10 Things I Hate About Bioshock (& Five I Love … & Two goodies)

You might not believe this based on reviews and the general hype in the media, but Bioshock is *not* perfect. “Game of the Year” material to be sure, but not perfect. While I do not expect that Bioshock will become like Oblivion and be oft-quoted in articles using it as a whipping-boy for the latest and greatest features of upcoming games (for example, the game has level-scaling, but it isn’t idiotic like it was in Oblivion), I do envision some form of ‘backlash’. It is almost inevitable due to how high the scores are that people will begin to get overly negative about the game. Indeed, while I love the game the more I think about it the more little things bug me. I have seen articles about this sort of thing starting to crop up, but I’m going to give it a bit of a twist – rather than just bitching about things, I’m going to highlight a few things I love and give you the drop on a couple of extra special treats for Bioshock lovers. Needless to say this is chock full of the biggest sorts of spoilers. Avoid clicking until you’ve finished the game.

So here is the list of ’10 Things I hate about Bioshock’

1. A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words – or +1 versus armor – The Enemy Research system feels half-baked. You get a camera and are told to take pictures (by the way, the whole thing with Cohen is just fantastically stylish!) – but aside from seeing a grade and a little report of good or bad there is little you learn about the ‘system’. Nor can you see what you’ve done so far and how you’ve benefitted.

2. The ‘Special Edition’ screw-job – So you paid an extra $10 and got the good and they consist of … a short ‘Making of’ clip, an action figure, and 3 songs – but not even the ones you hear in-game! What a pile of crap! At least they’ve made good on this since, but in the end you have to ask yourself if that action figure was worth $10.

3. The Ending Part 1 – everything that happened after getting free from Atlas got a little fuzzy … and neither the storytelling nor the flow live up to the excellent level of what has happened up to that point.

4. The Ending Part 2 – shades of ‘Far Cry‘ in the boss battle. I have spent more than 15 hours in some of the best FPS moments ever … and I get a boss that looks deliciously like his namesake Atlas from the Ayn Rand book and yet is just some random megaboss who is easily defeated using the techniques that FPS fans have been using since WASD & Mouse came into play.

5. The Ending Part 3 – credits. This game was art. It was great narrative. It was gaming excellence. I wanted an ‘outro’ – credits rolling over some of the wonderful themes and songs. You already have me hook, line and sinker – now seal the deal properly!

6. Interface Annoyances #1 – lack of inventory / player status. This hits on so many things, such as the inability to see bonuses gained from the camera system or from ‘Power to the People’ stations, amount of ammo and various tonics / plasmids, and so on.

7. Interface Annoyances #2 – Incompleteness in the U-Invent and Gene Bank interface. It is entirely possible to invent stuff you can’t carry and when you add new slots your various plasmids can get all messed up. And while I’m complaining about these stations, what is the deal with paying cash to ‘buy off’ security? Is this some feeble ‘cash sink’? I used it plenty, especially later in the game when my wallet was always full, but when you stop and think you realize it is as idiotic as having a rat drop a tower shield in a RPG.

8. Who’s Your Daddy? – OK, so I became a Big Daddy. And … so what? Where are my ‘hulk smash’ attacks and cool weapons and other abilities that make the Big Daddies feared. Early in the game the splicers won’t touch you because of fear of a run-in with a Big Daddy but laterthey are just swarming over you. So all you get for being a Big Daddy is … a limited FOV.

9. Activation hysteria – I’m of two minds about this. First, I am anti-piracy and therefore support efforts to protect intellectual property, having had data of mine ripped off and published by someone else once, and another time had someone try to patent a co-developed piece of equipment I had partnered with someone else on making. But I am also quite tired of music / movies / games treating me like a ‘default criminal’ and making me jump through unnecessary hurdles all the time. At the same time I think that the majority of people in forums are wearing tin-foil hats and running around as it their hair was on fire screaming about the end of the world.

10. SecuROM annoyances – there is nothing like having to disable virus protection every time you run a game and having the main file get deleted if you forget to do so – which then puts you into ‘activation loop hell’. Yet users of certain AV software are running into this on a regular basis.

