Topic: The Official BioShock thread.

[scottws]

Maybe the shader in DX10 is more efficient and the devs used the texture in DX9 to use system resources for other graphical goodness?  Just a guess, I have no idea.

[Quemaqua]

WARNING - the following is a discussion about intimate plot details and contains basically every spoiler it could possibly contain:

Street Lights as Fairgrounds: Strangely About Fate.

Well worth a read.  For all its efforts at trying to say something interesting (and it certainly does), I think what it comes down to is that no  matter how much your design document reads about player choice, you're still making a game, and you've still got limited resources to do it.  There's only so much that can be done with limited time, money, people, and technology, especially in a fast-paced market that refuses to stand still for you on any level whatsoever.  Because of this, BioShock simply could never be the exercise in player choice that it truly wanted to be, instead having to make several lackluster choices to necessitate its completeness, it's END as a story and a game.

Still, it's a great read.  I continue to assert that the game was just as fun after the big revelation as it was before it, but this is because I realize that a game can only provide choice and freedom to a certain degree, particularly where moral choices, character mindset, and overall outcome are concerned.

So yeah, give it a read and discuss.  We could use more game journalism like this.  Somebody should give the man a medal.

[Cobra951]

That was definitely a good read.  He analyzed the game to a degree I had not even considered.  I disagree about the up-front clarity of the moral choice.

[spoiler]It's impossible to know so early on who is being forthright, and who--as Fontaine would put it--is playing you for a sucker.  Words of choice on the screen may not be absolute, but may themselves be a deception, such as the picture of Atlas before his true identity is revealed.  They may not be real in the absolute sense at all.  After watching so many movies and playing so many games with 180-degree plot twists, I don't trust simple up-front choices, and neither should any other media veteran.[/spoiler]

I found his commentary on art educational.  He makes some excellent points.  He uses Bioshock's approach up to a certain point as an example of how an interactive experience may fit a rigidly defined mold of what is art.

[spoiler]"Would you kindly?"  As part of the author's control, you the player follow this directive unsuspectingly, unquestioningly.  Your conditioning to follow directions in a videogame is used against you in the same way that brainwashing was used to implant it in your character's mind.  Then your weakness, as a player and as the game's protagonist, is thrown in your face, mocking you, humiliating you, and enraging you.  The artist has imposed his artistic vision on you, and your active participation was required for that to happen.  Choice is an illusion.  Brilliant.  It's too bad the rest of the game doesn't come close to this level of revelation, not that I'm complaining about how much fun I had with it, once I knew how to play it.[/spoiler]

Thanks for the link.  Never would have found it on my own.

[Pugnate]

I bought the game a couple of days ago. Haven't gotten around to it yet. Don't have a lot of time these days, but will find some for this baby.

[MysterD]

Still, it's a great read.  I continue to assert that the game was just as fun after the big revelation as it was before it, but this is because I realize that a game can only provide choice and freedom to a certain degree, particularly where moral choices, character mindset, and overall outcome are concerned.

I agree -- b/c if there is to really be a sequel to Bioshock, the designers are gonna' have to basically "pick an ending" as the "True" Ending of the game, so they can set-up one exact point where Bioshock 2 begins -- especially since you have a "Good" And "Evil" ending here in Bioshock, in which I'm guessing the two endings will probably conflict w/ each other. So, they'll probably pick one ending from Bioshock 1 to actually begin Bioshock 2, if they want the same lead character to return.

Now, on another hand, Deus Ex 2 did a very interesting thing -- they decided that ALL THREE ENDINGS HAPPENED from Deus Ex 1, which is VERY interesting, indeed; since there's no real moral choices of a conflicting good and bad in any of the game's endings, by the player. All THREE endings are basically a "bunch of events that occurred," designed in such that none of them would conflict w/ each other. It wasn't a point where say if Ending A occurred, Ending B can't. It was Ending A, B, or C could all happen -- possibly, even altogether. So, Ion Storm never really had to decide "which ending occurred." They took them all. Quite genius, if you ask me.

Now, I come back to STALKER -- b/c for an action game, there's 7 different endings, in total. This one  game has 2 different branching directions you can go in, right near the very end of the game. There's a branching point, where the game shoots off in two directions, namely. It's up to you, to decide which way to go -- both, which are different and lead to a different set of endings.

STALKER Spoilers Of "The Two Branching Pathways"
[spoiler]Now, one road will actually lead to a final battle, while the other will avoid a final battle completely so that the game will just end w/out any combat.[/spoiler]

Now, depending on which road of the two roads you chose, if you did (or didn't do) certain particular quests in the game, AND what some stats of your character actually are, you can get a different ending.

