Serious Bioshock 2 (Read 2797 times)

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If you're a fan of the original bioshock then you're really going to want to see this video:

It does contain one or two spoilers about the first one but nothing experience ruining (in my opinion)


If that doesn't show check out this page: http://uk.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/bioshock2/news.html?sid=6208179&tag=topslot;subtitle;1

I think some of the decisions they have taken here are really good. The ability to move around in flooded rooms etc makes it seem a lot more dramatic.

At the end of the video they say it is expected in Q4 2009, so in time for you to nag mum and dad for christmas.

I am most looking forward to traversing new areas of Rapture as a big daddy!
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Yeah, I looked at a previous video where it was just this big daddy walking around and then the room being flooded by this big sister I think they're called? or whatever.

It looks fun, but...


otherwise, it looks exactly like Bioshock, except you play as a Big Daddy, and there are new areas.

It looks the VERY SAME.
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aw come on guys the best part of your game was the fact it had a lot of potential plot and settingwise, why are you making basically an expansion pack :( A GOLFCOURSE IN RAPTURE fuck.

edit i like how he admits bioshock was hilariously linear and then says IN BIOSHOCK 2...JUST AS LINEAR BUT NOW YOU GO SOMEWHERE ELSE.
Last Edit: April 19, 2009, 03:38:34 am by Artis Leon Ivey Jr
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"hilariously linear"

why would you say this like LINEARITY is an intrinsically negative trait
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because bioshock was literally almost a straight line from point a to b when there hasn't been a good shooter in the past 5 years that hasn't been at LEAST like 'you can take path a... or the SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT!! path...'

there wasn't even a level of exploration for any but the mall level. you literally went from point a to b. it was a really good game but it was like riding a guided tour through rapture.

That’s right, you have the young gaming with the old(er), white people gaming with black people, men and women, Asian countries gaming with the EU, North Americans gaming with South Americans. Much like world sporting events like the Wolrd Cup, or the Olympics will bring together different nations in friendly competition, (note the recent Asian Cup; Iraq vs. Saudi Arabia, no violence there) we come together. The differences being, we are not divided by our nationalities and we do it 24-7, and on a personal level.

We are a community without borders and without colours, the spirit and diversity of the gaming community is one that should be looked up to, a spirit and diversity other groups should strive toward.
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i have no problem with a straight line from point a to point b.  perhaps you'd like to explain why the superficial illusion of choice somehow has a positive impact on a game that's trying to provide a very specific experience, though.
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i had no problem with bioshock! like i said it was a lot like riding a guided tour through rapture, but it was an incredibly immersive and atmospheric one. i have plenty of gameplay gripes about the game but i think it's probably one of my alltime favorites. i have not been able to play any survival horror games since bioshock because after bioshock they all feel horribly inadequate (except for Dead Space but - like just like Bioshock it had a single minded focus on a very specific experience)

i was just trying to explain what i thought steel meant because i had had a similar thought

however, if you want to make an argument here, i can provide a counterargument. the game was actually about choice, and this was a major theme that emerged about 2/3rds of the way through the game with the whole atlas is fontaine and WOULD YOU KINDLY twist - you could not control or effect your murder of andrew ryan but supposedly YOU'RE FREE after this event when you crack the mind control plasmid. while you could make a strong argument the theme is really THE ILLUSION OF FREE CHOICE - and it was a really good and intuitive thematic choice because it sort of brought the whole linearity thing crashing into focus as a theme itself in the game - but once you were past that it felt odd that the design mechanic remained solidly POINT A > POINT B. a weak argument yeah and one that reads entirely much into it but it has some merits

there were also specific gameplay moments which also, from a nonthematic standpoint but just a general reviewing one, really were just jarringly retro and really only didn't bog down the game because the rest of it was so good. there was an hour long sequence where you escorted a little sister literally along a floor with arrows painted into it and literally was moving forward while fending off waves of enemies that came entirely from in front of you. there was more than a few levels where it was TUNNEL > LARGE ROOM > TUNNEL > LARGE ROOM > TUNNEL and it actually didn't even really make sense as being an actual building because who builds a big office complex that has huge twists and turns but it's entirely a straight line without even locked doors on the side indicating that there was more to the city than you could access? and isn't there an argument to be made for some type of free roaming as just more immersive and fun? the success of bioshock to me was the atmosphere and i don't think it would be that hard to give the player a little more freedom and still retain a focus on the level's objectives and overall narrative. in some ways bioshock's overall game design was almost entirely similar to doom 3, it was just a better game.

i'm not knocking linearity per se but i think there is some meat to chew on there as far as criticism goes

That’s right, you have the young gaming with the old(er), white people gaming with black people, men and women, Asian countries gaming with the EU, North Americans gaming with South Americans. Much like world sporting events like the Wolrd Cup, or the Olympics will bring together different nations in friendly competition, (note the recent Asian Cup; Iraq vs. Saudi Arabia, no violence there) we come together. The differences being, we are not divided by our nationalities and we do it 24-7, and on a personal level.

