Dayyālu
Arcane
The only """"good"""" "mechanic" that Bioshock has is the Big Daddies&Little sisters thing. Everything else is badly implemented, boring, or both.
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Bioshock ain't that bad...
- Thread starter Master
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RoSoDude
Arcane
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Going beyond "gameplay with depth", "consequences for failure", and believable worlds, Bioshock creates an easy, overrated, and by-the-numbers System Shock 2 ripoff experience. After a showcase for the water animations in the modified Unreal Engine 2, you discover the same on-rails cinematic that we've been seeing since 1998's Half-Life where the art team gets to show off. Here you are treated to a monologue from a freshman philosophy student who explains how he read Atlas Shrugged and it like, changed his whole worldview, bro, giving a justification for an outlandish underwater city setting where everything's in ruins and everyone wants to shoot you to death. Also, there are dudes in diver suits protecting little girls who eat slugs that can give people magic powers. Engage in frivolous looting for resources you don't need and spend hours hacking every camera, turret, and vending machine in sight. Haphazardly inject your arm with superjuice that lets you cast magical spells from your hands, but not while you're holding a gun because no one in the office ever played Clive Barker's Undying from 2001. Backtrack through linear corridors where enemies respawn just often enough to break immersion without ever posing a threat, sometimes bumping into each other and infighting which totally wasn't already in 1993's Doom. Experience pretty-good-for-2007 graphics that vividly showcase how much the art team deserved a raise, highlighted by the most excessive bloom effects ever developed in a video game. Make meaningful choices and mature decisions, ultimately culminating in the grand question: do you eat little girls and get superpowers... or save them and get more superpowers?
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Master
Arbiter
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One of those games where story / setting is far more interesting than gameplay.
I had the same problem as well. The game introduces all those mechanics and enemies at the beginning, and you just move through locations onward. Which looked at the release really good, but it's not enough to think about replaying it. Overusing the tapes also doesn't help. The sequel had the better pacing and much better when it comes to saving player's time and patience with a little bit higher difficulty.
It always felt for me like a fake choice, considering how overpowered you became and how enemies are easy to kill. At the end the fight with Fontaine.
vortex
Fabulous Optimist
Bioshock is a game where storyfags and combatfags are treated equally.
If you've played SS2 before Bioshock, you can figure out half of the story in under 5 minutes. They're not even subtle with it. You can find 'who is atlas?' posters slapped on the walls in a few places. The twist about mind control can be figured out quite early as well. In SS2, you're a soldier with 3 years training who's listening to the only human voice on Von Braun. You have a legitimate reason to trust it. In Bioshock, you crash into the sea, find an underwater city and immediately proceed to inject bizarre, effulgent liquids into your veins just because some guy told you so?
The setting isn't much better. It's an underwater town that apparently attracted the best and brightest, yet Rapture comes off as an underwater amusement park populated by the Irish mob. The vending machines are especially obnoxious. The little sisters not much better.
The story itself, if you abstract it from the game, is good. But the laughable setting and narrative nullify its strengths. You can feel Levine wallowing in the shock value of his little gotcha moment in the big reveal. Problem is that I've had the whole thing sussed out hours ago, Ken.
The setting isn't much better. It's an underwater town that apparently attracted the best and brightest, yet Rapture comes off as an underwater amusement park populated by the Irish mob. The vending machines are especially obnoxious. The little sisters not much better.
The story itself, if you abstract it from the game, is good. But the laughable setting and narrative nullify its strengths. You can feel Levine wallowing in the shock value of his little gotcha moment in the big reveal. Problem is that I've had the whole thing sussed out hours ago, Ken.
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Dayyālu
Arcane
I'll admit that my initial reply of "why Bioshock is terrible" needs some extra meat, because despite being Codex tradition saying that a game is crap because it is isn't going to cut it.
Define "systems driven game". I doubt that you mean that Bioshock is akin SS1 by being a pseudo-RPG where you improve your character through inventory and self-modification instead of adding "experience points", and instead you mean that Bioshock has a variety of "game systems" that form its gameplay. Let's consider each "system", then!
