Bioshock

[moooV]

Since this part of the forum is mostly used for sharing experiences/recommendations about outstanding things (movies, manga, whatever), I'd like to mention a game (in fact, two of them), which I consider being a masterpiece.

It's been several years I've hardly played anything (about one game a year - I don't have free time, and I'm not really fond of any more), although I've used to. However, I tend to try outstanding games - only if they are really SOMETHING.

If you think that games are a bullcrap for children - well, statistically, main game audience is above 27 years old. Think again.
If you are a player, I don't think you haven't touched this game.

Unlike other shooters, it's not stupid - you have to think what you do. Also, you have a diverse range of tools to do it. Moreover, it sometimes even offers you a moral choice.


Bioshock

It's one of a few modern games I find outstanding, which should be in the "best games of decade" chart. Not the popularity, not the revenue, but the quality, the feel, the atmosphere, and the depth of such experiences make me have such an opinion.

The game has an amazing visual style of retro 60s, an interesting deep twisted plot, and the atmosphere. The atmosphere is so realistic that you have a feel of the dead city. The sounds, the ambient, the speeches, the music are top-class. The music matches every place, every act in the plot, everything you do, thus making it unforgetable. I daresay, the atmosphere is pleasant - it's a place you will long to return to. Also, the sound diaries found sometimes are unfolding a lot of the plot, making the characters even more vivid and the atmosphere deeper.

Play only the original version, not localized, if you want it all to remain intact.

Also, I think that the probability of making a movie out of it is quite high - it deserves it. Moreover, you can compare it's father, Ken Levine, to Zack Snyder - the style is similar.


Here are the official trailers:





And an IGN review:





Bioshock 2
It was released about a year after the first one, I should say, it's as good as the first one. Everything is preserved - the atmosphere, the music, the speeches, everything.

The second journey to Rapture was a long-awaited experience for me - it's truly a pleasant place to attend.

The trailer:


And a small gameplay trailer (the Siren Ally - one of my favorite parts):




And the pearl of all trailers, which forms the complete opinion about the game: the atmosphere, the sounds, dynamics, everything - a demo of several places combined into one, thus not disclosing the plot details, with authors' commentaries:

MUST WATCH (click the video, watch on youtube - the size matters, also put on the headphones/turn on the surround sound system)




Would you kindly go play Bioshock, mister Bubbles?

[TargaryenX]

I agree it's a good game, although not really my favorite genre. I also disagree with the "longing to return" part. The atmosphere is so disturbing that I'm just fine playing through it once, thanks!

[moooV]

That's subjective - people are different. Also, it's relative. I even know a guy, who finds Quake too scary to play.

I've just expressed my own opinion - I've really liked it and longed for the second part.
The atmosphere isn't scary at all (for me), but it's depth... my god. It's so deep and developed, that you beleive everything that happens around you. It's not scary, it's not pressuring, it's just a bit dark. You can feel that everything is done WITH SOUL. You won't find it in most of the modern games. There even are no monsters there - only people, citizens.
I have only warm feelings about the atmosphere.

The plot - well, then you've seen how vivid the characters are.


What about scary games... well, try the Dead Space and Silent Hill 3 - that's where the atmosphere is cold, pressuring, and truly disturbing. However, I've enjoyed it a lot - a night-long trip into the nightmare itself is a good relief from all real-life annoyances.
Right now I'm waiting for Dead Space 2, which should come out next month.
Everything is strictly subjective.

I wouldn't even recommend these ones, because for the most people that's just absolutely over the edge - they can't even watch trailers.


Three small trailers of that disturbing thing:





PS.
For those, who haven't tried bioshock - try it! That's a good thing.

[^Ripper]

Have both bioshock games.
Both "deluxe" editions.
That means big daddy figurine, LP/CD of bioshock 2 score, epic posters and other stuff.
In my eyes worth the extra dollars, but then again i have a collecting habit.

The game is great, atmosphere awesome and i like the (good) endings a lot.

Spoiler:

Played the game with high morals, so got the good endings, never cared for the bad.

[offtopic]Yay we got spoiler tags![/offtopic]
One note:
Don't rush the game!
Explore and try and read all the logs as they are worth it!

In that sense a golden oldie from the past called "System Shock (2)" is closely related atmosphere wise.
System Shock 1 also has voice logs scattered around explaining what happened and giving clues.
I can play System Shock 1 over and over again and it won't bore me at all.
The only problem is the awkward controls, but that's it.
For a game that old it was years ahead of its time!
1994 and 3D in 640x480 resolution AMAZING!

[moooV]

Two days ago another one was announced. This time it's a flying city.
Heard that it's scheduled for 2011.

However, I'd rather like to see the third part of Rapture. Damn, I like that city!



PS.
I've done the good things too. However, it didn't keep me from exploring the game directory in order to find the bad ones (in fact, it's a good, bad, and semi-bad). You can watch them on youtube.

PSPS.
In the second one, what happens in the end (right before the end) (who played - knows) made me stare at the screen saying "fuck, my brain!" for several minutes! Excellent!

