Yeah, tons of the best stuff still to come. The Arcadia is kind of the point where the game has gotten elaborate enough to be confusing and kind of frustrating but before it all starts paying off beautifully. The next level in particular is one of the most memorable in any videogame, ever. I know I sound like a Scientology rep hooking people along right now, but anyway, I wouldn't give up on it when you have the time or find yourself in the mood.
It's just... ugh... I'm so sick of Rand, and it's not like the story is engrossing enough to make it more palatable. I'm really sick of the new video game policy of embedding story in texts and logs scattered around the environment. I want to experience the story, not have it related to me in voice over while I'm busy shooting monsters.
The retro futurism design is generally pretty cool, but hey, I could just play Fallout for that.
I think it would have been more bearable for me if the gameplay was riveting, but it didn't do enough to distinguish it from any other old shooter, and there wasn't a great deal of variety in the monsters I was busting open. But the real part that made me bored was the respawning system. There wasn't any tension in play because it wasn't a game that forced you to use skill or get better. You just blast things and die, whittling down the health of monsters until you move on. So there was no tension, little actual challenge, and an absence of interesting level design.
And as a result, the morality system of choosing whether to save or harvest the Little Sisters was just negligible.
ProjectX2 said:
I'm going to force myself to finish the game and hopefully I will start to enjoy it before it ends.
Hahahaha. Yeah, that's a hell of a policy to have. The only reason I managed to slog through it was because I was unemployed at the time and had too much free time.
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My main problem with it, aside from what Zombipanda has mentioned and my general lack of interest in the story so far, is the controls. There's so much stuff to remember and I'm always forgetting what button does what, which results in using EVA instead of health or vice versa. I really hate the fact that I have to keep switching between my weapons and the power-ups (am I the only one that found the power-up system confusing? There's so many options!). I understand that you can use both at the same time in the sequel, which is a very good idea.
Specifically for BioShock: Because their heavy emphasis on free will is absolutely inherent to the overarching plot and concept of the games, which(without getting too spoliery) is ultimately an envelope-pushing experiment with, and statement on, the entire concept of how videogames work.
In general: so you can deconstruct it, attack it, etc, because those novels are some of the most widely-read in the history of fiction, and because their philosophy can be used to create excellent, very dangerous villains that still aren't totally evil or black-and-white.
Unless you read Atlas Shrugged or something recently.... sick of her from what? If there've been a lot of Rand adaptations or Objectivism-based series lately, I've missed them(assuming they weren't kicked off by BioShock in the first place - even the new Atlas Shrugged movie has Armin Shimmerman in it).
I'm really sick of the new video game policy of embedding story in texts and logs scattered around the environment. I want to experience the story, not have it related to me in voice over while I'm busy shooting monsters.
While I know what you mean in general, appraising BioShock this way seems very superficial. The player IS experiencing as big a part of the story as any, and the fact that their interactions with other parts of it are so piecemeal is an essential part of that experience, not some separate thing they're removed from.
I think it would have been more bearable for me if the gameplay was riveting, but it didn't do enough to distinguish it from any other old shooter, and there wasn't a great deal of variety in the monsters I was busting open. But the real part that made me bored was the respawning system. There wasn't any tension in play because it wasn't a game that forced you to use skill or get better. You just blast things and die, whittling down the health of monsters until you move on. So there was no tension, little actual challenge, and an absence of interesting level design.
I definitely agree about the Vita-Chambers to the point where I didn't use them, and would just quit and re-load unless I was actually touching one when I died or something(you can also just turn them off from the Menu if you've got the DLC, and you get an Achievement for beating it that way).
However, if you've beaten the game
you know they're essentially the entire premise of the game, and why Jack is the one going through all this in the first place. Another part the game's deconstruction of the whole way videogames work. Personally, the way all that stuff plays out is much more rewarding to me than just surviving the normal increasingly-hard challenges.
My main problem with it, aside from what Zombipanda has mentioned and my general lack of interest in the story so far, is the controls. There's so much stuff to remember and I'm always forgetting what button does what, which results in using EVA instead of health or vice versa. I really hate the fact that I have to keep switching between my weapons and the power-ups (am I the only one that found the power-up system confusing? There's so many options!). I understand that you can use both at the same time in the sequel, which is a very good idea.
I had a bit of that going on the first time I played but got used to it pretty fast. I don't really see the health/EVE issue.... most games have something like that. The second game does make a lot of changes - in addition to the duel-wield, the tonics are now all just in big category and the health kits are hotkeyed to the D-pad, nowhere near the EVE hypos.
I still didn't find swapping between weapons that big a problem, though, especially since you can freeze the action to bring up the gun/plasmid wheel any time you need to think through a switch(assuming you're playing it on a console).
My main problem with it, aside from what Zombipanda has mentioned and my general lack of interest in the story so far, is the controls. There's so much stuff to remember and I'm always forgetting what button does what, which results in using EVA instead of health or vice versa. I really hate the fact that I have to keep switching between my weapons and the power-ups (am I the only one that found the power-up system confusing? There's so many options!). I understand that you can use both at the same time in the sequel, which is a very good idea.