And ‘Five Things I Love’

1. The catharsis every time I rescued a Little Sister. The dual voices during resistance changing to the little girl as the music softens … it got me every time.

2. The Doom ‘closet monster’ award goes to … OK, so the first time a splicer jumped up it scared the crap out of me, like it did when you had a monster pop up behind you in Doom 3. Sure it quickly becomes just part of progressing, and sure it is sort of cheesy … but it reminded me that everything else you see makes sense and is brought into context by solid explanations that don’t feel useless or superfluous.

3. The soundtrack – the score is wonderful in terms of immersion and atmosphere, and some of the songs were just perfect … coming out of a corridor after a fairly large battle, the dust was still settling and smoke clearing, but above the din I could now hear ‘It Had to be You’ that had to have been a classic Stephan Grappelli recording. Great stuff.

4. U R My SL4V3 – in every game, and certainly every shooter, you are a slave to the game designers. You will accomplish their tasks in their fashion with almost no freedom. This game more than any other throws that in your face, and it really pissed me off and I hated them for doing it – which was, of course, the point.

5. The ‘Good’ Ending – what can I say, despite complaining about the boss battle, about the lack of credits … I loved that small set of clips showing the fact that through change and goodness the character made a difference in the world. The world of Rapture represents a set of possibilities that parents fear … the ‘good’ ending is all about the hopes that we all have.

And here are the two ‘goodies’ … worth wading through the rest of my crap, trust me!

1. 2kGames Makes Good with the Orchestral Soundtrack – not much to say here except that people for some reason weren’t pleased with getting a 3 song ‘soundtrack’ of crappy remakes of songs in the game by Moby. So they released the orchestral soundtrack, which has twelve wonderfully atmospheric pieces from the game. Sure it does little to assuage buyers of the Special Edition, but oh well …

2. Time for ‘The Rest of the Story’ – taken from an article at ‘Rock Paper Shotgun‘, someone found that you could extract WAV’s of the licensed music for the game in a similar way to what was done with Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, but more difficult this time. The article links to a thread at the official forums which provides this step-by-step method of getting the music. (direct link to Zip file) which has twelve wonderfully atmospheric pieces from the game. Sure it does little to assuage buyers of the Special Edition, but oh well …

Here’s how I extracted the files.
1) Download EkszBox-ABX v1.6 here
2) Download Music Player EX here
3) Unpack EkszBox-ABX v1.6 and then run the program.
4) Open the file (from within the EkszBox program) “streams_music_common_audio.fsb” in your ContentSounds_Windows directory.
5) Extract the files. (the files you extracted will be in a folder named “streams_music_common_audio” in your Content/Sounds_Windows directory)
6) Unpack the Music Player EX and run the program
7) Open your extracted files (Drag and drop the files into the program.
8 ) Highlight all of the files and right click and select convert.

And then several diligent forum-members tracked down the correct versions of the songs:

# Nutcracker (Waltz of the Flowers) – Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky
# The Party’s Over – Noel Coward
# Please Be Kind – Frank Sinatra
# Beyond the Sea – Bobby Darin
# Liza – Django Reinhardt
# Papa Loves Mambo – Perry Como
# Jitterbug Waltz – Fats Waller
# Night and Day – Billie Holiday
# It Had to Be You – (Priscilla Lane, Danny Thomas, or Dolley Wilson?)
# The Best Things in Life are Free – The Inkspots
# Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams – Bing Crosby
# Oh Danny Boy – Mario Lanza
# You’re the Top – Cole Porter
# It’s Bad For Me – Rosemary Clooney
# 20th Century Blues – Noel Coward
# How Much Is That Doggie In The Windows – Patti Page
# Just Walking In The Rain – Johnnie Ray
# World Weary – Noel Coward

This is some amazing stuff – Billie Holiday, Stephan Grappelli & Django Reinhardt, Noel Coward, Cole Porter … ah the beauty of it all …

21 Responses to “10 Things I Hate About Bioshock (& Five I Love … & Two goodies)”

  1. My biggest gripe about the game is the way the story is told through the voice recorders. It’s such an interesting story and I wish the developers come up with another way to convey some elements of it. Granted what they did do was fantastic, and I’m not sure how they could’ve improved things as cut scenes would’ve been the wrong way to go. The flashbacks were interesting as well as disturbing but they did help a little bit.

