[QUOTE="Zeviander"] ...have you played System Shock 2? If you have, I don't know how you can ignore such blatant parallels.jethrovegas
There are countless parallels, again, in terms of the schematic, or gameplay floorplan. I could list a thousand different things in terms of levels design solely; sentry turrets, cameras, vending machines, it's all there in one way or another, not to mention the presentation of environment over interaction, audio logs, etc. With that I agree. And the game is shallower, yes, no one would debate that, I don't think. I could also argue that BioShock's combat is significantly distinct in a way not derived from the scraps of its predecessor, focusing more on flexibility and experimentation, that is, as an action game, not a survival experience (light wine bottle with Incinerate, pick up with Telekinesis, throw, murder burning victim with tonic enhanced pipe wrench, etc.), but I don't feel the need to get into all that.
The point I'm making is that the story, in every way, outside maybe of basic structure (an arrival into a strange and f*cked up place, listen to this dude on the comms who later betrays) is wholly distinct and original. The parallel of Atlas' revealed as Fontaine and Polito as SHODAN is one minor note in the full orchestration and hardly the crux of the twist to begin with, which was more about commenting on the FPS genre and horrifying the player with knowledge of their chracter's sordid origin (Fort Frolic club sequence much?).
BioShock surpassed its relatively simple core plot with a plethora of interesting ideas and relations between them; all of those others elements, the commentary on Rand especially, was clearing groundbreaking in video games, in any medium really; there has never been a satire like BioShock, there's nothing else like it, in literature, film, whatever. That SS2 and BioShock share some devices of plot and structure means little beside the original vision that BioShock lays on the table.
agree
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