Gamespot: Hands-on with Bioshock

[Draft]

Game of the century? Seems so. (http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/bioshock/news.html?sid=6150533)As enormous fans of the open-ended gameplay and unsurpassed atmosphere of the 1999 Irrational first-person role-playing game System Shock 2, we were floored to finally see Irrational's next game, BioShock, in action. Irrational's general manager Ken Levine was kind enough to give us our first look at the game itself at E3 today, and we were frankly thrilled to find that the dynamic gameplay possibilities and outright creepiness of Shock 2 will almost certainly be equaled (if not surpassed) in BioShock. In short, if you liked Shock 2, you're going to love this.Borys, stop reading now. For your own sake.For instance, according to Levine, the final game will have no separate inventory menu or paper-doll model of your character that you'll need to switch to and from by leaving the game momentarily. The interface we saw simply mapped basic functions to specific buttons on the 360 controller, which, in turn, opened up nested menus. For example, since BioShock will follow Shock 2's example of making ammo conservation a key gameplay feature, and since you'll pick up different kinds of ammo, you'll be able to switch ammo on the fly by pressing your ammo button and switching from, for instance, armor-piercing rounds to antipersonnel rounds. The PC version of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion recently took fire for maintaining a console-style UI, so we hope BioShock on the PC will avoid the same pitfall by including more mouse-and-keyboard-oriented interface hooks.Console centric development for Bioshock? Perhaps.

[GrinR]

It's going to suck.

[jeffbax]

goty 2007 :D

[MFAC]

Where are the videos of the showing???

[sparkfizt]

pleasedontsuckpleasedontsuckpleasedontsuckpleasedo ntsuckpleasedontsuckpleasedontsuckpleasedontsuckpl easedontsuckpleasedontsuckpleasedontsuckpleasedont suckpleasedontsuck

[Sazime]

I like nested menus a lot, if they are implemented well. In fact, if I can avoid ever going to a inventory menu and the menus are intuitive, I do it.

[thecrazyd]

Remember how all the Deus Ex: Invisible War previews were seemingly greasy with optimism? I called it as GOTY 04 (I think it came out in 04) when it first came out. That said, I am getting a bit of a Deus Ex: Invisible War vibe from this game.

[Evil Avatar]

Xbox 360 for da Win!

[Citizen Philip]

It's okay to say you secretly love this game, but you can't let another game hurt you like that last game did. It hurt you so bad, you just didn't know if you could ever look at another game the same way. But time passes and all that pain fades, and this new game comes into view and looks good.. and you get that feeling again.

Are you going to hurt me again?

I don't think so. I'm looking forward to it.

[Cyotik]

I for one will let down my guard and let love for Bioshock into my life. I trust it to treat me gently.

[Draft]

Remember how all the Deus Ex: Invisible War previews were seemingly greasy with optimism? I called it as GOTY 04 (I think it came out in 04) when it first came out. That said, I am getting a bit of a Deus Ex: Invisible War vibe from this game.You had better be wrong.

When you say stuff like that I want to put a fork in your eye.

[fitbabits]

Remember how all the Deus Ex: Invisible War previews were seemingly greasy with optimism? I called it as GOTY 04 (I think it came out in 04) when it first came out. That said, I am getting a bit of a Deus Ex: Invisible War vibe from this game.
Apart from the piss-poor framerate on the Xbox version, I enjoyed IW. Not a patch on the original, but a decent game nonetheless.

[F9Phoenix]

I got a press demo of it at E3. Absolutely stunning and well thought out game. I hope it's at least half as good as it looked last week.

[GunnyMo]

Let's hope they don't dumb down the interface for the console. :D The more great games I see coming to console the less and less I see a need to upgrade my PC. I love the classic PC games but everything now requires a 50gig processor with at least 7 million megs of RAM and the latest $899 video card just to look halfway decent and run at a decent framerate. No thanks.

Long live Bioshock on the 360!

[fitbabits]

Let's hope they don't dumb down the interface for the console. :D The more great games I see coming to console the less and less I see a need to upgrade my PC. I love the classic PC games but everything now requires a 50gig processor with at least 7 million megs of RAM and the latest $899 video card just to look halfway decent and run at a decent framerate. No thanks.

Long live Bioshock on the 360!
You know, you having a pink name seems to have a very odd effect on me...

