I couldn't even finish Wolf '09 it was so boring. Still better than The Old Blood.
There is a mod for Wolf09 to make it better, forgot how it was called. But, the game has fricking regenerating health so its all ultimately pointless. If it had healthpacks...
Research system: removes the film resource entirely instead of fixing the resource balance around film being too easy to acquire,
Film being rare would be an even worse thing. The damage sponging that happens in the latter half is atrocious, taking pictures of things is a nuisance tax.
Hacking: shorter puzzle, but there is still no resource management or real character building tied to hacking.
This isn't a flaw.
If there are no restrictions, then there are no builds.
It's not like you can load up with every single tonic you have. They just removed the needlessly-restricting combat/engineering/physical distinctions which forces you into a some kind of jack-of-all trades build.
If they wanted just a shooter, why did they bother with all the other stuff, mechanics, resources, non linear levels, AI roaming around etc. Yeah they invalidated most of that with some stupid decisions but still why bother with it in the first place.
This was discussed in the post-mortem. They started out making a bad System Shock 2-esque game, and then repurposed it into a halfway-decent shooter because Ken Levine's goal from the start was to make a SS2-like game for the masses.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132168/postmortem_2k_boston2k_.php
In terms of design, we created a depth and density of game systems that fit into a game about character building and choice, but would not have been competitive as an FPS. Around the time that the game went into alpha, we took a hard look at that gameplay and realized that, although there were many choices, they weren't very compelling.
This was because we hadn't been thinking as much about making a shooter as we should have, and many of our key interactions (weapons tuning, plasmids, length of AI engagement) were designed and tuned for a slower and more cerebral experience. To put it another way, nerdy RPG-like stat changes just didn't seem meaningful in the vibrant and dangerous world of Rapture.
Once we recalibrated the game to be more like a shooter, we simplified many of the deeper systems tremendously so that the user would be able to understand them. We also put more polish time into the core interactions of the game, such as the weapons, plasmids, and user interfaces. We ended up with fewer choices overall, but each one of those choices was infinitely more functional, understandable, and fun than the previous ones.
...
Our goal when we set out to make BioShock was very clear. We wanted to get to the next level, moving beyond our suite of critically acclaimed games to make a blockbuster. A lot of factors aligned to make this possible: the commercial backing of 2K; the game design knowledge we'd acquired from building System Shock 2; the technological familiarity with our Unreal-based engine that we'd built with previous games. But we still had to figure out how to make it all big-blockbuster big.
You're right about the tonics, dont know what i was on about. That and hacking is better.
But they didn't make it into a "halfway decent shooter". How? They just watered down the SS2-esque parts to the point where they didnt matter, even though they were there.
Would in SS2 having access to every ability and gun and being immortal make it a better shooter? No.
To make BS a better shooter they would have to rework the guns, ballistics, AI and levels from scratch... But they didnt touch those.
It's similar in BS2, it doesnt make the combat any "better", it just gives you more ways to goof around.
The combat in these games(BS1 and 2) is downright goofy... In how it looks, plays and sounds. For example there is a ridiculous cartoon "falling" sound when those grenadiers throw grenades. Its all very retarded.
So, unless entire core shooting was changed i dont see how adding simultanious plasmids and guns, a drill and whatnot makes it better. It just looks like an even bigger clownfest.
However with BS1 its possible to mod it into how it was supposed to be... With BS2 this is less so as it has shitty shooter aspects emphasized that woud be hard to remove and some SS2-esque parts removed that cant be added(level backtracking).
The site before the game was released, with the detective(?) trying to figure out the mystery, pinpoint the location of the city, was cool. I thought we would get to play as that guy, being in over his head without resurrection and everything. I thought it was finally going to be what it was supposed to be. I thought...
