june gloom on 20/12/2010 at 05:42

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hahahaha i knew someone would jump on that

Okay, since what I said is pretty inflammatory even for me, allow me to explain, because if you'd asked me 3 years ago if I thought it was a better game than SS2 I would've laughed at you then peed in your mouth.

I spent a long time being angry at Bioshock 1 for not living up to SS2's standards.

But in the past year I've come to the conclusion that Bioshock was a better game.

I mean, they're essentially the same game, anyway, Bioshock is just SS2 Lite, but that's not a bad thing at all. The game is much more streamlined, which keeps the flow going. SS2 had a lot of stuff that broke the flow, such as inventory Tetris and the whole "research" thing. I don't mind playing with inventories, but inventory Tetris is bullshit and SS2 was one of the worst examples. I don’t want to fiddle around rearranging my stuff just so I have enough squares in an arbitrary shape to pick up a weapon, that’s not anywhere near fun. As for research... okay, the camera was a bit of a pain to use, but at least you weren't forced to just drop what you were doing and go find some chemical that was in only one storeroom on a deck you hadn't visited in hours, and that's after you sifted through the supplies listing for each store room. Having to go back to the chemical storage room, just so you can do a little extra damage to enemies that typically die in a few shots anyway, comes off as pointless. Most of the arguments against the Vita-Chambers (which I personally had no use for, but then I never used the SS2 equivalent either) were not only increasingly unhinged (my favourite was someone droning on and on about how they could just respawn and die repeatedly while hitting a big daddy with a wrench until it died and that meant the game had no challenge) but utterly moot when the turn-Vita Chambers-off option came in the patch.

The other thing is that the plot and setting are more original- I'm not saying SS2's plot and setting are bad, but they're pretty standard sci-horror. Ooh, spooky spaceship full of monsters! SHODAN may be a central part of the plot, but she feels like a bit character in her own game. She doesn't actually reveal herself until halfway through the game and has nothing of her original menace because she's been reduced to little more than a voice with an internet connection- her sudden turnaround can be seen from miles away. Maybe this wouldn't mean so much to someone who's not played SS1 but it sure meant something to me.

Bioshock's writing, much like SS2's, degenerates a bit towards the end, but a lot of that has to do with a few poor decisions such as the endings you get being wholly dependent on a hamfisted gameplay mechanic. But if you can get past that, what you get is something I've always found rather incredible- a game touching on a subject that simply does not get discussed in gaming in favour of Michael Bay explosions and the same old cliches and tropes over and over again. Anyone who thinks Bioshock's story is unoriginal or falls flat or whatever should call me back once games start building themselves around a pointed critique of objectivism on a regular basis.

While I agree with the general consensus that Bioshock had too much in the way of combat, and I never liked how they changed the lighting from the moody look it was in the E3 2006 vid to something a little brighter, at the end of the day some of the promises made like the ecology thing were just too much to live up to (if Rapture were much more open it would have been different) and we just have to accept that. They’re neat ideas, sure, but some neat ideas are best shelved for later for a game that can more easily handle it.

SS2′s main problem, I think, is that it was better at breaking new ground than it was at holding it. Bioshock is essentially a retread of SS2, but what it and SS2 have in common, IMO Bioshock does somewhat better. (A major exception being the audiologs, most of which do not do very much to create a believable world like SS2′s did, because there’s simply too many of the “main characters” blathering on about whatever and not enough fluff side-arcs. Bioshock 2 was a little better in this regard.)

Bioshock was a slick polished shooter, sure, but its own idiosyncrasies did not, as a rule, do any serious damage to the atmosphere, immersion or experience for me. And, back in the day, the same was true for System Shock 2. The point I’m trying to make is that System Shock 2 simply no longer holds up as well as it used to, and I say this as someone who was angry with Bioshock for a good 2 years. My views on the two games have only recently changed, and while I fully accept there’s a lot of stodgy old farts out there who reject Bioshock because it’s not exactly like System Shock 2, I submit that that is not a bad thing.

T-Smith on 20/12/2010 at 06:07

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And here I thought I was the only one one on TTLG that preferred the halls of Rapture to the corridors of the Van Braun.

Angel Dust on 20/12/2010 at 09:35

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In no particular order:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat - After the misstep of Clear Sky, GSC got back on track with this game: the tightest and most polished Zone experience yet. They still can't tell a story to save themselves but GSC managed to fix a lot of the issues with the previous games, throw some cool new ideas into the mix and come very close to realising the potential that has always lurked at the heart of the these games.

