BioShock

[Timmo]

Was really not getting into this, but after 3 areas I can say... it's mostly excellent.

The biggest problem is the Joey Deacon-designed save/restart/health system. Proper spacked, that. I'd be almost dead, finger on the B button, before thinking, "why waste a medi-kit, I'll just respawn 10 yards away anyway", and suddenly, I won't be in this wonderful world but instead in a nice little Quake 3 mod with a healthy selection of gadgets and weapons.

I really hate the save system. The Gene swapping machines should have doubled up as Metroid style save-points.

Someone will come back with "you don't need to save, that's what the resurrection pods are for!", but I'm willing to bet that most people here save and re-load before and after a failed hack.

A couple of changes and they could have kept that wonderfully tense atmosphere.

Also, they should have turned off saves and resurrection pods for the whole game. Also, you can't pause it. Also, you drown at the start when the plane crashes.

[camps]

I have seen posters advertising teleportation plasmids within the game.

In the videos released way before E3 it showed the teleportation plasmid in action quite a few times - still have that video on my 360 but not sure if it is in the marketplace any more

edit: in fact it might have been the videos from E3 2006 that showed the teleportation plasmid in action

double edit:

[Shindig]

I save every time I clear a room, to be honest. Actually, that's a good idea for the next section. Get mangled by the security turrets and wake up at the nearest Vita Pod which is in the general direction I need to be going.

It's those situations which find it's faults, really. Wasting medkits is fine, though. There's plenty of them.

[Taurus]

Has anyone found themselves getting into a Big Daddy fight, and losing track of the Little Sisters? I'll spend 5 minutes taking the sucker's down, but then don't get my reward Fook knows where they get to. Do they run off into those holes?

Happened to me twice now.

Not every Daddy has a Sister.

[Stroker Ace]

Sisters don't run off on their own as far as I know. Only the big daddy can let them back in the holes. If you fight it, die, and then regen elsewhere, by the time you get back, the big dad might have got rid of the girl.

If the girl is around and you kill it, then she will run to him when he's down.

He's fighting the roaming Big Daddies without Little Sisters, is the problem.

[camps]

I watched one of the roaming Big Daddies goto one of those holes which the little sisters come out of and start banging on the wall - didn't wait long enough to see whether a Little Sister would actually come out of the hole or not

[Ferine]

I saved twice throughout the entire game, and both times were so I could stop playing for a bit. I'd suggest people don't bother with quicksaving as it's a rubbish system that deserves to die.

[Timmo]

Hmm.

I might try that. I'll find it hard though, because it's two button presses away and only a couple of seconds!

[Shindig]

Only autosaves at the start of a level, I've noticed. So saving voluntarily kind of helps.

[Timmo]

The resurrection chambers still spoil the game, though.

[Shindig]

Only if you let them.

[Timmo]

So how exactly do I stop them making the game too easy?

Saving next to them and then re-loading when I die seems a tad counter-productive...

[Shindig]

Don't die so often, stupid.

[Timmo]

Even if I did "die so often" (which I don't, also my Dad's bigger than yours), the tension that should be there for potentially dying is non-existent due to the chambers. Is my point clear yet?

[Shindig]

Tension is still there with certain firefights. Just with a get-out clause.

[Timmo]

Also, everyone can stop saying it's not a shooter now, seeing as they've always said it is and the box even says, and I quote, "A first person shooter experience".

[Steven]

Also, everyone can stop saying it's not a shooter now, seeing as they've always said it is and the box even says, and I quote, "A first person shooter experience".

But its not Tim, you're just looking at it the wrong way

[Timmo]

Tension is still there with certain firefights. Just with a get-out clause.

DOES NOT COMPUTE

So it's tense, but it's not.

If any game should have been a relentlessly tense experience it's this one. I've written a letter to Jim'll Fix It but I'm not confident.

[Monkeyboy]

The only times I've saved is when I want to switch the 360 off. I don't save before the hacks as well. If I fuck up the hack, so be it. Mostly I buy them out if they're not too pricey or use an auto-hack tool, occasionally having a stab at the minigame when I feel like it. Or just electro-plasmid and shotgun the fucker into oblivion.

[Ferine]

So how exactly do I stop them making the game too easy?

The game is easy, at least on Normal — I haven't tried Hard yet.

I used the Vita-Chambers, but they weren't a crutch. I tried not to die, but sometimes my cunning plans simply didn't work. I thought it was preferable to spawn at the nearest Chamber rather than quickloading and having to listen to diaries again, try and remember all the stuff I picked up, etcetera.

They're not a perfect system, but I think they're a step up from quicksaving. They're open to abuse, sure, but it all comes down to the discipline of the player with these sorts of things: there will always be some people that are prepared to copy files and rummage around in directories to make sure they have a 'perfect' save state.

All I can say is that the game was still very tense for me, my thought being, "I don't want to die!" as opposed to, "I don't want to have to replay all of that!". I'm not sure what to suggest.

[Shindig]

Depends how you think about it. I'm playing this thinking, "Wow, I need some ammo shortly or I'm going to die."

I've only respawned at the pods outside the Fisheries. After the firefight was eventually over I was thinking, "Phew. That was intense."

[Boyatsea]

I watched one of the roaming Big Daddies goto one of those holes which the little sisters come out of and start banging on the wall - didn't wait long enough to see whether a Little Sister would actually come out of the hole or not

They do.

(Not all the time - only if there are sisters free on that level.)

[Timmo]

My biggest gripe is that the enemies remain in their current state, regarding health and location. It seems great at first ("it's like I really have just regenerated!"), but when you discover that you can grind a Big Daddy down over 10 minutes and 20 lives with no skill whatsoever, Bubbles suddenly loses his respect.

Not that I did, obviously. I'm right good at games. I finished Final Fantasy VII in an hour on extreme difficulty, resurrecting Aeris during the end sequence whilst simultaneously having sex with Tifa and Barrett.

[Shindig]

I think it's because Big Daddies don't heal. Splicers do, though.

[camps]

They do.

Even if you have killed/saved the Little Sisters which the games tells you are in that particular section of the map?

[Boyatsea]

Even if you have killed/saved the Little Sisters which the games tells you are in that particular section of the map?

No, which is quite sad, because then, off they plod, to find the next hole.

[stan]

HOW DO YOU KILL A BIG DADDY?

JESUS.

[Boyatsea]

Ho do I "be" a Big Daddy?

[Uzi]

Also, everyone can stop saying it's not a shooter now, seeing as they've always said it is and the box even says, and I quote, "A first person shooter experience".

You shoot things in a first person perspective- difficult to qualify for that isn't it?

What retarded arguments with people trying to hone in that its a FPS. Ok yes it is, jesus, you read the back of the box, but if you're able to bunch that with something like DOOM3 and see no further there. then there you go. It is a FPS, its a lot of things. I just see it as Bioshock and you take it or leave it for what it is

HOW DO YOU KILL A BIG DADDY?

JESUS.

Are you serious?

Is everyone this crap/stupid?

Beard/shave if appropriate

[Shindig]

I've just beaten my first Big Daddy. Pretty much had to. Small area + one exit + Little Sister prancing about = FIGHT!

Died, respawned, died, respawned, died, respawned. Cheap way to win it but the fact I respawned right next to him meant I had to. Fat financial reward, a wee bit of ADAM and then a nitro splicer kills me again. Since coming out of Longford's office, I've seen 3 Daddies and Sister combos.