Serious Bioshock 2 (Read 2797 times)

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btw treg the most important point imho:

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  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.

because I think this is the crux behind so called non-linear games that are not SimCity. I called it an illusion with panda but it's not even that because really even the most hardcore GTA fan will tell you there are missions and shit and that's the game.

the game is whatever you choose blah blah but come on does that pseudochoice really matter that much to you? lets ignore games that are even less like this but present themselves as otherwise (oh no i lost cred with Kreia guass she wont learn force lightning *has the exact same experience as every single person who will ever play the game*), I don't get how you think it's a big deal!
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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.
i'm still struggling to understand why you think this is such a big deal.  does a game being FREEROAM really have that much of an effect on how much you enjoy it?  do you really need to be able to wander?  you seem to have ignored my initial question of "why is this a good thing exactly?".  there are a lot of points that need to be made in response to this but i'm not sure how to start.

i think the biggest mistake you are making is divorcing the narrative from the gameplay.  you're viewing games in the way a lot of other people view games; as two polar experiences when in fact in some games they are just one.  yes, if you distinguish between the gameplay and the narrative, then it's alright to let the player do whatever the fuck he wants in between plot points, because one doesn't impact the other.  i could argue that it shouldn't really matter to you which order you get to kill the splicers in, because any choice you're presented with in the gameplay is illusory if all paths lead to the same door, but whatever, it doesn't really matter.  it doesn't add anything, but it doesn't take anything away either.

however, in a game where the gameplay itself is a part of the overall narrative/thematic presentation, then no, you cannot just fuck with the way the gameplay is handled and say it doesn't have any impact on the narrative as long as you still watch cutscene A at the beginning and cutscene B at the end.  i think this is a very shallow way to look at games and, while most don't really go beyond this, some do.  what you do, what you see and how events progress during the gameplay impact the narrative and once you consider this then it becomes fairly obvious why you cannot just let people do whatever the hell they want when it adds absolutely nothing, and also why i drew a literary parallel - because despite the differences in mediums, in both cases you cannot let the player/reader play a role in how the plot progresses and how it's received without having an adverse effect on the experience.  there's very obviously a GUIDING HAND in bioshock that clearly indicates that the way the gameplay is experienced and presented has an impact on the narrative.  random things happen in middle of gameplay, little bits of story are found, small remnants of the lives of people from rapture.  all of this has an impact on the tone and overall experience and it all heavily ties into the actual narrative of the game because, again, you can't actually separate the two and view them as two individual components of a game when, at least with bioshock, that's not really the case.

like i said in my first post, you see rapture how they want you to see rapture.  it's important because they're presenting it in a certain way to complement the plot.  the game feels very linear, almost as though you're on a RAIL taking, as you said, a guided tour through rapture, but it shouldn't be difficult to figure out why this is.  it wouldn't be the same if you were just able to choose wherever the hell you went for yourself, and see (and not see) what you wanted.  with that said steel's right and i have no idea whose dumb idea it was to market the game with all that FREE WILL bullshit tacked on but, in all honesty, i also have no idea why you think nonlinearity in gameplay and MORE CHOICES for nothing beyond the sake of having more choices somehow intrinsically makes a game better, despite detracting from the narrative by effectively cutting off any relationship the two would have.  how does this add anything at all to a game?  what game has the shallow, half-assed integration of open-endedness ever actually improved?  whoa i get to choose....i can do leeroy's mission first or i can do fat tony's....this definitely isnt completely meaningless and missing the point of presentation at all.  my objections aren't just about the illusion of moral choice; they're about the illusion of practical choices, as well.  i don't think i've ever encountered anyone who has so strongly desired MORE GAMEPLAY OPTIONS for seemingly no reason at all other than to have them.  why is making superficial choices so important to you that you're willing to let it be counterproductive to what the game attempts to convey?