Super Meat Boy - Bloody hard and delightfully bloody indie platformer. The kind of, for want of a better comparison, South Park-esque tone of the whole thing, which isn't quite to my taste, prevents me from falling in love with it and some occasionally laggy control issues are almost unforgivable. Still it's an expertly designed game, with tons of levels/challenges/characters to unlock if you're that way inclined. I have, however, had to accept that I'll never, ever be able to finish the damn thing.:o

Enslaved: Odyssey to the West - The kind of popcorn entertainment that Hollywood has been incapable of making for years now. There is nothing astonishing original about it, although it has to be said that this is one of the most colourful, post-apocalyptic settings I've seen in recent years, but it takes an old* story and makes it exciting and compelling by populating it with likeable, interesting characters. Monkey and Trip on the surface seem to be the usual gruff hero and damsel in distress archetypes but thanks to some sharp writing and an uncommon attention to detail in their characterisations (aided by some excellent facial animation) they become something more. The gameplay is nothing spectacular, following that auto-platforming style of the 2008 Prince of Perisa reboot, but it is fun if you're in the mood just to kick back and play something undemanding while following the story and as I played this after finishing Dragon Age and Call of Pripyat I was in the perfect head space for it.
*neat plot twist aside

Bioshock 2: dethtoll is completely wrong: Bioshock was not a better game than System Shock 2, it was a different game but one that hadn't quite figured out what exactly that was and was hesitant to commit to any of its changes. Bioshock 2, on the other hand, embraces and expands on those differences and is a far better game for it. As everyone has already pointed out, the combat was much improved but there were other improvements too. The underwater sections, while a bit naff from a gameplay perspective, added some much needed pacing (something the original almost completely lacked) and the glimpses of the infrastructure did much to sell Rapture as a vast underwater city, while the less linear level design with an increase in off the beaten path nooks and crannies brought a little bit of exploration into the mix

Its great strength and weakness would be the narrative. There is some uncomfortable shoehorning of backstory in the opening sections, Lamb is certainly no Ryan, and it manages to be even more heavy-handed and simplistic in it's philosophising than Bioshock. However while the story is less intriguing than the first game, it contains an emotional core that that game lacked. Characters feel more like people(Grace Holloway) rather than mouthpieces for a particular thematic arc and are allowed to grow and surprise you(Sinclair). While there is no moment like the Ryan confrontation the themes of paternal influence were well handled and had real resonance*

Overall Bioshock 2 was the surprise of the year for me and has got me interested in Infinite. It's just a damn shame that the latter games existence means that Bioshock 2 is going to be forgotten.

*my having recently become a father may have made my more receptive to them :p

VVVVVV - The second brutally hard precision indie platformer in my list. You could argue that Super Meat Boy is the better game but it is the adventures of Captain Viridian that have wormed its way into a special place in my heart. At its heart you have a simple yet clever and challenging platformer but throw in the retro aesthetic, the surprisingly endearing characters and story, the fucking fantastic music and you have one charmer of a game.

Every Day The Same Dream - This little browser game, with its striking minimalist visual style and great looping tune, hit me at a perfect time. I was a couple of months into a pretty dull piece of on site contract work and needless to say was particularly receptive to this games themes of alienating and dehumanizing effect of the working life. The ending is a bit obtuse but I like that I can say that one of the most moving gaming experiences of 2010 involved patting a cow in my underwear :p

Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Any horror game that makes me lose my shit so completely that I run blindly around in a dark dungeon, getting completely lost in the process or be eternally grateful that there is a wardrobe in hide in when a monster comes knocking, is doing something very right. I found this almost unplayably scary at times and it's only let down by some stagey voice acting on the main characters part (the villain's theatrical hamming is great in kind of the same way that Constantine's was) and a story that never quite comes together in a satisfying way. None of those quibbles matter at all in the the final analysis though because it's great to finally have a game that gets that Lovecraftian brand of oh-shit-what-ever-you-do-don't-look-behind-you-just-run! horror down and doesn't ball it up halfway through by giving you guns.

Still to play: Mass Effect 2, Alpha Protocol (I've played a couple of hours of this and love it so far), Red Dead Redemption


I fail to see how Bioshock's originality or use of objectivism* precludes it from having a story that ultimately, falls flat. There is no getting around the fact that the 3rd act of the game throws away all that was intriguing (Ryan & the meta-narrative stuff) in favour of a tired, scenery chewing baddie and increasingly ridiculous and contrived plot developments. I'm not saying that Bioshock doesn't deserve points for its originality and attempts at tackling difficult material, nor that there weren't many great moments in that first 2/3 of the narrative, but it doesn't deserve a free pass either just because 95% of the rest of game plots are pretty dire.

*which I found to little more than window dressing anyway. I mean since Bioshock's criticism of objectivism effectively boils down to 'extreme ideologies are bad' and 'people are hypocrites' rather than anything unique to objectivism itself, means that they could have plopped in pretty much any old philosophy or ideology in there and it would have worked much the same way. In fact the theme might have been better served if they tackled a less overtly repellent philosophy. It would have been more difficult sure, as Bioshock 2 showed with its clumsy attempt with altruism, but what was Levine's intended message (I think he said as much in interviews) would have had more of an impact.

june gloom on 21/12/2010 at 04:39

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Just finished up Rome, all I've got is Taipei and, if this guide is anything to go by, a final segment, then I'm done.

icemann on 21/12/2010 at 12:29

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1. Mass Effect 2 (pc)
2. Fallout: New Vegas (pc)
3. Starcraft 2 (pc)
4. Demon Souls (ps3)
5. Bioshock 2 (pc)

I've not been playing alot of newer games this year.