The coordinates of where to crash the plane are on the letter jack receives at the start of the game Splicers are also shown to crawl through vents and broken air ducts to access rooms jack can’t which could explain the two splicers who find you at the start Also the splicers were addicted to Adam, not plasmids. Although plasmids do use Adam. I would argue that through the little sisters the story is interacted with and the radiologs tell you of the lore not the plot of the game. I don’t think every game should require player input in the narrative. I agree with a lot of your criticisms of the gameplay, certain weapons become unnecessary later in the game and I found the whole “You gotta go from A to B, oh no something has blocked your way better go through A to Z instead” to be repetitive and used in nearly every level. But I do love bioshock, the setting is very imaginative and I found the audio logs fascinating, the atmosphere excellent and the soundtrack to be great as well . The character models have definitely aged but the stellar voice acting hasn’t. I feel it’s main twist is one of the best twists in games. Shame the last boss sucks.
“You gotta go from A to B, oh no something has blocked your way better go through A to Z instead” With regard to this criticism, I find this to be a particular design crutch Ken Levine has leaned on in pretty much all of his notable works. It was particularly pronounced in System Shock 2, and turned up to 11 in Bioshock: Infinite. It was so bad in Infinite, that he had to resort to dimension hopping bullshit to justify it. "I don’t think every game should require player input in the narrative." This is why I like Bioshock. Its basically a parody of the concept of player input in interactive stories.
That final boss the way it was hyped I thought I was gonna fight a literal god crafted through the Adam but no I end up getting Great value Dr.Manhatan with a cool voice and then I don't even truly beat him a bunch of indoctrinated little girls beat him like hmph🙃 but still in my top 5 fav games of all time
The line about player agency in a narrative is effectively the entire point of Bioshock Infinite. That game was effectively telling folks "It's a video game, your choices don't matter". A bit of an exact antithesis to Prey which tries to get players to sympathize with video game peeplz, but I find it interesting nonetheless. Either way, I love hearing this kind of stuff. Even if I don't 100% agree with videos like this one, it does get me thinking. It doesn't /always/ hurt.
I find myself disagreeing with a lot in this video. - "Player choice is what separates video games from films", while technically true, is definitely not the only, and not even the most important aspect that separates video games from other media. *Interactivity*, not player choice, is the most important one. - "The introduction of the electric bolt plasmid is really bad" because the level design didn't account for things 99% of players won't even think about is an incredibly petty grievance. Gameplay wise there's absolutely nothing wrong with it - There is a zoom on the crossbow, and every other weapon as well. Weird that you apparently missed that, because you showed zero footage of shooting with zoomed-in weapons. - Gathering all the little sisters is absolutely not necessary for beating the game. Maybe if you want to max out both tonics and plasmids, but you can absolutely get by with like 3 basic plasmids - I'd say player choice with the Big Daddies lies not in *if* you fight them, but where and how. Later in the game you have many different methods to set up ambushes that clip like 1/2 of the big daddy's health as soon as you engage it - There's no ammo capacity upgrading because that would remove the resource management element that's one of the key components of the game. - Rapture is basically a ruined society, with the player piecing together its history along the game. Therefore asking for the player to interact more with the setting is IMO kind of moot, because anyone left who's sane enough to be interacted with in the first place is either insane, trying to kill the player, or getting axed off by Ryan.
" *Interactivity*, not player choice, is the most important one" I think he is treating those as the same thing. you're making a distinction between mechanical choice/interactivity, and narrative choice/interactivity, ok, but both of those are important to games and neither can exist in most other forms of media.
First bullet is apples and oranges. Interactivity implies player choice. The difference between the great games and the railroads is the consequences/effects of the interactivity. How much weight do those interactions carry depending on what you choose to do?
I was literally thinking about all these points when he was talking about it. I had a counter argument to nearly everything he criticized. For me to go into all of it would be about as long as his own script he made for these videos, but you did a solid enough job.
What player choice did you have in Doom? You could either complete the levels or turn the game off. There wasn't any important story decisions that could be made. It's fun to kill demons, and that's the point. You _don't need_ anything more than fun gameplay for a game to be fun. What "player choice" do you have in most fighting games? Racing games? Match 3 puzzle games? Board games? Just because a medium is interactive (unlike movies) does not mean that player _needs_ to be more heavily involved than necessary to _play the game._ Would "connect 4" be more fun if it involved building a huge story around why you are dropping red and blue tokens into a matrix? Maybe. But is it necessary? Obviously not!
You have some valid pieces of criticism here. Though sadly it's buried under a mountain of perceived superiority for not liking this popular thing. This had the potential to be a stellar review that challenges the idea that Bioshock isn't the 10/10 game people think it is (it isn't). It instead comes off weirdly antagonistic and brutally, unfairly nitpicky. It's so weird to see this after watching your awesome Morrowind and Oblivion retrospectives. You've gotten a lot better at what you do.