[^Ripper]

@PSPS moment

Spoiler:

Yeah the moment before ending was a real "RUN DAMNIT!!!! WTF??? NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!" moment.
Really intense making you wonder who's alive and who's not.
And that all in just...2 seconds?
Then the ending unfolds and somewhat calms the nerves only to go WTF again at the needle part.
The good ending is both beautiful and sad from the big daddy point of view.
The good neutral ending was what one could call a tearjerker due to the emotional sadness.
The (neutral) Bad ending was just evil

[Cailon]

My God! You should play System Shok 2 then. Its the quasi-predecessor of Bioshock and it is MUCH more complex, one of the most underrated games ever, it has one of the best villains (Shodan!) and is overall better Also, Dead Space owes a ton of ideas to System Shock 2. (I've never played System Shock 1 though).
However, bad news: the game is from 1999. Good news: There are still fans out there, programming mods that enhance textures and so on. IF you'll play it, avoid spoilers at all costs!

I enjoyed Dead Space very much anyway. It had some really nice features like zero gravity or depressurizing and a good sense of overall style.

[^Ripper]

Heh, i have both CD versions of System Shock 1 + 2
I might have neglected to mention SSHOCK2 a bit.
True its also an awesome game, however i like the first one more.
And yes, SShock(2) is underrated, but has a large following and even a cult status.

"Look at you, hacker. A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?"

You should play it.
Get the CD version, get DosBox, Set the game to run @ 640x480, get used to the somewhat awkward controls and enjoy!
Also SAVE YOUR GAME FREQUENTLY!

http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?page_id=1103 <- makes a nice long read about shodan

[Cailon]

Oh, a fellow System Shock fan, how nice!
Yes, I own Shock 2 and it runs on XP without DosBox (idk, maybe you have to use the compatibility-option). But I can't speak for Vista or Win7.

Spoiler:

Shodan and her bullying and this distorted voice of hers, ah sweet memories.^^ But well, 3 times is enough for a while. The read about Shodan in part 1 made me curious though. I think I have to swallow the 1994-graphic-pill and play it!
Btw, the text is full of spoilers, so fair warning for othes! I'll never forget this creepy moment when a certain thing happens on deck a certain commando-deck (cough). You have to be taken by surprise for this, otherwise this moment is lost.

Dead Space lacked a real villain imo. It was just a survival game, a boss here and there and this betrayal at the end, uh well.
And, Dead Space did very well with bad surprises. Some scripted elements where really nasty, like a door suddenly slamming down or the lights failing - and then nothing happened, no monsters in the dark. Sometimes this was more creepy than a bunch of zombies.

I like to imagine the games in 5 to 10 years. Imagine physic engines much more powerful than Half Life's, 100% destructible surroundings, portal-technology or different gravity-surfaces, new RPG elements and new ideas for the old genre (like in Dead Space you had no HUD and if you were injured, you slow down, breath heavy and your sight starts to get blurry).

[moooV]

I haven't read this - I was looking aside. Hide that under the spoiler tag! I don't want to skip even this topic from now on - I avoid too much of them here already.

I haven't played SS 1 nor 2, although I will - when I'll have free time. But hide the spoilers!

--------------------------------

Oh my! I've just found this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1267379/.

Looks like it's going to be the second anime I'll watch in my life (first was an unbeleivable shit - gunnm OVA).
Let's hope it's close enough to the game.

[Sergio Nova]

Looks like it's going to be the second anime I'll watch in my life (first was an unbeleivable shit - gunnm OVA).

Indeed! It smirches a masterpiece.

[Cailon]

@moooV: I've edited it so far. Spoiler free now.

Sorry, but the anime isn't great or anything. It fills in some gaps in the story but overall this will ruin your opinion of anime-quality forever. Even more since its only an US-"anime". If you want more Dead Space, I recommend to watch the Wii-playthrough of *Dead Space: I forgot the name*---it came out for Wii only. It's a railshooter but it's fairly short and you can skip some useless endless-monster-spawning-scenes. This is really woven into the original game, e.g. you set up the barrier that Isaac has to blow up later, you disable the asteroid-gun that Isaac has to reactivate and so on. It also deals heavily with you hallucinating and one specific counter measure, I read it was foreshadowing to part 2.

Also, off topic, but I can't say it too often: if you only watch one anime (or anime series) in your life, let it be Cowboy Bebop. Give it some episodes to catch you and everyone that has watched it can assure you, you'll be hooked. Totally.
I mean, imagine an awesome space dogfight with this music.
And imagine looking at the stars with this music. Yeah, 7:13, but slow down a bit and just listen.
[/offtopic I'll stop blabbing now]

I think I also have to play Bioshock, it came out when my pc was still a Zuse Z1 so I had to ignore it.

[moooV]

Well... Both animes I've watched up to the date are a pure trash.

However, I didn't expect anything worthy anyway. But still, it looked so fake, that's unbeleivable.

