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March 28, 2024, 03:43:34 PM

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BioShock - the Collection

Started by Ferris, August 29, 2021, 12:25:09 AM

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GoblinAhFuckScary

Quote from: bgmnts on September 19, 2021, 05:31:47 PM
I'm trying so hard to enjoy Burial at Sea, having never played it first time round, but it's just not happening. I don't really like Infinite anyway and for them to set it in one of my favourite video game settings ever feels like a bit of a slap in the face.

Hopefully it gets better but I'm not optimistic.

episode 2 is infinitely better, but neither are great. disappointing end to the series god damn

bgmnts

Quote from: GoblinAhFuckScary on September 19, 2021, 05:44:00 PM
episode 2 is infinitely better, but neither are great. disappointing end to the series god damn

Yeah it is, I liked the emphasis on stealth. But yeah Elizabeth and Booker don't belong anywhere near Rapture. Felt like a cash grab.

I may be being thick and forgetful, but is there
Spoiler alert
any mention of Elizabeth or tearing in Bioshock 1 or 2? You would assume audio logs would definitely mention an interdimensional woman who effectively sets the plot in motion and interracts with several of the main characters. Shit retcons are a major pet peeve of mine
[close]
.

Now I have to play a bit of Bioshock 2 to cleanse the palate.

H-O-W-L

#32
Burial at Arse is basically Ken Levine, aware that he's losing the rights to the IP as soon as he leaves 2K Games (which was a done deal) because of his massive budget mismanagement of BS:I, trying to burn it down with all his might without just putting a photo of his actual arse on screen.

Quote from: bgmnts on September 19, 2021, 09:52:06 PM
I may be being thick and forgetful, but is there
Spoiler alert
any mention of Elizabeth or tearing in Bioshock 1 or 2? You would assume audio logs would definitely mention an interdimensional woman who effectively sets the plot in motion and interracts with several of the main characters. Shit retcons are a major pet peeve of mine
[close]
.

No, because it is, as you say, a shit retcon and a shit cash grab. The depiction of Rapture in BAS is also disgustingly a shocking mixture of too decadent to find plausible and also too whitewashed compared to what we're shown in Bioshock 1 and 2. I think it's telling that good ole Ken had very little to actually do with a lot of Bioshock's world design until the last stages of the project (since he legitimately lost interest in it and was busy with SWAT 4) and so his directed version of Rapture is catastrophically off base.

This isn't even going into how BAS just completely ruins the art style of the original game by trying to splice it into Infinite's. That DLC is just absolutely horrendously fucking ugly, because gold-plated art deco does not fucking work in a Leyendecker/Rockwell 1910s fruit crate advertisement world.

Quote from: GoblinAhFuckScary on September 11, 2021, 04:48:55 AM
love that mad, baffling, racist characterisation of suchong in that burial at sea dlc

Aye, probably one of the worst parts of it. I also remember the DLC being touted as a "very progressive game" and beloved on progressive circles like Tumblr at the time because you see a couple openly gay and interracial couples which, and this is going to sound like I'm the racist, here, but Rapture would not tolerate. I really fucking hate the seemingly retroactively applied idea that Rapture was actually progressive rather than regressive.

That was the whole fucking point of the Randian-Objectivist criticism of the first game, surely? That the supposed open doors and total-tolerance actually just facilitated extreme intolerances, since it prevented protection of those with less power? Sander Cohen, the most well-known gay man in Rapture, was viewed of as a freak for his sexuality alone, and when he actually became a decadent, insane murderer, people still focused purely on his homosexuality, within Rapture's culture, as if it was a greater sin for him to be a gay man than to be a murderer.

Rapture was a society built out of 1940s culture. A very segregated, racist, and regressive world where intolerances were growing incredibly stronger by the day in the shadow of WW2. People were still openly anti-German and even antisemitic about Tenenbaum, racist toward/about Suchong, homophobic toward Cohen, ignorant toward the impoverished, and there were no major figures in Rapture who were persons of color except Suchong, whom was viewed more as a living brain than a human being by the structures of the society. He was a convenience.

Bioshock 2 does this great, with the heavily implication in Pauper's Drop and Siren Alley that Rapture's people of color were just as terribly treated as they were on the surface, if not worse, since they had no chance of social mobility, as the power was entirely fiscally top-loaded regardless of whatever Ryan said. And that's why a monster like Fontaine, a white man who excelled purely because of his finances, was able to eat the city and everyone within it alive.

