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DarkLight
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I’d be scared to know who would be moderating that…
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LastStand
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I play multi-player shooters but I have a fondness for story-based fps games. Bioshock 2 is easily my favorite one. Especially since the moral choices you make do not merely serve as an excuse to tack on multiple endings and pad the runtime, but genuinely affect the narrative.
Essentially, you have been trying to rescue your more or less adopted daughter for the entire game. You have to make various choices. Do you take from the innocent, giving yourself the power needed to fight your enemies? Do you kill those who wronged you during and before the events of the story? Your daughter observes those choices and it informs her moral compass, at the end. Showing how powerfully our choices impact others.
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ZMystiCat
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The first Bioshock is among my favorite games of all time, second only to Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The atmosphere was absolutely fantastic, and I consider Rapture among the best worlds ever put into a video game. The writing is among the best in video games with easily the most memorable twist in any game I’ve played. I’m still amazed at how well they managed to comment on Randianism while subtly working in a commentary on player agency in video games and while not letting one get in the way of the other. The combat is a bit janky, but at least all the options given to tackle problems gives it high replayability, and I love finding creative ways to take down Big Daddies. It’s truly a masterpiece and, in my opinion, one of the classics of last generation.
Every game after, though…meh. Neither were bad games, but they just didn’t live up to the first.
Bioshock 2 did make combat a bit better, and I liked how choices were given clear thought. The first game clearly shoehorned choices and alternative endings in, and I’m pretty sure Levine said that the decision to do that was made by someone high up at 2K. Bioshock 2 at least seemed to have written its story with that in mind. However, I found Rapture to be a bit dull compared to the first game, and while the story was a bit better than your average shooter, I found it to be rather mediocre and quite a disappointment when held up against the first.
And then came Bioshock Infinite. While I love the setting of Columbia, and I had a blast riding around on the sky rails in combat, the game as a whole feels like a mess. Yes, sky rails are fun, but it stripped almost everything that made the first two games enjoyable from the combat system, and it still doesn’t feel that great when held up against other shooters. I also hated how they didn’t make it an escort game like Resident Evil 4. Instead, they try passing off the enemies ignoring Elizabeth as her being able to “take care of herself”
. The writing also felt very inconsistent. In short, I feel like the writers could never really settle on what they wanted it to be, and the story and characters all feel like they’re a hodgepodge of various ideas throughout the games 4 - 5 years of development. And that insanely pretentious last ten minutes was…
With all that said, though, I still like occasionally going back to tear through Columbia. Those sky rails are so fun!Overall, while my thoughts of the series as still positive, that’s mostly due to the first game. I think the sequels were just average, sometimes infuriating in their missed opportunities. Honestly, I think the best “sequel” we got was Gone Home. Some of the developers of that game worked on Minerva’s Den DLC for Bioshock 2 before working on Gone Home, and that game did the best job of capturing the magic of Bioshock since Bioshock. Also, they apparently put something in the game to hint that it is part of Bioshock’s universe, something Levine has no problems with.
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LastStand
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Agreed, Andrew Ryan was far more memorable as a villain than Sofia Lamb. To be fair to Bioshock 2 though, Rapture the first time is like lightning in a bottle, you cannot recreate that feeling.
Bioshock 3, I was kinda indifferent to the ending. However the combat was dumbed down to the point that I had no incentive to use my powers, the carbine and either the shotgun or the revolver were enough to tackle most foes.
Elizabeth was poorly handled, but a game-length escort mission would have been a nightmare. I have not played Resident Evil 4 so I have no idea how they handled that. On the flip side, she more or less just hides and tosses you stuff, which is what you would expect an untrained civilian to be capable of. Perhaps they could have worked her offensively using her powers into the game.
If you like Bioshock, try Prey. The aesthetic and combat are similar but different enough to be unique. The game is far more tense though with a healthy dose of paranoia fuel. The lore and environmental storytelling are enthralling too.
Bioshock 3, I was kinda indifferent to the ending. However the combat was dumbed down to the point that I had no incentive to use my powers, the carbine and either the shotgun or the revolver were enough to tackle most foes.
Elizabeth was poorly handled, but a game-length escort mission would have been a nightmare. I have not played Resident Evil 4 so I have no idea how they handled that. On the flip side, she more or less just hides and tosses you stuff, which is what you would expect an untrained civilian to be capable of. Perhaps they could have worked her offensively using her powers into the game.