Having watched most of his reviews, I'm fairly certain that Pat has always (and continues to have) a superiority complex. It's just much easier to detect when you disagree with the video in question. Watching his Morrowind & Skyrim reviews (games I didn't care for & liked, respectively) is where I picked up the tone the most, whilst this video & Oblivion stand out less to me. Every game he reviews is either that best thing ever made or the worst, and anyone who enjoys the latter is a low-brow caveman. I mean that tonally, rather than his actual score of the game.
I also think it’s a bit of a character he writes. The superiority is part of that and I think it helps him keep focus on critique rather than jumping back and forth
Even though I'm a fan of this game, I'd say a lot of your criticism is pretty valid. It's certainly not a perfect game for sure. As a kid, I didn't own anything like it. I feel like I never thought about the problems you mention until Infinite where those problems really stood out. They improved a lot of the gameplay, but the story suffered greatly I think. (Ludonarrative pissadance and all that.) The stories of all the games are more interested in performing lip service to a lot of amazing ideas than actually fleshing them out. And as I kid I didn't understand the difference between those two things. There was probably a large generation of kids (and 360 console gamers) who were just sorta mesmerized by having what felt like a big story-driven experience. I feel like the set dressing and the intrigue we got at the time was certainly unique for the 360. We had a lot of cool games for sure, but nothing as pretty for the sake of it, or as weird and dark. (i am not saying "graphics good, story bad" just trying to infuse some nuance.) That Andrew Ryan payoff at the end is on everyone's top ten twists for this reason. Regardless of if it was any good it still affected a lot of people. And regardless of whether or not I agree with you on pleb tier, I certainly understand your points.
Personally I think System Shock 2 did a lot of what Bioshock did better, but I do get why Bioshock was impactful for a lot of players back in the day. I first played it a number of years after it came out in high school, and there was a time when I considered it one of my top three shooters alongside Half-Life and Halo. I have since dropped Half-Life and Bioshock from that position in my mental ranking.
@@clydemarshall8095 I played Bioshock first, it was okay. And then Infinite, which was...a bit less than okay. I went to System Shock 2. It shows clearly how the trend downwards was everything after SS2. The same plot twists, the same combat systems. Its all the same. But less.
I agree on some of these points, but I think there are many environmental set ups for the big daddies and Rosie's that you can use to practically wipe them out without ever firing at them, sometimes even in the early stages. My last playthrough was on the hardest difficulty.
He specifically chose to buck against the systems the game set up, and then ironically derides the games lack of actual choice. He's trying to play the game like it's Doom or something, and bitching whenever the game tells him it's not Doom. Big Daddy's are supposed to be something you fear and hide from until you've set up a plan. If you use the environment and all the tools at your disposal to set up ambushes, they are rather easy. It's also funny how he complains about rivet guns being hitscan while the video clearly shows them having a trajectory. They just move faster than than he is used to, git gud. If you are smart about ammo and know how to play, the shotgun and chemical sprayer are extremely effective. You can't sit there are say the chemical sprayer is useless when you have plasmids, then at the same time complain the plasmids are too weak. That's because they aren't the same thing, he didn't ever actually use the weapon. The fact that everyone who plays this game has a slightly different experience, and preferred an entirely different set of weapons, is a testament to the open ended nature of this otherwise linear game. That is the charm of immersive sims, which is a genre he just doesn't understand.
@@Hylonomus yeah, I would literally hack every turret and camera, set up a few trips along the path way and have a good corner between it all to peek and contribute.
Isn't the entire game supposed to be a commentary on the illusion of choice within video games, and how there really isn't actually a choice to be had? That's why there are chains tattooed on his wrists, that's why there's a command word to control him. You don't get a choice, and that's the whole point.
I dislike the phrase immersive sim because it's an oxymoron. A simulation is inherently trying to be immersive and the games that are classed as such aren't really Sims. Bioshock is first person shooter.
Not necessary. Some are simple models to just approximate reality. Think of a technical simulation in an engineering facility. It is not intended to be immersive or fully realistic, just do the job
My problem with the remaster wasn’t that I didn’t notice a big graphical improvement, they went and added things that weren’t there that looks so much worse. When you first get to see rapture in the bathysphere, they added a bunch of starfish in jellyfish in colorful things that really over complicated that first big impact view of the city. I was so surprised they decided to do that
If you want to experience some grade A immersive sim contend I'd recommend playing prey if you didn't do so already, but mostly for the mooncrash dlc. This shit rly pushed the medium forward in my opinion and it's almost a crime how overlooked it is. Great contend as always, keep it up my mans.
If you weren't aware it might tickle you to know a whole BioShock novel was written just to detail backstory on Rapture. As an aside, the remaster was technically given out for free as when it released everyone who had a copy of the original on Steam also got the remaster. There's also something screwed with BioShock's shooting which has made it nearly impossible for me to go back and replay the games - I have a sneaking suspicion it was designed as a console shooter first and then got the laziest possible port treatment for PC since when I originally played the game on the 360 I don't remember it feeling so awful.