Games have very limited time to show the narrative workings of a world unless they are about that world, so showing even a single grouping like that in the 20~ minutes of "status quo" time pre-combat leaves a magnified imprint. It's why I also hate a similar coupling in Fallout 4 -- there's no way the pre-war world of Fallout was racially tolerant or LGBTQ+ accepting, at least not openly. It was a fascist hellscape.

I fucking hate this backstep on depicting Rapture as a shithole in Burial at Sea -- not because I don't want to see gay people in my games, or people of color in relationships in games, but because it makes Rapture look like a tolerant society when the whole deal was it was a horrifically intolerant one.

And I legitimately think this comes from like, writer's drift; at some point, Ken, or one of the new writers, either saw the fan reaction of "ooh i'd love to see/live in rapture pre-civil-war" (which misses the fucking point) or thought that themselves, and so they decided to write it as a society that had like, likeable elements, when the whole point of Rapture in 1, beneath the gilt plating and statues of Atlas, was that it was a horribly shit place that was never going to work from the start, even without a tyrant at its helm.

bgmnts

Well I just finished Bioshock 2, which is still fucking brilliant, and Grace Holloway definitely suffers very overt racial discrimination so it's pretty well established it's not a place of tolerance or free of bigotry because you have the freedom to inject dangerous gene altering goop in your veins.

Glad i'm not the only one who thinks it's shite.

Although I wont lie, Suchong's accent getting MORE stereotypical and dodgy than in the previous entries was actually quite funny.

H-O-W-L

Bioshock 2 is a sequel that I despised heavily at launch but replaying it about four years ago I adored it, probably because I'd gotten a real blast of piss in the mouth with Infinite, and I imagine if I played it now I'd rate it the highest out of all of them, but sadly it has some fucking frustrating issues on my PC so I'll likely not replay it for another few, til' I get a new rig.

Cold Meat Platter

One of my favourite ways to play 1 was to use the security painting plasmid to lead sploicers and daddies into cameras and get them cunted by the bots.
Utterly daft how Infinite removed all the emergent play options and turned it into a straight-up shooter with no thought required.

H-O-W-L

Worse still it punished you for taking time to think.

Ferris

I preferred Infinite to the first game when I played them through recently (and massively preferred both to the abject BaS) but it sounds like 2 is the best of the bunch?

Should play that again then really.

Pink Gregory

I loved Infinite at the time, but I do remember being disappointed that nothing ever attacked you from behind or somewhere else unexpected like Sploicers did

Ferris

Quote from: Pink Gregory on September 22, 2021, 08:13:35 PM
I loved Infinite at the time, but I do remember being disappointed that nothing ever attacked you from behind or somewhere else unexpected like Sploicers did

I hated that though. I've cleared that room, there's nowhere for them to have come from so what's going on? It broke immersion and felt like video game bullshit because my first thought was "oh the game has spawned some more baddies" rather than me coming across some deranged residents.

Pink Gregory

I think it was more that the maps were a bit less linear, so rather than explicitly coming from behind, there were a few more angles to consider than just in front of you. 

Depends how you approach it I guess, it certainly plays up to the horror elements of it; how spongy some of the later splicers are certainly does feel like unnecessary punishment, rather than being able to catch them getting the drop on you and desperately blow them away.

I might feel differently now; I think I have far less patience for this kind of thing now admittedly, and I haven't played Bioshock for at least 6-7 years

H-O-W-L

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on September 22, 2021, 08:44:42 PM
I hated that though. I've cleared that room, there's nowhere for them to have come from so what's going on? It broke immersion and felt like video game bullshit because my first thought was "oh the game has spawned some more baddies" rather than me coming across some deranged residents.

The Splicers in BS1 never actually spawn from nowhere, they always come in from doors you can't access or holes in the wall or the like. People think that the silent splicers in Fort Frolic teleport in but they actually all crawl through one hole in the right hand side of Poseidon Plaza.

Pink Gregory

So they have to actually enter the level and find you themselves?  That's neat.

Ferris

Quote from: H-O-W-L on September 23, 2021, 10:41:01 AM
come in from doors you can't access or holes in the wall or the like.

That is functionally the same as teleporting in though. In fact, proof of concept:

QuotePeople think that the silent splicers in Fort Frolic teleport in but they actually all crawl through one hole in the right hand side of Poseidon Plaza.

If people feel like baddies are spawning out of nowhere, it doesn't matter if you leave a loophole like "oh no they're actually entering through a tiny crack in the ceiling (that you can't use, obviously!) because it has the same effect.

For me anyway, I accept my opinion is not the be all and end all.