also whoa "the absolute best game design team ever assembled in the world".  if you really played gta 4 and thought this then we probably have an odd.........but interesting moment here where i realize the metric by which you judge what is good is fundamentally different from the one i use (the right one LoL)
Last Edit: April 19, 2009, 08:18:35 pm by headphonics
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are you talking about the ten-year-old in tweed and glasses

no this douche


"Bioshock 1...Strange Animal" *squints*
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he looks like a guy who is way too old to be a paramore concert but hes there anyways with a beer in each hand.
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also whoa "the absolute best game design team ever assembled in the world".  if you really played gta 4 and thought this then we probably have an odd.........but interesting moment here where i realize the metric by which you judge what is good is fundamentally different from the one i use (the right one LoL)

okay, dumb statement/phrasing. i was framing that in terms of TECHNICAL ABILITY AND SCALE (but you're right, this is taking a very narrow/BIGGER MUST BE BETTER? approach to it - but just because it was the best team doesn't mean they made the best game). i think GTAIV was one of the largest game development teams ever assembled, and they literally did hire the best artists, programmers, and designers they could find, i'm pretty sure. they churned out probably more content than any other video game in history other than like WARCRAFT and with the exception of the stupid SPORTS MINIGAMES very little of it felt just THROWN IN for no reason. the game was exceptionally cohesive and flowed really well. i feel like GTA IV was a failure and no where close to what they portrayed the project as being in terms of quality, but as a project it's probably the most ambitious one in video game history and it's a miracle that they did so well with it in the first place and there was never a segment during the entire game that really felt like pointless filler. the main flaw for me in GTA was that, once again, they completely failed to make the CHOICES aspect actually have any kind of impact on the actual development of the narrative. it was just OOPS YOU KILLED THAT GUY? LOOKS LIKE MAYBE YOU WONT SEE HIM IN BOHAN AGAIN!! or HEY NIKO DIDNT FIND INNER PEACE BECAUSE HE KILLED THE GUY. NOW LETS ROLL THE "BAD ENDING"

 there's very obviously a GUIDING HAND in bioshock that clearly indicates that the way the gameplay is experienced and presented has an impact on the narrative.  random things happen in middle of gameplay, little bits of story are found, small remnants of the lives of people from rapture.  all of this has an impact on the tone and overall experience and it all heavily ties into the actual narrative of the game because, again, you can't actually separate the two and view them as two individual components of a game when, at least with bioshock, that's not really the case.

i think you're taking an exceptionally narrow view of this because it's not that hard to have the player be able to feel like he's experiencing less of a guided tour while still retaining these aspects. there was a mall area in rapture where you could basically accomplish most of the objectives in a random order or go from point a to point b using two or three different routes because the mall was shaped like a circle with spokes. i feel like the efforts to channel the player towards specific set pieces or have to go through specific areas etc. in this area were just as successful as the ones in other areas of the game, if not more so because there was some degree of 'this actually feels like a shopping center' that wasn't quite as present in the other areas of the game.

i know what you're trying to say and i get it, but i really don't think it's so impossible as you seem to portray it as to intrinsically involve some element of WELP LETS GIVE THE PLAYER TONS OF ARTIFICIAL CHOICES LOL. i think you are associating the type of exploration i am talking about with a big old pile of shit like OBLIVION or something where nothing is polished and they just throw tons of generic horseshit onto the game to generate MORE CONTENT whatever. that's not what i'm advocating and that is certainly not what i think bioshock should have been more like. maybe the idea that you could progress through rapture with less of an on rails feeling is antithetical to what you think bioshock was. i don't necessarily agree with that because i see no reason why these two can't be mixed on a level that enhances both the gameplay and thematic aspects of the game; furthermore, it actually devolves the experience to some degree because bioshock had PLENTY of areas that were 'this door is locked, find a key' or 'this tunnel is frozen, go down a hallway find a fire plasmid and backtrack down it to melt the ice' or even 'collect these components to the bomb... in THIS ORDER!!' moments which ideally should be avoided, or at least be given alternate ways to work around, because there's an intrinsic degree of VIDEOGAME-ness about these types of pointless gameplay tropes. this is not to say that i kept thinking UGH.....LINEAR or UGH...NEED A KEY?? during the game, because i didn't and the game was pretty good overall (i think the WOULD YOU KINDLY thing is one of the best moments in video game history), but it's just food for thought from a design aspect and i think pretty indicative of what you'll see games fifteen years down the road trying to avoid

