Actually, by definition it’s not broad because we’re talking specifically about the Bioshock series. More specifically, the first game in the series. Specific is not broad.
What Telefrog is getting at is Bioshock’s themes of player agency.
You’re demonstrating a bit of a habit of speaking for people on your forum when you want to speak to me. That includes speaking for ME when you’re actually trying to converse with me. You should probably knock that off.
It’s a crucial turning point in Bioshock 1 and a consistent throughline in Bioshock 2 when you realize you’ve been developing the Little Sisters all along by the choices you make. Furthermore, both games (and Bioshock: Infinite) have identity tricks based on the protagonist being a cypher.
Sure, Bioshock would work as a third person game and lots of people would share your sentiment that, whoa, Big Daddies sure are awesome! But the genius of Bioshock 1 & 2 is that there’s so much more than that going on, and part of how it accomplishes that is with the first-person perspective
I guess that’s where our perspectives differ then, even though you don’t elaborate at all on how the series’ impact is dependent on the 1st person perspective.
But for me it wasn’t so much that DUDEBRO BIG DADDAAAAAAAY! as much as it was that the first Big Daddy battle was genuinely mismatched to the point where I was hiding under geometry hoping it wouldn’t see me. That was significant for the time because it had been a good few years since FPSes cared to create the psychological element as opposed to pulling a Crysis and just relying on cheating AI and polygon pushing.
And the reason I have a problem with tying it to the perspective is because it is very similar to the conditions of the first zodiac boss battle in Final Fantasy Tactics. Moreso because I wasn’t aware that a boss battle could be engrossing and terrifying in not only an isometric game, but a turn-based one on top of it. The conditions were the same: the arena was claustrophobic, the enemy was monstrous, and your party was weak enough to have to really scramble.
That’s why I take the view that it’s not the perspective, but the story and the proper buildup, that makes any game work, let alone Bioshock. I think that’s the magic of game design and narrative over engine tech, just as it was with Planescape: Torment. And as it happens, even in Bioshock the BDs become trivial, and it has nothing to do with the perspective.
I disagree. Even in games, huge and intimidating has little to do with visual perspective. It’s perspective in general that paints them so.