Bioshock as a shooter.
Let's consider the main critique, that SS1 and SS2 are also, in their basic form, shooters, and mediocre shooters at that. Well, more like adequate shooters, they give you a wide variety of enemies and some nice weaponry (SS2 in particular forcing you to choose between going subpar with Energy or Psi or merely shooting bullets and being OP). A shooter needs to be judged from its weapon variety, enemy variety, and level design, that should unite in a fun and cohesive whole. Both SS1 and SS2 give you a wide variety of weapons, with some very creative pieces, and SS2 adds amusing Psi powers that aren't going to be used for 90% of the gameplay, but, hey options. SS1's level design as a shooter is typical of a first-gen FPS, and I find it rather good. SS2 is quite inferior, but still manages to give you some good fights.
If we want to compare another -shock like, E.Y.E. as a shooter is magnificent despite weirdo mechanics and utter bullshit balance, respawns and level design.
Bioshock? Bioshock gives you a completely unremarkable array of weapons (Pistol, Shotgun, Machinegun, Grenade Launcher, Crossbow, Flamethrower) with some "mods" that add very little to the weapons. Alternate ammunition feels more a cargo cult from SS2 than a meaningful thing, and the only alternate ammunition with some nice tactical use is the crossbow trap. Enemy variety in Bioshock is horrendous. You are essentially fighting Hybrids all the time, putting it in SS2 terms, and the only variety is given by a terrible HP bloat that gets dumped on you. Splicers may look different, mechanically they are almost the same bar HP bloat. Ah, yes, the turrets and the bots, peak of creativity in enemy design. I'll concede that the Daddies are a good mechanic, probably the only one in the entire game: having to set up a killzone for a strong but initially non-hostile enemy is an amusing thing.
Other mechanics/systems?
The entire Plasmid system is fucked up and mostly useless due to the "gun/plasmid" system, and the vast majority of them aren't even creative like the SS2 powers. Direct damage, direct damage, more direct damage, useless copy of HL2's gravity gun, etc.
Hacking system is a travesty and stops being fun after the third try.
Crafting system is an incredible "why the hell is this system even here, it's a corporate request"?
Photographs! WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS THIS FUCKING SHIT WHY IT IS EVEN HERE
Most of the combat in Bioshock is an annoyance that you need to finish quickly. All the other systems are annoyances. It doesn't surprise me that Infinite turned out into a cutscene-based game because Bioshock was already mostly a run between a nice setpiece (and not an action setpiece, I mean a modeling setpiece) to the other.
Bioshock has an incredible art design, pity that it's entirely ruined by incredibly muddy and deformed graphics that make everything appear out of focus. The sound design and the voice actors did a good job, but it's still inferior to SS1/SS2 (soundtrack in particular!).
There's no reason nowadays to play Bioshock 1. It's a period piece of a shitty era of shooter development, and it's better just to read the art book or whatever they have thrown out. It's a bad game that should be rightfully forgotten.
Define "systems driven game". I doubt that you mean that Bioshock is akin SS1 by being a pseudo-RPG where you improve your character through inventory and self-modification instead of adding "experience points", and instead you mean that Bioshock has a variety of "game systems" that form its gameplay. Let's consider each "system", then!
Bioshock as a shooter.
Let's consider the main critique, that SS1 and SS2 are also, in their basic form, shooters, and mediocre shooters at that. Well, more like adequate shooters, they give you a wide variety of enemies and some nice weaponry (SS2 in particular forcing you to choose between going subpar with Energy or Psi or merely shooting bullets and being OP). A shooter needs to be judged from its weapon variety, enemy variety, and level design, that should unite in a fun and cohesive whole. Both SS1 and SS2 give you a wide variety of weapons, with some very creative pieces, and SS2 adds amusing Psi powers that aren't going to be used for 90% of the gameplay, but, hey options. SS1's level design as a shooter is typical of a first-gen FPS, and I find it rather good. SS2 is quite inferior, but still manages to give you some good fights.