We are a community without borders and without colours, the spirit and diversity of the gaming community is one that should be looked up to, a spirit and diversity other groups should strive toward.
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do you honestly think throwing a few hollow choices at the player would in any way enhance the experience of the game?  that's the problem with what you're asking for; 99% of the time it's stupid and meaningless.  you're asking for more open-ended gameplay?  really?  that always turns out so well in games like oblivion.  hell, it didn't even turn out well in bioshock.  the gameplay choices they presented you with were garbage.  you can be good or..................youcan be evil and whoaa how about that it doesn't really make much of an impact except you get one bad ending instead of another bad ending.  is this your idea of solid modern game design?  you know while i was making all these insignificant decisions that in no way impacted the game on any real level, i knew there was something missing... and now i know what.  they should've let me aimlessly wander around rapture, perhaps discovering the odd easter egg here and there as a means to reward the curious player.  yeaaaaaaaaaa

why do you need or want freedom?  is it really that interesting to you?  like do you actually feel like your gameplay experience benefits if you can CHOOSE ANOTHER WAY to get to point b?  come on, man; that shit's insulting.  choosing for the sake of choosing doesn't matter.  at all.  the choices only matter if they actually have some level of repercussion tied into them.  what you're talking about is the illusion of choice and it never adds anything real to the game.  it's just what lazy developers do when they want to trick suckers into thinking their game is open-ended and free.  it's not.  they never are!  it's half-assed and only serves to make people think they have a role in choosing how the game progresses when really all they're allowed to decide is SHOWER//SHAVE OR SHAVE//SHOWER (choose yopu destiny. . . ).  why would you want this.  there was already TOO MUCH of this in bioshock and that was arguably one of the worst parts of the game.  it's enough to make you roll your eyes and wish every game would stop trying to deliver this worthless pseudo-freedom where you're given 3 dialogue choices and all 3, aside from being stupid and GOOD/EVIL/NEUTRAL, more or less lead to the same place.

linearity, on the other hand, serves a purpose.  linearity matters when there's something incredibly specific that needs to be conveyed.  first of all, fuck the story.  the story was throwaway.  i thought the important part was actually seeing rapture.  but not just SEEING it, seeing it how they wanted you to see it.  and how you needed to see it for the game to work.  if the game gets by on its themes and what it makes you think and how you react on your journey through rapture, then what do you think is going to happen if they just let you wander all over the place doing whatever the fuck?  the narrative driving the game, the ACTUAL one behind the stupid story, was cinematic in its need to be presented in a certain way, i felt.  you can't just arbitrarily add FREEDOM TO CHOOSE because firstly, you should know by now that it doesn't actually amount to much, and secondly, it's counterproductive to what some games (bioshock included, i think) are trying to do/convey.  there's a reason there is no the grapes of wrath: choose your own adventure edition.  it just doesn't work with everything.  bioshock's linearity in how it presented and developed game was probably the thing that made it the best for me.
Last Edit: April 19, 2009, 06:00:09 am by headphonics
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that was needlessly abrasive and sarcastic but atm im writing a psych paper on how uma thurman displays characteristics of bipolar disorder in my super ex-girlfriend so you get the benefit of my bad mood.  lookin to scrap...feelin scrappy
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i agree with you that the whole SAVE..OR KILL??? little sisters thing was fundamentally meaningless and the ending of the game was probably the worst about it because the only difference between A and B was your choice of terrible end cutscene which had absolutely none of the thematic depth of the rest of the game. the only reason little sisters choice could have worked better is if it had some fundamental impact on the narrative of the game which would essentially require them to make two scripts and alter level and design choices on a very basic level for each way the game developed, and would be very hard to write effectively. GTA IV tries to do this but fails spectacularly IMO because it doesn't actually affect anything but, once again, the shitty ending since it narrows it down to just a series of A... OR B choices which start and end at the same points. if the GTAIV team, probably the absolute best game design team ever assembled in the world except for maybe the guys at Valve, can't do free choice right, then there's an argument there that it's something which isn't even close to being done exceptionally well in the current generation of games.

