Ok, I'm a little behind: Bioshock

[Nebor]

So I just got around to playing Bioshock, which I got on a Steam sale... who knows how long ago. I have Bioshock 2 as well. I've played about 3 hours so far, and I'm having a hard time getting into it. I feel like I'm very weak in the game. I'm a veteran of FPS games, but I feel like I have a hard time hitting bad guys with the weapons, I don't have enough ammunition and the weapons don't do enough damage. Nevermind the fact that I usually have to reload a quicksave at least 5 times before I successfully kill a "Big Daddy" and in the process I invariably deplete all my first aid kits and EVE syringes, meaning all the money I get from killing him just goes into repurchasing supplies...

I've been playing on medium difficulty. Is it more fun on easy? Should I skip it and go to Bioshock 2? Or just skip the franchise entirely? I've got about 70 unplayed games in my Steam backlog. I'm curious about the Fallout & Grand Theft Auto franchies.... I just finished my playthrough 2.5 in borderlands with my second character, and I feel like I'd rather go back to borderlands and try the Siren character rather than keep playing Bioshock. I've got over 220 hours into Borderlands now...

 

[KaOTiK]

Weird, Bioshock was actually picked on a bit for being too easy. I never had any problems playing it. Been a long time, I just remember using the lighting plasmad when things stepped in the water

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Bioshock is literally the most overrated game of all time. I'm not saying it's a bad game - it's ok. It's very, very mediocre. It averages 96% on Metacritic, which is just absurd. There is nothing remarkable about the game (except perhaps the setting/atmosphere, which is unique and interesting).

Having said that, let's get on topic. I found I died a lot during the game (medium) but in Bioshock that doesn't really qualify as making the game difficult - there is literally no drawback to dying. You don't lose your weapons, enemies stay dead, etc. It's just a slight inconvenience. However yes I would say it's more fun on easy if you're having trouble, because although dying doesn't affect the game, it's certainly a PITA.

No, you should not skip to Bioshock 2. It's even less remarkable than the first one and makes no sense story-wise. From the games you mentioned, Fallout 3 and GTA IV are both much, much more fun in my opinion (although both are huge time sinks).

 

[Nebor]

I can't fathom how Bioshock deserves a 96%. That's ridiculous.

I like the environment and I love the story, but I almost feel like I'd rather sit back and watch a movie that tells me the story of Rapture without me having to put up with frustrating, boring game play in between bits of story telling.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

I can't fathom how Bioshock deserves a 96%. That's ridiculous.

I like the environment and I love the story, but I almost feel like I'd rather sit back and watch a movie that tells me the story of Rapture without me having to put up with frustrating, boring game play in between bits of story telling.

Exactly how I feel about it. Someone should do this.

 

[zerocool84]

I can't fathom how Bioshock deserves a 96%. That's ridiculous.

I like the environment and I love the story, but I almost feel like I'd rather sit back and watch a movie that tells me the story of Rapture without me having to put up with frustrating, boring game play in between bits of story telling.

I love the art direction of the game, it really was great but gameplay sucked and having to collect tapes to get the storyline sucked because you could potentially miss a lot of the story if you missed tapes.

 

[Nebor]

I love the art direction of the game, it really was great but gameplay sucked and having to collect tapes to get the storyline sucked because you could potentially miss a lot of the story if you missed tapes.

Yeah, I've been worried about missing tapes too!

 

[Nebor]

Exactly how I feel about it. Someone should do this.

Also someone should take one of those Big Daddy drills from Bioshock and ram it up alkemyst's ass.

Though that probably wouldn't be a huge deviation from his usual activities, which I'm sure involves being drilled in the ass by someone he calls "Big Daddy." That's where he gets all his $$$ he's always bragging about.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Also someone should take one of those Big Daddy drills from Bioshock and ram it up alkemyst's ass.

Though that probably wouldn't be a huge deviation from his usual activities, which I'm sure involves being drilled in the ass by someone he calls "Big Daddy." That's where he gets all his $$$ he's always bragging about.

 

[ioni]

Different enemies are weak to different weapons. So if you use what their weak against so you don't have to use up too much ammo. For big daddies, just upgrade your wrench. Wack em with it, and when you die, just run back and wack em aagain, Repeat until dead. It's a waste of time, effort, and ammo to try to kill a big daddy any other way.