If we want to compare another -shock like, E.Y.E. as a shooter is magnificent despite weirdo mechanics and utter bullshit balance, respawns and level design.
Bioshock? Bioshock gives you a completely unremarkable array of weapons (Pistol, Shotgun, Machinegun, Grenade Launcher, Crossbow, Flamethrower) with some "mods" that add very little to the weapons. Alternate ammunition feels more a cargo cult from SS2 than a meaningful thing, and the only alternate ammunition with some nice tactical use is the crossbow trap. Enemy variety in Bioshock is horrendous. You are essentially fighting Hybrids all the time, putting it in SS2 terms, and the only variety is given by a terrible HP bloat that gets dumped on you. Splicers may look different, mechanically they are almost the same bar HP bloat. Ah, yes, the turrets and the bots, peak of creativity in enemy design. I'll concede that the Daddies are a good mechanic, probably the only one in the entire game: having to set up a killzone for a strong but initially non-hostile enemy is an amusing thing.
Other mechanics/systems?
The entire Plasmid system is fucked up and mostly useless due to the "gun/plasmid" system, and the vast majority of them aren't even creative like the SS2 powers. Direct damage, direct damage, more direct damage, useless copy of HL2's gravity gun, etc.
Hacking system is a travesty and stops being fun after the third try.
Crafting system is an incredible "why the hell is this system even here, it's a corporate request"?
Photographs! WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS THIS FUCKING SHIT WHY IT IS EVEN HERE
Most of the combat in Bioshock is an annoyance that you need to finish quickly. All the other systems are annoyances. It doesn't surprise me that Infinite turned out into a cutscene-based game because Bioshock was already mostly a run between a nice setpiece (and not an action setpiece, I mean a modeling setpiece) to the other.
Bioshock has an incredible art design, pity that it's entirely ruined by incredibly muddy and deformed graphics that make everything appear out of focus. The sound design and the voice actors did a good job, but it's still inferior to SS1/SS2 (soundtrack in particular!).
There's no reason nowadays to play Bioshock 1. It's a period piece of a shitty era of shooter development, and it's better just to read the art book or whatever they have thrown out. It's a bad game that should be rightfully forgotten.
Like a lot of people who played Bioshock originally, I was fiending hard for a System Shock experience and I didn't care who delivered the goods. Of course it makes me feel trashy now, but I had an ok time with the game. The best things I can say for Bioshock is that really does have a nice aesthetic, at least nice enough to distract me from the fact that the game really is Shock2 underwater with Ayn Rand thrown in. I also liked shooting bees out of my hands because let's face it, being able to inflict that kind of punishment on someone else after running from all those swarms in Shock2 was nice. Finally, I also have to admit I enjoyed killing splicers to Waltz of the Flowers, probably the best moment in the game and probably the only really original moment of the game.
Otherwise everyone looks like they're made out of Styrofoam, the whole Big Daddy Little Sister thing was dumb, and Bioshock had one of the biggest "choice and consequence" memes I've ever seen.
Otherwise everyone looks like they're made out of Styrofoam, the whole Big Daddy Little Sister thing was dumb, and Bioshock had one of the biggest "choice and consequence" memes I've ever seen.
ciox
Liturgist
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- Feb 9, 2016
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- 1,413
It's just a game that shoots itself in the foot in all sorts of bizarre ways, instead of implementing a normal RPG progression and a normal power scale, because it wants everything to be simple and accessible...
You have hacking available on all sorts of devices, but hacking is also just a free lunch showering you with bonuses, which they sometimes randomly jerk away from you at some points in the lategame with an unsolveable jigsaw puzzle. Hardly a skill or tactical choice.
You can find tons of loot if you look for it, but also have strict ammo/item/money caps to keep the general economy under control, so you often can't take stuff from a hacked safe or secret cache.
