit was on the tie-in game for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, back in 2001. Afterwards he moved to Ion Storm, where he co-created the famed haunted house level, named Shalebridge Cradle, forThief: Deadly Shadows and made design briefs for the eventually cancelledDeus Ex 3.

Subsequently transferring to what was then called 2K Boston, Thomas was assigned to the original BioShock's "design pit". His biggest contribution was Fort Frolic, a level he co-designed, wherein players encountered psychopathic artist Sander Cohen.

"My original pitch for BioShock 2 was that you'd play a former Little Sister, in an underpowered return to Rapture. Very Silent Hill." – Jordan Thomas

"The pit on BioShock was a very special room," Thomas says. "I liked what I was learning from that constellation of minds, and I had the incredible good fortune to be with good people but also left to my own devices at times. Fort Frolic was a loose skeleton when I arrived. But then the script was written, word for word, by (director) Ken Levine, and (artist) Scott Sinclair, (designers) Nate Wells and Stephen Alexander helped flesh out the narrative scenes. Still, I had it in my head, at that time, to beat the Shalebridge Cradle. I wanted to make it as much my own as I could, and I nearly damaged myself building it – I worked on Fort Frolic until 3am every night.

"I've asked myself so many times why I was picked to direct BioShock 2, but the reality is, while I was working on that first game I was sat next to Alyssa Finley. She became executive producer at BioShock 2's developer, 2K Marin, and she was the one who had watched me stay late every night – it was Alyssa who got in touch and asked me to come to California to work on the sequel."

Level designer to creative director: it was a huge jump. And alongside Thomas's professional ascent, the original BioShock, by now a year old, was establishing itself as the benchmark for smarter, more sophisticated triple-A video games. Reviews were unanimous, sales were huge, essays were everywhere – usingBioShock as his example, in 2007, game designer Clint Hocking coined the term"ludonarrative dissonance", destined to become one of the longest surviving phrases in popular game criticism.

In short, Thomas had his work cut out. Not only was he taking on the fresh responsibilities of a director, he was doing it on one of the most anticipated game projects in the world.

"What I should have done is two things," he explains. "First, commit to making a stripped-down horror game. My original pitch was that you'd play a former Little Sister, in an underpowered return to Rapture, full of fertile trauma that would be uncovered as you went. Very Silent Hill. But I was told – I don't even remember by who, it could have just been Marketing Person X – 'We think BioShock can be a big shooter franchise like Gears of War or Call of Duty.' And I thought, 'Good Lord... Why did you hire me?' So the second thing I should have done is learn to say no. Going from a level designer to a creative director is dizzying. I wasn't ready to say no. And that is just the worst. If you don't know how to say no, especially to yourself, you are, at best, a rookie director.


bioshocks-jordan-thomas-discusses-the-acclaimed-trilogys-creation-2k-infinite-bioshock-collection-body-image-1473944609-size_1000.jpg



"But this was a life-changing moment – somehow, someone had identified me for this job. So in order to say yes, I had to create a Mr Hyde who was willing to also say, out loud, 'Absolutely. This is going to be a 2.0, and we're going to improve on the original.' But who knows what the other guy, the version of me which had existed just minutes prior to being offered that job, would have said about the necessity of sequels at all."

Far removed from the belt-and-braces work of level design, Thomas found directing BioShock 2 involved, mostly, attending meetings and holding discussions. Like the game itself, a cautionary tale regarding collectivist philosophy, wherein one character, Gilbert Alexander, tries to inject himself with the feelings and memories of everybody in Rapture and is driven insane as a result, the creation of BioShock 2, by Thomas' account, was egalitarian "to a fault".

"Looking back, I think the second game has a greater range of sympathetic characters than the original, and also more women that matter." – Jordan Thomas

"When BioShock 2 was finally real and we were all officially attached to the project I doubt I was alone in feeling, 'This is bigger than you, and unless you start sprinting from the word go, you will fall into the sky.' So, it came over like college sometimes. And I was responsible for that a lot – I was a bit of a hippy and wanted everyone's voices to matter."

Some aspects of the game were totally out of Thomas's control. Originally set in a new city with new characters and a new story, due its relatively short production schedule – two years – BioShock 2 had to return to Rapture. Responsible for the game's script, Thomas tried to make the best from what he'd been given.

"Looking back, I think that game has a greater range of sympathetic characters than the original, and also more women that matter," he says. "Its handling of morality is more fuzzy-edged and grey, too. Now, moral choices in games are fraught – I'm not saying we solved it, with a trademark symbol. But I do enjoy hearing why people chose to do what they did, because their lines of reasoning are so textured.

"Still, I was constantly fighting the idea that people had seen and done it with Rapture. That's what we heard a lot: 'Yeah, it's just that underwater place again.' The first half of the story is the weakest because it's rehashing. And I don't think the writing reaches a crescendo like the original."

