BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

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BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by MKSheppard »

So, I finally got around to playing Bioshock Infinity (and then went out and bought it's DLC subsequently under the Steam Holiday Sales).

I also got started a little bit on Bioshock 1 remastered.

Maybe its because I beat Bioshock Infinite BEFORE playing Bioshock 1 Remastered; but I'm liking the overall structure of Infinity better than the "mainline" 1/2 Bioshocks.

The characters in Infinite seem a bit more fleshed out than the mainline ones. Comstock, Booker, Elizabeth, Fink and Fitzroy are a lot better than the generic slots the mainline ones have:

Ryan: Crazed Megalomaniac howard hughes type. We already did this with Mr. House in FO:NV.

Fontaine: He seems to be a generic industrial titan/competitor. By contrast, Fink in Infinities has some quotable lines:

“What is the most admirable creature on God's green Earth? Why, it's the bee! Have you ever seen a bee on vacation? Have you ever seen a bee take a sick day? Well, my friends, the answer is no! So I say, be… the bee! Be the bee!”

But I think the real change is that you now have an actual protagonist and supporting protagonist in Booker and Elizabeth in Infinity, as opposed to what little I've seen of Jack in BS1 Remastered.

The Settings are much different -- We've been to dark depressed dungeon crawlers after the apocalypse a million times -- look at Alien: Isolation and Sevastopol Station, Citadel Station in System Shock, and pretty much all of the entire Fallout series.

So to me, seeing Rapture in the Mainline Bioshocks is....boring; it's just a slowly decaying imploding wreck at the bottom of the ocean, whereas Columbia is bright, alive and full of interesting locations to visit (before things start going wrong).
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Re: BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by MKSheppard »

Another reason why I like Infinite is that from the very start, you know that Booker DeWitt has a tortured backstory, and it's slowly explained throughout Infinite, starting with the iconic box scene:

Image

Today is also the 130th anniversary (December 29, 1890) of Wounded Knee.

DeWitt's "shadowbox" at his office, which you see in flashbacks show that he received the Medal of Honor for his actions there; something also referenced by other characters, specifically Slate:

"Corporal DeWitt proved his worth on the field that day."
...
"The tin soldier has taken credit for the deeds of the real ones. Now your companion, young lady... he wrapped himself in glory on December 29, eighteen-hundred and ninety."


By contrast, you're a blank slate in BioShock with no real backstory other than "Generic guy who was on an airplane going somewhere for Christmas?"

ADDENA: In BioShock Remastered , you can get stuck due to shitty level design and be forced to reload your game (photograph the Splicer quest) to go on.
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Re: BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by Lord Revan »

I'm guessing you've not gotten to the end yet since there's a reason why Jack is a blank slate in Bioshock, I won't spoil what that reason is in case you've not gotten that far but it's not just laziness.
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Re: BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by MKSheppard »

Well, I can look at the Steam achievements for Bioshock...

52.5% of players have defeated Dr. Steinmann in Bioshock 1 Remastered.

By contrast, 49.2% of players have beat The Hand of the Prophet in Infinite; which is pretty much the final level.

I don't know how much of this is due to BS1: Remastered being a "new-old" game; or whether it's due to the game design of BioShock 1 aging badly.
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Re: BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by TheFeniX »

Starting off, I would have to say two things:
1. New Vegas came out around 3 years after Bioshock 1 and in the "dead spot" of console gaming where literally no one knew how to code for the 360 or PS3, thus leading to a game with multiple hard decisions needing to be made.
2. Comparing a linear FPS villain to an RPG villain/ally is mostly unfair. Ignoring the amazing voice actor for Mr. House and the writers New Vegas, which already makes a ridiculously high bar, open-world RPGs (if given the options) will generally give you much more face-time and give them many more opportunities to shine. Adding to this, Ryan is much more in the vein of "absent" villain style FPS junk (though WotLK was big on this WRT the Lich King, with the same plot-twist mechanic) who is working behind the scenes to thwart you while you have to go out of your way to avoid Mr. House.

Love or hate it: Bioshock 1 told a ton of stories via recordings and some psuedo-flashback stuff.

Thing is, games like Bioshock 1 are more primers than anything. Same thing with Half-life 1 and even 2. They are going to feel dated because other games, like Bioshock, came in and expanded on ideas that came before them. My beef with Infinite is it goes too far. Every tie to the Arena Shooter roots is gone, the game is homogenized to the point of blandness, and the options are presented in such as way as too feel like a movie and they rarely amount to anything.

