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Off-topic forums => Completely Unrelated => Topic started by: Jari on 2007-08-31 23:50:31

Title: Why Bioshock is seven shades of awesome
Post by: Jari on 2007-08-31 23:50:31
NOTE: LIST CONTAINS HUEG (LIKE XBOX) SPOILERS AND BECAUSE OF THAT HAS BEEN ENCRYPTED WITH ROT13 (since the spoiler tags are not working). You can use this page (http://www.rot13.com/) to decrypt it, in case your browser can't do that for you. And like I said, spoilers. So, if you haven't finished it, beware.

Oh, I don't actually think that these are the important things that make Bioshock great, these are just little details and moments in the game that I thought were really cool. :)


I'm sure that there were lots more, but I just can't remember them. :)


PS. If this post is showing graphical smileys (regardless of the setting I used), they'll get fucked up in the ROT13-conversion (as SMF renders them as text), but it's no biggie.
Title: Re: Why Bioshock is seven shades of awesome
Post by: Kashmir on 2007-09-01 04:14:57
I didn't find it to be anywhere near as good as system shock 2 gameplay wise... i was just impressed by the gfx, animation & so on.

Also the plot was terrible imo.
Title: Re: Why Bioshock is seven shades of awesome
Post by: Jari on 2007-09-01 05:58:27
I didn't find it to be anywhere near as good as system shock 2 gameplay wise... i was just impressed by the gfx, animation & so on.

So, what's wrong with it, then? :)

It does seem to be somewhat more simplified and faster paced - moved further towards FPS, I think - than System Shock 2, and possibly little bit easier at least on the default difficulty, but other than that I haven't found any major differences.

Certainly it seems to retain much more of SS2's depth than for example Deus Ex: Invisible War did in regards to its godlike predecessor.


Also the plot was terrible imo.

Please explain. :)
Title: Re: Why Bioshock is seven shades of awesome
Post by: Kashmir on 2007-09-01 10:31:03
gameplay
- unlimited respawns sucks, you'd think in rapture it would at lease cost money.
- all rpgs elements from ss2 were dumbed down to appeal to the action gamer (im a thief fan, not a action gamer)
- to many enemies, too many enemies respawning
- to much ammo
- no weapon health system (gun jams/breaking & so on..)
- hack game waste to much time considering just how many things there is to hack, old ss2 hacking system was better, simple & quick
... and just many other stuff that bugs me

plot
- too predictable
- too similar to ss2 (replace shodan & execzis with ryan & fontain)
- totally uninteresting characters, ( except for the artist, that section was good. )
... & some other stuff that annoys me, when i played final fantasy 7 i kepted rushing through to reveal the story quicker because it was interesting, whereas in this i just couldn't care and just went about searching everywhere.

I hope somebody makes a ss2 mod for it.
Title: Re: Why Bioshock is seven shades of awesome
Post by: Jari on 2007-09-01 14:19:55
gameplay
- unlimited respawns sucks, you'd think in rapture it would at lease cost money.

LOL, good point. :) Although you don't have to use the Vita-Chambers. I don't really like the idea either, and I just loaded a save, should I die. I don't remember for sure about System Shock 2, but the first System Shock had a counterpart for the chambers, I just don't remember the name anymore - actually that's probably where the idea came from. I didn't use it back then either, for that matter. :)


- all rpgs elements from ss2 were dumbed down to appeal to the action gamer (im a thief fan, not a action gamer)

Yes, but to hope otherwise would have been self deception of the worst kind. Same thing happened with DX: Invisible War. Actually, that was even worse, with the unified ammo and stuff. And it will happen for every game that gets consoled for the mainstream. While I'd prefer SS2 kind of approach, immersion is the most important thing for me and the dumbing down - at least this amount of dumbing down - didn't really affect that for me.


- to many enemies, too many enemies respawning
- to much ammo
- no weapon health system (gun jams/breaking & so on..)

Actually I think that these balance each other out. If you remember, both SS1 and SS2 had respawning enemies, which while possibly unrealistic (then again, this game has lots of unrealistic things) does work pretty well to keep you on your toes. You can't just stroll around in places you think you have cleared once already.

I don't know if it had too much ammo in regard with the amount of enemies, I certainly did manage to run pretty low on couple of occasions.

And while I like the abnormally fragile guns of System Shock 2, one couldn't certainly implement as is into Bioshock, without reducing the amount of enemies. It would get bit too difficult otherwise. :P

Yeah, I wouldn't mind if all those things were changed, but they are tied to each other and I find the current balance quite acceptable. It is clearly aimed more at a twitch gamer than SS2, but that's once again something you probably have to do, if you plan to actually sell the game these days. And again, it didn't really bother my immersion.

