I've recently completed Bioshock. These are my thoughts on the game. There are many like it, but these ones are mine. :lol:
I'm doing this for my own benefit really, you might not like what I have to say but everyone's allowed an opinion.
It's a game i'll never forget and will keep thinking about, but not for the 'game' part of it. There are no story spoilers apart from the one you have to click to see but there are a few gameplay technique spoilers near the end.
Graphics & Art Direction
The graphics are gorgeous, everyone who has seen the game knows that. The art sty1le, particularly that of the technology is flawless. However I thought that certain levels looked generic looking with little thought put into them. Because of the advanced darkness and the level designs, I got lost quite a lot and had to repeatedly bring up the menu. Maybe it's just me but I only think that the first level and last level are the only truly stellar looking levels.
The prevalent architecture and design in Rapture is 'art deco' which is strange because it's a 1920s fashion, not a mid 1940s one. The residents must have thought it retro and/or dated. Still, a city under the sea must've taken at least 50 years to build, maybe it was ahead of its time when they started building :lol:
The human characters don't look very good in my opinion. Granted the splicers are meant to look deformed, but there's only 3 or 4 designs to them and they all look like the Phantom of the Opera. Even regular humans look freakish with bulbous heads, dead eyes and no chins and ridiculous haircuts. It's what I imagine the Simpsons would look like in 3D if they gave them a slightly more realistic sty1e. It's obviously just the sty1le they were going with but I didn't like it. The excellent radio message drawings then, look nothing like the in-game characters.
Voice Acting & Sound Design
I found the voice acting to be extremely strong and very memorable.The cast puts in an excellent performance and even sound like they come from the 1940s without hamming it up with the 'fast talking - high trousers' shtick. The little sister is very funny and quotable. The splicers sound truly deranged and even have quotes when they kill you, even area specific ones. I did notice that one of those was an extreme spoiler for the rest of the game, something that must be a bug. Don't click this unless you want extreme spoilitude: [spoiler] Far before that part of the plot is revealed, if you get killed, one of the splicers remarks 'I would have expected far more from Fontaine's thug!' I thought he said son but that's a falsehood unless you take in various other factors like the fact that Fontaine considers Jack like a son. [/spoiler]
The sound design did a very good job of making the game creepy and atmospheric. I was playing the game in stereo with headphones however and the direction of voices and sound-effects was completely wrong, I don't know if that was meant to be unsettling or whether it was a bug with the PC version. I'd say bug because if you start shooting a tommy-gun or if a security bot does so, all you hear is intermittent shots and complete silence. I thought the flying security bot was the star of the show though, extremely well designed and his chirping and buzzing noises are adorable. It reminded me of the little floating YES/NO Bit in Tron and many other floating sidekick robots.
Story
I thought the whole back-story and universe writing was fantastic, as was the dialogue. HOWEVER, the plot of the game itself I found to be extremely derivative, obvious and disappointing. The last boss in particular was cringe-worthy, I've seen that plot-point in so many movies it's not funny. There must have been something right about it though because I did want to see it through to the end, at least until the end when I decided it was a waste of time. One massive plot-point near the end lazily accounts for the [spoiler] big plot holes and lousy, unavoidable judgement calls [/spoiler] your character makes. It only serves to make the game an even more linear experience. I won't discuss the story further as that's for you to discover if you haven't already.
Gameplay
This game made me tut and sigh more than any game i've ever played. The game isn't easy, it's just that there's no challenge. It's a distinction where the enemies will have a ridiculous amount of health and will rush you and do a horrendous amount of damage, but it's alright, you'll teleport back with no loss and any damage they sustain is kept. This means that I just got steadily got more frustrated while at the same time still making steady progress. The weapons seemed to be there for decoration mostly. What can you do with a gang of unrelenting, stupid yet super strong enemies that shrug off being on fire and being hit by a hail of bullets? Paralyse them and hit them repeatedly in the head with the only powerful weapon you have, the wrench. I found from the middle of the game that the Big Daddies were the easiest enemy, because they were the enemy I was saving my rocket launcher for. I found that Half Life 2 and Knights of the Old Republic have done tactical fights and use of super powers much better than Bioshock.
