System Shock comparison

[inhuman]

In terms of basic gameplay, what is different and most importantly new in Bioshock, compared to System Shocks?

System Shock:
*Multiple paths / routes? -check
*Multiple approaches / solutions? -check (rely on your fire power / telekinetic abilities / technical -ie.hacking- skills as opposed to Bioshock's firepowers / those genetic mutation things very much like force powers from Star Wars / hacking again, turning off security systems. etc.)
*Open ended free-roaming environment? -check
*Narration by finding notes, logs, memories, whatever? -check

So really, is this a retro-futuristic System Shock in Deep Blue Sea? Is "Big Daddies" and "Little Daughters" or whatever, the only difference?

[Da Bubs]

well it is a spiritual successor to system shock. My personal theory is that the Von Braun traveled back in time and crashed in the north atlantic;)

[Xerxes]

For me, Irrational Games have had my money since they went out talking about the spiritual successor of System Shock... :D

[inhuman]

I know, and it's a good thing, as I loved System Shock (both of them). But all this hype, all this PR-talk, as if it's something completely new, original, unthought and unheard of, groundbreaking, innovating, etc. etc. is kind of annoying. I've seen most if not all the videos so far, read some interviews and all I can gather from those is that it's "System Shock 2 + Water - Space", and Levine's obsession with water effects, heh. Not that it's bad; it looks like I'll probably love the game.

However, the Splicers do really look stupid imo. When you have a few variations of zombie models to fill up the gameworld, it's kinda ok since they are just zombies. But when you do the same with mutated women in dresses, who only vary in colour of the dress, it smells "laziness".

Also, with all that emphasis on water, it was kind of sad to see in the video that when a character dies bleeding onto/into water, the blood doesn't even spread and mix into the water. I'm not too keen on graphics but in every interview, Levine sounds overly enthusiastic about the water effects in the game and yet, they only seem to be "passive" water shaders applied to surfaces, much like it's been done for the last 20 years in games.

[Gabby_Hayes]

Oddly enough the rather conservative proportions of the aggressor Splicers and other enemies of the game make them seem more 'plausible'. Not as if the entire premise is even possible however their routine physicality allows for some shock when they shoot lightening from their arse and bark bees.:D

[Avatar]

Also, with all that emphasis on water, it was kind of sad to see in the video that when a character dies bleeding onto/into water, the blood doesn't even spread and mix into the water.
That's a pretty neat idea.

[Glottis]

That's a pretty neat idea.


Sounds like something the Geometry proc's in the 8800 could do,along with some DX10 goodness :D My DX10 q was kinda,sorta answered by the dev team last week,or the week before...

[inhuman]

It doesn't need to be that complex. Tech-wise, it requires nothing new. You have water shaders, which are usually simple blocks in games. The shader determines the characteristics of the surfaces and blocks it's applied to, ie. you can go through, flow through it, shoot through it, see through it by 70% etc. Nothing new so far. The blood splatter which appears when you damage or kill enemies is also an object of sorts. Add in simple collision detection, which has also been in use for the last 20+ years (you walk on or shoot "muddy" surface, you hear mud, you see mud splatter sprites etc.).

So, the logic is "if blood splatter collides the object with water shader applied, spawn non-looped animated blood splatters which play a diffusing "cloud" and eventually disappear, place these animated blood shaders next to the original blood splatter, gradually change the colour/hue of the water block, remove the animated blood shaders". There, you just witnessed blood diffusing into water. I think there have been games with such things in the past.

[MultiVaC]

Far Cry had blood pouring out into the water, but I don't think it actually changed the color of the water. It was just like a particle effect coming off the body. I think HL2 SMOD has the effect you're talking about. Remember that the Bioshock video we're talking about is from E3 2006 (?) which was a year before the game's scheduled release, they hadn't even made the final Plasmid effects at that point.

[K3NNy]

The diffusion of blood does would be a really nice effect to have. But as we have seen from the videos of the game it isn't there :(. Maybe BioShock 2 will have it!?!