[Citizen Philip]

Let's hope they don't dumb down the interface for the console. :D The more great games I see coming to console the less and less I see a need to upgrade my PC. I love the classic PC games but everything now requires a 50gig processor with at least 7 million megs of RAM and the latest $899 video card just to look halfway decent and run at a decent framerate. No thanks.

Long live Bioshock on the 360!


Funny you should mention that, today. (http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/05/15/1159203.shtml)

[GunnyMo]

Nice link, Citizen. But what about the whole package? :) I had a discussion today with some PC guys in my store. I asked them if they were tired of the constant patching, bug fixes, crashes and all around headaches of PC gaming in today's world. Both of them said yes but said they loved the mouse/keyboard combo. I totally agree. However, with the progress of consoles could it not be in the foreseeable (sp?) future that you could use those with a console? 360 already supports a USB keyboard; how hard would it be for them to upload common mouse drivers via XB Live? I can see it happen within the next five years.

Sure there are patches on console games now; it's inevitable with online growth. You have to admit, however, that patching on PC is at crazy levels. Configuring one game for the myriad of PC connections out there is, I'm sure, an insane process. Consoles, as they get stronger and more integrated with PC hardware, will continue to become more dominant. Why? Ease of use. That is why I, hardcore PC gamer, have made a big switch to mostly console. Sure I still love PC gaming but not at the level I did three to five years ago. I just cannot afford to keep up. Buying one console (barring a system failure) at $300 to $500 every four or six years is much better than putting down $800-$1500+ every couple of years on a PC upgrade. If I can play a game on console now that looks and plays just about as good, if not better, than a PC counterpart running on a high end system I will. Oblivion is a perfect example of that. Mods/schmods.

Just my humble observation and opinion.

[Kelegacy]

I am a console centric gamer at this point in time, but I still despise dumbing-down for the consoles. Why does it have to be so? As a HUGE System Shock 2 fan (one of my favorite games of all time, probably) I'm excited for Bioshock, but I'm also leery.

[fitbabits]

I am a console centric gamer at this point in time, but I still despise dumbing-down for the consoles. Why does it have to be so? As a HUGE System Shock 2 fan (one of my favorite games of all time, probably) I'm excited for Bioshock, but I'm also leery.
Don't be leery - it's very unbecoming of you!

I'm not overly concerned at all about Bioshock, for what it's worth.

[Draft]

I am a console centric gamer at this point in time, but I still despise dumbing-down for the consoles. Why does it have to be so? As a HUGE System Shock 2 fan (one of my favorite games of all time, probably) I'm excited for Bioshock, but I'm also leery.I hate how Deus Ex 2 has ruined PC->console ports for all time.

Think back to System Shock 2. Why did you enjoy that game? Was it because you had a paperdoll that only held a gun and armor? Was it because you had to play connect 4 with your inventory? Was it because you could bind alt+shift+4 to a healthpack? Was it any of those things?

Of course not.

Control is mostly ancillary to good design. You don't need 5 billion hotkeys to create an indepth experience.

[ProfPuppet]

Let's hope they don't dumb down the interface for the console. :D The more great games I see coming to console the less and less I see a need to upgrade my PC. I love the classic PC games but everything now requires a 50gig processor with at least 7 million megs of RAM and the latest $899 video card just to look halfway decent and run at a decent framerate. No thanks.

Long live Bioshock on the 360!

I used to be completely PC, wouldn't touch consoles after I first got one. Now, though... Damn, I just cannot afford to upgrade my computer an incredible amount to play games that desperately need patches, which might screw up my system that I do work on. When I could run Maya, Photoshop, and Mozilla, editing a model, texturing, and looking at Flash games, but not run the latest FPS without lowering the graphics almost to the bottom, I started turning to consoles.

[Stormwatcher]

You know, I can't consider playing Oblivion on a console... The (non gameplay breaking) mods I got for my PC version are so awesome. Better interface, better "detect life" spell effect, so on, so forth.
And DX2 would have been great if a) the user interface didn't suck so bad, b) you had more than 6 places in your inventory, c) the maps weren't so damn small.

[Savok]

At least with Oblivion when they fucked it they gave us the tools to fix it ourselves.

I really hope it won't be fucked, but I'm cynical and bitter.

[Maskatron]

Xbox 360 for da Win!

Remember The Alamo^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Deus Ex:IW.