Yeah, they fixed that in BioShock 2, and some of the hardcore fans screamed about the game being dumbed down.
Planet-Man said:
Unless you read Atlas Shrugged or something recently.... sick of her from what? If there've been a lot of Rand adaptations or Objectivism-based series lately, I've missed them(assuming they weren't kicked off by BioShock in the first place - even the new Atlas Shrugged movie has Armin Shimmerman in it).
I can't speak for Zombie, but Objectivism and Rand herself is being pushed a lot here in the US by the Tea Party movement. So it does get old, really quickly.
I can't speak for Zombie, but Objectivism and Rand herself is being pushed a lot here in the US by the Tea Party movement. So it does get old, really quickly.
Then shouldn't a game which is essentially about tearing them down, philosophically and physically, be a barrel of laughs to you guys? I don't see many complaints about South Park when they satirize and deconstruct even the most well-worn issues. If you really just didn't find the gameplay engaging then there's no disputing taste, but being anti-BioShock because you're anti-Rand is paradoxical to say the least.
Specifically for BioShock: Because their heavy emphasis on free will is absolutely inherent to the overarching plot and concept of the games, which(without getting too spoliery) is ultimately an envelope-pushing experiment with, and statement on, the entire concept of how videogames work.
In general: so you can deconstruct it, attack it, etc, because those novels are some of the most widely-read in the history of fiction, and because their philosophy can be used to create excellent, very dangerous villains that still aren't totally evil or black-and-white.
Heh. No. They aren't some of the most widely read stories in the history of fiction. People buy them and put them on their shelves so they can say they've read them.
As for the villains themselves, they're not particularly nuanced. They're robber barons, the go-to villains for the better part of the twentieth century. It's one of the most well worn villain tropes in the history of the last hundred years. Objectivism is a defense of Snidley Whiplash.
Planet-Man said:
Unless you read Atlas Shrugged or something recently.... sick of her from what? If there've been a lot of Rand adaptations or Objectivism-based series lately, I've missed them(assuming they weren't kicked off by BioShock in the first place - even the new Atlas Shrugged movie has Armin Shimmerman in it).
It's not about popular culture. It's about real life. As Skotti pointed out, Atlas Shrugged has been the rallying cry of the Tea Party, but that's hardly the beginning and the end of it. Objectivism has been, on one end, the core tenet of modern conservatism at least since I was a kid. Atlas Shrugged has been the Bible that the far right has thumped since the time of Reagan. And just as infuriating, objectivism is the strawman that college freshmen philosophy students cut their teeth on, in the same way that conservatives gnash their teeth against communism. Both, despite being on opposite ends of the spectrum, are idealistic philosophies that, while fine and noble enough in theory, are easily quashed in practicality by their reliance on the inner compassion of humanity. It's not that I find Randian Objectivism abhorrent (I certainly do). It's that any utopian philosophy of the ilk is utterly banal and unsuited to belabored discussion. The liberals howling against objectivism in hour-long tirades are just as obnoxious as the true believers who insist anyone against them just doesn't understand.
Planet-Man said:
While I know what you mean in general, appraising BioShock this way seems very superficial. The player IS experiencing as big a part of the story as any, and the fact that their interactions with other parts of it are so piecemeal is an essential part of that experience, not some separate thing they're removed from.
The problem is, you're at a complete distance from the story. You play a cipher without any investment in the actual struggle. Most of the players in the argument are dead and instead you're just an archaeologist sifting through the wreckage. And the wreckage isn't all that interesting. It's just the remnants of a philosophy major's scattered term paper, lost in a stoner haze.
Planet-Man said:
I definitely agree about the Vita-Chambers to the point where I didn't use them, and would just quit and re-load unless I was actually touching one when I died or something(you can also just turn them off from the Menu if you've got the DLC, and you get an Achievement for beating it that way).
Right. Well, I'm glad they fixed that. I think a game shouldn't be broken out of the box, but it's nice to hear they at least fixed the main problem with downloadable content. It's hard to say how much I'd enjoy the game with the fixes added in. I rather liked the customization options of the combat, though the gameplay itself was mired down in a general design I didn't find all that exciting. It was fun to lure the bad guys into oncoming turrets or to get them into the water and blast them with electricity, and I respect the designers for those little quirks, but all in all, I found the game to be kind of a chore to slog through.
Planet-Man said:
However, if you've beaten the game
you know they're essentially the entire premise of the game, and why Jack is the one going through all this in the first place. Another part the game's deconstruction of the whole way videogames work. Personally, the way all that stuff plays out is much more rewarding to me than just surviving the normal increasingly-hard challenges.
I shouldn't have to suffer through a game that's not all that much fun to get a pay off that explains the game was not much fun intentionally so we could prove a point about how games are structured.
Planet-Man said:
I had a bit of that going on the first time I played but got used to it pretty fast. I don't really see the health/EVE issue.... most games have something like that. The second game does make a lot of changes - in addition to the duel-wield, the tonics are now all just in big category and the health kits are hotkeyed to the D-pad, nowhere near the EVE hypos.