"I wanted Aliens. I think I ended up with a solidPitch Black." – Jordan Thomas

When BioShock 2 launched in 2010 it was a critical and commercial success. Within a limited production schedule and under tremendous pressure, 2K Marin had created a game arguably better than the ground-breaking predecessor. Nevertheless, Thomas, even now, is still trying to make peace with his own contributions.

"I try to think of it as Aliens to BioShock's Alien," he explains. "But Alien is still the one I truly love, and if you're going to ask me to direct something it's probably not going to be the one with more guns.

"We didn't kill the franchise, and BioShock 2 found some real merit in the direction it did go. But, naively, I wanted my very first game as a director to be as good as one by a legendary developer who'd been working for ten plus years longer than me – all I can see, in every single frame, is a series of decisions and compromises we made."


bioshocks-jordan-thomas-discusses-the-acclaimed-trilogys-creation-2k-infinite-bioshock-collection-body-image-1473944756-size_1000.jpg

A scene from 'BioShock Infinite'

"BioShock 2 made money," Thomas continues. "No one said to us, 'You guys failed.' But I think everyone was hoping to relive Obama's original election. I wanted Aliens. I think I ended up with a solid Pitch Black."

Almost immediately after shipping BioShock 2, Thomas went to work on another 2K project, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. It wasn't long, however, before a meeting with the head of 2K and a phone call from Ken Levine carried him back to BioShock, for what would become Infinite.

"There wasn't much detail available at the time," Thomas explains, "but I felt like I owed 2K Boston – now Irrational – whatever it might need, so I said yes.

"People who have spoken to me recently have referred to Infinite as the 'Citizen Kane of games'," he continues. "Things must have gotten scrambled, because that's also what they were calling the first one. Whenever we heard that we'd smile to ourselves. It seemed overblown even back then – it's a short cut for people who desperately want something to say."


bioshocks-jordan-thomas-discusses-the-acclaimed-trilogys-creation-2k-infinite-bioshock-collection-body-image-1473944900-size_1000.jpg



BioShock is about change. After working on the entire series, imagining and destroying idealistic cities, devising ways for players to alter themselves and creating countless mutated enemies, all the while observing – helping to catalyse, in fact – an evolution in the conversations around video games, Thomas, himself, was transformed. The decision to co-found Question came partly because a certain kind of game-making had permanently altered Thomas' perspectives.

"After BioShock 2, my world view had been utterly shaken," he says. "My career and sense of self were altered forever by working on it. I wasn't soured on triple-A immediately after, but I had a blasted hellscape in my wake in regards to my personal life. I barely recognise the memory of the guy I was when that game was finished. The fairly smart, put together person I was at the start of the project had become half crazed by the end. My parents remember that time. In my dangerous, do-not-try-this-at-home level of sleep deprivation they could see my eyes rolling. I was becoming like a Splicer."


bioshocks-jordan-thomas-discusses-the-acclaimed-trilogys-creation-2k-infinite-bioshock-collection-body-image-1473944935-size_1000.jpg



Question is now working on its second, as-yet-unannounced video game. Working alongside Shin, Alexander and Kelly is, Thomas says, "as good as it gets".

Meanwhile, not only in the form of its remastered Collection, but the innumerable games that have learned from or imitated it, in various large and small ways, BioShock lives on. Only this year, Firewatch, Adr1ft and The Witness have all, in their individual, permuted ways, propagated the BioShock style of telling story using environment; Far Cry Primal, Quantum Break and the reboot of DOOM are all shooters which combine guns and "magical" abilities. The change has come. And on both video games and Jordan Thomas, BioShock has left an undeniable mark.

"I wonder if I'm the right person for video games," he concludes. "I wonder if this is the form of play to which my attitudes most closely align – there is that voice, always. But I started at 19. I wouldn't know the first thing about switching industries and developing a new set of skills. Games are in my DNA now. And I never lose sight of the incredible luxury experienced by a paid game developer."
 

SumDrunkGuy

Guest
Bioshock 2 is the only one worth playing.

1 starts off alright but quickly becomes retarded. Infinite starts off retarded and only gets more retarded.
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,871
I played the first one and Infinite, I liked the first one up until the halfway point even though it played like a retarded cousin version of SS2, then the last half of the game was shit padding and it soured me. Infinite was popamole console garbage all the way through and I thought it was complete shit. Never played the second one past the first few minutes, installed this re-release yesterday, let's see how long it lasts. Models are unbelievably ugly, physics are laughably bad and the shooting mechanics are the same joke as ever (console huge crosshair bullshit), but the environments look pretty good. Maybe I'll be able to finish it.
 

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