[Borys]

Thanks, Draft, for being so kind and warning me. I stopped reading when you lit the RED light.

So it's still Game of the Century for me, yay!

Seriously - I've nothing against Irrational, one of my favourite PC devs, and I simply won't hate/ dislike/ attack them even if they sell-out their souls to Microsoft.

If they fuck up BioShock (slim chance), well, nothing the mod community can't fix, right?

[Namielus]

Control is mostly ancillary to good design. You don't need 5 billion hotkeys to create an in-depth experience.

I'm going to have to disagree with Draft here. If developers ignore fundamentally core elements of the game like a decent intuitive interface the entire game suffers. We play the game by interacting through a computer or through a console, if the developer doesn't have this in mind during the development of the game I feel that this reflects on poor planning in general.

With the exception of simulators (For example Mech 1-3) or Freespace (both of which had carefully considered control layouts), games need to have a clear and refined place for the player to interact. With the standard wasd configuration and one of the highest arguments for sticking with a pc is that we as gamers are so familiar with controlling our games with these mechanisms. If you are an arrow keys, wads, and num pad player don't you reconfigure your controls as soon as you get your hands on a new game?

If I see a switch on the wall in a game now, I damn well expect that switch to flip on and off if I use the 'use/interact' key, we like a number of lab monkeys have been conditioned to perform certain behaviors when simulated in certain manors. As long as someone understands or at least can guess at what simulates gamers (in a console and on a pc) they can deliver a game that we will attempt to play.

I have quit many games because the developer didn't give me a tool tip feature, or because I couldn't disable that tool tip feature once I understood the game (this is more extreme than my real taste but it adds flavor).

With a game that provides so many options every little familiar and easy to understand abilities emeress us into the game, and with Bioshock I can say that from what I've seen I would like to drown.

[MachDelta]

Sadly, this preview did nothing to remove me from the "it's giving me a bad vibe" crowd. Infact it has me even more worried that BioShock is completely dropping any kind of RPG elements (like equipment, stats, abilities, levels) and marching right down the same "streamlined" path as Deus Ex 2. I hope Irrational proves me wrong, but in the meantime i'm going to remain cautiously, uh, pessimistic.

Its better this way, really. I don't want to get all super excited and then have the game turn out to be some malformed mockery of the immortal System Shock. Because if that happened, my inner fanboi would snap, and I would have to kill a lot of people. And they wouldn't like that.

[Citizen Philip]

I hate how Deus Ex 2 has ruined PC->console ports for all time.

Think back to System Shock 2. Why did you enjoy that game? Was it because you had a paperdoll that only held a gun and armor? Was it because you had to play connect 4 with your inventory? Was it because you could bind alt+shift+4 to a healthpack? Was it any of those things?

Of course not.

Control is mostly ancillary to good design. You don't need 5 billion hotkeys to create an indepth experience.

Actually.. I recall a few amusing attemps to grab the correct keycard from my inventory as I was being attacked.. or hiding in a corner organizing my gear and getting scared half to death when I get throttled by a zombie that snuck up on me.

[Citizen Philip]

Nice link, Citizen. But what about the whole package? :) I had a discussion today with some PC guys in my store. I asked them if they were tired of the constant patching, bug fixes, crashes and all around headaches of PC gaming in today's world. Both of them said yes but said they loved the mouse/keyboard combo. I totally agree. However, with the progress of consoles could it not be in the foreseeable (sp?) future that you could use those with a console? 360 already supports a USB keyboard; how hard would it be for them to upload common mouse drivers via XB Live? I can see it happen within the next five years.

Sure there are patches on console games now; it's inevitable with online growth. You have to admit, however, that patching on PC is at crazy levels. Configuring one game for the myriad of PC connections out there is, I'm sure, an insane process. Consoles, as they get stronger and more integrated with PC hardware, will continue to become more dominant. Why? Ease of use. That is why I, hardcore PC gamer, have made a big switch to mostly console. Sure I still love PC gaming but not at the level I did three to five years ago. I just cannot afford to keep up. Buying one console (barring a system failure) at $300 to $500 every four or six years is much better than putting down $800-$1500+ every couple of years on a PC upgrade. If I can play a game on console now that looks and plays just about as good, if not better, than a PC counterpart running on a high end system I will. Oblivion is a perfect example of that. Mods/schmods.