@@eddiespaghetti6485 Yeah, the effort is appreciable but the execution left something to be desired. Can't wait to see if anything but a caricature will be left by the time BioShock 4 releases.
@Starless I hope so, unpopular opinion as it might be 2 has always been my favourite so if you were to ask me what the best chances are for a good BioShock continuation I'd say in their hands.
@@FrightNFight Ironic username given it's kinda the counterpoint and focuses in on critiquing the opposite side from Ryan a bit more. (not that 1 didn't cover phony altruism as manipulation etc with Fontaine and Ryan's 'charity' work.
I admire your analytical style, but this review feels extremely cynical and pedantic. I mean you can tear anything apart if you want to, so why not focus on what it does well?
I admire your comment on his video, but your comment feels extremely cynical and pedantic. I mean, you can tear anything apart if you want to, so why not focus on what the video does well? Because sometimes there are flaws, and sometimes there is a necessity to point out those flaws. This is critique, and it too is art.
@@gadellomagnollo1810 this, I don't understand the point of saying "EVERYTHING IS SUBJECTIVE ANYWAY" when it comes to quality of product. Example A in this thread where if you criticize anything people turn passive aggressive, pointing out an observation is an observation like it means something
The gameplay problem with Bioshock and every other immersive sim out there is that you can deal with enemies in a variety of ways of your choosing, but it is never as viable as blasting their heads with a shotgun, and it is usually just a long way to aforementioned blast. Like, yeah, sure, i can spend five minutes luring splicers into the pool of water and then electrocuting them... Or i can blast their heads with a shotgun. Yeah, i can stun a splicer with a bolt to make him stand still to blast his head off... Or i can go straight to blasting. Etc.
The only thing that ever bothered me about this game's story was after you break the conditioning. After that happens you'd expect player choice to open up. It's kind of the entire point of the story that you haven't been able to make your own choices until that point, and now that Jack is free, he can do whatever he chooses. But no, the voice in your ear just swaps from Atlas to Tenenbaum. You still have to do everything you're told, just with a new goal. I've softened on this criticism with time though. Going after Fontaine is really the only thing that Jack would choose to do, other than saying "fuck this" and leaving Rapture which would just end the game. It's still not great, but I understand the limitation. In an ideal world there would have been more factions remaining in Bioshock that the player could have chosen to side with after breaking the conditioning. Siding with Fontaine himself should never be an option so the final boss would be the same in each route.
About your port argument. it seems a bit unfair. if you owned both Bioshock 1 and 2 already you get the remasters for free which is functionally superior, kinda makes your point of how they should have just updated the original redundant. The original port is full of unfixable kinks (which made the game unplayable for me at the time): sound glitching out when things get busy mouse control is terrible, and you even showed in your video the fov plugin you have to activate that isn't native to the game. What's so bad about the remaster? you didn't even elaborate on that.
I love the irony of them going out of their way to make all the areas seem "lived in", like entire families and societies living peacefully in Rapture, and then go a step further to display ADAM and the Plasmids as this amazing "consumer item", yet pragmatically speaking all you can do with these is shoot lightning bolts, Ice Shards and Fireballs. Because that is something the consumer would really enjoy and get highly addicted too. "Oh nice! My very own Fireball magic to heat the water in my cooking pot..." You'd really think these plasmids had more of a normal societal living effect, that you could abuse for damaging effects. But nah, it's just different types of lvl 1 D&D Spells. Which still makes a lot more sense than whatever the fuck the magic in Infinite means, and why that suddenly exist without the ADAM producing snails. But Bioshock Infinite makes no sense in any other way either, so what sense is nitpicking all of that game's dirty corners if they couldn't even get the main floor right?
I would guess the main purpose of the thrower is to let you use some of the other plasmids you would probably had by that point. The main 3 elements are basically permalocked in your plasmid bar without it, so if for some crazy reason you really wanted to use the bees plasmid I guess it makes it more of an option
I didn't appreciate the shotgun until I actually started shooting guns. It has WEIGHT, especially early in the game. Shooting a shotgun chambered in 12 gauge 00 buck will rock you. At close range it would rip a normal human apart (the fucking thing is meant to kill large game animals). I can't weigh in on the grenade launcher or flamethrower though....yet.
This was one of those games that I thought "yeah that was fun" and then never really played all the way through a second time. I do think it is big weird that people applaud this game for being this revolutionary title that reinvents the immersive sim. Like, its literally just a shooter that gives you slightly more versatility and the level layout is slightly less linear. Like cool. The actual gunplay imo isn't even that responsive or fun, it just works well enough to not be terrible. In fact, I liked bioshock infinite more because at least that game embraced the shooter elements and just worked to make the gunplay and shit feel good.