The infection didn't spread so fast! In the original game it took several days, not hours. In fact, the scientists in the game even tried to study necromorphs in the beginning of infestation.

Captain's deck looks completely different from the game. Captain dies anothert way in the game.

And what they've done to a laser cutter! They've made a chainsaw out of it. Assholes!

Also, there were only four necromorph types in the cartoon. I've expected to see these beautiful guys at least, but they weren't shown.

Give it some episodes to catch you and everyone that has watched it can assure you, you'll be hooked. Totally.

The point is - I don't want to get hooked. At all. That's why I don't watch animes.
Also, I find them unbeleivably weird as a phenomena. This is also applicable to mangas.

[Shivalitka]

Right now I'm waiting for Dead Space 2, which should come out next month.

Well it won't happen, since its scheduled for January 25, 2011.

[Cailon]

I'm playing "Singularity" right now. Story in a nutshell: In 1950, the evil russians feared the allmighty atomic power, so their most crazy scientists conducted some evil experiments with a newly found element (E99). But russian technology is inferior and shitty, so it failed, as always. In 2010 however, the allmighty USA reads a power spike from that facility and they're - easy as pie - sending a recon team. It turns out E99 can manipulate time, so you're constantly switching between the centuries, seeing the run down facility right after you've walked the same way when it was still in perfect shape.
Yeah welll and OF COURSE E99 created lot's of monsters which you have to kill, meh. It's rather mediocre all in all. It has lot's of russian signs but all recorded tapes are in english with (false?) russian accent (and "cyrillic" signs, like "Я" -_-), it has monsters and later on apparently you can reverse time for certain objects (like de-rot something). That last part is kind of cool, the rest is just puzzled together from other games.

Also graphic wise, I don't understand why every surface has to shine so much nowadays. The skin of the monsters, the clothes... as if the marines are wearing silk...

[Freuy_McRae]

singularity ? never heard of it ,but if you want a russian cyberpunk/horror experience try Metro 2033, a really good shooter filled with monsters, ghost, demons. The game develops in an infernal post apocalyptic world most of your equipment its prewar wich means its old and rusty, and barely works. Seriously you must recharge your lintern quite often or the thing will run out of energy very quick and I mean it, even the goggles of your gas mask brakes with every hit you take and you can choose the dialog in russian, or english with russian accents if you want.

[moooV]

Story in a nutshell: In 1950, the evil russians feared the allmighty atomic power, so their most crazy scientists conducted some evil experiments with a newly found element (E99). But russian technology is inferior and shitty, so it failed, as always. In 2010 however, the allmighty USA reads a power spike from that facility and they're - easy as pie - sending a recon team. It turns out E99 can manipulate time, so you're constantly switching between the centuries, seeing the run down facility right after you've walked the same way when it was still in perfect shape.

A new Castle Wolfenstein, but in the Soviet edition this time?

It has lot's of russian signs but all recorded tapes are in english with (false?) russian accent (and "cyrillic" signs, like "Я" -_-)

Stereotypical, as expected.

Also graphic wise, I don't understand why every surface has to shine so much nowadays. The skin of the monsters, the clothes... as if the marines are wearing silk...

That's one of the trends in game industry - it's called a Fresnel shader. It's a very simple mathematical function, which outputs an angle between the surface and the camera as the color of a pixel - areas with curvature are bright, while facing camera areas are dark.
Screened atop of the rest of the character's shading, it gives a silky feel.

Take a look at Alyx Vance, which used it intensively in HL2:

if you want a russian cyberpunk/horror experience try Metro 2033, a really good shooter filled with monsters, ghost, demons.

It's just a game adaptation of the book, which was a top-seller several years ago here. So, to increase the gross, they've made a game out of it.

PS.
I haven't played both of it - I simply don't have time for this. I'd like to, but I can't - I have missed so many games in the last three years, which I regret. For example, I have never played GTA4 or Crysis. Last time I've managed to spare some time for a new game was when the StarCraft2 came out - I've done the campaign, but I didn't have any time for anything else.

[Cailon]

@moooV: My thoughts exactly.^^
We should conquer the world - or at least make a video game: crazy Soviet technology combined with nazi thule-magic... an unstoppable combination. You do the programming and I'll develop the "plot".

Hm, Metro2033 sounds nice and some videos on youtube looked good. Maybe I can grab a used copy. But I don't play so much either, if you're honest with yourself it's just time consuming nonsense^^
Was the book any good? I mean was it really good or was it just a hype. Cause I've bought "The Road" after the movie, I haven't had time to read it yet but I think it's worth it's hype (unlike most hyped things...)

[moooV]

Damn! Another game I've missed - the new Wolfenstein has been released this summer.

[wembpoog]

hi guys,,,
Set approximately 10 years after the events of the original Bioshock, the halls of Rapture once again echo with sins of the past. Along the Atlantic coastline, a monster has been snatching little girls and bringing them back to the undersea city of Rapture. You are the very first Big Daddy as you travel through the decrepit and beautiful fallen city, chasing an unseen foe in search of answers and your own survival.