for the record, my favorite video game of all time is still homeworld which was a level-by-level based RTS with no exploration aspect and very definite plot progression that you couldn't impact at all. i'm not saying linearity is a bad thing necessarily and it's something that can be used as a tool to focus the player's attention on very specific details, yes, but there's some degree of evolution in nonlinearity. this isn't to say it should be eliminated - half life 2 for example is really very very linear and the worst parts of the game for me were the ones where they made you run back and forth in a huge environment stopping striders - but i feel like bioshock and the whole going through rapture aspect is something that could uniquely lend itself to more of a degree of, yes, letting the player choose his course through some areas of rapture. unlike a game like HL2, or Homeworld, or GTA, or hell, Doom 3, it's a LOT more about soaking up the power and atmosphere of the environment as a way of storytelling than specific plot points or cutscenes and this is why i was slightly disappointed that the game was so linear. this is why i am slightly confused as to why you think i am arguing for some type of ARTIFICIAL CHOICEMAKING where it's path a... or path b which is not what i want at all. i feel like the experience of rapture as a real city gone to ruin and seeing the destroyed lives of all these characters, etc. - this kind of DISTILLED ESSENCE OF RAPTURE - is better captured by less of a IM ON A TRACK feeling the whole game which makes it still feel a bit more artificial, though they managed to cope with this comparatively well.

however, i'm tired of talking about this anyhow, because i recognize that you are largely right on some of these points and that i might be talking about a different kind of experience than you think bioshock attempted to convey. plus i feel like you are getting this idea that i played through rapture thinking heh... locked door? have to find a key? why not play some oblivion n00bs which is not true at all since i really enjoyed the game for what it was.
Last Edit: April 19, 2009, 09:57:37 pm by stern_gupples

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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welp

heres the part thats throwing me off

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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...'

this right here seems to imply pretty clearly that you would prefer bioshock to be like this.  whatever i've said was based off of the perception that, judging by your first post, this is what you wanted.  are you saying this isn't the case???  because it seems like you're saying that it's EXPECTED at this point that a shooter provide the player with stupid kotor-inspired nonsense and i disagree because, expected or not, i would not fault a game for including any of that.  whoa do i go to tatooine or dantooine first....decisions decisions.  but now you say that you're not saying that at all??  i'm confused.  you mentioned old-fashioned gameplay tropes but tbh i think this whole CHOOSE YA PATH thing is just another one, only slightly newer.  in fifteen years i hope to god (games.........are my life) NONE of it's still considered acceptable.

in any case, i think perhaps you're being unrealistic and i'm not sure what you're talking about.  from your initial post i assumed you were suggesting bioshock be more like other modern games, but now that you're saying you also find those other games stupid in this respect, i'm not sure what you're trying to suggest here.  can you actually think of a game you can point to and say YEAH, THAT about?  because i am having trouble thinking of ANY shooter that serves as a legitimate example of this type of gameplay and how it can positively impact the narrative.  what i put to you is that it's actually quite a bit harder to do what you're talking about than you think.  how many games can you name that have given the player freedom in the gameplay (the kind that amounted to more than generic sandbox garbage) and yet still maintained a focused and resonant plot that was complemented by the player's gameplay exploits and not just progressed by CUTSCENES independent of the actual gameplay?  this is what you're asking of bioshock.  do i agree?  possibly.  i think if you could add an open-ended experience that wouldn't negatively impact the presentation of the setting, then that would be fine, especially if it left the player free to discover the nature of the setting on his own instead of having it shown to him.