After The Big Twist In Bioshock Spoilers....
[spoiler]After the big twist, I wanted to destroy everything -- which was pretty much what I was doing, as I kept Harvesting Little Sisters the whole way through!

With Andrew Ryan dead, who really didn't want to live anymore, it only seemed natural to not want Fontaine to take over Rapture, either. I wanted to destroy Fontaine. I wanted to destroy Rapture, too. Andrew Ryan's Rapture was dead to me, as long as he was. And well, that's pretty much the path the game leads you on, so no complaints there....

Though, what really would've been interesting -- is at the end, you could decide to become a Big Daddy so you could go after Fontaine OR you could also somehow and some way decide to not become a Big Daddy but you could find some other way out of Rapture to avoid Fontaine completely.[/spoiler]

So yeah, give it a read and discuss.  We could use more game journalism like this.  Somebody should give the man a medal.

Hell of a read -- I agree w/ that.

Regardless of what people think of Bioshock, it's a great action game -- one of the best, w/ an outstanding story. That's what it is, from start to finish, more so than anything -- an action game w/ a hell of a story.

[Quemaqua]

And while this doesn't so much relate to the current discussion, I'd just like to say that I'm having emotional difficulty with my 2nd run through the game.

Sort-of spoilers (nothing terribly specific, but you'll be able to infer something you might not want to):

[spoiler]I went the good route the first time due to the fact that my wife was watching me play (and I would naturally make that choice anyway, so no biggie), and after getting that ending... it's much, much harder hitting the harvest button on those little girls than I anticipated it would be.  I literally stood there when the first girl was ready to be dealt with, and I just couldn't hit the button.  It sort of got harder the longer I waited, though, and I knew that I needed to do it in order to get the evil ending, so I went through with it, and proceeded to go through with it through the two on the Medical level and 3 on Neptune's Bounty... but I felt sick each time.  The last one I did last night nearly brought me to tears.  Even worse is the little icon you get for harvesting them, which to my sickened surprise, is slightly different than the icon you get if you rescue them.

This is the screen I took which I think truly did it to me.  Watching the two of them move together just as shadows triggered something in my head.



I think I can officially say that the most difficult choice I've ever forced myself to make in a game was harvesting this particular little sister.  I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have to go play through the game a third time and rescue them all again just to get this shit out of my head.

[/spoiler]

[MysterD]

Que, it looks like Irrational has succeeded in making you think twice about your actions in the game and have really done their job -- and done it damn well.

[spoiler]And really, I'm beginning to wonder if you'll ever take the route to earn the EVIL Ending ever!!! [/spoiler]

Maybe if I say the right words, you will do so....
[spoiler]"Que, would you kindly...?"[/spoiler]

[Cobra951]

I've played the game several times now and I could never follow the evil path a 2nd time.  It's only because I didn't know which was which that I did it my first time through. 

Not too much of a
[spoiler]
Most of the game's emotional impact is invested in the little sisters.  Hurting children always feels like a low blow to me in movies.  Here, at least it's your choice.[/spoiler]

[Cobra951]

**SPOILERS in link below**

Bwahahaha!!  (Ow, my sides hurt.)  Not that I agree with the whole thing, but it's hilarious.

Edit:  Updated link.  And here is the FLV itself, in case you want to save it for posterity.

[MysterD]

Bwahahaha!!  (Ow, my sides hurt.)  Not that I agree with the whole thing, but it's hilarious.

Though, if you ain't finished the game yet, it does have SPOILERS in it.

That vid was fuckin' hilarious!!!

[Quemaqua]

That's bloody brilliant.  I agree with 90% of what he said, but in the end I think it all sort of works to the game's advantage.  I mean, there are things that could be improved, and I definitely have gripes and stuff, but... yeah, anyway.  Great stuff.  I'm working on a full review now which I should have available for people shortly.

[MysterD]

That's bloody brilliant.  I agree with 90% of what he said, but in the end I think it all sort of works to the game's advantage.  I mean, there are things that could be improved, and I definitely have gripes and stuff, but... yeah, anyway.  Great stuff.

Zero Punctuation has some funny reviews, to say the least -- from their Psychonauts review to his take on The Darkness Demo.

I'm working on a full review now which I should have available for people shortly.

Ooooh, I can't wait!

