Comments on Bioshock demonstration video

[chucknorris]

Hi guys! just wondering if this is the right place to post this but... Do you guys think that this is the "new and improved game that redefines FPS"?

After hearing about Bioshock, and watching the Official demonstration video with Narrator Ken Levine. He first says, what this game is trying to do; "Is to redefine first person shooters. Our goal, is to put a steak in the heart of all the *cleshays* (*spelling right?*) over the years in a first person shooter. The Linear corridors, the very static environments, and the cookie cutter AI" Now he does say its something that we should all judge for ourselves if its "the game that redefine FPS".
So far its nothing remarkably spectacular to me but just a new story and great graphics. If anyone played the System Shock series its all similar to Bioshock; Mutants running about killing everybody. Using machines to "modify" and give you super human abilities plus a lot of mod weaponry.

About this comment... the Linear corridors, the very static environments, and the cookie cutter AI in other games. Uhm well... it seems Bioshock has plenty of the same bloody floors, water dripping dark hallways; that to me is its own "static" environment. Now for the "cookie cutter AI" every AI character in this game has their own unique strategy to defeat them but; It seems to me once you run into enough of the same AI characters, nothing "new" will happen making this no more then "cookie cutter AI" game.

I really didn't mean this as a flame post if thats what you're thinkin, the game looks great! Just to me, this is not the game to be named "the next gen redefiner of First person shooters". But a great new idealist strategy to a first person shooter.

Now I haven't played this game yet so who knows it might just surprise the hell out of me. This is all about the demo video.

[Bartekk]

Some more hardcore forum members will comment on every letter in your post, but let me just say this.

Non-static environments means that environments are not just to watch them (DOOM 3).

AI, play stalker. Even after killing dozens of soldiers they will always surprise you with their tactics.

[chucknorris]

well... if only this game had Chuck norris... its only getting a 8/10 from me!
and my judgment counts... including every hardcore letter i put in there!

answers me! do you think this game "redefines!! F P S" !?

I now ask myself after I made my 1st post rant... what have I done!? (flame on!)

[lurchibald]

well... if only this game had Chuck norris... its only getting a 8/10 from me!
and my judgment counts... including every hardcore letter i put in there!

answers me! do you think this game "redefines!! F P S" !?

of course it redefines the FPS because most (if not all) FPS's require you to go into a room guns blazing to get past the monsters but with bioshock you can use the "Enemy's" to your advantage but in most games (apart from stalker (as far as i know)) no matter what enemy it is it will attack you but in bioshock some "enemy's" may even run away from you, but one of the big differences is that you are actually required to think about what you are going to do, not "i'll just go in and shoot everything and then see what happens" and also your not restricted to how you can upgrade weapons and plasmids.

[Bartekk]

chucknorris
I don't really understand what do you mean with your second post.

answers me! do you think this game "redefines!! F P S" !?

How the hell am I supposed to know? I'll tell you after I play it.

[lurchibald]

chucknorris
I don't really understand what do you mean with your second post.



How the hell am I supposed to know? I'll tell you after I play it.

nice reply Bartekk

[splicer]

If we are just discussing the early demo,obviously so much has probably changed since then,the most obvious being that Adam can no longer be found on on bodies and in cash registers ect.
Also,I welcome the fact that you are bringing up these topics,We'll do our best to answer your questions

I think when Ken is referring to Static enviroments,he's talking about the general level of interaction the player has in Bioshock compared to other games,from what I've seen just about every item in this game can be interacted with.Objects can be set on fire,thrown ect.
I think the AI in the final game will genuinely surprise you,enemies will react to you based on how you react to them,what I mean by this is, that they dont have some pre-scripted kill,kill,kill mentality.Also,they are generated at random througout the world,so you will never fight the same enemy in the same place twice.The tactics you can use to fight these agressors isnt limited either..you get to choose where in the level you want to fight ect,its all about player choice.

Similarities to System Shock is obvious since this game was long ago hailed by Irrational as the spiritual successor to those games.

I hope that helps,if there anything else just ask! Oh yes! Welcome to Rapture!

[darthkiwi]

I guess the non-static environments = water you can zap, stuff you can set on fire etc.
I think one of the most interesting things about the game is the non-corridor way of thinking. I'm hoping it'll be like System Shock in this respect: you just explore an area, pick up stuff and hope to find what you're looking for. Once you've explored enough, you'll have a lot of the map revealed, so you can be more precise in where you look for plot-items. I hope it'll be this free-form.

