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Slightly Disappointed With BioShock

Shacklebolt

Shacklebolt

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 2, 2004
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(Keep in mind, I'm only saying "slightly" here).

I wouldn't say my expectations for BioShock were huge - in fact, I hadn't even heard of it until a week before its release (not paying too close attention to the Gaming World these days). But it has quite a high score on MetaCritic, not to mention the glowing approval of some MacRumors users (not to be confused with MacRumorUser).

I think that the overall interactability of the enviornment in the Rapture is absolutely incredible. Almost everything you see you can move, punch, or alter in some way. I thought that Resistance was cool, because, though I'm a bigger fan of GoW, I felt Resistance's environment could be intereacted with more easily. Resistance doesn't hold a candle to BioShock.

However, it's the story of BioShock that I have been disappointed with. This isn't to say it's bad... I just haven't found it incredible, and I'd like to think I'm a good ways into it (just got to the Farmer's Market level, if that's any indication). So anyway, I don't think the story's bad - just, after the rave reviews - which said, ostensibly, that BioShock was a FPS with a great story - I don't think it's the best thing since sliced bread either. So far, BioShock reminds me of a new-and-much-improved F.E.A.R.

Anyone disagree?
 
I find the method of storytelling via recorded messages (which itself encourages exploration, to uncover even more story threads) to be phenomenal. The voice acting is pretty uniformly superb, and the manner in which the thoughts of the characters gradually shift is extremely well-paced. I just finished the Farmer's Market and the following section of the game yesterday, and I've got to admit to being impressed by the ways in which these characters psyches (Ryan and Tenenbaum, to be sure) are gradually opened up to you as the player. It adds layers to the proceedings.

Much of the storytelling is also implied - I like that I'm sometimes forced to use my imagination or draw my own conclusions when given several seemingly unrelated plot elements are presented.

Then again, YMMV.
 
I haven't picked up the game yet, but I will say (for the nth time to the nth degree) that I'm really disappointed that the game has no multiplayer or co-op component. Maybe I've grown spoiled by all the other top or middle tier shooters that all have multi/co-op, but...I'm still disappointed that there's none in Bioshock.

Then again, I felt the same way about Black but I loved that game in the end so...*shrug* ;)
 
zero2dash said:
I'm really disappointed that the game has no multiplayer or co-op component.
Click to expand...

Yeah, likewise. That's my favorite part about Gears - Co-Op mode wasn't just included, but could be included in such a way that was actually integral to the plot.
 
zero2dash said:
I haven't picked up the game yet, but I will say (for the nth time to the nth degree) that I'm really disappointed that the game has no multiplayer or co-op component. Maybe I've grown spoiled by all the other top or middle tier shooters that all have multi/co-op, but...I'm still disappointed that there's none in Bioshock.

Then again, I felt the same way about Black but I loved that game in the end so...*shrug* ;)
Click to expand...

Seeing as one of the underlying themes of Bioshock is the decay and isolation, I'd say that co-op would undermine the experience considerably.
 
IMO, the only two places that Bioshock is lacking (and don't forget, I love this game) are the fact that not everything can be used as a melee weapon (kinda like condemned) and the lack of online play. With those two additions the game would've been perfect, but without these two, it is just amazing. :D
 
my disappointment with Bioshock lies in the combat...it's kinda boring. I mean you can go all out and use plasmids and such but why bother when I can just blow a guy away with a shotgun? If the game had a more RPG like way to customize your character, so you can make a guy who basically relies on plasmids it might have made it more in depth.

Still a great game though :)
 
sikkinixx said:
my disappointment with Bioshock lies in the combat...it's kinda boring.
Click to expand...

Exactly....I really wanted to love this game but it gets freaking boring fast. There are a lot of stuff I love about the game but the fact that I can't play it for more than half an hour is saying something.

The stroy on the other hand is top notch and I dont see another released game that matches it yet for the year....but the combat is just a snooze fest.



Bless
 
I'm still going to play Bio, but even the step down that is SS2 never left me feeling bored. I couldn't stop playing the first Shock and it's all I thought about for the weeks it took me to complete it. SS2 had my interest for the few days, enough to want to complete it.

The first Shock offered full on cyber upgrades to customize your hacker, which required constant power management. Batteries were just as sparse as ammo in the game.

Blah.