[Quemaqua]

These aren't spoilers, they're just environmental images, but just in case you're the kind of person who's like, omfg I saw a tree, the game is ruined for me... spoilers tags are here for you.

Anyway, this is how good BioShock can look.  I'll be damned if it isn't the prettiest game I've ever seen at times.

[spoiler]





[/spoiler]

And how did I take those magical screens without my weapons and HUD getting in the way?  See the following nifty threads (PC users only, of course):

Console command list + links to other stuff.
Pseudo-console idea using .TXT files and the EXEC command.
An apparently working pseudo-console using the above concept.

I love this community.

[Cobra951]

That's pretty much what it looks like on the 360, at 1280x720 anyway.  The window into it not as tall, as we all know from the FOV firestorm.  The sacrifice on the 360 is that textures can pop into objects after you're fairly close to them, no doubt the combination of limited memory and DVD seek times.  It certainly beats hitching, which happens almost never.  (I had horrendous hitching in one area once, so I quit, cleared the cache, then it was fine.)  One place that hitches every time is when I kill a security camera.  Definite room for improvement.  Overall, I'm very impressed with the graphics and performance.  With the frame rate unlocked, movement is perfectly fluid consistently.  I really, really wish I could take screen pics like those.

[Jedi]

That's pretty much what it looks like on the 360, at 1280x720 anyway. 

Agreed - but I haven't seen any of the other glitch that a few people have encountered... yet.

[Cobra951]

Glitch?  None here to speak of.  The ultra-hitchy spot only happened once, and then only after playing the game about 5 times.

[Jedi]

Yeah I shouldn't have said glitch. I meant to say texture pop ups.... which at the time I didn't notice but just after pasting I played the game and saw some texture pop ups on a few faces.

[Quemaqua]

The lack of AA hurts it a little bit.  I'm not one to generally use it because of my card, but a couple of the screens I took would have benefited quit a bit I think.

Also, apparently FRAPS doesn't do the best job taking JPG screens.  I'm noticing compression in a lot of these that I didn't see before.  Fugly.

EDIT - Pictures from the launch party.  I'll be damned if I don't want to see the female thuggish splicer without all that makeup.  She looks like she'd be super cute under all the foam latex.

EDIT x2 - Huge list of commands with screens... lots of fun.

[JacksRag(e)]

I think there is AA actually.  I just went to my Nvidia control panel and forced AA for Bioshock.  To me, all the edges and whatnot look smoother after enabling it.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, there just isn't any you can turn on within the game, apparently.  It's supposed to be possible for DX10 because it uses a DX10-specific kind of AA, but I guess that doesn't work for some reason.  Or something.  I don't know.  I haven't followed it closely because I'd never be able to run the game successfully with AA on.

[MysterD]

I could really go for a Bioshock Expansion Pack, myself....

I know, Bioshock 2 is more likely to probably occur, but I really want some new Bioshock content like soon...

[Cobra951]

"Andrew Ryan is Ayn Rand meets Howard Hughes," explains Levine.

From this piece.

I thought so, but it wasn't until I saw a biographical show on TV today, "Howard Hughes: The Real Aviator", that it became painfully obvious.  Heh.  Nothing new, since it came right from the horse's mouth.  I just hadn't heard it mentioned before.


Howard Hughes, 1947

[MysterD]

The "Would you Kindly...?" Phrase Repetition
[spoiler]
Given that we know the real meaning behind the phrase, "Would you kindly...?"

On my 2nd run-through, I've noticed early on, "Would you kindly?" is mentioned by Atlas/Fontaine when in The Fontaine Fisheries, when he wants to meet you and shake his hand, he says.

I never thought about this 'til now, but does he say this a lot throughout the game?[/spoiler]

[Cobra951]

You lost me.

[spoiler]Of course he says "would you kindly" to you throughout the game.  It's the trigger phrase for your obedience programming.  But if you knew that, why are you asking?  Or is it something else?[/spoiler]

[MysterD]

All Spoilers about "Would You Kindly...?"

You lost me.

[spoiler]Of course he says "would you kindly" to you throughout the game.  It's the trigger phrase for your obedience programming.  But if you knew that, why are you asking?  Or is it something else?[/spoiler]

[spoiler]
I know it's the trigger phrase....

I'm wondering if he says it a hell of a lot, throughout the game, to the player.

On my 2nd go-round, I wasn't really paying much attention to the Message Journals. Then, I noticed Atlas used the expression, early on...

..So, I'm asking if he uses it a hell of a lot more, throughout the course of the game....