If you like Bioshock, try Prey. The aesthetic and combat are similar but different enough to be unique. The game is far more tense though with a healthy dose of paranoia fuel. The lore and environmental storytelling are enthralling too.
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ZMystiCat
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I think it is more that Bioshock 2 felt a bit by-the-numbers. Bioshock had very clear reasons for each area and got as much as it could out of each of them for its atmosphere and story. It did give a bit of a game-y feel to the writing, but each location was memorable for just how unique they were and how deep the writing went for them. Bioshock 2 felt much less dense (for lack of a better word). It understood that Rapture was a horrifying underwater dystopia, but to me, it seemed comparatively light on the world building and commentary.
Bioshock 2, though, did deliver perhaps the most disturbingly memorable audio diaries in the series, right alongside Sander Cohen’s “The Wild Bunny”, not linked here due to a bit of a profanity.
I always get a lot of use out of Bucking Bronco and Devil’s Kiss. The two worked well together and were reasonably fun. I got very little use out of the other vigors, though. Possession bugged me the most because it was sort of their replacement for hacking. I get that hacking itself wasn’t great in the previous two games, but it added a lot to planning combat out, and research could remove the need for the minigame anyways.
Narratively, I also was a bit annoyed at Infinite. In Bioshock, all the plasmids and gene tonics had very clear narrative connections, not just to Rapture’s drive and downfall but also to the general commentary of the game. In Infinite, it felt a bit like it was there because “of course we need it”. It offered very little to the story and seemingly nothing to the game’s commentary.
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ZMystiCat
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In Resident Evil 4, Ashley had pretty good AI to do things like put Leon between herself and enemies, not run into dangerous situations, and avoid Leon’s gunfire if she was between him and an enemy. It was a marvel and, to me, a sign that escort missions could be good but had just never had proper effort put into them. And that game came out in 2005! It’s an embarrassment that no one else has been able to come close to doing escorting as well as that game.
And it isn’t just RE4 that found ways to do escorting. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time technically has a team-based element to it between the Prince and Farah. Farah always moves away from the main combat, but enemies may still take interest in her, and she can die. However, she has a ton of health to make it easy to address any dangers to her.
Now I get that Infinite is a bit more chaotic than both those games, but that’s really just showing how the developers didn’t think through how to bring their story out in gameplay. To me, Ashley and Farah were far more interesting characters, not necessarily because they were better written than Elizabeth (though that is the case with Farah), but because the gameplay actually reflected how these characters might interact in their situation. Infinite, in contrast, is a story about escorting a girl through Columbia, but she ultimately doesn’t need it. I don’t like throwing around the term “ludonarrative dissonance”, but Infinite is the poster child of it.
And the worst part is, they have a narrative out. If Elizabeth dies, go to a new timeline where she doesn’t, perhaps with a consequence like losing resources instead of losing progress. It fits within the narrative, gives some motivation to not ignore her, and doesn’t have too annoying of a failure state.
The thing is, it doesn’t take a whole lot to realize that it’s less her AI being really good at hiding and more that the enemy’s AI just ignores her. I’ve had multiple cases where she was practically standing right next to them, and she also gets caught in explosions plenty of times, and all of that is on top of how blatantly obvious it is the enemies never even look in her direction or try to find ways to get to her.
Really, I can’t tell if the game’s design got lost early or if they had to make concessions due to not getting the AI to work. Either way, the story and gameplay just don’t feel at all in cohesion.
I’ve been meaning to pick it up but don’t currently own any of the systems that it is on. I’ll probably get a PS4 sooner or later, though, and that’s definitely on my list of games to get.
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LastStand
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I have to disagree with you on that point. Bioshock 2 gave us some major insights into the Big Daddies and Little Sisters. As for world building and commentary, I present Andrew Ryan’s amusement park. Though nothing tops Sander Cohen’s bizarre art exhibits.
Arguably though, I thought the story in Bioshock 2 was more driven by the characters than commentary on ideology and it made me feel more connected to the characters.
Which ending did you prefer though? I got the ending which resulted from basically being the punisher the entire game. Save the cute little girls and kill 2 out of 3 story characters and I think I liked it best for impact on both of the Lambs.
Also the opening scene is pure nightmare fuel as well.
I heard they were going to make Songbird a reoccurring boss you would fight like the Big Sisters.