I dissagree with the pleb tier rating but it's still a very good video. I think that what made this game so impactful for me as a young person was purely it's atmosphere. Gameplay wise, and even story wise the game may feel really flat, but honestly so does i.e. half-life nowadays. I notice the flaws now, but they are still overshadowed by the great memories of me playing it for hours on my shitty laptop in a dark room when my parents were asleep. I dunno man, I at the same time agree with everything but still think it's an amazing digitalization of a cool world concept.
Bioshock is not exactly an Immersive sim, if you want to play actual immersive sims then play deus ex (mainly the original but the sequel prequels are also good), system shock 1&2 (there's a remake coming out for ss1 this year), dishonored, vampire the masquerade bloodlines, thief series and prey 2017 and its dlc now this video is old so I don't know if you've played any of these since this came out but it's fairly known that bioshock is a much more streamlined game than all the games it takes inspiration from, I think Ken levine did this in order for the game to be less niche and reach mainstream success, which it did and even though I don't like things being dumbed down I still believe BioShock is an amazing series
Wow, I feel like you are missing the point of the entire genre. The fact that you give Morrowind concessions for genre staples and then get overly pedantic over the very basic tenants of an immersive sim just makes this whole video seem like you are really reaching to justify your dislike of something popular. If you strip away all your complaints about Bioshock, you end up with Bioshock Infinite, which is a vastly inferior game.
Remember when 40 minutes was too long for a single PatricianTV video? I enjoyed Bioshock when it came out as one of those mind-bending narrative shooters, but I agree that it's not much of an ImSim. You're railroaded through the content, your upgrade paths are pretty linear, and the plasmids do what you think they're gonna do. Saying that shocking a pool of water with electricity or turning a turret to your side is immersive sim gameplay is like saying the same thing about shooting red barrels. I never did any out of the box thinking like I did with Deus Ex, Prey, or Dishonored. I have the same gripes with the Thief games too, I love them but I don't really see how they're immersive sims.
Never followed the story so I might be wrong but; you said the splicers didn’t use plasmids enough as the plasmids made them go insane, but later say that Andrew Ryan was making people go insane with pheromones. That will be why splicers don’t use lots of plasmids.
As much as you're right, it's still a stupid move to play a game on hard difficulty, when that difficulty's only modifier is literally just inflating hp values and making enemies hit harder. Otherwise, good video.
Theres a lot wrong with this review in terms of the Lore. Most of the key points are mentioned in dialog out side audio logs, which you mentioned as being lost if those were ignored. The gameplay faults are absolutely correct, this game is very easy to win even on the hardest difficulty without dying. The Big Daddies are push overs if to just spam electric damage effects, ammo is always plentiful, money if everywhere, etc. The gameplay is janky overall, but its still perfectly serviceable. The main gripe that I agree with however is the dam camera, it sucks. Its probably the worst element in any game I've played. Al it does is slow down combat and try to cover for the shit enemy scaling(They actually fixed it in Bioshock 2, but thats basically the forgotten child of the series).
As other people mentioned, your reviews became more balanced and research in the future, which you also seem to have noticed. Bioshock wasn't the best game ever, but it was good. Have you ever played it in the middle of the night, in a pitch-black room, on a massive projector with surround sound? If not, you should absolutely try it. I'm not saying that is how the game needs to be played, let alone how it should be played, but it does crank the atmospheric dial to 13, especially when you're a Freshman in high school (which back then felt old, but now you realize how much of a kid you were), it was something else.
It's like they wanted to design a metroidvania with the plasmids being the thing that unlocks progression, but they just kind of shoehorned it into their linear FPS as contrived mcguffins instead
I thought 2007 was pretty good for shooters. Halo 3 carries it for me, but you also had Bioshock (which might have been a little overrated, but isn’t that bad), Crysis, COD 4: Modern Warfare, and I think Half-Life 2: Episode 1.
says the revolver is worthless says he saves ammo for bosses that never came proceeds to shoot a big daddy with a revolver... What the fuck if i may ask?
Given your other work, I think this video stands out as an oddball. Is there some joke I'm not getting? Is the joke that this is a collection of shallow skin deep takes masquerading as critique? Do you have something against bioshock?
I've tried to like Bioshock for more than a decade, and i absolutely love imsims (still replaying SS to this day). But it just goes against most of the really important tenets to emergent gameplay too often for me to actually enjoy it. I know the legacy it left is more because it was the first (really) succesful "immersive sim" to release on consoles and it kinda opened the gates for the new breed of immersive sims (Arkane's). But the actual soul it sacrificed on its attempt to run on ridicoulously limited hardware, besides some ABSOLUTELY HIDEOUS design decisions (Vita-Chamber implementation and a default experience terribly hand-holding) just kill the experience for me. Never found the story to be particularly amazing, just a sillier take on SS2. Although Levine can conjure up some FANTASTIC writing (Thief, SS2, even Infinite writing was really nice albeit all the problems that game had). BioShock 2, on the other hand: one of the better experiences one can have with combat focused immersive sims, something probably having more to do with Arkane's than anything else, but still, a big improvement on all respects, even story no matter what anybody says.
