Zero Punction on Bioshock

[PlagueOfLocust]

naznatips said:

No no no, you don't understand PoL. Morality shouldn't be some cut and dry "Oooh I can kill a little girl and become stronger or not" situation. I want to see a game with complex morals. Where what's good or bad may not be so clear after all. Until near the release of the game, I thought Bioshock was offering this. Then they said that it's not their fault that they are f'd up in the head. I don't want games that end in black or white. That's not life. There isn't just good or bad.

Every action should have good and bad effects. Bioshock offers nothing new in the morality department. A solid 5 or 6 games before it had similar choices. In KOTOR for example you could sell a woman to slavery or pay off her debt. However, in KOTOR there was at least some degree of middle ground as you could ignore their plight entirely and go on with your lives. KOTOR still had the 2 ending option: all sunshine and daisies or all evil and murderous. However, at least it was doing something new.

A game being brought to the attention of the mainstream is not innovation. I can't believe you even suggested it is...

Now, on to your arguments specifically, which I didn't answer last time because they were pretty ridiculous.

They don't feel the same at all; I played both and I wasn't thinking of SS2 at all as I was playing. The world was so convincingly unique, and the combat so much sharper than SS2, and the RPG elements so much more secondary than in SS2...

I already said the setting was different. Your right, there were less RPG elements. This made it a much more shallow game than System Shock 2, making it a shooter with hardly any RPG elements at all. I thought this was a step down, not something to brag about.

Many of the design principles weren't even the same between both games. What similarities were there? Let's list them: 1. "Shock" in the title. Wow. 2. Story made deeper via audio logs and posters. Uh oh, that's been done twice before in the history of games... that's definitely a stale convention.

That's been done a lot actually. See: Metroid series, KOTOR, System Shock, etc. There is nothing unqiue about it. It's not even that it's necessarily stale, but it has been handled better in other games as well.

3. Er... they're both shooters with RPG elements? Yeah, but said combat/RPG systems are completely unique and don't feel the same at all, so even that point is moot. 4. Both games contain vending machines and other stations... to support the RPG elements. Can anyone see a way around that one? 5. Sorry, I ran out. 6. Seriously... All out.

Yeah, let's just skip over all these facts: They both use an almost identical ability system. PSI powers = Plasmids. Hell, half of them even overlapped! Projected Pyrokenesis = Incinerate.

The enemies are practically identical. Thug Splicers = Hybrids. Ledhead Splicers = Hybrids with guns. Spider Splicers = Arachnids. Houdini Splicers = Monkeys. Sadly, System Shock 2 actually has more enemy variety than it's modern day clone. As it also has Cyborg Midwives, Worms, Swarms, Cyborg Assassins, and Rumblers. The only Bioshock enemy that isn't a direct clone of a System Shock enemy is the Nitro Splicers, who are boring as fuck anyway.

What else? Oh yeah, the wrench as a primary weapon, hacking, plot delivery, adventure style. By that I mean it moves on a room by room basis, with a lot of linearity and side tracking. Hell, the only actual difference between Bioshock and System Shock 2 is that Bioshock dumbed down the System Shock 2 formula by removing a lot of the RPG elements and making the game pathetically easy. Even without Vita Chambers it doesn't present much of a challenge.

ADAM is identical to Cyber, and both fuel their respective identical super powers. The way you acquire them is different... OMG I found a difference!!! What do I win?

As you yourself said both contain vending machines and a nearly identical style of save stations. Again though Bioshock dumbs it down. The save stations are now free, they are much more comon, and when you revive your enemies retain the damage they took in your first failed attempt.

If you couldn't find the overwhelming overlaps between these games then you have not played System Shock 2, or maybe it's just been so long that you don't remember it. I don't know, but there is very little original about Bioshock. What I don't understand is how this game is a 10 by any scale. Sure, it's very fun, and it's a great game, but it's filled with bugs, it's almost an exact replica of an 8 year old title, and it's so easy a toddler could beat it. Even without the vita chambers it's way on the easy side. With the vita chambers it's challenge consists of "look at me shoot stuff," which basically defeats the whole purpose of making this a deep shooter, and brings it down to the level of simplistic games like Halo.