    Aside from that the lack of ability to review your tonics on the fly was a real pisser. Every time I ran into a Gatherer’s Garden I’d have to hunt out the closest Gene Bank to figure out the best way to use my Adam.

    While I didn’t pick up the collector edition, I was kicking myself for not doing so when I learned of the included soundtrack. This self loathing quickly wore off however when I learned the included CD was pretty much bubkiss. The free downloadable score was a nice bonus, but I’m going to have to hunt out the tracks listed above to compile a true soundtrack (thanks for posting the list).

  2. When I heard that the licensed songs were in the game directory I went about trying to get them with my usual tools for converting audio files and had nothing but trouble. I ended up following the recipe above, and having to do a manual install of the JRE listed because the one I had wouldn’t run the applet despite being the right version. In the end … it was worth it!

  3. My biggest problem was that the inventory interface was basically nonexistent. I had the cheesy get health for hacking tonic for a good portion of the game because I hadn’t reviewed getting it since the crematorium.

    The fact a large bit of the game seems to have got ripped out for a console dumb down also strikes me as a terrible choice. Several of the tonics are missing or only on xbox such as the flame boost physical tonic. As well as the parts where you worked for Andrew Ryan in the preview videos. Let me explain this one a bit better.

    In one of the preview movies they showed the fort frolic level. They showed Andrew Ryan in the radio message asking you to get the recordings that women who mocked him did which are now in the music store. The only hint to this in game now appears to be a single recorder of the guy sent to kill her. So anyway the preview showed you going through fort frolic and then grabbing the record and then ryan sending spider splicers and closing the armored window panels to darken the room.

    Also instead of the ham fisted wrench upgrades couldn’t you have just got unique upgrades or new melee weapons? Instead of just “more wrench damage” tonics and bonus off the bouncer.

  4. My thoughts exactally about everything that happens after you kill ryan, especially the final boss fight and the crappy big daddy transformation.. disappointing to hell.

    Just to point this out but it was said by a UK magazine I am subscribed to called “PC Zone” under one of there plus points for the game was “the brilliant final levels”

  5. Damn, this game sucks! My computer can’t even run it… :-‘(

  6. Ellis: “Damn, My computer sucks! I can’t even run it… :-’(”

    Fix’d

  7. I agree with most of the point you make…though I do like the research system, and while I found the interface annoying (not being able to check Tonics and Plasmids easily on the fly) I guess I can understand why they did it…cause I can easily see it “taking me out of the game” to check my status and inventory. I dunno, there probably would’ve been some creative way to do it, but it would’ve likely taken another year to finish the game then.

    And yes, I was really really disappointed with the Big Daddy bit…as soon as I found out that is what had to be done, I was really excited to be one of those walking-wailing-wrecking ball’s that I had worked so hard to take down so many times before. I wanted a friggin 200lb drill on my hand! I wanted to be able to smack a Splicer to the other side of Rapture! Basically I wanted to be unstoppable. Even if it did cheapen that segment of the game, I wouldn’t have cared, it would have been fricken COOL!

  8. I think you missed something on the buy-out option for hacking. This is the ultimate objectivist utopia, remember–even the public toilets are coin-operated. It’s so far into this super-capitalist philosophy that even the security system is open to you, if you have the money for it. That’s how it makes perfect sense in the game.

  9. Minor Spoilers below!

    Let me start by saying I enjoyed my first play through BioShock. It was fun but I wouldn’t call it ground breaking.

    Overall I’ve heard too many people calling this game new or original or ground breaking. Hell its a complete carbon copy of System Shock 2. I don’t just mean the idea either. The theme, the basic story line, the enemies, the props, your own character. Its exactly the same.

    BioShock – System Shock
    – Genius Human with God complex vs Genius AI with God complex.
    – Insane DNA altered humans vs Host controlled human alien hybrids.
    – Start in the aftermath of destroyed city vs Start in the aftermath of destroyed starship.
    – Story mostly revealed through recordings vs Story revealed through data logs
    – Character powered by DNA/Plasmids vs Character powered by Cybernetic Implants.
    – Plasmid powers vs PSI powers.
    – Same basic hacking concept
    – Same vending machines
    – Same security cameras and turrets
    – Same basic icons used for ammo
    – Other elements such as research for improved damage existed in System Shock 2.