VERY big agreement on Bioshock 2, it's ridiculous to me that anyone can view that game as the worst of these three titles. Like you said, an improvement in every respect from the original and just an absolute blast to play
@@spendsshanks6050 he explained that bioshock 1 is relatively similar to system shock 2's writing also done by Ken Levine, and that it didn't impress him that much having played system shock 20
Uhh you can zoom in ironsite in Bioshock. Also Bioshock is like a reimagining of the System Shock games which are almost identical in game mechanics and story but Bioshock is more console friendly.
Fighting every Big Daddy that appears on your way seems very dumb, you know that you do not have to fight every respawning Big Daddy after dealing with the sisters, right?
Well you gave it a better shot than I. I played this game all the way through and I would pick up logs and once they started to get cut off by transmissions I just stopped listening to em. I wasnt going to sit around a campfire to let the game get its point across if it wasnt going to put in the effort to put that in the actual game. Its like Destiny where all the story is in its cards on a website no where near the game and there are two Yters that have a whole channel basically dedicated to just reading these cards so the rest of the community have an actual understanding of whats going on in the story. A characters death happens completely out of game in a random post on Bungies news section on their web site I just dont get not putting your story in the game. Anyway I got to the end of Bioshock one and just didnt understand why people liked this game so much. I watched videos about the audiologs but I couldnt even finish them bc if it was really so important to the story, why wasnt I directly involved with that in the game itself?
I have always thought Bioshock was a pretty great game and that Bioshock 2 was even better. The gameplay was definitely engaging. The "player choice" was mostly about your play approach. But the real star of Bioshock 1 and 2 was the environments, which were amazingly crafted and wonderfully creepy. There are definitely better immersive sims. System Shock 2 is an all-time classic, as is the original Deus Ex. And the Prey (2012) may be the finest immersive sim ever made. I also thought that the newer Deus Ex games are better in terms of gameplay than Bioshock, though not in atmosphere. And I have to say atmosphere is a lot in a game.
Bioshock is one of the greatest games/immersive sims of all time, not deserving of the criticism you throw at it. There is a balance of complexity and streamlining and different people like different thing. It has great gameplay and a great story. Plus the original System Shock has less of what modern immersive sims do and more in common with metroidvania. 2007 was a great year for gaming. And oblivion is a good game too At least you admit that you seem to regret it in your pinned comment. Also you are gatekeeping what an immersive sim is or and missing the idea that it’s not needed to have a good game
There were a couple things which turned me off bioshock, for some reason the audio quality was absolutely terrible. The FOV was way too low, and the combat didn’t feel very good, because things were too bullet sponge-ey.
Wait the plane crash was intentional? Why didn't he just use a seaplane? They were everywhere in the 50s and 60s. (I've only ever gotten about halfway through this game). Bonus: way less chance of dying from impact or drowning and doesn't kill anyone else.
and then bioshock 2 did "console" and even coming to a window in order to listen to talking npc was so heavily scripted you couldn't look away. fuck 2k for making remasters that nobody needed
Okay, I finished watching your 12 hour Oblivion video and I'm going through a playlist of all these "classic" games I grew up with. I don't see how your channel doesn't have a million subs already, definitely looking forward to your next video.
Man, I recently bought The Bioshock Collection and replayed the beginning of this first installment. I remembered it being so awesome, but even without a brain that does much in the way of this type of critical analysis I found myself sadly bored. I watched KBash's review video and disagreed at the time (not angrily so, I'm 37-too old for anger of that type) but now agree with you's guys for the most part. I was so blown away back in 2008 when I played this on the ol' 360. I do appreciate what it made me feel at the time, but it sure did start a trend.