If you want something that is really questionable from the point of view of game balance, it's the Super Wrench(tm) from System Shock 2. :P With appropriate plasmids... why would you need anything else? :)


- hack game waste to much time considering just how many things there is to hack, old ss2 hacking system was better, simple & quick

No particular complaints, I can live with either of the hacking systems. Or the one from SS1. NOt a big deal to me.


plot
- too predictable

I dunno. It certainly drops hints and the things are not so unpredictable that they'd be impossible to guess - especially since the general structure of the plot bears some resemblance to SS2, but while I for example suspected the twist in the game, I wasn't sure of it until moments before it was spelled out. It's in a league of its own, if you compare it to traditional FPS plot (...what plot?), however.

Maybe I'm just too dumb to figure these out. :-D


- too similar to ss2 (replace shodan & execzis with ryan & fontain)

Bah. :P Like I said, there are similarities in the general structure, but a) they are hardly identical b) SS2 is 8 years old by now, and it was never a major hit - most people who get Bioshock have never played it.


- totally uninteresting characters, ( except for the artist, that section was good. )

Are not! Especially Ryan is an interesting take on a person who totally subscribes to Objectivism. In a way he goes even further when he starts to break his own rules of libertarianism to take care of Fontaine. After all, one of the principles of Objectivism is that your own self-interest should rule supreme... and what's closer to that than destroying the paradise - or "paradise" - you have built just for your own benefit? :)

Rest are more standard stuff, but hardly bad or uninteresting.


I hope somebody makes a ss2 mod for it.

Yes please! They could start with SS1 mod, though.



EDIT: No edits to the post, just something to add.

Something from a forum.

Something very, very wrong.

And yet so funny.

Quote
Oh man, just saw this one gamefaqs.com and nearly died.... too bad the topic is gone:
Topic name:
So when the big daddy is banging a little sisters hole...
Post:
do the little sisters always come? Because one time I was watching a big daddy (the one with the huge drill) bang a little sister's hole and she didn't come and he just walked away.

What, you perverts? That is an accurate description of totally innocent events in the game, get your mind out of the gutter! :-(

:-D
Title: Re: Why Bioshock is seven shades of awesome
Post by: Alhexx on 2007-09-04 01:04:44
 - Edit - 2007-09-10 -
Thanx to julian and Mantrid for mailing the file I requested to me.

- Original Post -

I also have played Bioshock, and I must say I enjoyed it...and I'm sure I'll enjoy it even more as soon as my new graphics card arrives this weeks...

And now I'm enjoying decoding Bioshock's game archive format :D

Although this is a bit off-topic:
Does anyone in here have the Bioshock demo installed...?
I am asking because there is something I need to verify with the game archive format, however, I only have the retail version of the game, and I need a file from the demo for comparison.
The file I need is called "Catalog.bdc" and is located in the "Content\BulkContent" folder. The file's total size is ~200KB. (If you compress it, it should be even ~20KB)

So, if someone has got the demo installed, would you kindly mail it to me...?
(mail: [username]@[username].com)

Thanks

 - Alhexx

 - Edit -
I decided to provide some closer information for those who are interested what I'm going to do with that file...

The .bdc file is the TOC (table-of-contents) for the game archives (those with the .blk ending).
The .bdc file holds all the interesting information as filenames, file sizes and file offsets, however, it does not (directly) contain the number of files that are stored in a .blk file. The Bioshock developers have "encrypted" this information.
I have been working for over 4 hours to decode the algorithm that decrypts that information and calculates the number of files.

I'll post a small table here...
Code: [Select]
Filename                     Data  Files  Algo
----------------------------------------------
0-lighthouseLevel.blk        1395    372   372
1-medicalLevel.blk           3141    774   774
1-welcomeLevel.blk           2671    688   688
2-fisheriesLevel.blk         2905    730   730
2-subbayLevel.blk             603    156   156
3-arcadiaLevel.blk           3144    777   777
3-marketLevel.blk            2128    529   529
4-recreationLevel.blk        3197    830   830
5-hephaestusLevel.blk        1906    499   499
5-ryanLevel.blk              1116    285   285
6-resiLevel.blk              2923    748   748
6-slumsLevel.blk             2669    686   686
7-bossfightLevel.blk          639    192   192
7-GauntletLevel.blk          1636    421   421
7-scienceLevel.blk           2900    725   725
DynamicBulkFileTextures.blk  8011   1996  1900
In the first column, you see the filenames of the archive files. The second column contains the encrypted file counts, the third one contains the real file counts. And in column four, you see the results decoded by my algorithm.

As you can see, my algorithm works correct for all files except "DynamicBulkFileTextures.blk"...
The file from the demo version has less files than the one in the retail version, therefore I might have a chance to fix the problem, but I will need the TOC file from the demo version...

By the way, before anyone says I could download the demo by myself:
I've got a internet connection with a traffic limit of 3GB/month, and all I need from the 1.8GB Demo is a 200KB file...
Title: Re: Why Bioshock is seven shades of awesome
Post by: Kashmir on 2007-09-04 02:45:35
What, you perverts? That is an accurate description of totally innocent events in the game, get your mind out of the gutter! :-(

:-D

lol, i always call them big robots in conversation... saying to someone that "those big daddies move hard & fast" in conversation doesn't give the greatest impression.