The game wouldn’t be as scary if I knew the passage was safe, if I knew my weapon would fire everytime, if I knew I had plenty of ammo… All those things kept me insecure and scared shitless at every in game moment from start to finish. Having the lights off and the sound up also helped.
I can see how those things can be really frustrating for other users, especially those partial to raw shooters.
You know, some people say that the bad controls in resident evil help keep you scared as well.
The way I see it, frustration does not make for being scared, simply frustrated.
I’ve never really understood the issue with weapon degradation. Sure it was pretty heavy, but I never really had much trouble. I’d fire weapons, throw the low-levl ones away when done, keep the good ones repaired. And up my repair skill with implants. In contrast, I hear the the psi path is supposedly so good because of the lack of weapon breaking, but I could never play through with it.
Yeah, weapon breakage in SS2 enriched the experience for me rather then being frustrated. Being a marine and having to regularly check and maintain my weapons was cool, and I will never forget the time my rifle was at 2 and I was out of repair kits, so I was delicately trying to get to a vending machine without snapping the gun. I’ll also never forget the time my pistol jammed at the most inopportune moment and I had to high-tail it.
Statements such as this - “The way I see it, frustration does not make for being scared, simply frustrated.” - are generally useless in this context. Assuming that things you find frustrating are found frustrating by all people is really a poor basis for thought.
Chris Woods
Count me in the weapon degradation fanbase. I liked the mechanic and I think it helped add to the suspense of being the last “normal” guy left alive on a spaceship full of trouble.
You should write game stories.
My thoughts exactly.
Back to Bioshock: I know it won’t happen, but since it appears to take place in derelict military research facilities, I keep fantasizing that there’ll be an appearance of like an old pre-ARPAnet rogue AI. Voiced by Teri Brosius.
I was thinking more along the lines of Michael Bay Summer Blockbusters, but game stories work too. ;)
That’s the old version of BioShock. The new one is in an underwater Objectivist facility.
The weapon degradation rocked and anyone who didn’t like it is a sissypants crybaby.
Alternately, it sucked, and anyone who likes it is wearing rose-colored glasses so heavily tinted as to be completely opaque, blinding the wearer to the game’s considerable faults.
Hearing so many people speak negatively about SS2 is so
refreshing. Honestly I liked the game a lot but to hear some people talk about it you would think that the original never existed (and was better).
It sucked for you. You’re just weak.
Rose-colored glasses don’t apply, as I’ve replayed SS2 at least 4 times, most recently about 3 months ago, and it still holds up just fine for me. I’d turn the degradation up a little bit if I could. It’d be great if your ammunition degraded on a timer while it was in your inventory as well; that’d be less ham-handed than the semi-constant respawning.
Sure, the game has faults. (Most notably, the failure of the game to present to the player the reason why all the guns are so susceptible to falling apart–it isn’t until many hours into the game that one finds the log entry that explains how the respiration of The Many contains a corrosive particle that is specifically designed by Shodan to cause machinery to break down.) The end levels are unbalanced and brutally out of sync with the rest of the game. The game’s “considerable faults” are certainly present and I’m not making apologies for them, but the actual mechanism by which one’s weapons degraded is not a fault, it’s one of the game’s core strengths.
You pansy.
Yes, I am a pansy as well, I hated that degradation crap.
The original System Shock was a far superior game, by the way.
The interesting thing about the end levels is that they’re almost too easy if you have PSI powers and can turn invisible. I remember just walking by those big nasty Brawler things.
Also really mitigated the weapon repair issues. I’ve never played through with the other classes, though, so I can’t comment on how much.
Ah! I s’pose I shoulda read the article. Oh well. I can still fantasize for a pre-Citadel Shodan By Another Name.
I’m weak because I find a crappy gameplay mechanic to be crappy. I, uh…
What?
Sure, the game has faults. (Most notably, the failure of the game to present to the player the reason why all the guns are so susceptible to falling apart–it isn’t until many hours into the game that one finds the log entry that explains how the respiration of The Many contains a corrosive particle that is specifically designed by Shodan to cause machinery to break down.)
Uh, “most notably” would be the inclusion of degrading weapons in the first place. I could have cared less about their storyline explanation for it. Deus Ex 2 explained away unified ammo - that didn’t suddenly make it a more appealing game design decision.
Another “most notably” might be the RPG weapon skills. My aim is dead between the eyes with every shot, but the game says I grazed my target in the shoulder because my pistol skill sucks? What the hell, why do I have to aim at all? Just let me walk around and then make a bunch of rolls to determine if I survive a battle or not if you’re going to ensure my FPS skills don’t mean anything.
Then there’s the thing Wheelkick mentioned - I’m a cyborg marine with years of training, yet I can’t even wield a shotgun?! Oh, of course, I need those cybermodule upgrade things in order to figure out which end to point at enemies. Makes sense.
I’m weak for disliking this kind of crap in what is otherwise an unusually brilliant game?
The end levels are unbalanced and brutally out of sync with the rest of the game.
