Bioshock=Lame

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: Frackal
I wouldn't rate the game that highly either in terms of storyline. The gameplay, when it comes to shooting is up there though.


I think the story is interesting but uninspired. It does not unfold in a way that is particularly engrossing, although that could be difference of opinion, like some enjoy one movie vs another.

The controls are awkward as well, it is hard to aim for some reason.


The graphics are a mix of good atmosphere and artwork and horrid textures.


I had high expectations for the game, the only reason it should get a 9/10 is that number is relative; in comparison with recent games.


Story, mediocre execution but good premise
Graphics, good and bad, sorry but the 2002 texture quality is just sloppy as hell and annoying
Controls, not too terrible but a bit awkward
Sound, very excellent

I think muzzle flash is the problem with aiming, especially with the machine gun. you start unloading with that thing and you can't see beyond the barrel.

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: Mem

My personal opinion Stalker is better( not to meantion longer and harder),I'm even enjoying Two Worlds more then I did Bioshock, you did ask .

Stalker is just OK, it's open ended which is nice but on release there were tons of issues, like the fact that half the quests don't work and because it's open ended you can basically get stuck somewhere with no recourse other than reloading to a much earlier point. This is poor game design. Other than the mystique of Chernobyl there's also not really a story and what's there is presented in an extremely poor manner.

More difficult, yes I would say it is but only because of poor mechanics and that's not a plus.

I know some people have issues with the respawn deal in Bioshock, but if this weren't the case there are some encounters that you probably couldn't finish because of a lack of ammo/money both and would have to reload 5 hours beforehand to make sure you had the appropriate ammo. I think they made the right choice, the alternative just would have made the game frustrating rather than instilling a sense of accomplishment through difficult encounters.

As far as Frackal's comments on the story being uninspired, gonna have to strongly disagree there. The only other game that made me think this much would be Indigo Prophecy, at least in recent memory. The voice acting was also top notch. I dunno I could definately feel my heart twinge a couple times, especially on some of the McClintock tapes and the other woman who was the dancer in the burlesque show.

plus there were several digs at the current US administration in the game which brought a smile to my face, the propaganda commercials, "Questioning Ryan only emboldens the smugglers!" or somesuch, that is brilliant.

You get out what you put in and I think those who are at least familiar with Ayn Rand and Objectivism or those that actively follow politics might appreciate the intricacies and details a little more.



There's an article on FiringSquad that delves into this in detail.

"Don't be a slow poke Mr. Bubbles!"

 

[Mem]

Stalker is just OK, it's open ended which is nice but on release there were tons of issues, like the fact that half the quests don't work and because it's open ended you can basically get stuck somewhere with no recourse other than reloading to a much earlier point. This is poor game design. Other than the mystique of Chernobyl there's also not really a story and what's there is presented in an extremely poor manner.

More difficult, yes I would say it is but only because of poor mechanics and that's not a plus.

ayabe:You wanted to bring up the bugs in Stalker thats fine by me,what about sound problems that many people have with Bioshock cutting out etc... and 4 hours to get my activation even for install was a serious issue,let's be kind and put all this aside for now,Bioshock is only worth about 75% IMHO,all the reviews including you overrate the game.

I do agree with the other person to a point that the only reason that Bioshock got a good score was because a lot of bad games have been released this year.

End of the day its not even in my top 30 list regardless of age, gameplay,bugs,length of game or even price.

So lets beg to differ,right I must get back to gaming in Two Worlds got too much to do .

 

[coloumb]

Doom3 was mainly a run-n-gun shooter to satisfy a caveman's primal urge to kill and requiring very little intelligence to enjoy the game. Doom3 is reminiscent of the old Doom - a lot of action with every little substance [storyline]. The only impressive thing about Doom3 - graphics.

 

[VashHT]

Mem you shouldn't be passing off your opinion as some kind of absolute truth, it makes no sense at all. It's fine if you didn't like Bioshock, but don't act like you're better than everyone else, and you know how good it really is while everyone else is overrating it.

 

[cyrusm]

i think all hype aside, bioshock is a solid game. maybe 7-8/10.
stalker blew. farcry was something new. hl2 sucked. that is all.

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: Mem

Stalker is just OK, it's open ended which is nice but on release there were tons of issues, like the fact that half the quests don't work and because it's open ended you can basically get stuck somewhere with no recourse other than reloading to a much earlier point. This is poor game design. Other than the mystique of Chernobyl there's also not really a story and what's there is presented in an extremely poor manner.