<]=)
 
DUMBED DOWN CONSOLE TO PC PORT!!! :mad: :( :( :(


This was on SlashDot and it's the first review I've read where as the person had also played System Shock, not just SS2, or even worse was a Shock-NOOB that's gaming experience stems from the PS1 era. :eek:

Frankly it wasn't over-hyped to me. I mean, yeah, there was a lot of hype, but for me the game was sold as soon as it was announced. I was a huge fan of System Shock when it was first released and while I had issues with System Shock 2 initially it was a really great game as well. Deus Ex just continued the winning streak for this loose group of games. Bioshock, though, is where they dropped the ball.

First off is the fact that it all feels dumbed down for a console audience looking for fast, simple gameplay with a few nods to complexity and story thrown in. There's no inventory so everything is just thrown up on your screen like any other shooter. No stats, because everything is handled through the plasmids. In fact, just about everything that would normally be mapped to a sub-screen is now handled in a very limited fashion by wall-mounted consoles (e.g. gun upgrades, plasmids, invention, etc.).

The game is far more linear and yes, the Vita-Chambers do make it too easy. From a console/FPS point of view getting back in the action might be desired, but this isn't a deathmatch here. Dying should feel like it has some consequence. SS and SS2 both had regen machines, but they never felt cheap or easy because there was only one per level and you had to go out and find it and activate it first. As a result dying was a concern. Until you activated the regen there was real tension and once you did, it meant that you weren't totally out of it and back to your last save, but you'd still have to trek across the entire level through hordes of enemies and with very little ammunition. Not just pop out of the chamber and go back to shooting the same enemy.

It's not a terrible game. The graphics are pretty (albeit, on a PC running at Maximum settings, not that much better than what we've gotten used to in recent years) and the setting and theme are novel and interesting even though the art direction seems to have stolen a page from Fallout more often than not. It's just that it was heavily hyped and arrived to glowing reviews when really it's more of a 7/10 sort of game. It's a low point for the series where they tried to transition into a simpler console audience and treated the PC version as the port rather than the other way around. I guess if this is the first game in the series you've ever played it might seem great, but if you've been along since the start then you'll know that it's just no match for it's deeper forebears.
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http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/12/1532229

Another series that has fallen victim to simple thumb-twiddling generation. :( I will still play it though, just grumble as usual.

<]=)
 
JackAxe said:
DUMBED DOWN CONSOLE TO PC PORT!!! :mad: :( :( :(


This was on SlashDot and it's the first review I've read where as the person had also played System Shock, not just SS2, or even worse was a Shock-NOOB that's gaming experience stems from the PS1 era. :eek:



http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/12/1532229

Another series that has fallen victim to simple thumb-twiddling generation. :( I will still play it though, just grumble as usual.

<]=)
Click to expand...

I just finished Bioshock, the game is really fun but I agree with you that it has been infected with console-itis, a real shame though, had this game been a PC exclusive it would probably have been an instant GOTY.

The game is hella easy, Vita-Chambers ruin the story and the immersion, you can enable a little arrow that tells where to go (thankfully you can disable it) and every item on the game world is highlighted for you to plainly see it and use it, there are very little (well no actually) situations that force the player to make decisions, even if you rescue the sisters you still get more ADAM than you can handle, if you harvest... well you can pretty much clean out gatherer's gardens. In other words, Bioshock holds your hand all the way through and never lets go which isn't exactly a bad thing always.

I think the problem with Bioshock is that you get too much ADAM and you can't really specialize on something because you'll have money for anything and everything and you'll be a jack of all trades. And then enemies, their behavior is interesting but they are not very interesting to fight simply because they are too easy and if you DO die you'll just come back :rolleyes: the only challenging fights are Big Daddies, splicers become a nuisance late game and are only interesting when you mess around with the "sandbox" combat.

All that negativity being said, the game is still incredibly good. The story is great but not mind-blowing but there is so much detail crammed in every corner of the world and it really comes alive with all the diaries you can find. The combat is really fun, sure there are no incentive to actually use something else other than the most powerful weapons and plasmids but when you are not playing to advance the storyline playing "sandbox" style can be extremely fun.

The graphics are good (but again, they suffer because of console-itis too), the music is excellent and the exploration is entertaining and rewarding, I still think the game is a must-buy but it IS overrated and I hate that it stinks of console-itis all over it but oh well. In a perfect world Bioshock would be exclusive to PC and the 360 wouldn't have so many damn dumbed down shooters.
 
I second that, PC only for games like BioShock and also Mass Effect, unless the console can handle it like a PC on all fronts.

I hope if you haven't played the first two Shocks, you'll go back and play them. :)

<]=)
 
console TARDS!!! :D
console TARDS!!! :D
console TARDS!!! :D

SS2 was easier than SS for me, so comments about Bio being even easier by many fold has me a bit miffed, but I know I'll enjoy the game. :)

<]=)
 
Chone said:
The game is hella easy, Vita-Chambers ruin the story and the immersion
Click to expand...