but again, how many games have done this?  while i think this is probably technically possible, i don't think it's very realistic and if we're being honest here, that's not what bioshock would've been like had they taken out the linearity.  it would've been a mess.  so i'll take the linear but focused and purposeful presentation instead of the alternative, which is 99% of the time something like oblivion or kotor.  i agree that such a type of design is probably possible and would work (although not necessarily better than any linear method; i just think it would be a different and still viable way of presenting a world, not a superior way.  i guess you could say it's taking advantage of the medium more but then that depends on your views on linearity and video games in general) but i'm not inclined to critique bioshock for being how it was because i think it was probably as good as it realistically could have been, given the STATE OF THE INDUSTRY or w/e.  initially i thought you were talking about a kind of nonlinearity that would've kind of fucked up the game and added absolutely nothing substantial, but now if i understand what you're saying more, it would've been fine (different.................but fine) but it also never would've been made and if they'd tried to, bioshock would probably have been terrible, so yeah.  i don't trust any developer to do what you're talking about, no more than i trust any developer to make an mmo that's actually good and without all the bullshit grinding.

perhapes in a perfect world. . .
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the best part is at least five people read panda's post and scowled competely on reflex because he used kotor and oblivion as examples of bad games for the very reasons they love it.

but man that shit annoys the fuck out of me too. i know you can blow up a town in fallout 3, but did that even matter as far as REAL PLOT?

lets make a game where you can accidentally shoot the main villain and then you never get to play fuck all or you do and there's just nothing really going on. openendedness for real...

snake...uh. just wait in the jungle a bit. i mean you kind of shot the boss. so.

your sister talk about me?
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but man that shit annoys the fuck out of me too. i know you can blow up a town in fallout 3, but did that even matter as far as REAL PLOT?

nope it just gave you lots of bad karma. it doesn't matter though because the engine was incapable of distinguishing HOW you got that bad karma so you might as well have stolen 100 pencils for how the NPCs respond to you

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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you can also buy 100 water bottles and give them all to a hobo one at a time and it'll raise you to the max karma no matter what you've done int he game.

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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There was one RTS game I played that did have multiple choice but the whole thing was hidden from your eyes. It'd affect the end of the game, and only show you what you did to get the ending at the end of the game. It wasn't even choose A or B it was do things this way or do things that way thing where people's perception of you change because of it.

Anyways the whole playing Big Daddy thing is turning me off, it's like HALO4: NOW YOU PLAY AS A HUNTER!!! (best example off the top of my head).
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I'll get it, and it will be good, but it won't be as good as Bioshock.  I'm more interested in whatever Ken Levine is working on next.
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introducing Jude: the gaming prophet
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I'm going to be fair, I am really interested in what Ken Levine is now working on... a System Shock 3 would be amazing. Very amazing.
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oblivion/fallout3/mass effect/kotor all annoyed me because the good/neutral/evil options were so dumb. good was ANGELIC GOOD, neutral was BATTLE HARDENED RONIN, and evil was STUPID THUG.
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although mass effect had by far the best dialogue
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and it was still barely an episode of star trek. Come on, games. Come on.

If we're talking non-linearity, Deus Ex has done it about as good as it's been done with first person games. It's still just local changes, mostly - the ones that aren't are usually kept to a throwaway line here and there like the difference between "your brother's dead!" to "hi jc it's your bro." but it made a good stab at it for the year 2000 and I haven't seen the ideas taken any further since. They've gotten worse. There is alot of cool optional stuff in that game, too - entire levels which reveal parts of the plot you never knew existed that you don't discover until about 3 plays in.

I don't know I'm just saying Deus Ex is a pretty good game.
Last Edit: April 20, 2009, 05:46:32 pm by jamie
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speaking of fallout..

http://kotaku.com/5219584/new-fallout-announced

fallout: new vegas
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what? already? an actual new game, not just an expansion?

that isnt bethesda style at all....................
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no it's just a major content pack a la shivering isles according to most of the other things i've heard about it, but unlike shivering isles it will work as a standalone.

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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no it's just a major content pack a la shivering isles according to most of the other things i've heard about it, but unlike shivering isles it will work as a standalone.
this.

bethesda are probably working on the real sequel or the next elder scrolls (i put my money on elder scrolls)