It's great to see this video getting more traction thanks to the recent Morrowind stuff. I'm a big fan of the LGS games, so I caught this a while back and I'm watching it again today. I'm glad that *someone* has enough of a brain to see what a dumpster fire Bioshock is, but if anything, you're a little too kind to the game. It doesn't necessarily make the game itself worse, but something has to be said for the fact that Ken Lavine worked on System Shock 2, which came out in 1999, and absolutely slaps Bioshock silly in nearly every way. SS2 isn't even that incredible when it comes to emergent gameplay, and the whole "Immersive Sim" genre is for journalists, but clearly Bioshock was supposed to be a System Shock successor. Almost everything about the game is a downgrade. The combat is marginally better, but that isn't saying a whole lot, and the game has way fewer options for player expression. The story legitimately feels like Ken read the back of an Ayn Rand novel, set it down, then replaced Shock 2 character names. The level design makes even less sense than the first System Shock, and does nothing to ground the setting at all, where as Citadel station and the conjoined ships in Shock 2, while not realistic, had enough elements of a functional floor plan that they seemed somewhat believable, even with chunky, crude graphics. The "cinematic" scripted sequences, and the vocal performances are also pretty pathetic. I imagine that if someone had never played anything other than Gears of War 1, the "Obey!!!!1!!!" thing would have been shocking, but it comes off just as incredibly tryhardy and forced. Shock 2's biggest flaw to anyone who has finished it is that cutscene at the end, so I'm not sure why Irrational would double down on cinematics. We're also talking about one of the same studios making a successor to their game game that has two of the greatest vocal performances ever, with The Many and SHODAN, and they couldn't even come close, despite having 1:1 analogs in Bioshock. There isn't even an option to keep food to eat later in Bioshock, which is such a basic grounding element for an fps/rpg type game. In Deus Ex, or even newer games like PREY, the protagonists have the self control to not shovel all consumables into their mouth instantly, and as weird as it sounds, it's very immersive and humanizing for a badass, gun toting player character to fiddle with a vending machine for a packet of chips after clearing out an area, but again, Bioshock couldn't manage it. On its own merits, Bioshock is this weird, nonsensical shooter with confused mechanics, too shallow to live up to its predecessor, but too cumbersome to enable anything immediate and fluid. To one side of it is Dead Space, which took System Shock and made it into an incredibly engaging shooter, unconcerned with the slower mechanics, and ditching a lot of the player agency. On the other, Deus Ex and Shock 2, while kinda crap action games and both incredibly flawed games, at least have enough mechanical depth that players can sort of steer their own experience. I've always referenced Skyrim as the most egregious example of this first-time novelty syndrome, where gamers finally try something outside of their normal wheelhouse, and the perspective-broadening effect of trying something new lets a pretty lame product skate as a masterpiece, but at least Skyrim is a okay-ish game, improving on the fluidity of play, having better voice acting than the previous titles, and making other little improvements that make the huge steps down less upsetting. Bioshock was 8 years out of date when it came out, and had its ass beaten by the same people, making the same game 8 years ago. It's below average on its own, but it's borderline insulting in context. There are people in 2020 still saying that it's some kind of marvel of design, and it's baffling. I love a lot of games that really aren't very good, but I'll always admit when I enjoy something due to personal bias or circumstance, and not try to make a proper defense. Bioshock has managed to convince a generation of players that it's a actually a good game. I'd be interested to see what you think about Bioshock 2, especially if you'd do a long form series on it in the future. I think that it's unfairly put down by rabid fans of the original, while massively improving on Bioshock, and the way that the developers were shit on around Infinite's launch was pretty low. If anything, it's another example of the Irrational dream team being bested at their own game. Void Bastards could also make for an interesting video, seeing as it adapts a lot of the Shock gameplay into a shooter fairly elegantly(while also mutilating the PC controls and not letting me rebind RMB). Seeing as you've done Dishonored and Bioshock, I'll keep tabs to see if you do any other videos about PREY or other LGS inspired games.
Tell me more about Bioshock 2, I'm not too far in a playthrough (only killed my first Big Daddy) but I want to know if I'll be disappointed too. I heard that fans don't like it so much but so far it feels more of the same. Maybe a little better because hacking is less annoying and plasmids now have their own button making battles flow better. (Didn't use many plasmids in the original because switching felt clunky, idk.)
Bioshock 2 is the same or better than the first, despite being made in less time by a different team. It’s actually kinda embarrassing for Lavine’s team that Bioshock 2, and especially Minerva’s Den, is so good. I’m not really the biggest fan of BS2, almost entirely because it comes after BS1, and that weakens the story a tonne, but if you look at just what’s in each release, it’s a much stronger game than the original. The fan reaction was actually pretty bad, and as a result of that, it’s basically been retconned and laughed out of the Bioshock cannon. We’re talking about a fanbase and a development team that were impressed by and made a trash, kneecapped version of System Shock 2 with a terrible story, so I’d play it for yourself and form your own opinion. Bioshock 2 realizes it’s a shooter and actually tries to be a competent one, whereas Bioshock is a meandering mess of a shooter that thinks it’s something more, and somehow it tricked millions of people that it was.
"and the vocal performances are also pretty pathetic. I imagine that if someone had never played anything other than Gears of War 1, the "Obey!!!!1!!!" thing would have been shocking, but it comes off just as incredibly tryhardy and forced. " Okay, tell me, did you recognize he was Quark at almost any point? Armin Shimmerman did a fucking fantastic job.
I agree, the narrative aspects are overdone and hamfisted. But this was made to appeal to the most people possible, and so it threw nuance out the window. It reduces objectivism into a wacky cartoon world (not that I subscribe to any rand or anything, just saying).