See, I enjoyed those levels just fine post-patch, when I got to play the game as a typical FPS. It’s a pretty good challenge. Pre-patch, I liked playing them well enough as a psi user for the same reason… it was challenging, and if I ever got in my head, I could use my skills to escape danger.
The game’s “considerable faults” are certainly present and I’m not making apologies for them, but the actual mechanism by which one’s weapons degraded is not a fault, it’s one of the game’s core strengths.
Again, why? Because it ensures that you’ll want to either focus on melee weapons and healing (which sucks since SS2’s AI is braindead, and melee combat sucks in FPS games anyway) or psi powers and hacking (which was much better, but still something Deus Ex would blow SS2 away at not one year later)?
You pansy.
ALAS I AM UNDONE. I’m a pansy for liking games that provide challenging combat and give me enemies that are a blast to do battle with, as opposed to games that might as well be an updated version of the two-mile run from Epyx’s Summer Games, or alternately, shoehorn me into choosing a particular gameplay style when the hype for the game wouldn’t shut up about how open-ended it was going to be. Yeah, uh, I’ll plead guilty and then some if that makes me a pansy.
I liked the game on balance. But I have a hard time believing that weapon degradation wasn’t a really bad idea when the first patch for the game was made expressly to give players the option to remove it.
And JC Denton is a cyborg with training too, but he still can’t hit squat in the beginning.
I’m not saying it was a good mechanic, but it’s been pretty much a staple of RPGs that you start weak, end strong. In addition, I found the need to decide which skills to improve, as well as what ammo/weaponry/items to hoard based on the degradation to help me feel the constant vague dread and fear of being in hostile (in all aspects) territory.
What do you (those who didn’t like the weak->strong concept or the weapon degradation) suggest as an alternative?
Note: He can hit things just fine if you burn your starting points on weapon skills. But he’s not useless in the beginning, no matter how you play it.
Secondly: You don’t have to start weak to end up stronger later in the game.
You find a wondrous gameplay mechanic to be crappy. That’s why you’re weak.
Uh, “most notably” would be the inclusion of degrading weapons in the first place.
So, is it from a gameplay perspective or a flavor perspective that you’re okay with bullets being limited, but not the weapons themselves? After all, there’s nanites, why complain about the replicators not being able to make psi-hypos, when you could just complain about the replicators not being able to make more pistols? Or, hell, alien-seeking wrist-launched rockets, wtf.
My aim is dead between the eyes with every shot, but the game says I grazed my target in the shoulder because my pistol skill sucks? What the hell, why do I have to aim at all?
Just because one can target something with one’s eyeballs is no gaurantee that one can hit that target with a projectile.
Just let me walk around and then make a bunch of rolls to determine if I survive a battle or not if you’re going to ensure my FPS skills don’t mean anything.
So, who told you SS2 is an FPS? It has elements, sure, but out of the box, it isn’t one. Suck it up.
Then there’s the thing Wheelkick mentioned - I’m a cyborg marine with years of training, yet I can’t even wield a shotgun?! Oh, of course, I need those cybermodule upgrade things in order to figure out which end to point at enemies. Makes sense.
Alternately, you could imagine that the high-tech super shotguns have integrated circuitry that require authentication before they allow the trigger mechanism to be engaged. This would prevent the civilians that the military is there to watchdog from using those weapons against them.
You didn’t pay much attention to the backstory, eh? See, now that’s a criticism of the game I think is valid; while it is certainly enjoyable (to some) to have to hunt around to find the backstory, certain elements needed to have been put into the game and beaten into the heads of the more… unimaginitive gamer. That would have cut down on a lot of this “blah blah this isn’t Quake it sucks wah wah” bellyaching.
I’m weak for disliking this kind of crap in what is otherwise an unusually brilliant game?
Weak in the same way that swine are too weak to see the pearls before them.
See, I enjoyed those levels just fine post-patch, when I got to play the game as a typical FPS.
It’s people like you that are what is wrong with the world. You are why we continue to get more of the same, time after time.
Again, why? Because it ensures that you’ll want to either focus…
That was the point of the game. To make the player focus on something. Arguably the things that one could focus on could have been made better, sure. Why you’re complaining about weapon degradation when you can just focus on maintenance and turn it into nearly a complete non-issue, I have no idea. Maybe you wanted to spend your cybermodules on something that appealed more to your E-peen?
ALAS I AM UNDONE. I’m a pansy for liking games that provide challenging combat and give me enemies that are a blast to do battle with, as opposed to games that might as well be an updated version of the two-mile run from Epyx’s Summer Games, or alternately, shoehorn me into choosing a particular gameplay style when the hype for the game wouldn’t shut up about how open-ended it was going to be. Yeah, uh, I’ll plead guilty and then some if that makes me a pansy.
Good, because it does.
I liked the game on balance. But I have a hard time believing that weapon degradation wasn’t a really bad idea when the first patch for the game was made expressly to give players the option to remove it.
Well, arguably, the “first patch” available for the game was the one that stripped out the cd-check so people could steal it, so by your logic you could claim just as well that charging for the game at all was a really bad idea.