I found that as cute as they are, the flying bots weren't worth hacking. Firstly they do no damage to the enemies. Secondly as you can't deactivate them and pick them up (you can force pull things and set them on fire, but you can't pick things up) they always get stuck and can't go anywhere with you. At the same time, you have to hack every first aid station you see, because the splicers will run away from you faster than you can run and completely replenish their health if you don't. The puzzles on the hacking never change and just become more and more of a chore.
The game is extremely linear and relatively short (although standard length for a first person shooter, which is something it's pretending not to be). Anybody that says there are 'out of the way' locations to explore is using the guiding arrow. They're not out of the way, they're not very big and often quite boring. They pretty much always offer nothing more than ammo for your useless guns. The only redeeming feature is that occasionally you might come across a tape recorder although the choicest ones are on the main route.
I think re-playability is practically none as you can easily do everything in the game the first time around. I say this playing the PC version, there's obviously more compulsion to play again if you want all the achievement points (which I hear are punishing because you have to do some of them in a single play-through.)
Conclusion
I think Jeff was well within his right to give the game a 9. I would give it an 8, purely because of the atmosphere, voice acting, memorable characters and production value. I think the ridiculously high scores* all the other reviewers give it would only be valid if you've never seen a sci-fi movie or played an action game or RPG before.
*because we all know that the scale between a 9 and a 10 is exponential.
U1 Blog
User soapbox - does it actually mean anything anymore?
by U1 on Comments
I've noticed recently that there is a new User Soapbox entry every 2 hours or so now. While people like Dannyodwyer or Carolynmichelle spend hours writing great content, others get onto the soapbox writing a paragraph on a demo they've just played or the merits of burgers vs pizzas.
This means that good content gets almost immediately bumped off of the 3 on the front page within a matter of an hour or so. It's pretty much a fact that everybody stops reading and commenting after a soapbox article gets bumped off the top 3. I no longer see the point of spending a long time researching and writing anything decent nor bothering to mark anything as an editorial if you decide to do so anyway.
I'll offer to edit [choose] the editorials, if anybody in charge is reading this. :lol: Or at least the front page ones. Or they should change the front page to the three newest ones AND three FEATURED editorials that are say the best of the week.
Wet..
by U1 on Comments
I really wanted to leave this alone but...
Sierra are producing a game for the PS3 and 360 called Wet.
Wet.
It's got a female protagonist and it's called Wet.
I've heard the sequel is tentatively titled Baps. But let's take a look at her:
Not too bad actually, at least she's not top heavy but the jacket is questionable. Do you guys have maltesers in the USA? She's got two guns on hip holsters, but it's okay, they're revolvers and they're holstered backwards for some bandita cross arm drawing action. She's also got a sword. Hedging their bets.She's got a feather cut from Toni & Guy like Juliette Lewis and she has tats. Asian tats! She's got to have attitude. And a Harley. She's got combat pants, but her name is NOT Jade. It's Ruby.
Could turn out to be a good game though, that I can't judge.
Sierra are producing a game for the PS3 and 360 called Wet.
Wet.
It's got a female protagonist and it's called Wet.
I've heard the sequel is tentatively titled Baps. But let's take a look at her:
Not too bad actually, at least she's not top heavy but the jacket is questionable. Do you guys have maltesers in the USA? She's got two guns on hip holsters, but it's okay, they're revolvers and they're holstered backwards for some bandita cross arm drawing action. She's also got a sword. Hedging their bets.She's got a feather cut from Toni & Guy like Juliette Lewis and she has tats. Asian tats! She's got to have attitude. And a Harley. She's got combat pants, but her name is NOT Jade. It's Ruby.
Could turn out to be a good game though, that I can't judge.
Sheng Long
by U1 on Comments
My new rank on Gamespot is Sheng Long. Sheng Long is Mandarin for "rising dragon". When Ryu in Street Fighter 2 says "You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance" he actually means You must defeat my Rising Dragon Punch [shoryuken] to stand a chance." This was a mistranslation in the arcade version of the game from Japanese to English.
The fact that Sheng Long in that context seems like a Chinese name led to speculation that someone called Sheng Long was Ryu's master. The martial arts master of Ryu, Ken and Dan was Gouken, who is only seen once in the games, in Akuma's ending in Street Fighter Alpha. He was killed by M. Bison during a raid on his dojo, which is the reason Ryu and Ken join the tournament, seeking revenge.
My beautiful face! Blonde Tom Cruise is defeated by Brunette Tom Cruise.