Bioshock delivered an interesting spin on the narrative, actually more involved than KOTOR1's twist IMO, more than serviceable gameplay, and the ability to tackle fights in multiple ways. Idiots at the time took this to mean "MULTIPLE PATHS" as if the game wasn't going to be a hallway shooter. And they raged because of it. It's a pretty solid technical implementation too.

Either way, I didn't like Infinite. Felt like too much hand-holding. That said, Bioshock 1 is definitely dated. There was a time FPS creators were trying to blend Arena Shooter elements with more simplified (read: console/Halo) gameplay. Those days are pretty much dead. And the technology exists to tell bigger stories in FPS and games like Gears of War and Call of Duty showed it can be done and make good money. In the 2000s, the "Halo" way of storytelling was a big deal: shit happens between levels, Protag says some lines, but is near 100% silent during gameplay. Oh, and the game completely fuckin' falls apart after the big reveal. Literally, like the game could have ended after it because holy shit, the last 30% of Bioshock 1 was terrible.

EDIT: I kind of want to throw in here that IMO games like Jedi-Outcast/Academy (two Arena Shooters) aged better because literally no one even tried to do it better.
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Re: BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by MKSheppard »

Fenix, I don't have a lot of time to reply in detail to all of your points, but this:
TheFeniX wrote: 2020-12-30 12:53amIn the 2000s, the "Halo" way of storytelling was a big deal: shit happens between levels, Protag says some lines, but is near 100% silent during gameplay.
I've noticed a pattern with BioShock 1 so far -- you don't really have any interactions at all that are positive in the game -- By that, I mean you don't have any direct face to face interactions -- you either hear them over recovered voice tapes; get ordered around from behind video screens, or via radio.

When you FINALLY encounter someone, they either die, or attack you on sight.

By contrast, Half Life in 1998 had interaction with people, such as Barney, scientists, etc.

That's what I think is missing from BioShock.
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Re: BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by MKSheppard »

Ghetto EDIT: Alien: Isolation had the same problem; limited interaction, much of it by radio -- no real genuine interaction, and irritating gameplay decisions; but a lot of it was saved by the level design of Sevastopol Station -- they found the right mix of chaos and decay -- plus vast open wonder -- that's missing from BioShock.
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Re: BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by TheFeniX »

MKSheppard wrote: 2020-12-30 11:17amI've noticed a pattern with BioShock 1 so far -- you don't really have any interactions at all that are positive in the game -- By that, I mean you don't have any direct face to face interactions -- you either hear them over recovered voice tapes; get ordered around from behind video screens, or via radio.
There's a narrative reason for that, but that's not a defense for poor storytelling. The HL1 interactions, while fun, were definitely minimal. Half-Life 2 affected the genre in the other way, the game forcing you to stand around for minutes dealing with massive exposition dumps in the vein of a more RPG setting and has not aged well.

Thing is, there is/was a social contract with FPS players and devs: you keep the action at a pace that doesn't annoy the player, save the long monologs for RPGs. For an example: Farcry 5 broke this contract consistently and it was incredibly jarring. Bioshock split a diff IMO btw Half-life 1 and 2, finding a good middle ground.

EDIT: I SHOULD ADD, valve learned their lessons going into EP1 and EP2. Way more on the "short and sweet" side of things versus vanilla HL2.

Bioshock is supposed to illicit a feeling of loneliness/isolation as part of it's horror aesthetic of a failing underwater city on the brink of collapse after it already collapsed socially and you being late to the party. Your only lifeline is that radio. Sound familiar? Like a man in a dive suit at the bottom of the ocean with an air line and a buddy on the other end of a radio? Almost like you're a deep sea diver exploring the ruins of a sunken ship. It's not exactly a GROUNDBREAKING analogy they were going for, but IMO (at the time) it was more effective than not.

And the level design itself, while pushed by technological limitations (the technical balancing act of large maps vs limiting load times was a huge deal), Rapture was always supposed to have feelings of claustrophobia (edit: actually not even the right word: you're supposed to "learn" that the smaller areas are safe and comforting /EDIT). This is why many of the larger areas are designed with multiple possible attack vectors (such as balconies) for enemies. The player is supposed to feel exposed during these segments. And (groan) the later levels are supposed to be more open as a euphemism for The Player "waking up" and being free from his bonds. And thus no longer being afraid of them (the Truth).