however i wasn't even thinking so much in terms of PLOT FREE CHOICE but yeah, walking around rapture. why does it matter whether the actual level design is linear or freeroam as long as each section begins at point a and ends at point b? i'd argue that freeroam is almost invariably better, because it gives more of a sense of scale and more options for the gameplay than linearity. plot linearity can be used very well - but my difference of opinion here isn't that it should be GRAPES OF WRATH CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE EDITION (good idea ..lemme call my publisher) because games and lit are fundamentally different mediums.

it's a gameplay, not a narrative, choice. you can still have focused objectives, great setpieces, characters, etc. in a game where you're able to wander rapture. i'm not talking GTA IV lets just wander rapture killin cops fuckin around smokin weed type free-roam. i'm saying that if you have to start from the bubble craft at dock a, and go to exit at point b, and the designers have decided you must 1) have a conversation with NPC at point C, 2) restart the power for a door at point D, 3) defeat a boss, there's no reason why the sequence of events has to be A-1-2-3-B, and not A-1-2-3-B, or even 2-A-1-3-B or whatever, and there's absolutely no reason why it should be a straight line from A to 1 to 2 to 3 to B. because it's far more interesting if you're thrown into, i don't know, RAPTURE SHOPPING DISTRICT, and you have 4 or 5 choices to progress through the level and multiple areas you can explore (some of which may even be mutually exclusive). this is the difference here, because i believe that you can accomplish this and still have the same intact narrative the whole way through without it necessarily being jarring as long as you don't slip into the 'this is the exact pattern of how every level will progress' formula. dead space did that with the 'you have two objectives on this level of the ship, so complete one, backtrack, complete the other, backtrack, board a train' thing, and far cry 2 for all of its claims of being entirely open ended had a level design structure that may as well have been Doom for how amazingly repetitive and linear it was (meet your buddy, who has the same dialogue as every other buddy; accomplish the mission; save your buddy from evil africans, end of mission, repeat).

avoiding gameplay linearity isn't something which is beyond any kind of technical limitation and has been done by lots of games at this point better than how bioshock did it; and certainly which splicers you kill in which order or which room you explore when has little effect on the narrative unless it's a plot event, in which case it should forcing you into a bottleneck to see that event anyhow.

i'm not advocating some type of fanciful DO..DO WHATEVER system; i'm just saying that a game with bioshock's level of effort into production design, etc. has no real excuse to be so linear from just a gameplay standpoint other than if they couldn't find the time to do it (which they probably could have if it was a priority from the start), but even so, i'm not DISSATISFIED with that aspect of the game if it means that it didn't try and fail horribly at it and in doing so destroy the game. my real objections are similar to yours on the illusion of moral choice thing.

there was a fascinating blog post i read that had a really interesting idea for what should have been the end of bioshock which really made me think a lot though about the whole horrible ending and CHOOSIN WHETHER TO KILL BABIES how it really failed on a fundamental level within the game. i'll just quote the part which i found really cool:

Quote
Bioshock does a superb job of putting us in that very position of pseudo-choice. We act on what we know, but what we know is fed to us by those with agendas. So we think we act freely. But how can we Randians act on what they call "rational egoism" when all knowledge is only true or false relative to a subjective being, either ourselves or others? How can rational egoists say that pursuing happiness you don't deserve is irrational when we rationalize what we deserve? Or in the case of some characters, it's rationalized for us.

The beautiful irony presented in this game is that the game itself is an objectivist work of art. Objectivists believe art is one’s perception of reality made into something real and physical so that everyone can see and participate in your conscious mind. Bioshock does just that. Ken Levine and his team have made what is their "perception" of what a place like Rapture would be like in reality, based on our own reality. Rapture, in a world with the values and people we know, ends up the way we expect. In other words, the creators of this game has made an objectivist work of art pointing out the reality that objectivism is not realistic.

The game for me was absolutely wonderful, but its ending was disappointing in how little it left to ambiguity. It departed from its discussion of the complex self-destructiveness of freedom. I would say it cheesed out, especially leaving the fate of Tenenbaum mostly unresolved. I propose a better ending.

As Atlas lies defeated before Jack, you are given a minute to choose to kill him or save him while he utters the last words "Would you kindly save me?" Failing to choose and he dies. Choosing to let him to die carries out revenge fantasies for "the good guys." Choosing to save him means doing his bidding. Which choice you consider to be truly free will always be subjective. Here, I would turn off the game, and start playing this wonderful tale all over again.