 

[NoSoup4You]

Bioshock was a great game, though the years haven't treated it well. The gameplay was actually pretty fun once you got in the habit of using the right combinations of tonics...etc. Make sure you take pictures with the camera, it makes the game infinitely easier later on. The difficulty of the enemies scales drastically as you get to the last couple missions, such that you need good planning with tonics, weapons, enemy research, and ammo type. Personnel ammo, by the end of the game, is the absolute minimum against splicers, regular ammo is just worthless by then...etc.

Phenomenal story telling in the game, collecting the tapes was fun and encouraged exploration, this is something Call of Duty could learn from. It's not like the tapes were hard to find...

The Big Daddies were a pain my first time playing the game, but the second time they were just a joke how easy they were. Wrench is good but extremely boring and feels cheap, just make sure you're taking those pictures and you'll end up with so many bonuses vs every type of enemy that you won't have trouble.

 

[Murdoc]

I've always used either the rocket launcher or the armor piecing rounds against the big daddies. IIRC it takes about five rockets to kill a big daddy. Also, it helps to find a hiding spot where the big daddy can't go and you can avoid his firing (such as in a crawlspace, under stairs, on a ledge, ect.)

What I enjoyed most about the game is the artwork and atmosphere. Oh, and lighting enemies on fire

I would try to get through the game. If you end up liking it, then play Bioshock 2. If not, then skip B2 because it's not as good.

 

[mazeroth]

I, too, have never played the Bioshock games but am a huge fan of the GTA series. I recently played through San Andreas and GTA IV again and while the graphics in IV are awesome, San Andreas has a killer plot. They're both easily in my top 10 of all time. I'd probably put San Andreas in my top 3.

So, what am I getting at? With so many games in your Steam account I would jump right into a GTA game you haven't played before anything else. Gauranteed good times.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

You don't even need ammo. Telekinesis + a corpse = a lot more corpses.

 

[Demo24]

I had this exact some problem with Bioshock. I enjoyed it but boy I sucked at it for some reason. At one point I was just completely out of supplies and nearly out of money to do so. Only way I got out of that was by dieing, running out of my 'pod' zapping them and then trying to wack them with a wrench before dieing again. Eventually I got everything killed after doing this a number of times and managed to move on. I was horrible at the game but I liked the story so I continued on and mostly enjoyed it.

 

[dust]

Nevermind the fact that I usually have to reload a quicksave at least 5 times before I successfully kill a "Big Daddy" and in the process I invariably deplete all my first aid kits and EVE syringes, meaning all the money I get from killing him just goes into repurchasing supplies...

That's exactly why I stopped playing the game. I could never understand what was the hype with it anyway. I never finished it and never missed it since also.

 

[pw38]

You don't even need ammo. Telekinesis + a corpse = a lot more corpses.

lol so true. If you know how to play the game it's incredibly easy. I agree with what someone said earlier; there should be a retelling of the story without the need to actually play the game. The atmosphere and amount of time put into it almost begs as much. Maybe some day...

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Don't worry, you're not the only one. I also just picked up both games this past week and am having trouble getting in to them. I'm not finding it hard, I'm just struggling to care when I have so many other games I could be playing.

If anything the game play is making me yearn for a modern Jedi Knight game.

That being said the atmosphere is definitely the best part, but its scripted/on rails enough that even that aspect is greatly diminished, I don't get as spooked as I normally would because I often find myself knowing there's no where else to go or anything else to do so impending death is going to get averted somehow.

 

[Nebor]

lol so true. If you know how to play the game it's incredibly easy. I agree with what someone said earlier; there should be a retelling of the story without the need to actually play the game. The atmosphere and amount of time put into it almost begs as much. Maybe some day...

Wait, did I miss the tutorial? At what point was I shown "how to play the game?" Can you just tell me? How do I play it so that it's fun?

 

[Born2bwire]

Yeah, once you get the hang of things it isn't too difficult. Taking pictures, making judicious choices of your upgrades and using a mix of weaponry is key. A great combination I found was upgrading the wrench skills, movement, and having the wrench freeze guys. That made a lot of sections easy without using ammo. With Big Daddies, you should use your specialty ammo. Start off with a proximity grenade and hit him with a rocket when he hits the grenade and then usually finish him off with lightning shells from the shotgun or armor piercing from the Thompson. Just trying to kill him with a regular weapon straight on isn't going to do the job very well.