And if anyone has a clue, how many times does he use it???[/spoiler]

[Cobra951]

Oh, come on.

[spoiler]It's about the very first thing he utters to you in bathysphere, and goes on regularly from there.  Did I count occurrences?  Hell no.[/spoiler]

[JacksRag(e)]

[spoiler]"Would you kindly...?" is essentially the entire reason you did anything for the first 2/3 of the game.  It's such a subtle and harmless phrase that you never even pick up on it until it's pointed out to you.  I started noticing it more and more while watching my brother play through it.  And come on, D, you're coming off really dense about now.  It's like the plot device for the linearity of the game.  Or something like that.[/spoiler]

[MysterD]

[spoiler]It's about the very first thing he utters to you in bathysphere, and goes on regularly from there.  Did I count occurrences?  Hell no.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Someone is bound to count it, eventually...

...Who'll probably post the number of occurance of it on the Net somewhere. [/spoiler]

[scottws]

**SPOILERS in link below**

Bwahahaha!!  (Ow, my sides hurt.)  Not that I agree with the whole thing, but it's hilarious.

Awww, they took it down!

Edit:  Nevermind, found it.

[Xessive]

Awww, they took it down!

Edit:  Nevermind, found it.

Haha again hilarious

I need this game now!

[Quemaqua]

And no, D, I doubt anyone would be daft enough to waste their fucking time counting such a thing, let alone admit to anyone else that they were stupid enough to do so.

[Jedi]

And no, D, I doubt anyone would be daft enough to waste their fucking time counting such a thing, let alone admit to anyone else that they were stupid enough to do so.

I bet D would.

[iPPi]

Funny Bioshock review.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1394-Zero-Punctuation-BioShock

[Xessive]

Funny Bioshock review.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1394-Zero-Punctuation-BioShock

Uh that's the one Scottws posted

[iPPi]

You know, in retrospect, I thought I saw it already.  My friend linked it to me yesterday and thought it hilarious, but was probably too preoccupied with other things to notice that a) I saw it already, and b) it was posted here already.

Yay for work, study, and WoW taking up all my time.

[Xessive]

Hehe no worries mate, it was amusing enough to warrant a second post

[scottws]

I did finish Bioshock the other night.  I'm kind of torn how I felt.  It was a pretty unique game with unique ideas and the art design was really top-notch.

In terms of fun-factor though... I'm not so sure.  I basically forced myself to finish it.  It wasn't like HL2 where I was completely in awe and played it during any free time I had and finished it in 3 days.

I didn't dislike the game.  Don't get me wrong.  But I wasn't as engrossed in it as I felt like I was supposed to be based upon what I was seeing from some of the other posts on this board.

I was kind of curious about the plot...
[spoiler]A lot of previews talked about how you would discover why the utopia fell from grace and all that.  I was curious about it being a utopia in the first place.  Heck, even near the very beginning of the game you start hearing diaries about how there were leaks and if they did things a certain way it would create more leaks.  It never once sounded like any kind of utopia to me: genetic modification, kidnapping, execution, crime, poor construction, lack of maintenance, it's a friggin' city in the middle of the ocean, underwater...  Plus I never really understood why it was built in the first place.  Other than the scientific experimentation, it didn't really ever sound like a really progressive place that anyone would consider, "Hey, lets follow this guy and go live in a city underwater!"[/spoiler]

Does anyone else have any thoughts on that matter?

[Cobra951]

There are multiple problems with Rapture.  Is it even possible?  How deep is it?  The "skyline" makes it look like there as skyscrapers underwater.  Wouldn't the pressure make regularly shaped buildings impossible at depths over 1000 feet?  Even dismissing this, what would it take to build?  The logistics, and the transportation of huge volumes of materials would be staggering.  Then we're asked to believe that this all happened in the 1940s.  And why did Ryan choose this venue?  Don't tell me a guy this powerful couldn't have bought some good-sized remote island, and then set it up as an independent principality.  Imagine the economy in resources which could have then been invested in something more rewarding than keeping out the water.

I guess we're asked to ignore all the major showstoppers and accept that this place exists, in its crumbling state, to give us a fun place to play, shoot and use plasmids.   