You have some challenging combat once in a while but respawning is always free, moves you to safety and gives you health and psi, rewarding for death in every possible way.
You have ammo types but then you find the armor-piercing ammo is heavily nerfed because the protector fights need to be "interesting challenges" so the special ammo barely scratches them.
You have this huge unwieldy system of character customization, but few of the bonuses or abilities are strong or alter mechanics, in order to reduce debugging/QA times. (notable exception: natural camouflage)
You have a lot of plasmids that start out somewhat strong, but they also feel very underpowered because the devs shied away from having any plasmid that takes skill to use but does a lot of burst damage if used properly since you have weapons for that, and you're stuck with some stuff that inconveniences or slowly kills low-level splicers, and does very little to other enemies. Automatons still need to be hacked or shot to defeat them. Protectors need to be shot to defeat them.
You have some choice in planning and taking down the protectors, but the limited AI and effectiveness of plentiful trap bolts means you can take out every single one in the same way.
You have some choice in dealing with the gatherers but there's rubber-banding to reduce the impact of your choice as much as possible and give you the same bonuses.
It's not any one thing... just all these crazy twists and turns the creators made to bring their work to fruition make you go
You have hacking available on all sorts of devices, but hacking is also just a free lunch showering you with bonuses, which they sometimes randomly jerk away from you at some points in the lategame with an unsolveable jigsaw puzzle. Hardly a skill or tactical choice.
You can find tons of loot if you look for it, but also have strict ammo/item/money caps to keep the general economy under control, so you often can't take stuff from a hacked safe or secret cache.
You have some challenging combat once in a while but respawning is always free, moves you to safety and gives you health and psi, rewarding for death in every possible way.
You have ammo types but then you find the armor-piercing ammo is heavily nerfed because the protector fights need to be "interesting challenges" so the special ammo barely scratches them.
You have this huge unwieldy system of character customization, but few of the bonuses or abilities are strong or alter mechanics, in order to reduce debugging/QA times. (notable exception: natural camouflage)
You have a lot of plasmids that start out somewhat strong, but they also feel very underpowered because the devs shied away from having any plasmid that takes skill to use but does a lot of burst damage if used properly since you have weapons for that, and you're stuck with some stuff that inconveniences or slowly kills low-level splicers, and does very little to other enemies. Automatons still need to be hacked or shot to defeat them. Protectors need to be shot to defeat them.
You have some choice in planning and taking down the protectors, but the limited AI and effectiveness of plentiful trap bolts means you can take out every single one in the same way.
You have some choice in dealing with the gatherers but there's rubber-banding to reduce the impact of your choice as much as possible and give you the same bonuses.
It's not any one thing... just all these crazy twists and turns the creators made to bring their work to fruition make you go
forumvisitor#451
Cipher
I was more disappointed from Bioshock than from Oblivion. Magazines at the time were hyping it up like second coming of Christ. Funny thing is - I did not play any System Shock game before playing Bioshock, but I knew about them and their quality. Magazines made it sound like it developed every system from Shock games to even better game plus the art style. I believe there even was a preview which described things not at all in the final product. I believe alpha version was quite different game. Decline for me began with Bioshock and realizing that Levine sucks.
vortex
Fabulous Optimist
ciox
Liturgist
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The first big marketing push was in 2006, back then they were still going to make it more like SS2, stats were camouflaged as tonic slots for instance, where you could actually incrementally increase your skill with weapons/hacking/plasmids by unlocking more slots, and the ecology wasn't totally gimped yet. All that went away later.
That may be so but his games lose way too many features during the final stretch.
Even Bioshock Infinite was supposed to have a system where you could put unremovable stack modifiers on your character with both bonuses and penalties, racking up to about 15-20 or so by the end of the game, which would have been an ok progression system compared to the final one.
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KK1001
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Rapture didn't actually attract only the "best and brightest." The point is that the class conflict that existed on the surface was just replicated, because you'd need ordinary workers, skilled or not, to actually run and produce things. The final irony is that the whole thing was brought down by an extremely skilled con artist who knew how to exploit the (extremely flawed) system and Ryan's authoritarianism.