1:37 While I also prefer Original games over their remaster, complaining that you get the OG and the RE together in a bundle for 20 bucks is honestly hilarious, especially since many people like me got the RE for free due to owning the OG on Steam at time of release. Compare this to Dark Souls 1 and 2, both having awfull PC ports which got fixed in a new FULL PRICE release. Owning DS2 didn't get me SotFS, nor did I get DS Remaster due to owning DS 1. Even worse since all these Games have online aspects and with the OG being unobtanium, said aspects are dead. Just see it as getting the OG with the RE as a Bonus, at 20 bucks or you just get the entire Bioshock series including DLC for 60. All in all that sounds pretty reasonable to me. At 9:45 you complain that there are too many resources while at 11:30 you complain that Big Daddys arent a net positive and that you ran out of Ammo. The contradiction of the 2 is laughable to say the least. 13:25 This is probably the best and most objective critizism in the Video.
Bruh, I agreed with just about everything with the morrowind vid, but bioshock I'm not with you. Love that game. You do make a lot of good points though. Everyone talks about how good the story/twist is, but I found it all a bit, um, stupid. I do love the gameplay though and the atmosphere. I love how absolutely insane everything about the setting is. I think part of why I enjoyed it was because my first and only playthrough was on the hardest mode. It was a challenge and led to some epic fights. I probably won't play it again any time soon, but I did genuinely enjoy it my first run. I didn't like either of the sequels though, The second one took away alot of what I liked about the first and the third didn't feel right to me, I missed upgrading my guns in the first one and you just toss them aside in the third one. I got attached to my guns in the first one because I spent so much time and effort getting them better. Good review though, I can definitely see why the game isn't everyone's cup of tea.
You're a victim of something a lot of people (way too many people actually) fall for. Something being possibly bad in a given way of seeing it doesn't mean it's not enjoyable. Everything doesn't have to be an absolute masterpiece for you to enjoy it overwise the music world wouldn't be like it currently is, the movie world wouldn't be like it currently is, same for the video games and every kind of media/art you can think of. In the end of the day the most important thing comes down to whether you, as a person and not a critic, enjoy it. If you do, then you enjoy a game. If someone proves to you by A + B that it's somehow a shit game, then you love a shit game no big deal. In this case the review is obviously intentionally harsh because the game is treaded like such a holy masterpiece when it really isn't
Agreed with everything, and despite all of that it's still miles better than that infinite piece of s. I really enjoyed playing this one and 2 back when it came out. Infinite is just sad.
To be failr they gave remastered versions for free to people who owned the original games at least in steam. I got bioshock 2 on steam and they gave me the remaster which i never played because my pc is old.
I am so glad to see someone call out the vita chambers for completely undermining any tension in the game. Once I understood that nothing could actually hurt me and the only thing being truly being tested was my patience I stopped playing.
they (like most of the game mechanics) are pulled from System Shock 2. I didn't use them in either game as they were a bad idea even in SS2 (though at least they cost nanites to use and you got game over if you didn't have enough nanites. (which now that I think of it might have been a way to encourage the player to hang on to a bunch of nanites since you actually need some to beat the game with, which may be why I often make it to the end and can't win because I don't have any)).
Bioshock... isn't an immersive sim. It's a linear shooter with light RPG mechanics. Immersive? Arguably. It doesn't simulate anything, however. Also, generally not a great idea to play games on harder difficulties unless you want to suffer.
There’s some real genius in the vision behind bioshock, but mechanically it’s a rather dull shooter. I get the impression that Ken Levine is just an fps boomer who can’t let go of his ways. It’s kinda hard to enjoy the delightful environment design with the excess of routine violence. Should have had the puzzle/fight pacing of a Zelda game, imo. Bioshock is a near 10/10 when it comes to the art direction, it was so unique for the time (and even now). That might sound high but the bar was not very high for that era (and still isn’t tbh)
Electro traps make Big Daddies convenient walking ATMs and break the games economy balance, which was a God send because this game was such a fucking chore to get through.
The "Would You Kindly" plot twist was seen as pretty clever at the time. The Little Sisters were a very risque concept in 2007 (this is one year after Hillar Clinton's debacle in Congress over GTA's Hot Coffee). Lastly, the Pseudo-Randian philosophy was considered "High Art" for a video game. Nevermind that that this game does a really bad job actually demonstrating why Randian Objectivism is bad. Which I'd like to just say is really impressive. Objectivism is an insipid and ignorant philosophy to follow. It does not take much to tear it down, yet somehow Ken Levine managed to flub ripping on an easy-to-hate school of thought.
@@Hagashager If people thought that generic plot twist was clever then that as is pretty disappointing. It's the classic "har har you didn't know you were a slave the whole time, i have been controlling you along har har *Que the mustache twirl*". The only difference is they used "would you kindly" which rolls off the tongue well.
@@DukeoftheAges To be fair, it was more due to the fact that *players* actually fell for it. It's one thing to read or watch it, it feels more impactful when you're the one literally controling the character and blindly doing as you're directed. The issue, of course, is that is not truly free. After the first playthrough the shtick is dead.