    This game is exactly the same. Nothing here breaks ground in any way.

    I understand that the game is the spiritual successor to System Shock 2 and I also understand it’s some of the same basic team developing it. The point is that they haven’t done anything new here other than the art work. I figure most people who played System Shock have played BioShock but I’m willing to bet that isn’t true the other way around.

    In my opinion System Shock 2 was the better game overall:
    -I found it scarier despite the obviously weaker graphics of the time.
    -The overall story was stronger and the mix of the 2 villains (Shodan and Alien) added another layer.
    -The character building was better because you started as 1 of three basic classes and you couldn’t do/be everything in a single game. In fact it would take 3 or 4 plays through just to use each weapon and PSI power plus hack everything and research everything. In BioShock, after a single play through the game, I used every power and every weapon and hacked every thing hackable.
    -Many aspects like research were better implemented.
    -System Shock 2 also had cooperative multiplayer. (added on as an after thought – but it worked).

    I really only see BioShock as having 2 things System Shock didn’t.
    -The first is better AI. Still the AI is nothing like what was claimed from the hype. It was suppose to be very emergent. The Little Sisters and Bid Daddies should have almost shown a life of their own. In reality I’ve seen purely scripted sequences and enemies do everything BioShock’s life forms did. The truth is, I’ve yet to be even the slightest bit impressed with AI in any game since Half Life showed enemies ducking for covering and working as a team.
    -The second is the little Sister Harvest vs Rescue decision. This is definitely the one area of the game I think they truly did something different. Not that making choices in games and having consequences is new. I see this is every RPG I play. This is the first time it actually felt difficult to make the choice. I ended up rescuing every girl because they just seemed too cute and helpless to Harvest.

    Other aspects like, respawning enemies seemed to break the immersion, especially if they respawned right on top of you. Inventing sucks because its just another method of purchasing what you can get at a vending machine. The research camera makes little sense and gets tedious fast. Some weapons are insanely overpowered (Electric Gel with the flame thrower can kill a Big Daddy without it even fighting back).

    Overall, after a single play through the game I feel little desire to play again right away. I know when I do (and I will eventually) the only real difference will be the ending and a few short sequences leading up to it. I played System Shock 2 probably more than 10 times myself over a couple years. I played it another 5 or 6 times multiplayer with my brother and once through multiplayer with my girlfriend a few years later.

    I would say the most fun in BioShock comes from Telekenesis. Nothing like stepping out in front of a rocket lauching security turret on purpose and then pulling the rocket from the air and shooting it at a splicer way down a hall in the other direction and then grabbing the next rocket and taking out the turret.

  10. While I agree with most of the thing’s you’ve said, some of the 10 things you hate apply only to the PC edition like the last two of them. On the other hand, every person I know who ordered the SE, did it just for the figurine and all of them are happy with the purchase. I got the game with the X360 Elite (from UK), so of course, it was no point in buying it again just for the Big Daddy, but those who did it, are definitely pleased with their choice (especially since it’s such a small difference). Then an in-game message tells you that having the Big Daddy armor (since this is the only Big Daddy armor parts that you’re getting) is definitely helping when there’s lots of damage done. If this is true, it may be useful or more useful when playing on the hardest mode. I doubt you’ve reached Atlas on that one. I didn’t, so I’m only guessing here. Of course, not having the drill and the smash moves is a letdown.

    Concerning the interface there are a few more things to say. It’s not perfect, but it’s not bad also. I’ve always known what plasmids and tonics I had equiped. Come on ppl, you have to be retarded not to remember what you’ve equipped a few minutes ago. Yes, we should have been able to review them, but for a person who doesn’t suffer of short-term memory loss, this isn’t necessary. There are plenty of gene banks in the game, so you can visit them if you ever forget what’s on/in you.

    Well, in the end I agree the game has it’s faults, but it’s overall a wonderful experience which should not be missed. Oh, and those 3 tracks mixed by Moby are indeed nice things to have, but they could have added the full soundtrack in the SE package.