But the most important thing about it is, I think, that someone has thought really, really hard about every single aspect of the game, then fine-tuned it. Since that person is Ken Levine, I think it'll be worth it!

[FreshLaundryX]

Even though this game has depth, complexity, and maturity beyond any FPS I've ever seen, Ken and company are being very careful about telling people "it's a first person shooter!" I think this is a carefully planned marketing strategy involving the dangling of red meat to the hungry (and sadly mentally deficient) masses who "just wanna shoot sum stuff". To the rest of us that are hungry for a more intellectual experience, Ken is basically giving us a nod and a wink to expect something much, much, more with a depth of emotion, freedom and story never before experienced. Sure it's a first person shooter, but if it also has the game-play elements of an underwater romantic comedy starring the voice talents of Sandra Bullock and Matt Damon, well that would just be icing on the wedding cake.

[Hatesink]

I guess the proof of the pudding is in the eating (so it's going to be hard to make the kind of assessment you're requesting until actually having played it). It's difficult to see from the gameplay movies the nuances of the individual A.I.s but as an illustration of the sophistication of the A.I. I think the Big Daddy/Little Sister relationship is definitely indicative of some potentially revolutionary advances in A.I.

If you think about how complex Blood Money's stop and search dynamic seems to be, the Big Daddy/Little Sister relationship seems to be a minor miracle by comparison.

When I think about advanced A.I. I think SWAT 4, the later Splinter Cell games, the Hitman series, but as difficult as I imagine it must be to get these wire-frames to behave in these ways, these behaviors still seems pretty rudimentary in terms of potential human (or even non-human) interaction.

When I look at the Big Daddy little sister relationship I'm basically in awe. The first time I saw that little sister crawl out of the vent, being helped down by the big daddy (iirc) I was in awe. To be honest it amazes me how these things even get made.

[Newbeing]

When I think of the FPS's out there that possess their own ecology, I can't think of many beyond bioshock.

Plus you can't be Chuck Norris. If you were your post count would look like this:
http://www.silverseagull.co.uk/photos/infinity.jpg

[BigDaddy93]

i definitly think this game redifines the FPS genre never before has ther been such a large interaction between AIs or an environment that let u use so many items from whiskey to lighting teddybears on fire and throwing them at ppl

[F [a] C E]

cliches, OP.

Will Bioshock redefine FPS'? FPS' have evolved enough to the point where you can't really take a compelling singleplayer fps and compare it directly to, say, an online-only competition-oriented teamplay shooter... Or the--finally and Thank God--dying breed of DM/TDM corridor thumpers who can't get their head out of '95, which I think is more the type Mr. Levine seemed to be speaking of.

Contextually, if you look at what's been/being released lately... Titles like Unreal 3 (which is actually the... 1,2,ut,2k3,2k4... 6th? iteration of Unreal), Crysis (FarCry 2 or better yet CryEngine 2), Quake 4, Quake Wars, Resident Evil 5 (that's right... FIVE!), countless nameless, uninspired World War N shooters... It's all more of the same crap. To that extent Bioshock is sure to have an impact on what you expect to get out of an FPS nowadays.

As for the hype itself, which is what you seem to be getting at, well... IG will deliver. Bars will be raised. It's the freaking spiritual successor to 'shock, man! Do you know what kind of awesomeness that alone implies?!

[Raveness]

I think short of mass market penetration of VR shooters that can be played in the comfort of a persons cleared living room, there's no significant "redefining" of FPS left that would constitute the phrase being anything more than a marketing gimmick.

[FreshLaundryX]

Even though this game has depth, complexity, and maturity beyond any FPS I've ever seen, Ken and company are being very careful about telling people "it's a first person shooter!" I think this is a carefully planned marketing strategy involving the dangling of red meat to the hungry (and sadly mentally deficient) masses who "just wanna shoot sum stuff". To the rest of us that are hungry for a more intellectual experience, Ken is basically giving us a nod and a wink to expect something much, much, more with a depth of emotion, freedom and story never before experienced. Sure it's a first person shooter, but if it also has the game-play elements of an underwater romantic comedy starring the voice talents of Sandra Bullock and Matt Damon, well that would just be icing on the wedding cake.

I can't remember if I was sober or not when I posted this... but at the time I thought it was hilarious. Obviously I was mistooken.