Aliem
07-05-2013, 03:02 AM
So. Yes. I'm late to this party.
I just finished the first Bioshock game... and I'm blown away. It was incredible. The Medical Pavilion was especially terrifying, and the Arcadia gardens were gorgeous. The atmosphere was incredible, and the world was beautifully realized. This is absolutely a game I will play with the Oculus Rift.
That said, it was imperfect. The truly scary moments were too few; walking through a flooded morgue, watching a corpse float through the only path, seeing a shadow moving at the end of said path, having the lights go out on me, and then when they come back on, said shadow is gone... THAT was scary. Moments like that did not happen often enough. I would have preferred more ambush scare fights against splicers than the too-often relied upon waves of splicers when you knew exactly where they were coming from. The Medical Pavilion was far too early in the game to be the scariest level in a horror-themed shooter.
Another grief is with the Big Daddy... Those fights were always way too underwhelming. They were simply too easy! Big Daddy should be this imposing, monstrous thing, not a slightly more powerful enemy that is felled with a few more well-placed shotgun shells.
The biggest complaint I have, however, is the lack of impact player choice actually has on the outcome. I chose to save all the little sisters, and was fully satisfied with my ending, but based on that I knew what my ending would have been had I harvested them. The 2.5 endings (the evil ending and the bad ending are the same thing with a different tone in the VO. Come on. That's lazy.) just weren't surprising enough. The moral implications should have been more pronounced during actual gameplay. There was one section, after the death of Ryan, that choice should have been pivotal. In fact, this game could have easily had a completely different final boss encounter based on player choice alone! Imagine if, had you harvested little sisters, Fountaine remained in a helpful place and Tenenbaum became the antagonist to replace Ryan. Missed opportunity, I think. A completely different end game.
All in all, I loved this game. I must have, because I rarely ever post entire threads on individual games. I wish I had played it, and many others, much sooner. I'm going to start up Bioshock 2 later tonight.
I just finished the first Bioshock game... and I'm blown away. It was incredible. The Medical Pavilion was especially terrifying, and the Arcadia gardens were gorgeous. The atmosphere was incredible, and the world was beautifully realized. This is absolutely a game I will play with the Oculus Rift.
That said, it was imperfect. The truly scary moments were too few; walking through a flooded morgue, watching a corpse float through the only path, seeing a shadow moving at the end of said path, having the lights go out on me, and then when they come back on, said shadow is gone... THAT was scary. Moments like that did not happen often enough. I would have preferred more ambush scare fights against splicers than the too-often relied upon waves of splicers when you knew exactly where they were coming from. The Medical Pavilion was far too early in the game to be the scariest level in a horror-themed shooter.
Another grief is with the Big Daddy... Those fights were always way too underwhelming. They were simply too easy! Big Daddy should be this imposing, monstrous thing, not a slightly more powerful enemy that is felled with a few more well-placed shotgun shells.
The biggest complaint I have, however, is the lack of impact player choice actually has on the outcome. I chose to save all the little sisters, and was fully satisfied with my ending, but based on that I knew what my ending would have been had I harvested them. The 2.5 endings (the evil ending and the bad ending are the same thing with a different tone in the VO. Come on. That's lazy.) just weren't surprising enough. The moral implications should have been more pronounced during actual gameplay. There was one section, after the death of Ryan, that choice should have been pivotal. In fact, this game could have easily had a completely different final boss encounter based on player choice alone! Imagine if, had you harvested little sisters, Fountaine remained in a helpful place and Tenenbaum became the antagonist to replace Ryan. Missed opportunity, I think. A completely different end game.
All in all, I loved this game. I must have, because I rarely ever post entire threads on individual games. I wish I had played it, and many others, much sooner. I'm going to start up Bioshock 2 later tonight.