Thing is, Bioshock 1 isn't "Great" IMO. It's pretty damn good though. And it "needs" to exist because it's a game that helped teach developers what works and what doesn't.

Now that said, he's where I'll go more neckbeard: whereas Halo showed you can essentially (re)design an FPS to function solely on console by removing ALL Arena Shooter elements, Bioshock showed how you can blend them versus it's predecessors in the System Shock series. Which, arguably, are way too complicated for a controller to navigate. They accomplished this by gutting a lot of choices. The term is usually "streamlined." They did this to appeal to a larger audience. I mean, Elder Scrolls did this same thing going from Morrowind > Oblivion > Skyrim. Skyrim was their first true blockbuster in the series and they accomplished this by removing tons of the mechanical RPG elements and pushing it way more into Action/Adventure. So, Bioshock deserves some shit here because it's one of the games that helped pushed us into these narrow/meta build ideas that essentially remove an element of difficulty people used to challenge themselves. Short version: you have to go OUT of your way to be "bad" at Bioshock due to the limited options. Versus.... holy shit there were so many builds in Morrowind that just handicapped the shit out of you, even though they sounded good on paper.
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Re: BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by MKSheppard »

I gave up on Bioshock 1 Remaster about half way through (During the pointless fetch quest for 11,000 ingredients to regenerate the trees in the garden) and just went onto youtube for the Andrew Ryan confrontation; total play time about 4.5 hours up to Farmer's Market/Arcadia.

Then I started on Bioshock 2 Remaster....and I lasted about 5 minutes before I quit; as I saw it was just more "look, super dark corridor shooter!"
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Re: BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by FaxModem1 »

This is interesting, because a lot of people have made videos, essays, posts, etc, describing the opposite.

The basic gist I've heard people say is that Bioshock Infinite is too much of a FPS, where you're on-rails and it feels weird that Booker is going through garbage, trying to grab every single thing he sees, when Columbia is a thriving 'functional' city. People were also super-cheesed at the ending because choice was denied, unlike the other games in the series. Having wave after wave of normal people in police/army/revolutionary uniforms swarm you gets old really quick. This is also why the Adam and Eve make sense in Rapture, because it's a society that doesn't restrict scientific research, so all sorts of things going wrong in their society make sense. Vigors, in Columbia, aren't conducive to the setting, and are only there because it's a Bioshock game, because a fundie-Christian cult wouldn't really be the kind of people to research genetic engineering and giving people superpowers.

Whereas the first one works to blend narrative and gameplay. There's a reason you're searching every nook and cranny, every dead body, every garbage can, etc. Rapture is an Objectivist city after it's fall, so standard video game mechanics have a good justification. You are a scavenger, so you are collecting crap because you can't just wander in to the nearest store and buy things, whereas Booker conceivably could.

Escape also should be rather easy in Columbia. There are several small airships you can jump onto, and having Elizabeth rewire them or Booker killing the steering robot so that he can steer it towards the mainland is an option. Or heck, grab a couple of bedsheets from all the places Booker ransacks, sew/tie them together into a parachute, and land. Jack doesn't have those options, and has to follow orders just to get an idea of how to escape.

Is Bioshock perfect? No, but it weaves the various parts gameplay and narrative.

That said, I prefer walking around Columbia to Rapture, if only because it's a lot prettier.
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Re: BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by MKSheppard »

FaxModem1 wrote: 2021-01-08 04:52am This is interesting, because a lot of people have made videos, essays, posts, etc, describing the opposite.
Maybe it's because I played Infinite first, and got used to Elizabeth being with me, providing commentary, emotional support, story plot (tm) and......