More difficult, yes I would say it is but only because of poor mechanics and that's not a plus.

ayabe:You wanted to bring up the bugs in Stalker thats fine by me,what about sound problems that many people have with Bioshock cutting out etc... and 4 hours to get my activation even for install was a serious issue,let's be kind and put all this aside for now,Bioshock is only worth about 75% IMHO,all the reviews including you overrate the game.

I do agree with the other person to a point that the only reason that Bioshock got a good score was because a lot of bad games have been released this year.

End of the day its not even in my top 30 list regardless of age, gameplay,bugs,length of game or even price.

So lets beg to differ,right I must get back to gaming in Two Worlds got too much to do .

Sound problems are one thing, completely incomplete or broken game mechanics are an altogether different situation. I'm not privy to your issues or others sound issues but some channel cutting out every once in a while doesn't compare to wholly broken segments of the game. But enough of that, you mentioned Stalker and I was listing things I didn't think were so great about, doesn't make it a complete turd but certainly not a top tier title either.

I'm not trying to change your mind I'm just laying out my rationale for why I feel the way I do. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it as much as I did, frankly I wish everyone did. For me it has set the bar even higher from here on out which will inevitably lead me to be even more disappointed with what we are being offered.

Hopefully this will inspire other game developers to at least attempt to a real story or social commentary into their games instead of focusing solely on bigger and better ways to blow things up.

 

[JorynnRace]

We can go round and round, and no one will change anyone's mind about the game, so let me just put in for the "pros" column.

I love Bioshock. I had to look around and find everything I could, and I know I still missed a bunch of stuff.. I'll get it in my 2nd run through... It's the most immersive game I've played in a long time. I acctually wanted to find out what happens at the end. That's pretty rare these days. Sure, the endings are a bit abrupt, but hopefully there will be expansions and/or sequels to tell more of the story. (I heard that at one time there was a Zoo level, as well as more Big Daddy varieties)

And? I played it the way the developers intended. I could care less about "widescreen issues" (*cough* whining bitches *cough*), sound clipping, and secuROM issues. My freaking anti virus even deleted the bioshock.exe and I just found a way to fix it instead of bitching, cuz the game is just too good to miss.

With my system I was rocking it at 1920x1200 DX10 with smooth frames. I had a few sound issues (which I attribute to on-board sound), but not enough to make me dislike the game.

People get so caught up in the technical issues that they miss how good the game is. Turn off the fraps, turn your settings to a playable level, and just enjoy the game!

Oh, and if every reviewer likes the game, then chances are good that if you don't, there is something wrong with you.

I'm just saying.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Bioshock is fun and atmospheric, but it definitely doesn't deserve the hype. It's not THAT good. I mean, every review I've seen is gushing with ecstasy over it. It's like the devs gave the reviewers prostitutes and vacations. It crashes all the time for me, the activation is horrible, and it really is quite consolized. I'm somewhat annoyed that we can only choose to turn on/off broad graphical options. We can't adjust the specular and parallax mapping, the lighting, and the water; just "High Detail Shaders," for example.

I was hardly paying attention to the hype around it. When I read the reviews and saw no mention of skills or really open-ended gameplay (come on, deciding whether to play the hacking minigame with turrets or kill the bad guys yourself isn't open-ended - try playing Deus Ex), I was a bit disappointed. It's fun, but by no means revolutionary.

 

[Zenoth]

A modified S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is superior in my opinion (the ABC Mod and the A-Live Mod are both great examples). Although I still like Bioshock. In no way I thought the movement speed was "too fast". The only thing I thought was missing was a stealth element, I just believe that not being able to get any "silence" upgrades or Plasmids or anything like that forces the player into confrontations.

Technically speaking the game was built to be an action game and I am aware of that. As is, it couldn't support stealth properly, it isn't conceived for that. But I thought maybe if they could have worked around that a little more I would have liked it more, because frankly the security cameras are useless, I haven't been caught once because I hear them three rooms away and I know in advance that I got to be careful. If the cameras were silent and if they didn't emit a red light to tell you it's there 5 meters away then it might have been useful.

 

[Canai]

Originally posted by: Sraaz
Stop hyping things. I didn't read anything about Bioshock at all. I didn't even know it took place underwater, but I knew it was from a company I like and it was a genre that I like, so I got it. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Exactly. I loved System Shock 1 and 2, so Bioshock is the next logical progression. Plus, I really like games with atmosphere.