Just my humble observation and opinion.

I dunno man.. you start talking about a MS console with a K/M and what you get is a Microsoft verison of a MAC designed for gaming. Can't say that sounds good to me. I've never been fond of the "look at in, don't look in it" MAC style of design.

nVidia and ATI work on much tighter product lives because they are not constrained to develop new hardware every five years. New products are 9-10 months? The tech in the nextgen was forged by PC videocard manufacturers, you want to start biting that hand: welcome to a new hardware darkage.

Or if you get modular design, you no longer have a console or a PC, but some kind of hybrid: which is probably where they want to be in 10 years; a DRM paradise of traceble, disposable hardware, every byte accounted, listed and paided for, cheap hardware off the shelf you have to buy with each game. Plug your stuff in, its registered with your system and locked in and is immediately (yeah right) intergrates with the system.

Ahh the future. How unfortuate.

[Savok]

Jesus, and people call me deluded and cynical.

[Feltoar]

lol savok

Anyway, get over IW everyone who isnt. Different developer is behind BioShock. I choose to go by more relevant impressions brought on by the games made by the same company as opposed to a game made by a different one.

[Kelegacy]

I really hope it won't be fucked, but I'm cynical and bitter.
Ah, but that's what I love about you!

[GunnyMo]

I am a console centric gamer at this point in time, but I still despise dumbing-down for the consoles. Why does it have to be so? As a HUGE System Shock 2 fan (one of my favorite games of all time, probably) I'm excited for Bioshock, but I'm also leery.

Totally agree with you. SS2 is an all time favorite of mine as well (along with Thief 1 & 2). I think some titles have been dumbed down (Deus Ex 2, Thief 3 are the most glaring examples) but many have been done extremely well (Doom 3, Half Life 2). CoD2 was a great example of what the next gen can improve when it comes to porting. I thought the game, other than the multiplayer at launch, was no different from the PC (small graphical issues aside). And while it took them too long they did fix the multiplayer.

I think it really comes down to the developer with porting. If the developer does a good job you won't notice much of a difference. Now that the next gen consoles (360/PS3) are equivalent or greater than many PCs out there in terms of power and capabilities I think most ports will be as good (or even better than) their PC counterparts. I think F.E.A.R. has a great opportunity to do that and, from what I've seen so far, they are doing it very well. I'm looking forward to this next gen series.

[GunnyMo]

You know, I can't consider playing Oblivion on a console... The (non gameplay breaking) mods I got for my PC version are so awesome. Better interface, better "detect life" spell effect, so on, so forth.
And DX2 would have been great if a) the user interface didn't suck so bad, b) you had more than 6 places in your inventory, c) the maps weren't so damn small.

Let's not forget the hideous unified ammo. That had to be the dumbest design decision ever made. Just like SS2, managing the different types of ammo in DE1 was a lot of fun. Plus they took out the crossbow. That thing was awesome!

[Kelegacy]

So is it still a pseudo-RPG, or more emphasis on being an action game?

[MosBen]

The paper doll/inventory screen is an archaic system from long long ago. We're better off if we can find a way to do it that avoids taking us away from the game. Change is good, moreover, it's inevitible.

[Kelegacy]

The paper doll/inventory screen is an archaic system from long long ago. We're better off if we can find a way to do it that avoids taking us away from the game. Change is good, moreover, it's inevitible.
I like paper doll!! I don't want RPGs too streamlined; it ruins the RPG experience and turns them into...FPSs.

Ugh.

[Citizen Philip]

The paper doll/inventory screen is an archaic system from long long ago. We're better off if we can find a way to do it that avoids taking us away from the game. Change is good, moreover, it's inevitible.

Umm. Oblivion. While we are out to destroy your inventory screen, fuck screens for spells, weapons or character sheets. That's all patter anyways. Just give me a button to fast forward to the fights and the babes.

RPGs are about stuff. I'm all for more interesting ways of organizing my stuff, but if you remove the stuff. You are dumbing down.

Multitool, Unified Ammo. Because you don't need that stuff. Bad idea.

Creative and inventive ways of organizing stuff is more fun.

[Savok]

Never speak of unified ammo again, the term alone is gasoline to the fire in my heart.

[Stormwatcher]

I hated the 6-slots inventory more than the ammo thing. You could cary SHIT in DX2.