  11. For the record I would like to disagree with everything Staninja said, and yes I have played System Shock 2.

  12. Hey Tank,

    What do you mean you “disagree with everything”?

    Keep in mind at least half my post is fact, not opinion. I was simply comparing the clearly known game play elements. You can’t really argue those.

    As far as the opinion parts go:
    – You think BioShock is scarier?
    – You prefer being able to do everything in 1 play, rather than having character building variation?
    – You’ve seen evidence of emergent AI?
    – You don’t think the addition of multiplayer would be a plus?

    While I’m sure you obviously had more fun playing it and possibly you found it scarier, I doubt you can disagree “completely” on everything I said.

    Come on, throw me a bone here ;O. I must have said something you can give at least a slight nod towards.

    Shodan and The Many have to be among the top villians in a video game ever – or at least of the games I’ve played. There is no way I could ever put Ryan and Fontaine up there with them. If you searched the net I’m sure you can find sites listing Shodan and The Many as great video game villians. Search in 5 years and I doubt Ryan/Fontaine will be anywhere to be found.

  13. Regarding that soundtrack list: it seems to be missing a song. When you enter the Little Sisters hideout, Billie Holliday’s “God Bless the Child” is playing in the background (and it’s one of the remixes on the “soundtrack” CD as well.) Just thought you might want to add it to the list for completeness’ sake.

  14. Whoa, can I get a spoiler warning please? That’s almost unforgivable!

  15. In the first paragraph: “Needless to say this is chock full of the biggest sorts of spoilers. Avoid clicking until you’ve finished the game.”

  16. Okay, fair enough. I skipped to the numbered list. That’s totally my bad.

    I finished it tonight and came back to read the rest of your review. You bring up some really good points. I kept waiting for my big daddy drill attack. In the end it turned out to be nothing more than an armor boost. Some of the character interactions change a bit but you never get to explore them because the game immediately rushes you through an escort mission and on to the final boss. I finished it after harvesting all of the little sisters and found the Atlas fight to be quite easy. I never really felt like I was in danger. I think with half of the Adam it might be a bit more challenging…

  17. – You think BioShock is scarier?

    Yes I did…I found the atmosphere lent itself better for a general air of spookiness which in turn enhanced any “BOO!” moments. Sure in Shock2 you had explosions, and a few busted up doors and such, but I found Rapture to be much more dilapidated, and thus spookier than the Von Braun’s relatively clean and fully functional setting

    – You prefer being able to do everything in 1 play, rather than having character building variation?

    I like to have the choice of that, rather than Shock2’s approach of forcing you to choose one or the other in terms of classes and abilities.
    I wasn’t able to use every single Plasimid, Tonic and fully upgraded weapon. I’ve started my second run through, and I’ve found places I didn’t go before…the Funeral parlor in the Medical Pavilion for example (not Eternal Flame). I also didn’t spend much time with Researching, so I didn’t know about the Chameleon tonic or other things. So I can easily get 3 plays out of this game, not to mention the different strategies.

    – You’ve seen evidence of emergent AI?

    Yeah I have…I actually seen a Litter Sister have a tantrum when she wanted to sleep, but the BD wanted her to keep harvesting. I only ever saw it once and I haven’t seen it again in my second run through.

    – You don’t think the addition of multiplayer would be a plus?

    I think it have been a harder sell in terms of story…I haven’t really thought about it. I enjoyed my experience alone, and if I had to guess…I’m sure I would enjoy Bioshock with another person, but it wouldn’t be the same. It’s kinda hard to explain.

    I gotta go right now, but I’ll break down your comparison between the games some time tonight.

  18. Minor Spoilers!

    Fair enough and thanks for the breakdown.

    Just to keep perspective, I did enjoy the game.
    My comments are more an argument towards the hype. This is a good game and it might even be worthy of the hype if not for games like System Shock, System Shock 2, Vampire BloodLines, Half Life even Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (if only for its use of environmental features such as spilling oil and burning it and telekinesis), Deus Ex and other similar games which are all First Person Shooters with stories and RPG elements. These are older games which do bascially everything BioShock does and some of them do parts better and some are really old. There are many games not listed here which may even be better but that I haven’t played.