 

[Starbuck1975]

I think the respawning in Bioshock is entirely appropriate...Rapture is supposed to be a living, breathing city...and nothing says video game like clearing an area, and having it remain static and clear forever.

Think about how the military clears a building or a city...if you don't establish security behind you, guess what, the bad guys come back in and take the rooms you previously cleared.

The "citizens" of Rapture most certainly should be able to travel freely across the city just as your character does, and thereby populate rooms and areas already "cleared".

What I think is great about Bioshock is that if you hack all of the turrets and security cameras, you are essentially providing some security in previous areas...so you can just sit back and let Rapture's defenses provide you with more money, supplier and ammo.

 

[Painman]

I would personally give the game 8 or 8.5 out of 10. Its legacy may be SS and Deus Ex, and the legacy is clear in its gameplay elements, but IMO just not quite of equal caliber. I still have both of the SS and Deus Ex games installed and playable on my PCs and do go through them from time to time. I played SS2 up to the Hydroponics deck the weekend before the BioShock official release. I was 100% ready to play BioShock for what it is, and had purposefully avoided being anywhere near the hype train in the preceding months, though at the same time I wanted to have its "spiritual predecessor" fresh in my mind while playing through.

Having said that, I am not at all disappointed with BioShock. I understood from the get-go that this was going to be a crossover title. As I see it, concessions and compromises had to be made in order to get it ready for the 360. This is not to say that 360 gamers are all a bunch of ADD afflicted dolts. There may have been technical constraints to making the game as complex as its predecessors, let alone raising that bar. You also don't introduce a different flavor of gaming to a new audience by presenting it in its most intense form. And, for the most part, it seems that 360 gamers find BioShock quite palatable indeed. This is a good thing, as it quite likely means more games of this type with more depth and complexity. There's nothing disappointing about that.

 

[CP5670]

Originally posted by: ConstipatedVigilante
Bioshock is fun and atmospheric, but it definitely doesn't deserve the hype. It's not THAT good. I mean, every review I've seen is gushing with ecstasy over it. It's like the devs gave the reviewers prostitutes and vacations. It crashes all the time for me, the activation is horrible, and it really is quite consolized. I'm somewhat annoyed that we can only choose to turn on/off broad graphical options. We can't adjust the specular and parallax mapping, the lighting, and the water; just "High Detail Shaders," for example.

I was hardly paying attention to the hype around it. When I read the reviews and saw no mention of skills or really open-ended gameplay (come on, deciding whether to play the hacking minigame with turrets or kill the bad guys yourself isn't open-ended - try playing Deus Ex), I was a bit disappointed. It's fun, but by no means revolutionary.

This is exactly the impression I got from the demo. They say they are going to remove the copy protection on the full game eventually, so I'm going to wait on it until then (don't have much time to play games at the moment anyway).

 

[Modelworks]

One of the things about Bioshock that to me doesn't fit is the small environments.
You have areas that are suppose to be frequented by large amounts of people, but they are so small that there is no way a thriving city, like the one you see through the windows, could exist there.

I can understand them wanting to create a claustrophobic atmosphere, but its a bit too much.
And its definitely not a engine limitation.
Played MOH: Airborne last night and the levels are HUGE.

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: ayabe


As far as Frackal's comments on the story being uninspired, gonna have to strongly disagree there. The only other game that made me think this much would be Indigo Prophecy, at least in recent memory. The voice acting was also top notch. I dunno I could definately feel my heart twinge a couple times, especially on some of the McClintock tapes and the other woman who was the dancer in the burlesque show.

plus there were several digs at the current US administration in the game which brought a smile to my face, the propaganda commercials, "Questioning Ryan only emboldens the smugglers!" or somesuch, that is brilliant.

You get out what you put in and I think those who are at least familiar with Ayn Rand and Objectivism or those that actively follow politics might appreciate the intricacies and details a little more.



There's an article on FiringSquad that delves into this in detail.

"Don't be a slow poke Mr. Bubbles!"

I think this is where you are mistaken. You put TOO much of your own ideas into this game and get back nothing from it. Only the conclusion that was already in your head about the outcome of how you see politics in the world around you. Bioshock gives little more than atmosphere. Its like walking into 1984 in the dollar theatre after owning the DVD collector's edition of the movie for 5 years.

The game simply puts you in a genre but doesn't really push the genre any more than those games that did before it. It's scary at times, and its got good graphics at times but I wouldn't even give this game an 80% for content or creativeness. Game is over hyped.

