I agree with the second part, it’s forgotten by most. Nobody thought it was terrible, just not as great as the first one. I would call Bioshock 1 one of the best games of all time, personally.
Bioshock 2 is a better than Bioshock 1 in terms of mechanics, and I’d argue that 2’s story has about the same emotional impact as 1. But the first game broke the trail and created the memes.
Yeah, that how I always thought it shook out. Bioshock 2 had better mechanical play, but the impact of the story and setting in the first one was what stuck. Unfortunately, that meant a lot of folks never played Minerva’s Den, which I felt was the pinnacle of the series - story and mechanics.
Also, I give a big shout-out to the multiplayer in Bioshock 2. It was frigging awesome, but the community bailed immediately.
Even though it clearly wasn’t. Sigh, moving along…
I’m wondering how far they should go with simplifying the infamously complex UI before it starts cutting into what’s actually good about SS. Replacing the old finger-twisting controls with mouse look is a no-brainer, but beyond that? Do you get rid of the ability to go prone since it’s only required maybe twice in the entire game? The power slider for the beam weapons vs a simpler high/low setting? The ability to set the detonation time on grenades? The silly degree of HUD customization?
There’s a lot of antiquated cruft there that SS would be better off without, but I’m sure the dev team is also well aware of what happened with Invisible War, where a certain well-intentioned lead cut out too much.
And while they do have the example of the SS2 team tackling these exact same questions, Irrational at least had the advantage of designing a new game around their decisions.
I’m wondering how far they should go with simplifying the infamously complex UI before it starts cutting into what’s actually good about SS. Replacing the old finger-twisting controls with mouse look is a no-brainer, but beyond that? Do you get rid of the ability to go prone since it’s only required maybe twice in the entire game? The power slider for the beam weapons vs a simpler high/low setting? The ability to set the detonation time on grenades? The silly degree of HUD customization?
There’s a lot of antiquated cruft there that SS would be better off without, but I’m sure the dev team is also well aware of what happened with Invisible War, where a certain well-intentioned lead cut out too much.
And while they do have the example of the SS2 team tackling these exact same questions, Irrational at least had the advantage of designing a new game around their decisions.
Agreed on all counts, except that (again) I found the repeated horde-mode bits in Bio2 really tedious and annoying. You had to do 3 of them per level, as I recall. If that had been dropped to 1 I would be much more positive towards the game.
I really do need to play Minerva’s Den.
Yes!
Thoughtfully condenses the Bioshock experience down to a 4-5 hour experience with a great story. The short-form nature changes the pacing so abilities and skills come very quickly.
-Todd
By the way…
Bioshock Collection coming for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.
I’d replay Bioshock 1 if they add achievements. :p
Are there any changes to Bioshocks 1 and 2 on PC? Any enhancements? I could replay 1, and finally get to Minerva’s Den.
They don’t use GFWL any more and they have Steam achievements. Bioshock 2 uses Steamworks for its multiplayer back-end.
That’s about it for any “enhancements.”
Not exactly enhancements, me thinks. 2K had already removed GFWL from Bioshock 2 via patch ages ago.
Yeah, they’re enhancements from months ago. Not a big deal, but I assumed stusser was asking about any and all changes from the launch versions.
Nothing is known about the new version. It hasn’t been announced yet. Simply a cover and name spotted on a Taiwan ratings site, I believe.
No, I wanted to know if the games had higher-resolution textures, extra levels, backported the Bio2 left-hand plasmid to Bio1 (which would be amazing), and so on. Basically, if they gave me an excuse to play Bio1 again.
I guess I’m in the minority in this forum in thinking Bioshock 2 wasn’t that great. Mechanically, the game was way superior the way you could use your magic powers and your gun simultaneously… huge step up. The weapons were also more inventive and interesting.
But… I thought the level design was a huge step backwards-- lots of long corridors with uninteresting spaces and unmemorable environments. The story was serviceable but never hit you the way the original did (the world through the eyes of a little sister was cool though). The defend the little sister against hoards was an interesting concept that didn’t really work, and felt tedious.
For conversational continuity, the posts that didn’t make the leap to the new forum begin here: http://www.quartertothree.com/old-talk/showthread.php?77960-System-Shock-Remake&p=4004826&viewfull=1#post4004826
$802K with 23 days to go. Looks like they are on track but will they break any record?
Also, in their recent Kickstarter Update, they will release a patch to the pre Alpha demo which will enable trilinear filtering to beef up the textures.
New patch to the demo and also a giveaway/contest to win a really nice poster and t-shirt.
Also, I am kinda peeved that they introduced a new tier, $100, which has a beautiful physical art book. I would think that’s something that should be included in the $75 physical tier but I guess that’s how Kickstarter works. To entice you along the campaign
First stretch goal reached at $1.1M with 6 days to go.
Second stretch goal at $1.2M is pretty meh but the third one, expanded narrative and new audio logs, at $1.3M is pretty good goal to aim. Although I doubt that they will be able to get $200K in 6 days. Maybe it is Kickstarter Fatique or perhaps NightDive Studios is not as good as Brian Fargo in running a campaign, but I feel that this System Shock campaign is crawling at a very slow pace.