[Quemaqua]

In response to Scott:  Well, I certainly disagree as I got sick of HL2 long before the climax.  The general design philosophy made me cringe.  I knew as soon as I saw a new game mechanic that it was all I'd be doing for the next couple levels, so instead of it being "Oh dude, look at this cool new thing!" it became "Fuck, I'm going to have to do this 8 billion times before they decide to show me something else".  BioShock had some design issues here and there as well, but what I think really worked in its favor (at least for me) was that if something ever became tiresome, I just tried something else.  I mean, you could do that and pay the game that way.  And I didn't nearly exhaust all the different possibilities upon the end of my first game.

As for the plot...

[spoiler]I think you're sort of misinterpreting some stuff in regards to the plot and the events that led up to Rapture's downfall.  The place may never have been perfect, but I don't think 100% perfection is really the raw definition of a utopia.  It's more about idealism, not perfection in architectural engineering or something.  Besides that, I think it's somewhat obvious that there were good years in Rapture where a good portion of the people were pretty happy.  Not everyone, obviously, as they talk about how somebody always has to scrub the toilers, but I'm talking more about the majority.  There might have been some decadence, and obviously the game tries to call into question the motives of people and whether or not they were really true to the ideals they supposedly believed in (even Ryan), but that isn't the game trying to say "Hey, this place just fucking sucked from the get-go".  I think it's just a natural progression of the story.  You spend a hell of a lot more time in a dystopia story talking about why things went wrong... because that's kind of the point.  So even when you talk about good things or allude to them, you can't spend so much time as to show every last detail.  I think that's part of what the place in general is supposed to convey.  You look around at it and I think it's pretty obvious that it would have been a cool fucking place to be when things were good.

There was some other stuff pointing out the weak spots, but I think you maybe misinterpreted a lot of it.  I never got the impression that Rapture was riddled with problems.  There are some diaries about problems that sprouted up, but I don't think anyone was trying to convey that the place was shoddy, just that it was complicated and potentially dangerous.  It keeps you focused on the fact that you're at the bottom of the sea and that the sea wants to swallow everything back into itself.  I don't get the impression that this was a tremendous problem during the place's prime years.

As for the biological research, kidnapping, crime, execution, smuggling... that's all the stuff that came later.  Some were gradual problems, sure, but the other issues, the ones that came quickly and decisively, were pretty much all *direct results* of the aforementioned gradual problems.  The game certainly never tries to say that all those problems were present from Rapture's birth.  All we really see is stuff from the beginning of the end onward.  For instance, smuggling and crime were gradual problems that began when Fontaine realized how much there was to exploit and then began to exploit it, but capital punishment didn't come until much, much later, probably well after Ryan had become aware of the problems, closer to when those problems were reaching their apexes and he was beginning to panic as his efforts to contain them failed.  I don't think every last detail could be expressed, so to some degree one must read between the lines, especially since there's no dates on the diaries.  You can only use logic to figure out where to place things in the timeline.  Still, I think it's pretty obvious that the ones detailing serious problems are mostly from Rapture's very late history.

As for Ryan's intentions in creating the city, I thought those were obvious?  He states them all right at the beginning of the game and then numerous other times as the game progresses.  I guess maybe it's hard for me to look at it objectively given that I was already pretty clear on his mindset and the mindset of those who'd be flocking to his banner long before the game was released... just because I've discussed Objectivism with people before and read some of Ayn Rand's books, etc.  Anyway, it didn't seem particularly confusing to me.  His propaganda is spread all through the game, and he says outright what most of his misgivings with society are.  He even I don't really see why you'd be confused, unless you just didn't pay attention to that stuff (and to be fair, you could probably ignore a lot of that stuff without much difficulty, as they don't generally throw it in your face).[/spoiler]

Anyway, you also said that you didn't like System Shock 2, right?  Hence it doesn't surprise me one bit that BioShock isn't quite your cup of tea.  BioShock is very different from Shock 2 in certain fundamental ways, but the two games share an awful lot of similarities just the same.

[scottws]

[spoiler]Well, as far as Ryan's intentions, they may be clear to you, but not to me.  I have not read Ayn Rand.  To me the Great Chain and all that just sounded like some Communist bullcrap.  Which is fine, except why build a city in the ocean for that when you can just move to the Soviet Union?  I'm not trying to knock you, or even really the game.  I'm just trying to understand the motivation.  To me, the society wasn't all that different than what could be found elsewhere on the planet, which wasn't in a city underwater.[/spoiler]
I guess I'll have to accept Cobra's explanation... that it's just a fun, cool environment to play a videogame.

It's not that I didn't like System Shock 2.  I just didn't like the respawning and I could never figure out how to beat the first level.  I either got pummeled to death by the endless horde or got wasted by some robot.