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: coloumb
Doom3 was mainly a run-n-gun shooter to satisfy a caveman's primal urge to kill and requiring very little intelligence to enjoy the game. Doom3 is reminiscent of the old Doom - a lot of action with every little substance [storyline]. The only impressive thing about Doom3 - graphics.

I would actually say that Doom is a survivor horror game that puts your back to the wall as the last man standing in a place where a lot of death just went down. It takes you from level to level and progresses you into the bowls of madness to test your grit and ability to cope with fear.

That is what I got out of it when I was a teenager when it first released. It was true sci-fi and true horror. Doom 2 pushed the boundries of that world and took you to the pits of hell. Event Horizon pricked the surface of that type of game but never pushed you right into it. Doom and Doom 2 body slammed you in that world.

Doom 3 was a rehash. You couldn't really redo the Doom game because of the platform coverage ( PC to Super Nintendo ). Doom 3's story was to revisit things. I think it failed because they tried to perfect the story and didn't realize what they actually had in the original.

Where people say Bioshock has depth I call it false on the same premise people dumb down Doom to something even the developers missed. I think Quake 4 is much better than Bioshock in terms of gameplay and content. There is a very large lack of Dystopian backdrops that do things right in the game industry. Bioshock tried and I believe fell short... thank god for player made content and hopefully some from the developers too.

 

[Oyeve]

Originally posted by: shortylickens
The OP had my interest until he said Doom3 was impressive.

If he thinks Bioshock sucks then I definitely need to get it.

Hehe, I totally agree! I thought Doom 3 was the most mindless game I ever played. Even the graphics sucked. There was nothing great or even good about Doom 3. Dark atmospere (to hide bad graphics) Weak to no story line, shoot move to next area, shoot some more. Bioshock, so far, has been the best game I have played on my PC in many years, Stalker, while I had to get used to it a bit, turned out to be a great game also.

 

[Dumac]

This game was definitely a greater addition to the console library than the PC library, IMO.

 

[40sTheme]

Originally posted by: Pez D Spencer
Sorry to rant but I just wanted to know how many other people think that BioShock sucks.

I'm still running a P4 3.0GHz (OC'd to 3.6), an X1950 PRO 512MB, and 2GB DDR2 533, but could still play the game on high settings @ 1680 x 1050. Unlike a lot of other FPS games, even though I could only achieve an average of around 35-40 FPS most of the time the gameplay still felt smooth. And even though I only played it in DX9 mode, I couldn't really tell a big difference between DX9 and DX10 when comparing screenshots anyway.

In the graphics department I thought the game looked a little cartoonish and over the top. The gameplay felt like just what it is, a crappy port of a console game. Even after fixing the horrible FOV and mouse acceleration I still found it difficult to aim properly which just made fighting enemies frustrating. On top of this the absence of a walk key is unacceptable. I thought the player speed was WAY too fast. I felt like I was playing that old FPS game GORE. I slowed the player movement speed down through the ini files but after doing this, starting was sluggish. I tried every combination of the "SpeedBase" and "Speed" commands but nothing worked it was either too fast with no sluggish start or no sluggish start but the movement was too fast. Had this game taken place outside in wide open areas the fast movement may have been okay, but the first two levels that I acutally did play were all inside and I just didn't like it. You can move slower by crouching but there's no option to lower the viewbob so when you're crouching the whole screen moves side to side and gets annoying fast.

All in all, this game was just like Stalker, a big hyped up letdown with crappy gameplay. Truthfully, the last time I was completely blown away by a game was when I played FarCry for the first time. Let's hope it's little brother Crysis does the same. After FarCry I'd have to say Doom 3 was the most impressive, and then Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2 would have trumped Doom 3 but I thought the airboat and buggy drving made HL2 tedious and boring.

Maybe I'm just picky when it comes to games, but all I can say is that I think BioShock is a piece of garbage and I doubt I'm the only one that feels this way.

Let me know what you think.

You thought Doom 3 was impressive? I now disregard your post.
It's weird that you enjoyed HL2, but did not enjoy Bioshock. Both of them have heavy (and good) story elements.

 

[NoSoup4You]

Bioshock's good, and the atmosphere is outstanding. The scripting is fun, too. Overall I like it... and yet I've already stopped playing after reaching the irish bar in Neptune's Bounty. I was having a decently fun time with the game up until that point when I suddenly realized I'd rather be playing Oblivion... a game that I've already logged over 250 hours into according to XFire.

