Is Bioshock really that good?

Just wondering if the game is really that gosh darn good

What do you mean by "that good"? Some say it's the coolest FPS ever, others say it's crap... My opinion is that it is good enough for every FPS fan, worths it's moneh :)

Good enough for the price tag? hhhheeeeeelllllll yes. Amazing game.

its one of those fps games where there is nice creapy story and great gameplay !

if you love horror/survivor fps you should love bioshock its the one of the best games i ever played !

Just wondering if the game is really that gosh darn good

slamminjammin69

I don't know about gosh darn good, but its good.

*Waits for the SS2 fans to come marching in with the orchestra and pom pom girls*

As an action game with weapons customisation, a unique visual ****and a mature, beautifully written story, its a terrific game.

C'mon in boys! Criticism on this forum is often ladened at the story being an exact copy: the twist in particular. What the SS2 fans forget is that SS2 was not the first to use that twist.

SPOILERS. Thief: TDP was.

That twist aside: I hardly view the story in its entirety as a copy, esp. considering that it was written by the same person and also if you say that the characters are the same then you are missing the bigger picture

Archetypes are generic, yes. But its the greater themes of the story that are developed from these archetypes that matters. If we complained about archetypes being the same then Indiana Jones would be the same as James Bond: the indestructible hero. No one is going to make that judgment. You need to look at the greater sum of its parts: and SS2 did not feature a supposed abortion, an illegitimate child, the guilt of transforming small children into monsters, questions of political ideologies, and Randism. Rapture itself, holds a rich history.

To say that BS is a copy of SS2's story is to forget about the method of appropriation entirely as well. If this were the case then the Lion King would be a copy of Hamlet. Forget about it! And to say that the setting is the same as well leaves a complete disregard for the foundations of Dystopian Fiction: these conventions were established well before SS2 obviously and are entitled to be used by other games, such as the failed Utopia.

The games narrative is also buoyed through its intertextual references to literature, not just the Randism stuff as well I should add!!

Mind you: the same people who complain about BS are the ones that don't criticise Crysis' story, purely because its a FPS and they supposedly don't have decent stories: this one does!

The combat copes a lot of flak too: I find it hard to judge a lot of those things like how powerful the guns are etc. But what does it matter if you use them in conjunction with the powers anyway? Just my two cents. I'm not saying its a perfect game, but I found it to be accessible and ultimately a lot of fun.

Bojangles criticised the game for lacking in atmosphere purely because if its lack of scares. There are few games to me that capture the era of the 1940s through the art direction as well as this title and to me that gives it a different sense of atmosphere as opposed to frights. That and also Fort Frolic which is just bloody creepy lol :P

Boring, mediocre, soulless, broken and pretentious.

[QUOTE="slamminjammin69"]

Just wondering if the game is really that gosh darn good

GPAddict

I don't know about gosh darn good, but its good.

Gee willikers, at least it's darn good.

No

Each to their own but i loved it 8)

Just wondering if the game is really that gosh darn good

slamminjammin69

One of the most overrated games EVER. I thought it sucked hard.

Mind you: the same people who complain about BS are the ones that don't criticise Crysis' story, purely because its a FPS and they supposedly don't have decent stories: this one does!

biggest_loser

When people say it's a shooter with lame action, fans are like, no, it's an RPG! When you point out the RPG elements are purely cosmetic, no, it's a shooter!

Funny thing is that BioShock was hyped as Shooter 2.0 and then...

...we have taken the RPG system and made it much deeper and more accessible than System Shock 2. RPG design technology has come a long way since then. We've learned a lot of lessons from making game systems that are deep and complex, but also making them accessible. That's really important too. We've added a ton of new systems that weren't in a game like System Shock 2. By the way, this is not a dumbed down experience by any means.

You really have a grudge against Crysis' story :lol:

Are you aware of Ken Levine's claims about how he'll innovate the genre? Please take your time and read through IGN's interviews from before the game's release.

So much win.

Also read about His Amazing Storytelling Innovation, the dialogues with other characters (that was in 2006 rofl) and all the other crap he lied about. Can you imagine what a fan of his previous work, hyped because of his lies, felt when he discovered BioShock is just a shadow of much better games? A mess of ideas put there just, well, because? There's no coherency in what the characters say, it's only random thoughts about random things that go nowhere. I'm not sure if mentioning "stuff" and adding ? at the end of the rambling qualifies as good story. Making so many pointless literary references make it seem like that pretentious idiot from highschool that mentions The Cure and Bulgakov in the same sentence every 15 minutes and is very proud of it.

It's the equivalent of arthouse moviemaking: put two people in front of the camera and film them while they talk about crap. People start wondering if there's any meaning behind all this and voila, you'll get prizes!