    Personally I found System Shock Scarier.
    I’m not sure why in BioShock, it had the right atmosphere and it started off in the right direction, but in the end I never felt jumpy beyond the first 10 minutes. In System Shock 2 it was “The Many” that really created the scare factor – if it was just about Shodan it would not have been the same. Also in BioShock I more or less guessed the outcome, except for a few details, before I was more than 25% of the way into the game, so everything was expected well in advance.

    I definitely prefer variation in replay.
    The variance in story elements just don’t add up to enough by themselves. I used every single plasmid and every tonic and every gun and got all but 1 weapon modification. I also hacked everything and of course I can’t be sure I missed anything but it can’t be much. Clearly certain weapons and plasmids are superior to others for all situations and overall the game was very easy. In a second play through I would literally have to force myself to use less likely and less useful weapons and plasmids just to create variation otherwise there would be none.
    On the side of BioShock I will admit System Shock had no story element variation and the combat in BioShock is fun and thus I will replay it at some point just for the fun factor even if I play the same way.

    I do not believe there is any emergent AI.
    This was a proposed feature which I’m fairly certain did not make the cut – or at least not as was originally proposed. What you saw was the result of a script with a small percentage chance of running down a different branch. This is not emergent behavior. The fact remains 99% of the game will be an identical experience for all people playing. Almost all games I play have branching scripts, so this is nothing new. As a programmer myself I’m good at identifying the methods used to achieve certain aspects of the game play – perhaps this affects my experience since I can be overly critical of what are true advancements.
    If there was “any” real AI you would see some true variation. For example, why do all splicers only attack using a single weapon? Why not pickup a weapon from a fallen splicer – this does not require AI but AI could provide the pattern to try this? Why not hack a security bot? Why would a splicer who throws a bomb at you for the 15th time and you keep using telekinesis to throw it back, not change tactics? Its because they are all 100% scripted and have no capacity to analyze the situation. Why does the Little Sister shout “get him, he’s hurt” every time a Big Daddy hurts you even if your clearly winning? Why shout it 10 times in a single fight? Well because the Little Sister is running a looping script which has percentage path branches and a small finite list of flags for conditional adjustments.

    I will agree BioShock is not as well poised for Multiplayer. Part of this comes from the lack of separate classes. System Shock had these which meant in multiplayer you could each choose a different focus making a more well rounded team. Perhaps multiplayer would not add much to BioShock but it’s still a feature that is missing and if the other features I mentioned were there it would be useful to add.

    As far as the rest of my original comments regarding the story comparisons, you should look at the history behind the making of BioShock. It is cleary a copy of the story and it wasn’t by accident. In fact the world of Rapture was not the first proposal for BioShock and each proposal was basically the same story, only the specifics of the time period and circumstances really changed.

  19. !Spoilers!

    @Staninja
    I suppose my “Drive-By” post before where I said I disagreed with everything was premature. I’ve had some time to stew over what was said and there are a few things that I do agree with.
    Many of your comparisons between Shock2 and Bioshock are “Close but no cigar” in my opinion. I do not deny there are similarities, but I feel the developers are Irrational/2k Boston deviated enough from Shock2’s settings and story that they stand on their own.

    – Genius Human with God complex vs Genius AI with God complex.

    I don’t know if I’d consider either Andrew Ryan or Fontaine has having a God Complex. Perhaps narcissistic megalomania, but not a God Complex.

    – Insane DNA altered humans vs Host controlled human alien hybrids.

    The Many were like the “Bio-Borg”, individuals acting as a single entity. The Splicers on the other hand were individuals that Ryan would occaisonally set on you using Pheramones. For the most part, whenever you ran into any Splicers they were sort of doing their own thing…usually trying to get ADAM.

    – Start in the aftermath of destroyed city vs Start in the aftermath of destroyed starship.

    Point Taken

    – Story mostly revealed through recordings vs Story revealed through data logs

    Again, point taken – but what do you want from a “spiritual successor”?

    – Character powered by DNA/Plasmids vs Character powered by Cybernetic Implants.
    – Plasmid powers vs PSI powers.