The fact that Sheng Long in that context seems like a Chinese name led to speculation that someone called Sheng Long was Ryu's master. The martial arts master of Ryu, Ken and Dan was Gouken, who is only seen once in the games, in Akuma's ending in Street Fighter Alpha. He was killed by M. Bison during a raid on his dojo, which is the reason Ryu and Ken join the tournament, seeking revenge.
My beautiful face! Blonde Tom Cruise is defeated by Brunette Tom Cruise.
Bioshock: Left out of the fun
by U1 on Comments
This entry is pretty much for my benefit, to put my feelings in order about Bioshock, after wanting to play it for so long. I've downloaded the Bioshock demo. Another 2 gig demo, but one that took foreverdue to everyone wanting to download it too.
I've been dying to play this game, as it looked like a successor to Half Life 2. I'm not usually
a FPS fan but Half Life 2 managed to be more of a 'You are in control of this person in a desperate situation and you can do whatever you can think of to get out of it.' game, much more engaging than the 'cowboys and indians' that most other FPSes are.
So, the demo... it started me off with the settings on high and I was full of hope as it looked fantastic, with the fire and the water, but as soon as I got to land I knew something was wrong. I couldn't control the guy properly, the mouse i'd move the mouse and the guy would move a fraction of a second afterwards, and the screen would be all choppy. In the menus too, the mouse would lag a lot. Medium settings, bit better... low settings... getting there, putting the resolution down to the lowest I could800 and something by something (widescreen). Okay, now it controlled with the fluidity of Half Life 2. Yet, this didnt look like Half Life 2, I couldn't read the menus, all the lighting and fire had gone and it looked like a Playstation game. So it looks like I can play, but only just, to the point where I need a new PC to play it properly. I was pretty shocked seeing as I can play Flight Simulator X, Medieval 2, Company of Heroes and Half Life 2 (being the only PC games I own apart from oldschool point and clicks) with full
settings. As i've preordered the game, I might have to set it aside or even cancel it for now.
Onto what I thought of the actual demo. If you've not played the demo or the game yet but want to, don't read any further as there's some spoilers. Still here? I think it has exquisite art direction and the sound design is amazing. I loved the little in-joke before you get into the submarine in the lighthouse, there's a musak version of Beyond The Sea (La Mer) by Charles Trenet playing in the background. Also, the little joke with the sign on the docking station that begins with 'All Good Things' as in 'All good things must come to an end', giving a sense of forshadowing.
I didn't like the fact that there's pockets of darkness everywhere, making it very hard to know where you're going. But in the words of Spongebob, "This is not your average, everyday darkness.... This is... ADVANCED darkness.". Not even having lights on nearby or having your frigging hand on fire stops these bits from being dark. It just seemed very awkward to navigate these bits and really put me off.
I also didn't like how what is potentially a catalyst for the entire rest of the game was taken so lightly and thoughtlessly. Oh, here's a cabinet with a massive syringe in it, let's take it and stick it in my arm without any dialogue, thinking of the consequences or being in any desperate need to do so. The plasmid switching is also annoying, does he have to stick that needle in his arm every time you switch between 'magic' and 'melee'? Not only is it long and distracting, it also takes away from the impact and becomes a bit of a farce. Especially when you're encouraged to do the 'old one two' on every enemy you meet. You've got two hands, right? The left for the foreplay and the right for the justice. Why not have both hands out at the same time? The guns didn't feel... like guns. I can only compare this to HL 2 but when you shot things it was more like a remote control firing a pingpong ball rather than a revolver shooting a bullet.
The health bar, which is eemingly unlimited and how many bars I have is marked by a number, if I munch on enough snacks from the bar and use enough medical kits in the toilet, my health bar is six times longer than normal? Invincinble via potato chips!
I'm sure all that negative stuff is more than balanced out by everything else in the full game, but with how my computer can't take the game on anything but low and my bad experience with the demo, I'm going to have to miss out on the fun until I can play the game properly and give the full game a fair chance.
I've been dying to play this game, as it looked like a successor to Half Life 2. I'm not usually
a FPS fan but Half Life 2 managed to be more of a 'You are in control of this person in a desperate situation and you can do whatever you can think of to get out of it.' game, much more engaging than the 'cowboys and indians' that most other FPSes are.