Expanding on that, while reading the review in Game Informer, I noticed they said that when you respawn at a Vita-Chamber, all the damage you have inflicted on enemies stays despite you dying and respawning...which is the uttermost retarded thing I've ever seen.

I then thought to myself: You mean to tell me if I've taken 95% of a Big Daddy's health and then I kick the bucket, when I respawn I can continue where I left off and have full health, then just inflict 5% more damage and the Big Daddy is dead? WTF? How retarded is that...:rolleyes:

Wow, this is unprecedented! I cannot imagine how stupidly simple every game would be if it had this feature! :rolleyes: What were they thinking??? Lame...

I hate to say this but it's almost like they left some things unpolished and non-balanced when they were finishing up the visual touches in this game. The few gripes that I've heard are surprising on some levels. It's almost like they laid the game's foundation and had it almost finished - just in need of some tweaking. Then they started playing around with the visuals and making the game more pretty and they forgot all about those other problems. (no multiplayer, VC making it easy, no reason to use special powers over weapons)

Dare I say it but did the visual look and first few hours of this game (where the surface wasn't scratched) earn this game the scores it received and that's it? I have to wonder if those reviewers came back AFTER they finished the game and offered a post-game review score, what it would get then. I'm not saying Bioshock is a bad game by any means, but it seems like the negatives don't appear at first and the game gives people a false sense of perfection.

[Then again maybe I'm just playing devil's advocate. :D]
 
zero2dash said:
I then thought to myself: You mean to tell me if I've taken 95% of a Big Daddy's health and then I kick the bucket, when I respawn I can continue where I left off and have full health, then just inflict 5% more damage and the Big Daddy is dead? WTF? How retarded is that...:rolleyes:

Wow, this is unprecedented! I cannot imagine how stupidly simple every game would be if it had this feature! :rolleyes: What were they thinking??? Lame...
Click to expand...

No it doesnt work like that from what I've played. On Normal...

If you get the Big Daddy down to low health what happens is - he's still there, but the Little Sister has gone... sneaky.

Meaning you kill him, but there's no reward other than a few bullets he is carrying.

A new big daddy and little sister will enter the environment shortly after and you had better have gone and got more ammo and killed a few of the other splicers the game add's to give you 'just enough' of a chance to get some $$

The game is very balanced to me it seems, it's amazing how generally it's the ones who havent played it yet are the ones criticising ;). I think they call it 'game envy' ;)
 
Any game with the word Shock in its title brings envy upon me. :p

The thing Bio has going for it, is that I've already been let down by SS2 and its stuuuUUUuuuupid unbalance and unrefined additions, so I'm going into this newer Shock with a much lower expectations knowing that compared to its predecessors, it has been thumbed down. :)

console TARDS! :D

<]=)
 
MacRumorUser said:
No it doesnt work like that from what I've played. On Normal...

If you get the Big Daddy down to low health what happens is - he's still there, but the Little Sister has gone... sneaky.

Meaning you kill him, but there's no reward other than a few bullets he is carrying.

A new big daddy and little sister will enter the environment shortly after and you had better have gone and got more ammo and killed a few of the other splicers the game add's to give you 'just enough' of a chance to get some $$

The game is very balanced to me it seems, it's amazing how generally it's the ones who havent played it yet are the ones criticising ;). I think they call it 'game envy' ;)
Click to expand...

At low health they do tend to go and put the Little Sister back into the wall, I've noticed.
 
sikkinixx said:
my disappointment with Bioshock lies in the combat...it's kinda boring. I mean you can go all out and use plasmids and such but why bother when I can just blow a guy away with a shotgun? If the game had a more RPG like way to customize your character, so you can make a guy who basically relies on plasmids it might have made it more in depth.

Still a great game though :)
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Cos if you just blow everyone away with a shotgun you'll run out of the limited ammo you find. Although I don't know what it's like on the easier settings :p
 
It way better of a story than any of those lame storys in the Devil may cry games and those games that people love in other countries.
 
sikkinixx said:
my disappointment with Bioshock lies in the combat...it's kinda boring. I mean you can go all out and use plasmids and such but why bother when I can just blow a guy away with a shotgun? If the game had a more RPG like way to customize your character, so you can make a guy who basically relies on plasmids it might have made it more in depth.

Still a great game though :)
Click to expand...

All I every did in a Mario game was jump around all the time.
 
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