/v/ - Video Games

>>14080943

Yeah, I didn't mention the art style in my OP but that's arguably the game's strongest asset. Only Fallouts 1-2, and I think Crimson Skies were titles that I know of outside of BioShock that really ran wild with the Art Deco, it's criminally underused to me.

>tfw we will never get the Bioshock they advertised in 2005/6

Bioshock 2 was a good sequel in every way except plot. And other than the investigate gold things to progress and toned down RPG elements both are fun games.

>>14080973

>TFW we will never get infinite as advertised

>>14080995

>TFW we will never get infinite as advertised

I didn't need to be reminded of this. It still hurts.

>>14081008

I wonder if Kuck Levine had anything to do with it, or if it was 2k Jewry. While Levine was already doing this shit I'm BS1, even then it wasn't as drastic as with Infishit

>>14081224

There's some quote out there about Levine going full BIG BANG BAZOOPER, rewriting the entire game with less than year of development less. Something about really liking feeling stupid when he wrote about basic quantum mechanics.

>>14080973

>>14081008

Why don't you use hooktube? you can embed it now all you have to to is change the you to hook, you lazy niggers.

>>14081272

nice thumbnail.

>>14081335

Who gives a shit if a video like those linked gets views? The archive autism actually served a purpose because nothing would get lost but there's no point sperging about hooktube.

>>14080886

NuPrey was a better Shock game than BioShock. It even did art deco better.

I've yet to hear a good argument why Bioshock 2 isn't the best one and probably the only redeeming thing about the series. Even the writing is better than the first and it actually embraces the qualities of story telling in a video game by having your choices far more naturally influence the ending.

>>14081888

>do you kill X person or not kill X person

>repeat 3 times

>far more natural

>>14081888

The writing was better but the timeline of the presentation of said writing was not. The gameplay was interesting but had some drawbacks. What really stands out to me though is that bioshock had that one scene where ryan has himself killed. The ending was kinda cliche though because of it just being kill almost everyone in your path at that point. But in bioshock 2 it was essentially the same. Fuck those hacking puzzles in 2 though they were absolute shit only because of how prevelent they were in the game and the difficulty spike in them towards the middle.

>>14081899

yeah, instead of getting 18 giant button prompts throughout the game, it's more about your actions instead.

>>14081909

the hacking minigame? For something you do tons of times its a lot less repetitive than the pipe minigame.

>>14080973

its really amazing how scripted this is

>>14081008

the bioshock infinite that was advertised had a ton of flaws and was also really obviously never real. I think /v/ isn't quite sure how games are really made.

>>14081930

>18 giant button prompts

>3 contextual button prompts

The vehicle for change is the same, using buttons; truly terrible argument basis.

>>14081948

not at all, you're limiting the pool of information to serve your narrative which comes off as incredibly disingenuous.

The argument is in how you engage with little sisters in bioshock 2 compared to bioshock 1. In the first its a repetitive combat engagement concluding in a button prompt where the good boy option is still the more rewarding one which ultimately decides the ending of the game. The second uses far more elaborate combat engagements, giving new utility to different types of ammunition and plasmids, and serving as a vehicle to encourage the player to explore new game play options they otherwise would not by setting up an easily understood premise.

the original does nothing like this and it goes along to help make the second a far better game.

>>14081955

Did you forget that entire segment from one where you defend little sisters? 2 is just that expanded.

>>14081978

2 is just that but done right as a persistent game play challenge instead of a single level gimmick.

>>14081981

>2k wants game to be more "approachable"/ wants the COD audience/ does not give enough budget/ does not allow deadline to be pushed further

2K gave Levine total freedom as director and it went to his (potato) head. The game had a ludicrous budget and 2K expected the game to be a smash hit and sell extremely well.

>the rest

nah man, look, games don't get developed like that. You have teams doing a lot of different parts of the game under the direction of the director, and in this case it was ken levine. Games aren't developed from level 1 to level 24. They are developed from level 16, level 11, level 22, level 4, level 6, in that order. As in, when it's done, it's done and is fitted to work with the existing mechanics and art, fit to purpose by the directors whim.

If you look at any of the design documentation, video documentation or anything regarding bioshock infinite, you'll see that Levine had total control. Stories of him shooting down people on the team constantly for doing things wrong or not to expectations (which comes off as contradictory considering the quality of the game/irrational's previous games)

Bioshock Infinite was clearly a game with bad direction. It had a ton of ideas and plenty of marketing material (the material you see here >>14081008) built to advertise and sell the game as opposed to necessarily be shipped in the game. It had a ton of time, and the end result is clearly from hacking together the completed elements of the game into a somewhat cohesive whole. It went through the process most games go through to meet the deadline, it had 60% more content planned to cover all the bases, but only 40% was finished and it was content from all over the place. So it was stitched together into what ended up shipping.

It was over-budget in both time and money, over-staffed, lacked good direction, and way too bloated. It was destined to be a disaster from pretty early on, and anyone who knows how these things work could have told you how sloppy the content for the promo material looked.

>>14082036

I remember in a developer diary video a long time ago, Levine said how they motion-tracked the facial expression of an actress for every line that Elisabeth says.

Seems like a huge waste of resources and effort, since most of the time she says anything youll be looking at the floor eating pinapples and cakes from corpses and trash bins, instead of looking at her face.

Not to mention that a lot of games used shortcuts to animate faces, like Half Life 2 and ended up with a better result than Infinite.