Best AI in any fps though has to go to the original F.E.A.R. game. The replica fight like actual soldiers and mercilessly punish your mistakes on the higher difficulties. The horror is a bit hokey but some of the scares were effective.
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Joe_5859
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Can you explain to me what that means? I have seen people mention Discord in many places, but I must confess I don’t know what that means.
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ZMystiCat
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I didn’t mean that Bioshock 2 was totally lacking in interesting writing. I just felt that it was much less dense than the first.
I agree that it was more character-driven. Personally, though, I was more a fan of the first game’s characters. To me, they felt a bit more bizarre and eccentric, and I’m a huge fan of that.
I’ve only seen the one where Eleanor turns out good and saves Sophia. I have a tendency to always spare people in games. I actually have never killed a Little Sister in Bioshock despite playing the game at least half a dozen times.
While I enjoyed the delve into Delta’s and Eleanor’s relationship, I honestly rolled my eyes during the forced suicide. By the time Bioshock 2 released, killing off the protagonist had become a bit cliche, and I was getting tired of it. I was shocking in CoD4, but so many games did it themselves afterwards that I began hating it.
Really, they changed a lot. Elizabeth’s powers changed. Her look made considerable changes, though they did bring back her original dress late in the game in a scene that was…weird, and not in a good way. They also downgraded the physics, and some scenes that were shown during marketing never made it to the final game. I’m not sure what happened, but given that Irrational considerably downsized afterwards and would have closed down if not for pleading on Take Two’s part, I get the feeling that the game’s development was hell.
Yeah, I was a bit shocked by how good it was. Some of the flanking maneuvers that the AI pulled off were beyond almost anything I’ve seen from enemy AI in an FPS. It made already excellent combat even better.
That said, despite the second game being less scary and having worse AI, I did prefer it to the first. I liked the design of the environments, levels, and enemies a lot more. The combat also felt a bit better.
The third F.E.A.R. though…that game was scary for all the wrong reasons!
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balto
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@ZMystiCat I started replaying the new Tales of Vesperia the other day and am looking forward to reacquainting myself with Yuri and Repede. 
Also looking forward to Flynn and Patty being fully playable. You should get the Switch version soon.
Also looking forward to Flynn and Patty being fully playable. You should get the Switch version soon.
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ZMystiCat
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I’ll probably run out to buy it this weekend. I’m on a Mega Man binge right now, and I at least want to beat the fifth game this week.
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LastStand
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It goes back to what I said earlier, Bioshock had an entire world to build and therefore had basically an infinite amount of options and things to cover. Bioshock 2 was restrained by the canon and rules laid out in Bioshock. Kind of a lightning in a bottle sort of situation.
As for F.E.A.R., I like the horror in the first 2 games for different reasons. The original game has more jump scares and a higher level of tension overall. The second game had probably the single scariest level in the school. Also the events in the second game are far more disturbing than the events in the first in the longterm.
As for F.E.A.R., I like the horror in the first 2 games for different reasons. The original game has more jump scares and a higher level of tension overall. The second game had probably the single scariest level in the school. Also the events in the second game are far more disturbing than the events in the first in the longterm.
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ZMystiCat
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The thing is, I’m not sure that’s a good excuse. Mass Effect 2 faced a similar problem, and it still managed to really flesh out and expand on the first game’s world. While neither game was as good as Bioshock, both were among the best of last generation, and I would struggle to say which one was truly better.
Bioshock 2 even had an interesting idea - explore Rapture from the perspective of a collectivist. Sure, the original had Atlas, but he really wasn’t a collectivist once you got down into things. However, I don’t think they really fleshed that out. They wanted to explore a different side of Rapture, offer tough moral choices, comment on an opposing sociopolitical system, and have a character study, but they didn’t glue it all together like the first game managed with its themes. Infinite had the same problem - wanting to comment on a lot but never really engaging with its ideas. Maybe they were trying to capture the first game’s feeling, but the first game ultimately had very little to say. It just took what it had to say and got as much out of that little bit as it could.
I don’t remember the first having any jump scares. It seemed more interested in keeping the actual horror a bit distant, minus a few sections, such as the ending. It let you know that the danger was impending rather than throwing it in your face.
And then there’s the hinting that you’re little more than an easily-destroyable doll to a deranged, incredibly powerful girl, and you’re only alive because she wants to play with your for a bit longer.
