What makes Bioshock One so amazing?

[CGAdam]

I had the advantage of not playing either one until both were out and complaints and praise had both faded a bit. I tried Bioshock on a whim, and it impressed me enough to play B2. In fact, Bioshock is one of the few games I actually put enough time into to earn all the achievements. B2 was enjoyable, and I did download and play the "Minerva's Den" expansion, but I largely ignored the multiplayer and protector trials (might still go back to those).

My opinion on those games as a set: they work, mostly. I like them both equally, and there wasn't really anything in B1 gameplaywise that made it superior to B2. The narrative was stronger, but 2 only suffered because it tried to shoehorn in more to 1.

The point of this rambling post?

...I think I lost track. Probably that B1 wasn't as incredible as hype said, and B2 wasn't as bad as detractors claimed. But they were both good.

 

[Legion IV]

Nothing the game was garbage and a waste of money, i cant believe i spent some of my paycheck on it.

 

[XT inc]

It was new.

Most people had not done anything like it before and everything was just so rich at the time. Something that the second game just couldn't pull off, the cat was out of the bag at that point.

The rusty creaks of metal under sea pressure and random sounds of a city,nay, a world in ruin, was just so magical at the time.

Everyone was so bored of generic shooters, future shooters, etc. This felt like the first time, playing a shooter in a post world war 2 era I guess that went all out fiction. It wasn't wolfenstein it was its own monster.

I think this is where bioshock infinite will have to try and take us. The problem with sequels is that what's new isn't so new that everything is foreign and exciting, like a mystery. The magic goes away the second you know what the plot is more or less.

If you go into infinite with an array of, oh those are the big daddies, that's the lil sister. Better get me some adam and blah blah blah. Then it won't be new to you, it will be old concepts put in a new rapper and you won't have as much fun as if you never played the series before.

 

[Seanfall]

Well...of course the 'twist' I mean I saw the 'he's actually from rapture' bit coming. But 'would you kindly?' that completely blindsided me. I mean think about it when playing a game you tend to complete these objectives without thinking about them. They played on that, they knew we wouldn't see it coming so of course when it's reveled '...wait...holy shit!' was my reaction. Nice mindfuck there *slow clap*

Of course the atmosphere of the game is incredible, it drips with character. I found the Big Daddy fights engaging and more then a little bitter Sweet. Which is the point, I had to gun them down when they were just protecting a kid, a genetically altered kid who takes adam from a dead man's gut, but a kid nonetheless. The first kid I found I was frozen with what to do...in the end I couldn't bring myself to harvest them. My one compliant would be the final boss battle, just seemed out of place.

But all in all Bioshock was and is a great game. I liked Bioshock 2 but not as much. I'm looking forward to Infinite.

 

[KarlMonster]

Reprint from my first Escapist post:

I'm playing Fallout 3 now, and it reminds me a lot of Bioshock. Mostly because I liked the music in Bioshock and I wish that Galaxy News Radio in Fallout 3 would play more than the same 5 songs! While I have to agree that Bioshock was a relatively shallow experience, that was a dissapointment because (I think) it came so close to being better. There is a really good story in there about a Utopian society being perverted by the greed of its creator as well as the greed of outsiders. I wanted to see more of Rapture. Hell, I wanted to meet someone in Rapture that I did NOT have to kill!

Certainly there is still something of an adventure, but its like playing Counter-Strike in a 'Book' from the Myst series: you might as well kill everyone because the culture has already died. Everything in Rapture is in the past tense. With the single exception of you preventing Rapture from self-destruction, nothing that you do changes anything. Its still a dead city full of scavengers. [To be honest, I really can't think of a good reason why Jack bothered, except of course he was obeying orders - and that whole part left me uneasy anyway, so lets not go there].

I think that 2K reached a point (and maybe did not realise it themselves) when they could have made Bioshock an FPS or adventure game. I suppose that ultimately its both, but I feel like a homicidal archaeologist: I want to see the rest of it (and kill whoever lives there). Bioshock as a game is a lot like some of the graphical features inside the game: there are holes in the facade that you can see into, and sometimes pull something out from there, but it was unsatisfying that I could not go in there and poke around more.

The more I think about it, the more that I think that there were only two things wrong with Bioshock. The first being that as a port, it limited the interface and the experience somewhat. For example, I could never actually turn off the stupid hint system.

But number two has to be that there was a really cool world around me, and you KNOW you're just scratching the surface. There was more to Rapture, and I really, really wanted to see it. That and I wanted to meet someone I didn't have to kill.

Edit: but the NPC dialogues just start to grate on you the longer you play!

 

[Captain Epic]

People have said everything that needed to be said about the atmosphere and the story and such. I think the gameplay deserves some praise.