>>14081909

>>14081888

Maybe I'm just a brainlet but I never really put together why Bioshock 2 had a story that was any better than 1. I get the multiple endings, yeah; but the whole stuff behind the Big Sisters and the Rapture Family never really stuck with me the way Andrew Ryan trying to hold onto the last vestiges of his greatest project did.

>>14080886

Bioshock 2 was one of the only games that I know of that had a marxist antagonist. I wish I could play something new for once. I hear things are getting better, there are an increasing number of cases where normalfags are disputing critics, but will Bioware, Bethesda, Naughty Dog and all the other corrupted DevPubs be able to recover?

Sure, bioshock was watered down compared to SS, but for most people, they never played system shock and jettisoning the sci-fi motif for a compelling underwater art-deco city was aesthetic bliss. The combat was polished and so was the flavor of rapture and the characters you discovered along the way…

In some ways it was a product of its time since the libertarian themes were running strong in the zeitgeist of american politics at the time (well as much as they could). In just a few years we would see Ron Paul v1. Even if the creator of the underwater city was evil, the libertarian crowd liked the game because of the overt randian themes and it was pretty unique experience overall. Bioshock 2 on the other hand, people didn't like because of the controversy surrounding the DLC that was already on the disc. People were even more unforgiving of this type of shitty behavior because this was when this shit first started to happen. A lot of people used the fact that it wasn't the same studio combined with the jewing of people out of money through (((DLC))) to just dump the game outright, even though it was a pretty good game. I recently picked it up used for 3 bucks, can't beat that.

Bioshock 3 on the other hand, i don't know what the fuck happened. It's "White people are bad" - the game. If you purchased and enjoyed bioshock infinite you're a fucking retard.

>>14080886

I played this a long time ago, probably 10 years ago by now. I look back on it as largely overrated- everyone saying how smart it is because of the socio-political preaching in the background of average fps gameplay. I haven't played modern FPS in a while, but to its credit it isn't being overhyped and lauded as an innovative new genre like "hero shooter" for having a, or in this case, some ability buttons.

>I'm biased to say the gunplay was okay due to my enjoyment of how the shotgun felt, but at the very least the ability for special ammo, less so for the pistol and Tommy gun, helped to give at least a centimeter of wiggle room with what you could use your weapons for.

I keep hearing "gunplay this, gunplay that" and its always accompanied by how the gun "feels" by a combination of sound effects, spread, and recoil, rather than objectivity or game-defining.

>>14083863

the gameplay for bioshock was praised because everyone always wants to play an RPG with guns, but everytime a game comes out with those elements, it ends up poorly executed. The Gene splicing (spells) in bioshock work well with the shooting aspect of the game, as well as augmenting gameplay but not replacing the guns entirely. the way the different upgrade paths affected how easy certain areas were as well, was also an interesting aspect to the game. My only criticism of the mechanics was that some skills made you kind of invincible in certain areas where the drones were because you could reprogram them and auto win, especially in some of the final areas of the game. but if you played the game blind, you don't figure this out until the game is nearly over anyway.

>>14080886

>While certainly as a successor System Shock it's very watered down

I never played SS and I still think that BS1 is dumb-downed gay shit.

BS1 is shit. The only thing that it did right was its artstyle and it is the epitome of the 7th gen console game design.

>>14083878

This is kind of my sentiment.

>>14083929

>BS1 is shit. The only thing that it did right was its artstyle and it is the epitome of the 7th gen console game design.

The game didn't really have any interactions, i.e roleplaying as opposed to having the upgrade systems characteristic to RPGs, with NPCs like you did in Deus Ex. I guess shocking water the NPCs were standing on to stun them was something at least. Not too much else about it was particularly memorable, but its been a very long time by now. Right now I just have the perspective that upgrade paths is something many other games feature, even during the time, and having it be balanced is only doing the job competently.

>>14080886

don't give a shit what anyone says, i enjoyed it my first playthrough for the atmosphere alone, the gunplay was only good when not fighting bullet sponges and when respawn chambers are disabled.

doubt i'd enjoy it now though, especially with the shitshow that is infinite existing to ruin muh immersion

>>14080943

It is unfortunate, they really missed me mark getting that sort of atmosphere again. Just came off as a bunch of weird crackheads and it all felt way too pushy. I fucking hate when a game tries to railroad me.

>>14080886

The gameplay and story was serviceable without really being anything to write home about but the voice acting, flavor writing, music, sound design, aesthetic and atmosphere are still utterly unimpeachable. It's honestly worth replaying now and again just for the audio diaries and a couple of the weapons.

>>14080973

>implying it was ever good

Outside the setting the game had virtually nothing in it that wasn't already done much better before.

>>14082766

I'm still angry about this game because it could have been legit amazing.

I think the thing about the early iterations is that what they showed of the writing showed that the game would focus more heavily on themes of the Manifest Destiny, American Exceptionalism taken to the extreme and democracy going haywire, which would have been infintely (pun intended) more interesting, at least to me.

All that stuff is still in there on a superficial level, but it gets dropped very quickly for nonsensical timetravel antics with a very nonsatisfactory ending. Add to that the fact that they dropped everything that was interesting or unique about the gameplay, and you have a very hollow FPS with a lot of missed potential. The only saving graces are the fantastic artstyle and Elizabeth, who is prime daughteru material.

>>14084388

Bioshock 1 and 2 are what you can describe as console shooters whereas the original FEAR is a PC one.

You can see the difference between a PC and a console shooter by comparing FEAR 1 and 2.