That’s right, you have the young gaming with the old(er), white people gaming with black people, men and women, Asian countries gaming with the EU, North Americans gaming with South Americans. Much like world sporting events like the Wolrd Cup, or the Olympics will bring together different nations in friendly competition, (note the recent Asian Cup; Iraq vs. Saudi Arabia, no violence there) we come together. The differences being, we are not divided by our nationalities and we do it 24-7, and on a personal level.

We are a community without borders and without colours, the spirit and diversity of the gaming community is one that should be looked up to, a spirit and diversity other groups should strive toward.
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It's weird cause the thing that I've heard my friends bitch more about backtracking rather than linearity. I don't mind linearity, level-design-wise anyway. Not every game has to be GTA.

Idk you go away for a few hours and it becomes a tldr-fest.
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look at this. you got me writin full essays about bioshock at 2:30 AM.

That’s right, you have the young gaming with the old(er), white people gaming with black people, men and women, Asian countries gaming with the EU, North Americans gaming with South Americans. Much like world sporting events like the Wolrd Cup, or the Olympics will bring together different nations in friendly competition, (note the recent Asian Cup; Iraq vs. Saudi Arabia, no violence there) we come together. The differences being, we are not divided by our nationalities and we do it 24-7, and on a personal level.

We are a community without borders and without colours, the spirit and diversity of the gaming community is one that should be looked up to, a spirit and diversity other groups should strive toward.
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all this and the only thing that REALLY bothered me about bioshock other than the shitty moral choice system was that there was literally 3 enemy types in the whole game and other than the ones that crawled on the ceiling i'm pretty sure there wasn't one that had any attack pattern but CHAAAARRRGGGEEE.

That’s right, you have the young gaming with the old(er), white people gaming with black people, men and women, Asian countries gaming with the EU, North Americans gaming with South Americans. Much like world sporting events like the Wolrd Cup, or the Olympics will bring together different nations in friendly competition, (note the recent Asian Cup; Iraq vs. Saudi Arabia, no violence there) we come together. The differences being, we are not divided by our nationalities and we do it 24-7, and on a personal level.

We are a community without borders and without colours, the spirit and diversity of the gaming community is one that should be looked up to, a spirit and diversity other groups should strive toward.
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see that fucking guy with the hoodie and suitjacket in that video fucking christ
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I think because the first Bioshock was so successful, this new team obviously are too scared to mess about with the formula too much. While I am actually a bit suprised that you play as a Big Daddy (complete with drill and rivet gun), I am kinda pissed off that you aren't in a new place. They should have said to themselves "fuck it, we told Rapture's story, it's time to change it and keep the visual style and setting fresh!" which I think could have led to a more "worthy" sequel. I also don't want to be working with NPCs... that was half the appeal of the "shock" games, how you felt so iscolated! Dayum.

Still looking forward to it, though.
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I really enjoyed the first Bioshock.  It was ridiculously easy though, because if you die, you just go back like two feet without losing anything.  You could kill a Big Daddy by beating it with your wrench if you wanted to take the time to do it.

But it was a lot of fun.  Finding new ways to kill things was always interesting.  It felt like the game let the player be creative with their kills.  Yeah, the plot was linear, but the writers wouldn't want you to do anything Ayn Rand wouldn't approve of.
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"hilariously linear"

why would you say this like LINEARITY is an intrinsically negative trait

because he makes it seem like a negative "its all to get to andrew ryan" and you expect him to be like NOT THIS TIME but instead he just says THIS TIME YOU'RE OGING SOMEWHERE ELSE.

also because the first game was actually marketed HEAVILY as being non-linear and clearly didn't do.
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whoa you dudes just had a debate over it lmao I was just referring to how he made it seem like they changed it and then clearly hadn't.

edit; for what its worth i dont think any game has done non-linearity well and didn't care that bioshock was linear as fuck. it really was just a comment on how the guy was like "well we felt one of the weaker points was how it was kind of a linear path" and then follows with "so we put you outside this time but you're still just going forward".

kind of like "our ny strip was one of our least heart healthy menu items, so we added a carrot to it"
Last Edit: April 19, 2009, 06:47:23 pm by Artis Leon Ivey Jr
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What about that guy in the video? Doesn't anyone hate him? I think Bioshock is made by some real douches.
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are you talking about the ten-year-old in tweed and glasses