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ZMystiCat
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So I just got Tales of Vesperia on Switch. I’m so glad to finally get to spend time with these characters again. Granted, I forgot how bad the voice acting and animations were at times, but oh well. The writing and gameplay are still among the best of any game I’ve played.
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balto
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Nice, glad you are enjoying it. I’ve been playing on hard mode and I just got to that ruined town where you learn how to Fatal Strike. Yuri is so slow though compared to the other main characters (especially Jude who was so wildly OP), I think he is probably the slowest main in the series. I may switch to Repede full time when he has enough decent artes, it is just that the AI does not handle Yuri that well 
I haven’t played this game in maybe 8 years or so however I remember being somewhat unhappy with the resolution of the storyline in that they were building that interesting interplay between Yuri and Flynn’s differing sense of justice in a corrupt empire and then decided to leave that entirely unresolved to pursue some environmentalist “save the planet” message that came out of nowhere and seemed shoehorned in to satisfy a certain interest group. Although thinking about it again the original plot may not have been abandoned in the end and that was too superficial a reading of it, I’ll have to see if I have a different take on it this time.
Seems like the voice actors had a hard time recapturing their 10 year old voices I think my favorite bad animation is Yuri’s swimming animation in Zaude (even I could have done better than that). I do agree that it has the best gameplay in the series.
I haven’t played this game in maybe 8 years or so however I remember being somewhat unhappy with the resolution of the storyline in that they were building that interesting interplay between Yuri and Flynn’s differing sense of justice in a corrupt empire and then decided to leave that entirely unresolved to pursue some environmentalist “save the planet” message that came out of nowhere and seemed shoehorned in to satisfy a certain interest group. Although thinking about it again the original plot may not have been abandoned in the end and that was too superficial a reading of it, I’ll have to see if I have a different take on it this time.
Seems like the voice actors had a hard time recapturing their 10 year old voices
I think my favorite bad animation is Yuri’s swimming animation in Zaude (even I could have done better than that). I do agree that it has the best gameplay in the series.
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ZMystiCat
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I’m not ready for that, though I am playing on manual this time. I’m actually enjoying it more than semi-auto, and the bonus given for playing on manual means that my battle score is always much better than if I had played on semi-auto. I’m also comboing a lot better than I did in my first playthrough, but I’ve played more Tales games since and have gotten much better at the fighting system.
Given how easy the Eggbear was, though, I might consider upping the difficulty, but I remember there being a difficulty spike at the Ehmead Hill boss, and I don’t want to up the difficulty before then.
I don’t remember being taken aback too much by it. Duke’s story was being hinted at as early as Deidon Hold, and there were pretty clear ways that the Yuri/Flynn dichotomy ended up playing into the Yuri/Duke dichotomy. Even replaying it, there were some pretty obvious hints early on that there was an environmentalist message building - monsters behaving unusually, things not following their usual cycles, etc. Of course, it is a lot easier to see how that’s all tying together when you know where the story goes 2/3 the way through.
Not to mention, I played the game around the time that I took environmental ethics in college, and I remember being a bit surprised at how well the writers understood some of the ideas and discussions in the field. It gave me the sense that it was something that they cared about and wanted to put into a story. Yeah, Duke was a bit extreme, but even he wasn’t completely out-of-place given some of the stuff I had to read in that class. Granted, I know that these games are written first and foremost for Japan, and I don’t know what the culture is like there regarding environmental discussion. Maybe it’s much better - and in some cases worse - than what we have here.
I think it is more that there are times where the voice actor wasn’t told about the situation their line was said in. I remember in the palace both Yuri and Estelle having deliveries that seemed detached from the situation and not fitting with how the other was acting. I haven’t noticed anything quite as out-of-place since, though.Seems like the voice actors had a hard time recapturing their 10 year old voices
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Joe_5859
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@balto, I finally finished Breath of the Wild! 
Whenever I get near the end of a Zelda game, I always seem to postpone playing it because I don’t want it to be over.
It was a little anti-climactic as I made it through the castle and to Ganon pretty quickly. And I beat him pretty easily.
I suppose now I can just go back and continue to explore. I still have a few of the shrines and DLC stuff to do.
Whenever I get near the end of a Zelda game, I always seem to postpone playing it because I don’t want it to be over.It was a little anti-climactic as I made it through the castle and to Ganon pretty quickly. And I beat him pretty easily.
I suppose now I can just go back and continue to explore. I still have a few of the shrines and DLC stuff to do.
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