I still didn't find swapping between weapons that big a problem, though, especially since you can freeze the action to bring up the gun/plasmid wheel any time you need to think through a switch(assuming you're playing it on a console).
I can't speak for Zombie, but Objectivism and Rand herself is being pushed a lot here in the US by the Tea Party movement. So it does get old, really quickly.
I just find it to be a boring philosophy without a lot of depth. If someone told me they were making a game about why Communism was stupid, I'd probably feel the same way about it.
Then shouldn't a game which is essentially about tearing them down, philosophically and physically, be a barrel of laughs to you guys? I don't see many complaints about South Park when they satirize and deconstruct even the most well-worn issues. If you really just didn't find the gameplay engaging then there's no disputing taste, but being anti-BioShock because you're anti-Rand is paradoxical to say the least.
Dude, you miss the point. Talking about objectivism is boring. Stories should be about characters. This is exactly the reason why Atlas Shrugged sucked. It's not because objectivism sucks (though it does). If Rand had told a story with real poetry and with compelling characters, it wouldn't matter what the philosophy behind it was, because it wouldn't be about the philosophy. It would be about the interaction of personality, about the truth of experience, about the poetry of life. Instead, it's a manifesto disguised as a narrative. Bioshock may be anti-Rand, but it's the exact same thing. It's not a story so much as a philosophical (and a not particularly bright one) masquerading as a story. It's not about philosophy at all. It's about the capacity to tell a tale. It's not narrative, it's exposition (and here I thought you were the one slapping the bible of "Show, don't tell").
In comparison, let me point out an analogous story from literature: Animal Farm. It has the same moral (A socio-political structure that relies on human compassion will always be commandeered by the corrupt), lambasts a similarly structured philosophy (Again, communism instead of "free market" objectivism), and achieves a similar conclusion (DYSTOPIA!). But it works because it recognizes the scope of its argument. It's a breezy book, easily finished over the course of an afternoon and a six pack. It gives us strong but simple characters who we can get emotionally invested in (and they're animals! Is it just me, or is anyone else more moved by animals getting hurt in stories than people?). It tells its story simply and powerfully and gets the hell out. It succeeds because it doesn't belabor the issue. It understands the simplicity of the argument and it tells a streamlined tale.
In terms of gameplay, Dead Space is the same way. It's a simple and well-trodden story of Things From Beyond(TM). The characters are generally action-horror types and it doesn't pretend to be anything else. The gameplay has the same basic shooter mechanics of Bioshock. But it paces itself well, it makes tension a factor in gameplay, and it forces you to play smart and conservatively. Most importantly, it doesn't wear out its welcome. It knows how long its content can keep interest before it starts to wear thin. Most importantly, it hasn't taken the luxury of crawling up its own ass.
And South Park works because it's funny. It's a little too preachy at times, but ultimately the funny outweighs the pulpitry (Yeah. I just made up a word. What of it?). South Park knows it format. That's the key.
Incidentally, I'm kind of excited about Bioshock Infinite. Apart from the improvements to gameplay, it looks interesting because it's about a character actually invested in a struggle that's presently ongoing. And there are other characters you actually get to interact with! Things happen aside from people squawking over your walky-talky! Oh, and it doesn't seem to be a half-baked treatise on a particular brand of twentieth century philosophy.
As far as the clever deconstruction goes, let me put it like this.
Bioshock is a game that sends you through a meaningless parade of fetch quests squawked to you over a walkie-talkie. Then at the end of the game it mocks you (over a walkie-talkie!) for mindlessly following a series of meaningless fetch quests. "Hah! You were working for the bad guy all along! Aren't you stupid for following the video game conventions we railroaded you through for the entire course of the game!? BUY THE SEQUEL!" The result isn't rewarding. It just makes you question why you wasted fifteen hours on the game in the first place.
If the developers are so aware of the flaws in game structure, they should have created a game that tries to transcend that structure instead of creating a game that's self-consciously mired in it.
Before I reply: This is a discussion in a non-spoiler thread that was initiated by someone who's only a third of the way through the first game and you've just posted a ****load of unmarked major spoilers. Please at least tag them before a lot of the stuff that made BioShock so enjoyable in the first place gets ruined for Proj or anyone else.
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Bioshock update: I just killed
Andrew Ryan
. The "would you kindly" twist was great. I've been played it a lot lately and have finally mastered the controls. I'm getting really into the game but I just looked at a walkthrough and apparently there's only four or so levels left?!
Then shouldn't a game which is essentially about tearing them down, philosophically and physically, be a barrel of laughs to you guys? I don't see many complaints about South Park when they satirize and deconstruct even the most well-worn issues. If you really just didn't find the gameplay engaging then there's no disputing taste, but being anti-BioShock because you're anti-Rand is paradoxical to say the least.
Is it just me, or is anyone else more moved by animals getting hurt in stories than people?). It tells its story simply and powerfully and gets the hell out. It succeeds because it doesn't belabor the issue. It understands the simplicity of the argument and it tells a streamlined tale.