On the other hand, it introduced me to Ayn Rand, and I quite enjoy her books.

Yes it's good.Not amazing but i enjoyed it,the story is relevant to today's society and the pitfalls that come with it.Course it's no system shock but a good game none the less,can have boring phases but there are not alot of them.

[QUOTE="biggest_loser"]

Mind you: the same people who complain about BS are the ones that don't criticise Crysis' story, purely because its a FPS and they supposedly don't have decent stories: this one does!

Baranga

When people say it's a shooter with lame action, fans are like, no, it's an RPG! When you point out the RPG elements are purely cosmetic, no, it's a shooter!

Funny thing is that BioShock was hyped as Shooter 2.0 and then...

...we have taken the RPG system and made it much deeper and more accessible than System Shock 2. RPG design technology has come a long way since then. We've learned a lot of lessons from making game systems that are deep and complex, but also making them accessible. That's really important too. We've added a ton of new systems that weren't in a game like System Shock 2. By the way, this is not a dumbed down experience by any means.

You really have a grudge against Crysis' story :lol:

Are you aware of Ken Levine's claims about how he'll innovate the genre? Please take your time and read through IGN's interviews from before the game's release.

So much win.

Also read about His Amazing Storytelling Innovation, the dialogues with other characters (that was in 2006 rofl) and all the other crap he lied about. Can you imagine what a fan of his previous work, hyped because of his lies, felt when he discovered BioShock is just a shadow of much better games? A mess of ideas put there just, well, because? There's no coherency in what the characters say, it's only random thoughts about random things that go nowhere. I'm not sure if mentioning "stuff" and adding ? at the end of the rambling qualifies as good story. Making so many pointless literary references make it seem like that pretentious idiot from highschool that mentions The Cure and Bulgakov in the same sentence every 15 minutes and is very proud of it.

It's the equivalent of arthouse moviemaking: put two people in front of the camera and film them while they talk about crap. People start wondering if there's any meaning behind all this and voila, you'll get prizes!

On the other hand, it introduced me to Ayn Rand, and I quite enjoy her books.

Bioshock is EXACTLY like any other FPS made since Doom 1998

Zero innovation or new gameplay with the usual predictable path a to b trial and error gameplay

So no, not at all - gameplay wise it belongs in the dark ages

Depends on the person really.. I found it really boring and never got round to finnishing it because of that. It is more like an interactive movie and not so much a game (mainly because you CANNOT die).

Just wondering if the game is really that gosh darn good

slamminjammin69

Yes

The atmosphere and story were good, but the combat was....chunky?...Chunky is a good word to describe the gun play.

The game is average...Not the best but surely overrated

Yeah, it's a good game. It's worth a buy.

*Waits for the SS2 fans to come marching in with the orchestra and pom pom girls*

biggest_loser

*leads pom pom girls into thread* :)

I think the setting of Bioshock was well done. The sound effects and atmosphere always kept you on your toes. At it's core, however, the game is just another shooter. The game did not raise the bar of fps games, or revolutionize the genre as some of the pre-release press hype seemed to imply.

[QUOTE="biggest_loser"]

Mind you: the same people who complain about BS are the ones that don't criticise Crysis' story, purely because its a FPS and they supposedly don't have decent stories: this one does!

Baranga

When people say it's a shooter with lame action, fans are like, no, it's an RPG! When you point out the RPG elements are purely cosmetic, no, it's a shooter!

Funny thing is that BioShock was hyped as Shooter 2.0 and then...

...we have taken the RPG system and made it much deeper and more accessible than System Shock 2. RPG design technology has come a long way since then. We've learned a lot of lessons from making game systems that are deep and complex, but also making them accessible. That's really important too. We've added a ton of new systems that weren't in a game like System Shock 2. By the way, this is not a dumbed down experience by any means.

You really have a grudge against Crysis' story :lol:

Are you aware of Ken Levine's claims about how he'll innovate the genre? Please take your time and read through IGN's interviews from before the game's release.

So much win.

Also read about His Amazing Storytelling Innovation, the dialogues with other characters (that was in 2006 rofl) and all the other crap he lied about. Can you imagine what a fan of his previous work, hyped because of his lies, felt when he discovered BioShock is just a shadow of much better games? A mess of ideas put there just, well, because? There's no coherency in what the characters say, it's only random thoughts about random things that go nowhere. I'm not sure if mentioning "stuff" and adding ? at the end of the rambling qualifies as good story. Making so many pointless literary references make it seem like that pretentious idiot from highschool that mentions The Cure and Bulgakov in the same sentence every 15 minutes and is very proud of it.