People complain that it's clunky and the combat is a bit of a clusterfuck, but I actually think that makes it more intense. You need to know what you're doing in combat to do well. In the 1st game, you needed to make good use of your plasmids and always be strategising and adapting to beat your enemies (that is, if you're playing with vita-chambers disabled, which makes the game much funner cause you are actually punished for dying).

In the sequel, your weapons were powerful enough that you didn't really have to think things through. You could just charge in and fuck shit up.

 

[hitman_7]

One of the best intros ever
Would you kindly agreed?

 

[TheMann]

A few things, but one word in particular comes to mind: Immersion.

This is the same thing that made Half Life 2 so popular. The second you leave the train station and step into the plaza, you are there. You are standing in the middle of City 17, you are a part of that world. You must learn what it takes to survive there. The overall environment and story is much different than the first Half Life.

Bioshock, pulls this off just as seamlessly, though with a much different atmosphere. You get in the bathysphere not knowing exactly what to expect. You see a few Art Deco sculptures on the way down. Without being pulled out of first-person, you're treated to a bit of Andrew Ryan's propaganda. You learn what he wants, why he wants it, and what Rapture's purpose is. Then the screen pulls up and... WOW! Then when you surface in Rapture, the sense of wonder you felt on the way in quickly turns to dread as you realize that you are in a deteriorating underwater hellhole, and a bunch of drugged-up psychopaths are trying to kill you. You must learn to survive there very, very quickly. This also plays for a brilliant mood whiplash. Also, the story is well told, the combat can be wildly varied depending on your mood. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VideogameCrueltyPotential] (You can be very sadistic to splicers if you feel like it.) This also creates replay value.

Now compare this to Bioshock 2. Not much seems new. Rapture is under the control of an ideological extremist... just like the first game. The levels are different but the atmosphere is the same. You've been here before, you know what it takes to survive. Nothing seems that novel, save for the fat that you play as a Big Daddy, but that actually makes things worse. While it might feel satisfying to be able to curb stomp some enemies, it's much harder to relate to Subject Delta, a splicer slaughtering behemoth, than it is to relate to Jack, who is one very scared individual simply trying to survive. Jack's situation is more along the lines how most of us would feel in that scenario, and Bioshock 2 throws that feeling out the window.

And once again I've written way too much on what should be a short subject. I do have high hopes for Infinite, and am crossing my fingers that Levine will come through for this one.

 

[Sn0wLeppard]

If found the story a lot more interesting - mainly because it's the first time were in Rapture and it's all new and frightening.

Plus the twist in the story left me having to pick my jaw up off the floor...

 

[00slash00]

i thought the first bioshock was extremely overrated. the hacking was annoying and it was just too easy. there was no consequence for dying. i remember watching trailers for it and thinking that it must be an awesome feeling when you become strong enough to take on a big daddy. then i played the game and realized i could kill the first big daddy i saw, with a fuckin wrench if i was patient enough. i could forgive all that but at the end it just seemed to drag its feet. i also didnt think the story was anything special. i thought the plot twist about who you are and why you do what you do was really cool, but i dont think i found the game quite as brilliant as most other people seemed to

i dont think its a bad game, just really over hyped

 

[Twilight_guy]

I don't know. The story was mildly interesting but other then that its was not really that spectacular that I wanted to play again. The second one had better mechanics so if I wanted to replay a game I'd replay that one. Maybe Bioshock just speaks to you in a special way.

 

[Zeh Don]

I used to think Bioshock was overrated until I went back and played through it again on Hard with Vita-Chambers disabled.

It went from being a linear bore-fest with an interesting story but questionable gameplay, to being the true successor to System Shock 2. Taught, challenging, and even at times scary.

If you want to see what makes Bioshock so fun, crank up the difficulty and take the training wheels off.

 

[jakel_hybrid]

Similar to Jedi Outcast versus Jedi Academy. The former being one of the best Star Wars games ever made, with fantastic story, characters, pacing and you are a FUCKING JEDI. Then Jedi Academy came out and it was basically just lame, but had must more fluid controls, more lightsaber combos, and more acrobatic combat.

 

[ImprovizoR]

Simple: The atmosphere, the story, the music, the gameplay, the EVERYTHING!

 

[TheTim]

I just could not get into it, the shooting was adequate at best, the story didn't seem to draw me in too much, and it was just meh, but anyone who's played it thinks its god in the form of a video game.

 

[Sean Steele]

Bioshock 1 had a great sense of place. You felt Rapture was very real, and you could delightedly find out every detail about it where you went you would see the just recently crushed frame of a genuine working society, Bioshock 2 made everything into a fairly generic decrepit ruin that you were shooting in. (Not to mention Bioshock 1 embraced the philosophy element as one of its founding ideas Bioshock 2 just made sure to have one in there because Bioshock 1 was so famous for it.)