And don't forget to reprogram the turrets, sentry bots, and cameras. Why do all that killing when you can have your mechanical friends help out?

I picked up Bioshock 2 at the sale and can't wait to get into it though this weekend I was distracted by Borderlands.

 

[Zenoth]

Play it on Easy, it won't really make the game any "less" or "more" fun, not much will change but it might help you a bit regarding difficulty, obviously. In most games changing the difficulty setting doesn't change much anyway, especially since the past few years where "death" is - like it was mentioned by someone else - nothing more than a mere inconvenience or an annoyance at worst.

I wish more games (not all, of course, it has to fit with the genre or the goal of the game) had a death system like in the STALKER games, you have one single life, you die... it's over, you have to reload to the latest saved game, and if you "forgot" to save manually and regularly prior to any death then you're losing a crap load of progress and time in the process, frustrating for some, but I loved it, a true survival experience.

And many years back, I still remember when the Mega Man games were regarded as being some of the most difficult out there exactly because if you died you'd have to start everything in the level you died in all over again, and you had to take note of the level passwords and write them on paper or something during your game's progression or else it was pretty much a waste of time to even bother playing it in the first place.

Heh... things change, and I'm not sure that it actually changes due to any "demands", I can't recall any moment in what I can remember of the video gaming timeline when gamers in general united or something and actually demanded that games become easier and that developers soften the death system and penalties... it just... I don't know, it happened, came out of the big blue and it's pretty much a standard nowadays.

 

[Nox51]

the other posters nailed it really describing it.

I always just killed everything with the crossbow, worked quite well. Plenty of arrows around and you could always make more. Tho I am biased for bow type of weapons since I play around with a bow as a hobby.

 

[xboxist]

10 years from now, Bioshock will be one of the first games that comes to mind when I think of games that left its mark on me. A lot of today's "best" games are good, but also entirely forgettable. Bioshock does not fall into that category one bit for me. I have no problem with the overwhelming praise it was given.

 

[blastingcap]

Bioshock is okay. Deserves 85/100 or so, 96 is garbage.

Easy ways to kill Big Daddies, even on Hard:

1) lure it into another Big Daddy and slime one with mind control. lure into turrets and enemies, too, but they don't last long against a Daddy. Alternatively set up a lot of electric bolts/other traps for a daddy. Like a LOT of them all next to each other.

Examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2gNzQaAwTs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkTap9cax2Q

Finish him off with whatever you have the most ammo for.

2) My personal favorite (and the reason why I save up all of my prox mines): stick 6 prox mines onto some object. If the object is itself explosive, so much the better. Pick it up with telekinesis and throw it DIRECTLY into a Big Daddy. Splash damage is good but a direct hit is better. Finish off with your weapon of choice.

Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRwK-vdFs2c

3) power up everything into Wrench and dance around the Daddy, whacking away--use electric shock as needed. Helps if you have melee upgrades, like Wrench Jockey 2, etc. If you get BloodLust then you have infinite Shock ability.

Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXdxYJCiuqw

4) electric shotgun shells + armor piercing machine gun or some other weapon you want to whack him with while he's stunned, but you need to be quick to switch. speed upgrade helps to run away while you reload your electric buckshot. you can try doing this with an electric shock plasmid too, but it can be tricky.

5) electrogel takes forever and eats amazing ammo but is virtually guaranteed to kill a daddy

6) if you are really weak and have no good upgrades, then try setting it on fire and running away, firing some shots as it chases after you around corners, etc. Shock works well too. Keep setting him on fire when it burns out. Helps if you have the speed upgrade.

In all cases, try to take a LOT of Daddy photographs once you get the camera. It gives you damage buff against whatever you photograph. Snap off some shots before, during, and after battles with everything.

 

[Mike Gayner]

10 years from now, Bioshock will be one of the first games that comes to mind when I think of games that left its mark on me. A lot of today's "best" games are good, but also entirely forgettable. Bioshock does not fall into that category one bit for me. I have no problem with the overwhelming praise it was given.

I'm guessing you're about 18 years old and haven't experienced many of the real classics.