Whew, got into a war here... but don't worry. I didn't let ya sneak by me naz!! Heheh.

You can ignore the Little Sisters plights here as well, to address the comparison to KoTOR.

What I said about the game being brought into mainstream-light was not that it's innovative in the sense of the game design itself, of course. I meant that being able to bring a game with such a high-minded approach (particularly to story telling and quality of polish not just graphically but in every aspect) to an audience that really needs to get some culture in them is a groundbreaking achievement in itself. I never would have expected the sequel to SS2 to make it this big, and I'm hopeful that it will set new standards in the industry.

Okay and... hey... rediculous? 'Preciate it. I know you said the setting was different. What I said was that the world was convincingly unique, meaning not just different but believable and complete and self-contained. They did not take SS2 and tie an anchor to it. I'm inclined to agree about it being a step down (softening RPG elements) only in the sense that I enjoyed the depth of the RPG aspect of SS2. But there's the problem; the only way you can say it's a step down is by comparing it solely to its spiritual predecessor, and you shouldn't because they're different - that being the theme of my argument. Bioshock tries to be a good shooter first and an RPG only so much as it benefits the combat. The only way you could say it's a step down is if you assume it tried to do the same thing SS2 did, and it didn't. The design decision was deliberate. And is a shooter a lesser thing than an RPG? Matter of opinion. Can't say the RPG element was at all absent, though, and compared to other (even mainstream) shooters, the game is a God-send.

Metroid uses posters and audio logs? I missed 'em all. I haven't played KOTOR, but then you list System Shock? Yeah, that's the prequel. I know it's been done before, but again, what twice? And I don't see in what sense it was done better elsewhere.

PSI Powers = Plasmids = Magic = many other things. As the BareNakedLadies have pointed out: "It's all been done." What do you expect? At least the plasmids were explained much deeper and were an important part of the story/setting. And the water pools and oil slicks and flammable objects and the way enemies reacted to hazards... this is all new.

Splicers with revolvers = shotgun wielding hybrids? Different weapon, different enemy behavior, different everything significant. Spiders = spider splicers? In name only, c'mon. And did monkeys teleport? Your parallels are poor at best. The advances in AI alone overshadows your entire point here. Yes there were fewer enemy types and few non-human or non-machine enemies, but there was no place for them based on the setting and the feel the game was trying to achieve. Isn't that just another difference between the games?

Yup, hacking was in both games, though you couldnt get cameras on your side with it, or security bots for that matter. And it was a different minigame altogether. The wrench as a primary weapon just clinches it for you huh? You're talking about cosmetic similarity here. It doesn't lend to your argument but cosmetically. Neither game was purely linear, not within a level at least though perhaps between them. Plot delivery and adventure style are the same between both games, attributed to the fact that they are, yanno, spiritual sequels and must retain those very, very general aspects. No point earned.

The combat was plenty challenging enough, and I played on normal and relish a challenge. Haven't heard many complaints in this department elsewhere. Again, vita chamber contributing to difficulty is a moot point. You don't have to use them.

Adam is similar to Cyber the skill? Or cybernetic modules? I'd say the latter, though it had an element of the former as well... so really not the same after all. Either way, the fact that you could spend points on skills is the most general similarity you could possibly give. Within that similarity, everything is different, including how the points are earned (way to trivialize this perfectly legitimate point) and on what types of things they are spent, the way they are equiped, etc. The fact is simply that the upgrade system of each game does not significantly remind you of the other as you play.

I would have liked for things like hacking to cost money like they did in SS2, but I guess I have the capability to appreciate the positive aspects of a game over the handful of issues I might have with it. Don't assume that I wasn't disappointed with some aspects of the game, but ONLY comparing it to SS2. Compare the game to Halo, (as you did, albeit in an outrageous way) or any other shooter, and it's miles ahead while STILL keeping with the best of them in terms of combat.

I didn't find any bugs myself... can't go with you on that point.

Bottom line: the games just didn't FEEL the same, not enough to call one a rip-off. On paper they had similarities, but no more than one should expect from a sequel. And pointing out only where the two games share things in common is not the only way of determining if they're similar. Bioshock alters and ADDS a lot, which you're overlooking entirely.