It's the equivalent of arthouse moviemaking: put two people in front of the camera and film them while they talk about crap. People start wondering if there's any meaning behind all this and voila, you'll get prizes!

On the other hand, it introduced me to Ayn Rand, and I quite enjoy her books.

Well to be honest: I didn't follow the hype and all these interviews etc. I just took the game for what it was when it came out. Taking it as an action game it is not just Doom. There are multiple ways to attack situations and to improvise, similar to Crysis. Its not Shooter 2.0 but its fun.

And I don't agree that the characters just say stuff. The references are not pointless at all. They have drawn from the sources I've mentioned to create this story and a narrative. Its not just them mentioning a text as you suggest but they are highly integral.

The Ayn Rand stuff is the entire basis for Rapture - they created it themselves and they wanted to maintain it without government help. Thats not pointless. Thats establishing the setting for the entire game. Same deal with the New American Adam stuff I mentioned.

On Crysis: i just don't understand how people can be so critical of Bioshocks narrative and yet they don't grill Crysis which has one of the crummiest narratives and set of characters for a major FPS - the rest of the game is great, but if BS's story is "stolen" from SS2 then Crysis is a knock-off of Predator and its not even well written!!

I didn't follow the hype and all these interviews etc. I just took the game for what it was when it came out.

biggest_loser

^Agreed. If Levine was being arrogant pre-release it's a slight against Levine, not Bioshock.

I personally thought that Bioshock was a pretty good game. It had awesome narrative, characters, setting and atmosphere. The crappy combat and last third brought it down.

[QUOTE="biggest_loser"]

I didn't follow the hype and all these interviews etc. I just took the game for what it was when it came out.

MrWednesday14

^Agreed. If Levine was being arrogant pre-release it's a slight against Levine, not Bioshock.

I personally thought that Bioshock was a pretty good game. It had awesome narrative, characters, setting and atmosphere. The crappy combat and last third brought it down.

I didn't follow the interviews/previews, they usually lead to unrealistic expectations being built around the game then dissapointment when you play it.

I took Bioshock for what it was, and i still can't believe they got away with some of the things they did. And guess what? I'm in no way a SS2 fan. I tried playing it after Bioshock, but couldn't get into it because of the lack of instruction. Vita chambers. Ok, if there are only a couple per level, that makes sense, you don't have to redo large part of the game, its about the experience, right? Well, if you have a vita chamber every 40 feet, it kind of makes all the character/weapon upgrades kind of pointless.

While the game had a number of pretty spectacular set piece moments, most of the gameplay boiled down to killing wackos, and the combat was terrible, hacking, or wandering around looking for loot. The game looked good, but I personally thought the crazy, new-years-eve party theme was a bit much. Honestly, the only thing two things the game has going for it are story and visuals. And the visuals arent even that good, another Unreal Engine 3 affair. And if all you want out of a game is a good story, go watch a movie or read a book, games are supposed to be about the Gameplay, if a game has a great story it can sure make the game a lot better, but if it has lousy gameplay, the good story means nothing. Bioshock was a slog where i played just to get from setpiece to setpiece through the linear, repetative corridors.

[QUOTE="biggest_loser"]

I didn't follow the hype and all these interviews etc. I just took the game for what it was when it came out.

MrWednesday14

^Agreed. If Levine was being arrogant pre-release it's a slight against Levine, not Bioshock.

I personally thought that Bioshock was a pretty good game. It had awesome narrative, characters, setting and atmosphere. The crappy combat and last third brought it down.

exactly my thoughts but i still really enjoyed it on the first playthrough

I watched my friend play it and I honestly thought it was kind of boring. To me, it is overrated, but that's just my opinion.get-ka12

Have you ever watched an RPG that wasn't boring? You gotta play it yourself to get the enjoyment out of it.

I didn't care for it much, combat was too iffy.

[QUOTE="MrWednesday14"]

[QUOTE="biggest_loser"]

I didn't follow the hype and all these interviews etc. I just took the game for what it was when it came out.

with_teeth26

^Agreed. If Levine was being arrogant pre-release it's a slight against Levine, not Bioshock.

I personally thought that Bioshock was a pretty good game. It had awesome narrative, characters, setting and atmosphere. The crappy combat and last third brought it down.

I didn't follow the interviews/previews, they usually lead to unrealistic expectations being built around the game then dissapointment when you play it.

I took Bioshock for what it was, and i still can't believe they got away with some of the things they did. And guess what? I'm in no way a SS2 fan. I tried playing it after Bioshock, but couldn't get into it because of the lack of instruction. Vita chambers. Ok, if there are only a couple per level, that makes sense, you don't have to redo large part of the game, its about the experience, right? Well, if you have a vita chamber every 40 feet, it kind of makes all the character/weapon upgrades kind of pointless.