Pink Gregory

Was it Bioshock 2 or Infinite which introduced being able to plant all of the Plasmids/Vigors as traps?  You'd think with that kind of enemies all around approach of the first one they'd have put that in earlier; you only really use the crossbow tripwires against the Big Daddies because they're not all that plentiful.

H-O-W-L

Quote from: FerriswheelBueller on September 23, 2021, 11:42:19 AM
If people feel like baddies are spawning out of nowhere, it doesn't matter if you leave a loophole like "oh no they're actually entering through a tiny crack in the ceiling (that you can't use, obviously!) because it has the same effect.

Does it really have the same effect if you can theoretically stand beneath said crack and shoot them over and over as they spawn in, or plant traps to prevent them coming in? (I have done both)

H-O-W-L

It's been a hot minute since I've played it but I should do a Bioshock 1 show-off stream for CAB someday. Don't have a microphone so it'd be hard to communicate without stopping to type, but there's a lot of little details that I've gleaned from gameplay, dissecting the game files, and speaking to devs. Would be fun to walk people through that -- I did it back in 2012 and my knowledge of it wasn't as great then as it is now, though I've lost a little with time.

Ferris

Quote from: H-O-W-L on September 23, 2021, 01:23:27 PM
Does it really have the same effect if you can theoretically stand beneath said crack and shoot them over and over as they spawn in, or plant traps to prevent them coming in? (I have done both)

I guess not if you have an in-depth knowledge of who's going to spawn come out of a secret door and where in every room. For joe soap like me though it doesn't make a huge difference.

Comes down to knowledge/familiarity I suppose? Don't really know and I might be the total outlier for not liking it.

Quote from: H-O-W-L on September 23, 2021, 01:25:08 PM
It's been a hot minute since I've played it but I should do a Bioshock 1 show-off stream for CAB someday. Don't have a microphone so it'd be hard to communicate without stopping to type, but there's a lot of little details that I've gleaned from gameplay, dissecting the game files, and speaking to devs. Would be fun to walk people through that -- I did it back in 2012 and my knowledge of it wasn't as great then as it is now, though I've lost a little with time.

I would absolutely watch this. I find people playing games (especially if they are knowledgeable and play them well) strangely restful.

Pink Gregory

I've never seen/read anything going into detail on the actual design of Bioshock (as opposed to the theme of the game), so that would interest me.

bgmnts

I suppose to be fair, even if it can be explained in universe or through game design, if those sort of cheap shocks/scares annoy you, they always will regardless.

H-O-W-L

Bioshock's development is a very interesting one, and the Remastered version they released has the PS3 gallery available for all; showing off some really incredible (and weird) concept models from the game's early design phases. Originally you were to play a Hispanic-American cult deprogrammer descending into a biopunk future-city in the mid nineties, which was established by the Nazis after WW2 and now taken over by an insane cult. Little Sisters were chipmunks, frogs, and slugs at different points (no joke), and Big Daddies were not directly paired with them. There were also corset-wearing bald female Splicers with their tits out. 

There's also a sort of version just before the one that got released which was very similar but a lot grungier, with Rapture being far more fallen and decrepit, and the style was generally a lot more fourties-esque with less of the fifties neofuture dissonance, which you can see in some of the early trailers. A lot of assets are left over from this draft of the atmos too, which is why you have the odd model that looks weirdly grim in contrast to Rapture's final-draft gilt plating. The Remaster has this issue a bit more, since instead of truly remaking the assets they just went back to the originals, which had to be downscaled for consoles and PCs of the era. As a result of that a lot of the Splicers only have one or two skins as opposed to the six to eight they have in the original, and said skins are a lot less filthy but a lot more hyper-detailled. You can see this strongest with Toasty, the iconic first splicer.

Here's all his variants in the original:


And here's his modeller's original draft, which is used in part in the Remaster, as opposed to the remade textures used in BS1:


And for a bonus here's Tenenbaum's earliest model, "Emily", which was scrapped and partially repurposed into the "Rosebud" splicer, whom appears notably in Neptune's Bounty as the first Spider Splicer you meet.
("And one day, the gentlemen stopped calling...")


There was some... weird time travel shit with her, as I recall, or maybe it was merely flashback, since there's also photos floating around of a much older, decrepit Emily with torn/bloody clothes, but it might just be a redesign thing. Either way you can see how the style in about... early 2006 for Bioshock was very similar to release, but not the same.