Terenty
Liturgist
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I meant how you can interact with enemies and the environment, ai behaviour,
not numbers, levels etc.
Bullshit, the setting and art design alone is enough of a reason to play the game.
And no, the graphics hold up perfectly well with its water, dynamic shadows, physics engine etc.
How many shooters do you know with as much options to deal with enemies as Bioshock?
Big Daddies and little sisters is a unique feature and engaging with them is an involved and satisfying process.
The levels too are made to be explored rather than going from point a to b in a linear corridor.
Its a great action game that easily stands out of the crowd of mediocre crap
Master
Arbiter
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Sure, there are options to deal with enemies. But its all too cookie cutter. Mainly because the AI makes these weird pauses all the time, just standing, looking surprised, missing a lot etc.
I presume this was done for the console crowd so they could have time to get their bearings. Maybe if you play it with a joystick it can appear engaging but if you are a PC uberman it just doesnt cut it.
I presume this was done for the console crowd so they could have time to get their bearings. Maybe if you play it with a joystick it can appear engaging but if you are a PC uberman it just doesnt cut it.
razvedchiki
Magister
anyone tried out this mod https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=1128.0?
does it work with the remastered edition?
does it work with the remastered edition?
unfairlight
Self-Ejected
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It's competent and not much more. People getting so majorly butthurt about it strikes me similarly as Fallout 4. It's not bad or offensive, it's simply fine, and the people who make it out as if it was bad or offensive tend to obsess about it the most.
I played it on the hardest difficulty and it was decent enough with the difficulty, but the primary problem (one that also is present in Prey 2017 which takes a fair bit of influence from Bioshock) is that it starts to rely too much on comboing, and with combo-based combat in games like this what generally happens is that once you have the right tools to combo something with, everything becomes pretty easy. If you don't have the right tools then everything is an ammo and resource sink and has completely bloated health.
I played it on the hardest difficulty and it was decent enough with the difficulty, but the primary problem (one that also is present in Prey 2017 which takes a fair bit of influence from Bioshock) is that it starts to rely too much on comboing, and with combo-based combat in games like this what generally happens is that once you have the right tools to combo something with, everything becomes pretty easy. If you don't have the right tools then everything is an ammo and resource sink and has completely bloated health.
It's a good exploration shooter. A lot of 360 gamers never had much experience with that, and it blew their minds. Same for Oblivion and massive open world Western RPGs. A lot of what was popular and considered amazing in the 360 era makes more sense if you try and see it from a Nintendo to Playstation to Xbox perspective.
Ash
Arcane
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If you're a non-gamer, sure.
Consoles had RPGs and shooters with exploration. Actual good ones. Deus fucking Ex was released on consoles. Arx Fatalis. Morrowind. ...Bioshock is trash.
A lot of what was popular in the 360 era makes more sense if you understand that garbage was marketed hard, and try and see it from a perspective of people who never really gamed much at all, wherein Bioshock "opened their eyes to game's status as art".
Sellout game journos don't help either.
Lastly, Bioshock is hugely popular in the PC space, and even made it into RPG Codex's top 100 list recently. People with zero taste are everywhere.
Consoles had RPGs and shooters with exploration. Actual good ones. Deus fucking Ex was released on consoles. Arx Fatalis. Morrowind. ...Bioshock is trash.
A lot of what was popular in the 360 era makes more sense if you understand that garbage was marketed hard, and try and see it from a perspective of people who never really gamed much at all, wherein Bioshock "opened their eyes to game's status as art".
Sellout game journos don't help either.
Lastly, Bioshock is hugely popular in the PC space, and even made it into RPG Codex's top 100 list recently. People with zero taste are everywhere.
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Bioshock is the "McShockolds" of the Doom lineage of shooters. It's easy to eat and superficially tasty but nobody would mistake it for a nutritious, skillfully made meal.
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