    I’d say the Gene Tonics are closer to the Cybernetic Implants than Plasmids, but thats splitting hairs. Regardless, I don’t think it’s fair to say that the Plasmids don’t break new ground when compared to the PSI powers of Shock2. There are definately new and unique powers with the Plasmids v PSI. I would totally agree with you if there was nothing new implemented.

    – Same basic hacking concept

    The hacking in Bioshock is definately improved over that of Shock2. I know I got frustrated more than once with Hacking in that game because of the “Random” factor. More often than not, hackable devices were impossible to hack because it was impossible to make a straight line with the nodes. I only noticed this twice in what I’ve played of Bioshock and that was just a straight wall of trick tiles. Usually whenever I failed a hack it was due to a bunch of trick tiles that I could’ve avoided if I had replaced the first tile right away.
    The only issue I have with Bioshock’s hacking is the inability to cancel out if you know you’re screwed, you HAVE to let the circuit overload/alarm/whatever.

    – Same vending machines

    I dunno, I was definately more annoyed by the Circus of Values and Ammo Bandito than the machines in Shock2 lol

    – Same security cameras and turrets

    Security cameras, yes. Turrets, not so much. The turrets on the VB were part of the security systems and fixed in predictable places. In Bioshock they were cobbled together with Chairs, wheels, duct tape and whatever was on hand. Their placement was also more “random” feeling, I know I got ambushed by a turret more often in Bioshock than Shock2.

    – Same basic icons used for ammo

    It’s ammo! How many different ways can you illustrate a bullet?

    – Other elements such as research for improved damage existed in System Shock 2.

    Point Taken, but I will add that the research in Bioshock is greatly improved over it’s predecessor. Instead of “Find Chemicals and let the research happen automatically”, using the camera is definately more engaging.

    In the end it’s kinda “nit picky” of anyone to dock Bioshock marks because of it’s similarities to System Shock 2. It’s like saying Deus Ex 2 was unoriginal because it used Nanite powers and the character’s last name was Denton.

  20. Tank I don’t necessarily disagree with the individual points of your arguments overall but I think there is a point missing here. In many cases as you say it’s splitting hairs. Also its not really a matter that every point was better or worse for one or the other. If you look at all the points as a whole it shows the overlap of the games. If you split them into pieces of course they are not exactly the same but that was never my point.

    Also, your analogy with Deus Ex 2 is right on the mark but this actually makes my point. Deus Ex 2 was never considered anything more than “Deus Ex” with new content and some supposed story, graphics and AI improvements – although general consensus was it was not as good for many of the same reasons BioShock is not in my opinion.

    The problem with BioShock and the meat of my argument is that a lot of reviews and players of BioShock don’t see BioShock as System Shock 3 and don’t even acknowledge System Shock 2s similarities. If they mention it at all its only a passing comment. They then go on to say every single thing about BioShock is new and never been done before and the entire concept and story plot and basic game mechanics are ground breaking. My point was always that this is not true. I could have made that point more loosely without even using System Shock 2 as an example but I figured since they are so similar it was a no brainer.

    Its important to note that I was targetting the reviews more than the game. If the reviews were all like 9.0 instead of 9.9 and they said it was great but very similar to System Shock 2 I would never has made my original comment.

    Noone reads a review of Deus Ex 2 and walks away believing nothing in the game has ever been done before but that is the spirit of most BioShock reviews.

    I saw a video clip today on the net where some guy showed in game seens from BioShock being hailed as ground breaking and then followed each clip with a similar one from System Shock 2 or Half Life (possibly some other games) that did exactly the same thing.
    His point is basically the same as mine except he actually showed it with in game footage. The video could have done a lot more but it got some of the point across.

    You know, all this arguing about BioShock is making want to play again…lol 😉

  21. I downloaded the demo, and the thing that surprises me the most it that it runs reasonably smooth (30fps) on my computer! I have an Athlon XP 2800+, 1gb RAM, and a 128mb GeForce 6600GT – outdated for sure, but I can run Bioshock either at low resolution (800*600) with details maxed, or at a higher resolution with slightly less visual effects. I find it worth it to run at a lower resolution since I have a 17″ CRT.

    If only all companies designed games that can run on new AND old hardware.

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