It was way more System Shocky with a lot of weird and horridly mutated humans as opposed to merely cosmetically damaged ones, but it was decided to move toward the more visually disfigured splicers (as opposed to mutated ones) to keep a sense of pathos and empathy for them even as they attack you, and IMO it works. They look like they could almost be saved from their disfigurement and madness, given time, but alas. Some of their faces were based on pictures of Harold Gillies' WWI-era cosmetic surgery trials, specifically photos from Project Facade, an art project that was dedicated to memorializing Gillies and his patients.


bgmnts

Honestly wish they made a Bioshock/DeusEx/Dishonoured/Prey type game every few years, it's probably my favourite genre.

GoblinAhFuckScary

Quoteauthor=bgmnts link=topic=89130.msg4692375#msg4692375 date=1632408883]
Honestly wish they made a Bioshock/DeusEx/Dishonoured/Prey type game every few years, it's probably my favourite genre.

been playing my housemate's xbox 1 and going through things i've missed, not really playing games for a decade and all, and i'm going through dishonoured 2 like ooh this is more bioshock than infinite ooh! story itself is extremely dull and predictable though. found myself yawning out loud like god does the story treat its player like an actual baby. not to derail lol sorry

H-O-W-L

DH2 is the more enjoyable game of the two but both have dogdirt plots honestly. Good worldbuilding and an incredibly fascinating aesthetic and world atmos though. Just wish it had been handed to some better writers, plot-wise.

bgmnts

Quote from: GoblinAhFuckScary on September 23, 2021, 03:59:22 PM
been playing my housemate's xbox 1 and going through things i've missed, not really playing games for a decade and all, and i'm going through dishonoured 2 like ooh this is more bioshock than infinite ooh! story itself is extremely dull and predictable though. found myself yawning out loud like god does the story treat its player like an actual baby. not to derail lol sorry

Yeah I spose. In games like that i'm not hugely arsed about story I wont lie, i just want open levels with many different ways to do things and lots of things to do.

If memory serves, the dlc game Death of the Outsider has a better little story.

Prey might actually be the best game for this.

GoblinAhFuckScary

Quote from: bgmnts on September 23, 2021, 04:41:50 PM
Yeah I spose. In games like that i'm not hugely arsed about story I wont lie, i just want open levels with many different ways to do things and lots of things to do.

yeah that. i seem to find with games they so rarely have a decent balance with an intelligent story and actually being like... a worthwhile experience. they're a weird medium being so centred on being 'entertainment' in the way that other art mediums aren't focussed on in the same way i think. idk

H-O-W-L

I think Prey is Arkane's best game for both plot and gameplay, and of course art style. DH2 is more eminently fun to me but only because DH2 has this real SomethingAwful era "arsehole gameplay" feel to it, like everything you're doing is kicking somebody's rockery over and shitting in their mailbox. A very mischevious game even as you're slitting unsuspecting gentlemen from arsehole to eyelid. Really wish they had gotten rid of the very
Spoiler alert
rapey
[close]
messages The Heart tells you whenever you point it at a random guard though. I've no fucking idea what they thought they were doing by having the game be all "don't kill people" then presenting me with a lot of very squishy, very unsuspecting
Spoiler alert
rapists
[close]
.

I don't believe in the death penalty, nor do I think frontier justice/vigilantism is cool, but in a video game where I'm playing a felon already wanted for several murders I didn't commit, surely it's a drop in the bucket if I kill some actual deserving fuckers.

Pink Gregory

Quote from: H-O-W-L on September 23, 2021, 04:35:24 PM
DH2 is the more enjoyable game of the two but both have dogdirt plots honestly. Good worldbuilding and an incredibly fascinating aesthetic and world atmos though. Just wish it had been handed to some better writers, plot-wise.

I liked Corvo much more when he said nothing.  Quite liked the minor machinations of the characters wandering about the Hound Pits but anything big plot wise was just a string of more or less straightforward targets in the government. 

In typical fashion, Daud was far more interesting as a conflicted character in a morally grey underworld. 

Getting more little glimpses into Emily's life as the empress and not particularly sticking to it, like you find when escaping Dunwall in the first level, would have endeared me a lot more.  Some of the incidental dialogue can be really good, but there's very little to hang it on beyond that.

HamishMacbeth

Quote from: H-O-W-L on September 22, 2021, 07:51:40 PM
Bioshock 2 is a sequel that I despised heavily at launch but replaying it about four years ago I adored it, probably because I'd gotten a real blast of piss in the mouth with Infinite, and I imagine if I played it now I'd rate it the highest out of all of them, but sadly it has some fucking frustrating issues on my PC so I'll likely not replay it for another few, til' I get a new rig.

I always thought it got a bit of a bad rap just because "Bioshock is perfect and doesn't need a sequel" became the mantra at the time. Sure, the story isn't as impactful, but I liked the gameplay more and found the level design more enjoyable.