So, the demo... it started me off with the settings on high and I was full of hope as it looked fantastic, with the fire and the water, but as soon as I got to land I knew something was wrong. I couldn't control the guy properly, the mouse i'd move the mouse and the guy would move a fraction of a second afterwards, and the screen would be all choppy. In the menus too, the mouse would lag a lot. Medium settings, bit better... low settings... getting there, putting the resolution down to the lowest I could800 and something by something (widescreen). Okay, now it controlled with the fluidity of Half Life 2. Yet, this didnt look like Half Life 2, I couldn't read the menus, all the lighting and fire had gone and it looked like a Playstation game. So it looks like I can play, but only just, to the point where I need a new PC to play it properly. I was pretty shocked seeing as I can play Flight Simulator X, Medieval 2, Company of Heroes and Half Life 2 (being the only PC games I own apart from oldschool point and clicks) with full
settings. As i've preordered the game, I might have to set it aside or even cancel it for now.
Onto what I thought of the actual demo. If you've not played the demo or the game yet but want to, don't read any further as there's some spoilers. Still here? I think it has exquisite art direction and the sound design is amazing. I loved the little in-joke before you get into the submarine in the lighthouse, there's a musak version of Beyond The Sea (La Mer) by Charles Trenet playing in the background. Also, the little joke with the sign on the docking station that begins with 'All Good Things' as in 'All good things must come to an end', giving a sense of forshadowing.
I didn't like the fact that there's pockets of darkness everywhere, making it very hard to know where you're going. But in the words of Spongebob, "This is not your average, everyday darkness.... This is... ADVANCED darkness.". Not even having lights on nearby or having your frigging hand on fire stops these bits from being dark. It just seemed very awkward to navigate these bits and really put me off.
I also didn't like how what is potentially a catalyst for the entire rest of the game was taken so lightly and thoughtlessly. Oh, here's a cabinet with a massive syringe in it, let's take it and stick it in my arm without any dialogue, thinking of the consequences or being in any desperate need to do so. The plasmid switching is also annoying, does he have to stick that needle in his arm every time you switch between 'magic' and 'melee'? Not only is it long and distracting, it also takes away from the impact and becomes a bit of a farce. Especially when you're encouraged to do the 'old one two' on every enemy you meet. You've got two hands, right? The left for the foreplay and the right for the justice. Why not have both hands out at the same time? The guns didn't feel... like guns. I can only compare this to HL 2 but when you shot things it was more like a remote control firing a pingpong ball rather than a revolver shooting a bullet.
The health bar, which is eemingly unlimited and how many bars I have is marked by a number, if I munch on enough snacks from the bar and use enough medical kits in the toilet, my health bar is six times longer than normal? Invincinble via potato chips!
I'm sure all that negative stuff is more than balanced out by everything else in the full game, but with how my computer can't take the game on anything but low and my bad experience with the demo, I'm going to have to miss out on the fun until I can play the game properly and give the full game a fair chance.
Forget Photoshop, Microsoft presents the next generation of 'digital artistry'.
by U1 on Comments
[video=I3VilWH55b8PsjHa]
Amazing! I can't wait 'til the double eraser patch.
Amazing! I can't wait 'til the double eraser patch.
When Is A Patch Not A Patch?
by U1 on Comments
When it's 620 megabytes! That's the size of the current Medieval 2 patch.
I'm terrible at all sorts of strategy, tactics, teamwork. You can beat me at cards, Chess, Othello, Mahjong, Nine Men's Morris, any videogame that involves these disciplines. I wanted to get better so I'm currently reading Sun Tzu's Art of War and I bought Medieval II Total War after trying out the demo. Apparently I need the new patch, and it's six hundred and twenty megabytes. That's a whole disc worth. That's bigger than most other people's games. Medieval 2 comes on 2 dvds so ultimately I'm not suprised. I've only just got used to game demos being 2 gigabytes! My bandwidth is killing me.
Divide and conquer.... with some kind of download manager
I'm terrible at all sorts of strategy, tactics, teamwork. You can beat me at cards, Chess, Othello, Mahjong, Nine Men's Morris, any videogame that involves these disciplines. I wanted to get better so I'm currently reading Sun Tzu's Art of War and I bought Medieval II Total War after trying out the demo. Apparently I need the new patch, and it's six hundred and twenty megabytes. That's a whole disc worth. That's bigger than most other people's games. Medieval 2 comes on 2 dvds so ultimately I'm not suprised. I've only just got used to game demos being 2 gigabytes! My bandwidth is killing me.