Image
The basic gist I've heard people say is that Bioshock Infinite is too much of a FPS, where you're on-rails
As opposed to Bioshock 1 sending you back and forth and around places on pointless fetch quests? I mean, I don't mind having to look for something, but don't fuck me by sending me off looking for 7 x distilled water, 7 x bee enzymes, 5 x Gene whatevers across a dark, decaying mess.
and it feels weird that Booker is going through garbage, trying to grab every single thing he sees
As opposed to BS1 where you're also going through the garbage too?
Having wave after wave of normal people in police/army/revolutionary uniforms swarm you gets old really quick.
As opposed to zombi--- I mean, Splicers and Big Daddies being all over the place?
This is also why the Adam and Eve make sense in Rapture, because it's a society that doesn't restrict scientific research, so all sorts of things going wrong in their society make sense. Vigors, in Columbia, aren't conducive to the setting, and are only there because it's a Bioshock game, because a fundie-Christian cult wouldn't really be the kind of people to research genetic engineering and giving people superpowers.
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And the twisted version of Edison's laboratories he had going researching sea slugs too and shittalking Sichong.

Sea Slugs. Goddamn Sea Slugs! Could that Oriental have come up with a more inconvenient fuel for his Plasmids? If there is a God -- and I've seen more evidence to the contrary than in support -- you'd think he'd have put ADAM into the belly of a nice little seagull or crow. The costs of all these underwater expeditions are murdering my margins.
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Re: BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by MKSheppard »

FaxModem1 wrote: 2021-01-08 04:52amEscape also should be rather easy in Columbia. There are several small airships you can jump onto, and having Elizabeth rewire them or Booker killing the steering robot so that he can steer it towards the mainland is an option. Or heck, grab a couple of bedsheets from all the places Booker ransacks, sew/tie them together into a parachute, and land. Jack doesn't have those options, and has to follow orders just to get an idea of how to escape.
If we're going to shit-talk plots; Columbia makes more sense as an "independent" nation, since from 1893-1912, nobody can really reach it -- and by 1912, people are only just starting to get planes that can reliably get up to columbia.

Meanwhile, Rapture isn't that deep -- there's plenty of light, marking it in the Euphotic Zone (down to 200 m depth or about 700 feet), making it easily reachable by World War II technology -- depth charges or submarines (VIIC/41s could dive as deep as 250 meters (820 feet) -- so how was Ryan able to build his Objectivist paradise without people interfering?

I mean, the first time someone truly important is disappeared in Rapture (Ryan liked to disappear people at will from Lamb to Fontaine), people from the surface are going to notice, particularly if we go by BioShock 2; where Lamb is raiding the surface to get replacement Little Sisters.
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Re: BioShocks of Madmen, Cities and Lighthouses

Post by TheFeniX »

If you ignored all the "hype" like an intelligent person, Bioshock: Infinite was just another cooking cutter corridor FPS (with the illusory feel of open world due to the open nature of the "world") that gave you bad guys to shoot and linear upgrade paths to take. The problem was, like all things, they overhyped the fuck out of it. Of note: the faction system was supposed to create emergent gameplay by playing said factions off one another and the idea that Songbird was a persistent threat who could attack at any moment to add even more insanity to the gameplay. All this shit was cut, for multiple reasons, leading to just another scripted system of encounters where you reduce enemy health to 0 before they reduce yours to 0.

Thing is, it's not bad GAME because they did that, but overhype and underdeliver is an annoyance to a lot of people and I can't blame them. You saw this same thing with Fable, Spore, Bioshock 2, and on and on. Decent games, strangled by massive overhype. And let's face it, a "functioning" system of this, in the vein of Skyrim, ends up with hilarious shit like Dragons being cliffracers with their "random" (NOTE: only semi-random. Certain locations in Skyrim are setup in the game to spawn a list of leveled encounters) annoying attacks, basically forcing the player to sprint to Dragonrend to make them tolerable, OR abuse the busted faction system which leads to hilarious shit like horses killing dragons while you just watch.

From a storytelling standpoint, Infinite asks no hard questions and delivers no good answers. This is unsurprising since the lead writers said something to the effect of "I was reading about multiverse theory and couldn't wrap my head around it, so I thought it would be a good idea to write a story BASED AROUND THE ENTIRE CONCEPT." EDIT: This was my same beef with "SOMA" as the writers obvious did not understand the concept of what they were writing about, merely saying stupid shit to the effect of "a 50/50 coin flip."/EDIT

While I only played it a bit on someone else's console, there was nothing about the game that stood out to me as being worth the time. Visually the game is sort of pretty, but not graphically amazing. The story and the way it was delivered was excessively preachy and boring (NOTE: this is from watching no commentary let's plays), and nothing about the gameplay made me feel like it was anything more than a cutdown Bioshock game with next to no choices.
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