Preview BioShock preglimpsing at C&VG

[doctor_kaz]

IW turned out so bad because Spector gave Harvey Smith too much of a free hand to try out his dumbassed streamlining 'ideas'. I don't see any basis for comparison here. And IW (and Thief DS too) had such glaring level size constraints because they were kludged to fit the original xbox's small RAM spec, then ported over to the PC.

It wasn't just Harvey Smith's ideas. Have you ever read any interviews with Warren Spector? Go back and read some Warren Spector interviews from 2003. You could have predicted that the game would suck just from those.

Invisible War sucked for more than a few reasons, but the #1 first and foremost was that it was designed for people who were not fans of the first game, specifically X--Box owners. This design philosophy showed up everywhere in the game, from the crappy consolized interface and inventory system to the gimped role-playing system. Level design was also a problem, but it was only one of many. In addition, the small levels and short game length were also viewed as ways of getting the casual gamer to play it. The level design was done largely on purpose. Warren Spector refers to huge levels as "the stuff that people fast forward through in movies". Once again, dumbing the game down for casual gamers. Bioshock is following the exact same path with this plasmid re-speccing business. Since it's being designed for the X-Box 360, I'm also guessing that the targeting reticule will be the size of a quarter and the interface will be pathetic donkey shit like Kotor and Oblivion's were. Whether the atmosphere and story will make up for the watered-down shallow gameplay remains to be seen.

Very very few IP's have successfully transistioned over to consoles without becoming complete crap on the PC. Deus Ex, Serious Sam, Rainbow Six, Longest Journey, Ghost Recon -- just a few of many examples of franchises started on the PC that became complete crap once consoles became the primary development platforms. Bioshock appears to be following the exact same path.

 

[Twinfalls]

Well, Warren did some buck-passing. Unified ammo was certainly Harvey's idea.

At any rate, Spector has a bastard-load of great games to his (collaborative) credit, so he deserves to be given a break.

IW must make him think of the old adage, 'You fix peoples houses, you write good songs, you help teach their children. Do they call you 'House-fixing song-writing children-teacher'?

No.

You fuck one donkey.....


edit: yeah, that's a pretty eloquent argument for some trepidation with Bioshock. The most important question I guess will be whether the PC gets its own interface. As for the rest of it, well this was never going to be the type of PC-style RPG which suffers dumbening to its actual content (Daggerfall-->Obn) in the transition to console. Spector may have said that about large levels, but what does he have to do with Bioshock? Levine has been pretty straight-forward thus far in asserting his belief that console games need not be dumbed down.

 

[doctor_kaz]

Don't get me wrong, I think that Ken Levine is a genius and I love Irrational, but history is unfavorable. Have Levine and Irrational learned from the mistakes of others? I guess we'll find out. I think that the odds are stacked against them. They are going more for a big mass market product, but all of Irrational's successful games have been somewhat the opposite. They have been pretty hardcore niche-ish titles like Freedom Force, System Shock 2, and SWAT 4. Their one big bomb that I can think of was Tribes: Vengeance. Interestingly, the design philosophy for Vengeance was to make the game more "accessible" to newcomers, kinda like Bioshock. (I actually liked the game a lot though -- I thought it was very underappreciated.)

 

[vazquez595654]

Warren Spector was making good games, until the suits got to him and actually changed his mind on what a "good game" is (aka a commercially successful title). Unfortunately he didn't know how to make one of those.

Todd Howard never knew how to make a game, but figured out that tech demos labelled "RPG", sell on consoles.

Ken Levine on the other hand believes that you don't need to change games to make them successful on the console. As much respect as I have for him, I think he is lying, because there is no way that is going to happen. I can't think of one example of a great pc game that was able to draw the console crowd. Morrowind wasn't a good game (and in my opinion, much of a "game" at all).

Seems to me that Ken is either, in for a big surprise, or he is our savior. And given the track records of our previous saviors (Warren Spector, Jesus), were probably gonna have to end up digging his grave. sooner than later.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Eh, only time will tell. I'm not entirely sure about anything anymore.

 

[Old Scratch]

Ken Levine on the other hand believes that you don't need to change games to make them successful on the console.

Yep, Spector also insisted during the development of IW that games - their game, wasn't going to suffer by being developed for the Xbox at the same time as the PC version, except the levels might be slightly smaller or something to that effect. Which turned out to be utter bullshit. Constrictive levels hurt that game bad too.

The reality is the number of PC developers who manage to fuck up a game or franchise by switching to simultaneous console/PC development are much larger than those who pull it off with grace. It seems almost an unavoidable and an undeniable fate at this point for most developers. Actually, the only one I can think of who have managed pretty well are IO interactive with the Hitman series, though I'm sure the graphics would be much better by now if they weren't still trying to put the game on the PS2.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

Thief 3 was pretty fine as well (though the city levels were pretty annoying and needed work).

 

[Old Scratch]

Thief 3 was pretty fine as well (though the city levels were pretty annoying and needed work).

Yep, it turned out to be fairly good. The fact it was so heavily developed for a console was still unmistakable though.