My gaming time is limited, unfortunately, so hopefully some weekend I'll get back into Bioshock and finish it. Too bad that probably won't be until February when the NFL season ends and before MLB starts up.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: ayabe

Originally posted by: Mem

Stalker is just OK, it's open ended which is nice but on release there were tons of issues, like the fact that half the quests don't work and because it's open ended you can basically get stuck somewhere with no recourse other than reloading to a much earlier point. This is poor game design. Other than the mystique of Chernobyl there's also not really a story and what's there is presented in an extremely poor manner.

More difficult, yes I would say it is but only because of poor mechanics and that's not a plus.

ayabe:You wanted to bring up the bugs in Stalker thats fine by me,what about sound problems that many people have with Bioshock cutting out etc... and 4 hours to get my activation even for install was a serious issue,let's be kind and put all this aside for now,Bioshock is only worth about 75% IMHO,all the reviews including you overrate the game.

I do agree with the other person to a point that the only reason that Bioshock got a good score was because a lot of bad games have been released this year.

End of the day its not even in my top 30 list regardless of age, gameplay,bugs,length of game or even price.

So lets beg to differ,right I must get back to gaming in Two Worlds got too much to do .

Sound problems are one thing, completely incomplete or broken game mechanics are an altogether different situation. I'm not privy to your issues or others sound issues but some channel cutting out every once in a while doesn't compare to wholly broken segments of the game. But enough of that, you mentioned Stalker and I was listing things I didn't think were so great about, doesn't make it a complete turd but certainly not a top tier title either.

I'm not trying to change your mind I'm just laying out my rationale for why I feel the way I do. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it as much as I did, frankly I wish everyone did. For me it has set the bar even higher from here on out which will inevitably lead me to be even more disappointed with what we are being offered.

Hopefully this will inspire other game developers to at least attempt to a real story or social commentary into their games instead of focusing solely on bigger and better ways to blow things up.

I'm waiting for Clive Barker's Jericho,if its anywhere near as good as Undying then it could make up for my big let down with Bioshock,btw sound cutting out was at important points ie speech so quite important (and only game that did it out of my 50+ games) ,Stalker had its faults but I still enjoyed it more then Bioshock, it was boring as well to be honest nothing scarey or exciting happened in the game for me,at the end of the day you can only go by playing a game from start to finish .


Jericho,Fallout 3 to name a few I still got to look forward too .

 

[VanTheMan]

I loved the demo, but I'm not going to buy it as long as 2k games includes SecuROM with it.

 

[Polish3d]

I honestly feel frustrated with the reviewers' extreme gushing about this game. It's weird and nonsensical to me.

I think the gaming press is lazy. They *********NEVER HOLD GAMING COMPANIES TO ACCOUNT FOR SHOWING VASTLY INFLATED FEATURES, FAKED CGI "GAMEPLAY" MOVIES, SCRIPTED AI, ETC ETC AT E3 TYPE EVENTS TO FALSELY HYPE A GAME, AND THEN NONE OF IT IS PRESENT IN THE LIMP, DILAPIDATED RELEASED VERSION********


They are too easily lulled into giving games that are good but really lacking in some areas (HL2's story for example, Doom 3's story, Oblivion's story) superstar ratings.


I hope it's not because of ad money, because I do see ads all over a lot of these review sites. Perhaps it is more profitable to give a good review to a big-deal game with high advertising dollars. Not saying this is universally true, but I am honestly suspicious about it.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
A modified S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is superior in my opinion (the ABC Mod and the A-Live Mod are both great examples). Although I still like Bioshock. In no way I thought the movement speed was "too fast". The only thing I thought was missing was a stealth element, I just believe that not being able to get any "silence" upgrades or Plasmids or anything like that forces the player into confrontations.

Technically speaking the game was built to be an action game and I am aware of that. As is, it couldn't support stealth properly, it isn't conceived for that. But I thought maybe if they could have worked around that a little more I would have liked it more, because frankly the security cameras are useless, I haven't been caught once because I hear them three rooms away and I know in advance that I got to be careful. If the cameras were silent and if they didn't emit a red light to tell you it's there 5 meters away then it might have been useful.

there were several stealth/silence plasmids/tonics. nothing that silenced weapons. but it silences your movement and one even made you invisible to enemies when you stoped walking/shooting after a few seconds.