Divide and conquer.... with some kind of download manager
Videogame Music Quiz test
by U1 on Comments
Hello friends, this is a test for a videogame music quiz I am making. I will release a much bigger quiz as an Editorial soon.
I have been recording my own versions of videogame themes, tracks and riffs. They are usually recorded with instruments that are more suited to the game than the original, or totally different either to add challenge or in a vain attempt to be creative. :)
There's lots of songs I won't use due to bands like Minibosses having done them already.
I currently have two problems, protected hosting and a simple way of the user being able to play the audio. At the moment I can only find hosting that allows you to download the audio clips as mp3s, directly onto the computer. It's not very practical and doesn't protect the music, which isn't in any way attributable to me except in mp3 tags.
Another potential problem is how to get the quiz marked. As I'm limited to this blog screen and its limited HTML, there are only two options, giving the answers as spoilers or getting people to PM their answers and then I collate it all. Both are low tech but at least the spoilers route means no extra work for me. So here goes, only 2 for the test, many more in the final thing.
Question 1. Which Videogame theme is this? I want the game series and the name of the piece.
Answer: [spoiler] Ocarina of Time - Epona's Theme. I recorded this on a real ocarina. :) [/spoiler]
Question 2. To which trilogy does this theme belong?
Answer: [spoiler] Halo Main Theme. Arranged for the NES. 4 channels is quite limiting. [/spoiler]
What do you think? Did you get them right?
I have been recording my own versions of videogame themes, tracks and riffs. They are usually recorded with instruments that are more suited to the game than the original, or totally different either to add challenge or in a vain attempt to be creative. :)
There's lots of songs I won't use due to bands like Minibosses having done them already.
I currently have two problems, protected hosting and a simple way of the user being able to play the audio. At the moment I can only find hosting that allows you to download the audio clips as mp3s, directly onto the computer. It's not very practical and doesn't protect the music, which isn't in any way attributable to me except in mp3 tags.
Another potential problem is how to get the quiz marked. As I'm limited to this blog screen and its limited HTML, there are only two options, giving the answers as spoilers or getting people to PM their answers and then I collate it all. Both are low tech but at least the spoilers route means no extra work for me. So here goes, only 2 for the test, many more in the final thing.
Question 1. Which Videogame theme is this? I want the game series and the name of the piece.
Answer: [spoiler] Ocarina of Time - Epona's Theme. I recorded this on a real ocarina. :) [/spoiler]
Question 2. To which trilogy does this theme belong?
Answer: [spoiler] Halo Main Theme. Arranged for the NES. 4 channels is quite limiting. [/spoiler]
What do you think? Did you get them right?
Imagine Disturbing Messages in Ubisoft Games
by U1 on Comments
I just saw that three new games are coming out for the DS from Ubisoft via Kotaku (warning, explicit language) and Yuko. Click the pictures for bigger.
Imagine Fashion Designer
Imagine Happy Cooking
Sure, fine, those aren't any worse than any other games marketed at little girls. Fashion design, cool, as long as the game is about being creative and successful and not about bullying girls into eating disorders. ;) Being a cook or a chef, equally valid, an essential life skill for anyone. They do seem a bit stilted though, and the cooking one kind of takes on a meaning you didn't think they implied until you see this game.
Imagine Babies
Oh, it's the 21st century and these games are pushing towards some bizarre ancient stereotype of little girls growing up to be some kind of demure 50s housewife. A babycare game for little girls seems more than a little wrong and quite irresponsible. If it's for adults which I doubt, they've got the cover wrong and there would be much better books and websites for advice. If Ubisoft Marketing are that patronising, plumbing misguided stereotypes AND want to give out wrong messages to children, couldn't they have been a bit more creative, like the titles i've just made?
Imagine A Whore In Bed
Imagine... omfg Kittens & Domestic Violence!
Imagine If You Don't Eat, Everyone Will Love You
Couldn't it just be Imagine A Successful Career First Then Babies When You're Ready? ;p Or just anything a little more aspirational and empowered while pandering to the perceived demographic? Stuff like this makes you realise just how positive Nintendo's ethic is with games are that are geared for everyone.
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