While the game had a number of pretty spectacular set piece moments, most of the gameplay boiled down to killing wackos, and the combat was terrible, hacking, or wandering around looking for loot. The game looked good, but I personally thought the crazy, new-years-eve party theme was a bit much. Honestly, the only thing two things the game has going for it are story and visuals. And the visuals arent even that good, another Unreal Engine 3 affair. And if all you want out of a game is a good story, go watch a movie or read a book, games are supposed to be about the Gameplay, if a game has a great story it can sure make the game a lot better, but if it has lousy gameplay, the good story means nothing. Bioshock was a slog where i played just to get from setpiece to setpiece through the linear, repetative corridors.

I beg to differ about the visuals: it is not a standard Unreal 3 affair. It captures its period like few other games and some of those water effects are just breathtaking.

Yes it is, the atmosphere alone makes it worth the buy. Though the majority on here would tell you its overrated and mediocre. The combat could have been alot deeper if u ask me, but its still a very fun FPS. Dante2710

I beg to differ about the visuals: it is not a standard Unreal 3 affair. It captures its period like few other games and some of those water effects are just breathtaking.

biggest_loser

[QUOTE="Dante2710"]Yes it is, the atmosphere alone makes it worth the buy. Though the majority on here would tell you its overrated and mediocre. The combat could have been alot deeper if u ask me, but its still a very fun FPS. biggest_loser

yeah, you can play the game for a while

[QUOTE="biggest_loser"]

I beg to differ about the visuals: it is not a standard Unreal 3 affair. It captures its period like few other games and some of those water effects are just breathtaking.

kieranb2000

You thought this looked bad?

Compared to what? Crysis? And thats obviously not even in motion. I had to do a double take to realise it wasn't a cutscene.

All in the eye of the beholder I guess.

My 2 cents...

How the hell could anyone enjoy it? It was slow and felt like a console shooter. Alright, thats the gameplay. Now lets get the story! Holy **** this game is messed up. The first boss you fight is cutting a girl up and wondering why she is not beautiful. Then he screams, "WHY CANT I MAKE THESE THINGS BEAUTIFUL" *lighting strikes* You see bodies strung up all the over the walls (naked?). Then he proceeds to stab the the STILL LIVING girl multiple times as she squirms helplessly.

WTF!

Yeah, that was my reaction. I quit playing after this. Regret every second I wasted on this disgusting game.

My 2 cents...

How the hell could anyone enjoy it? It was slow and felt like a console shooter. Alright, thats the gameplay. Now lets get the story! Holy **** this game is messed up. The first boss you fight is cutting a girl up and wondering why she is not beautiful. Then he screams, "WHY CANT I MAKE THESE THINGS BEAUTIFUL" *lighting strikes* You see bodies strung up all the over the walls (naked?). Then he proceeds to stab the the STILL LIVING girl multiple times as she squirms helplessly.

WTF!

Yeah, that was my reaction. I quit playing after this. Regret every second I wasted on this disgusting game.

SgtMoreless

It's a very mediocre game but it has excellent presentation (graphics, sound, story).

Holy **** this game is messed up. The first boss you fight is cutting a girl up and wondering why she is not beautiful. Then he screams, "WHY CANT I MAKE THESE THINGS BEAUTIFUL" *lighting strikes* You see bodies strung up all the over the walls (naked?). Then he proceeds to stab the the STILL LIVING girl multiple times as she squirms helplessly.

WTF!

Yeah, that was my reaction. I quit playing after this. Regret every second I wasted on this disgusting game.

SgtMoreless

You make it sound much more awesome than it is!

Then he screams, "WHY CANT I MAKE THESE THINGS BEAUTIFUL" *lighting strikes*

:lol:

[QUOTE="SgtMoreless"]

My 2 cents...

How the hell could anyone enjoy it? It was slow and felt like a console shooter. Alright, thats the gameplay. Now lets get the story! Holy **** this game is messed up. The first boss you fight is cutting a girl up and wondering why she is not beautiful. Then he screams, "WHY CANT I MAKE THESE THINGS BEAUTIFUL" *lighting strikes* You see bodies strung up all the over the walls (naked?). Then he proceeds to stab the the STILL LIVING girl multiple times as she squirms helplessly.

WTF!

Yeah, that was my reaction. I quit playing after this. Regret every second I wasted on this disgusting game.

biggest_loser

I own both. Have not played hl2 (shut up...lol) and I have played the whole way through Return to castle wolfenstien and the newest release. And nothing comes close to this.

There is just something about chained up woman being cut and stabbed that turned me away from this game.