To be fair if you own the original games on steam 2k just gives you the remasters for free instead of making you shell out for them. So I can't complain
The game was kinda lackluster compared to proper immersive sims, but the twist was truly amazing storytelling and I'm always going to praise the game for that no matter what else it got wrong.
at the start you make an interesting part about how developers should be obligated to provide a working version of the original game with the remaster and in particular that's making me think about how to this day EA only allows you to legally get American McGee's Alice from 2000 bundled with the sequel and its not only a joke of a way to handle distribution of a legacy title that deserves the spotlight its also like you said morally objectionable of them to include it "for free" AND have it be ridden with tons of tiny blemishes that mostly can be fixed with simple .ini edits
@@vincentleeadams dohoho, that explains then why you think this game is so good. I'm not a smart man by any means, and this is not a game worthy of any praise.
I remember buying this game full price with the Prima strategy guide after it got a 10/10 in Gameinformer and I returned the next day because I thought it was trash. Never understood the high praise this game gets.
Great critique of the game. It was nice to see someone talk about the game truly and not just jerk off Ken Levine's ego for once. The game is an average console fps that looks cool. It's a worse version of System Shock in almost every way but uses some writing elements and pretty graphics to try to hide this. And it only gets worse after this game, especially Infinite. Seeing the steam reviews for that game, man it makes me realize so many people have low standards sadly. No wonder the industry is a mess.
this review is so full of nitpicking that it gives of an impression that you just want to be that one big brain dude with legit reasons not to like this game. Like the player choice thing. At wich point does this game brag about the variety and impactfulness of ones choices? If anything the twist of the story is about you having no chocies whatsoever! It's like critiquing half life for not having player choice... how can you say there aren't any bosses and then say that big daddies will fuck you up? the only criticisms i found worthy of beeing pointed out in this part of the review are the ones that relate to the mouse not beeing fluid enough the varying health from the same enemies thing and the audio logs. Everything else feels like filler just so you can talk about these flaws wich i admit are flaws.
![Wiz Khalifa - Khalifa's Home [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wnrLCTe0Nz4/mqdefault.jpg)
Please bear in mind that I had 32 subscribers when I uploaded this video.
And it's as beautiful now as it was back then.
Is this a troll video?
Love your vids man
Good, you would not have had the nuts to say this with 32000
@@PolarBear0 it’s awful and Bioshock deserves better
The coordinates of where to crash the plane are on the letter jack receives at the start of the game
Splicers are also shown to crawl through vents and broken air ducts to access rooms jack can’t which could explain the two splicers who find you at the start
Also the splicers were addicted to Adam, not plasmids. Although plasmids do use Adam.
I would argue that through the little sisters the story is interacted with and the radiologs tell you of the lore not the plot of the game. I don’t think every game should require player input in the narrative.
I agree with a lot of your criticisms of the gameplay, certain weapons become unnecessary later in the game and I found the whole “You gotta go from A to B, oh no something has blocked your way better go through A to Z instead” to be repetitive and used in nearly every level.
But I do love bioshock, the setting is very imaginative and I found the audio logs fascinating, the atmosphere excellent and the soundtrack to be great as well . The character models have definitely aged but the stellar voice acting hasn’t. I feel it’s main twist is one of the best twists in games. Shame the last boss sucks.
the correct take
“You gotta go from A to B, oh no something has blocked your way better go through A to Z instead”
With regard to this criticism, I find this to be a particular design crutch Ken Levine has leaned on in pretty much all of his notable works. It was particularly pronounced in System Shock 2, and turned up to 11 in Bioshock: Infinite. It was so bad in Infinite, that he had to resort to dimension hopping bullshit to justify it.
"I don’t think every game should require player input in the narrative."
This is why I like Bioshock. Its basically a parody of the concept of player input in interactive stories.
@@matrix3509 can I (almost) necro by asking you what do you consider the defining characteristics of interactive stories then?
That final boss the way it was hyped I thought I was gonna fight a literal god crafted through the Adam but no I end up getting Great value Dr.Manhatan with a cool voice and then I don't even truly beat him a bunch of indoctrinated little girls beat him like hmph🙃 but still in my top 5 fav games of all time
The line about player agency in a narrative is effectively the entire point of Bioshock Infinite. That game was effectively telling folks "It's a video game, your choices don't matter". A bit of an exact antithesis to Prey which tries to get players to sympathize with video game peeplz, but I find it interesting nonetheless.
Either way, I love hearing this kind of stuff. Even if I don't 100% agree with videos like this one, it does get me thinking. It doesn't /always/ hurt.
I find myself disagreeing with a lot in this video.
- "Player choice is what separates video games from films", while technically true, is definitely not the only, and not even the most important aspect that separates video games from other media. *Interactivity*, not player choice, is the most important one.
- "The introduction of the electric bolt plasmid is really bad" because the level design didn't account for things 99% of players won't even think about is an incredibly petty grievance. Gameplay wise there's absolutely nothing wrong with it
- There is a zoom on the crossbow, and every other weapon as well. Weird that you apparently missed that, because you showed zero footage of shooting with zoomed-in weapons.
- Gathering all the little sisters is absolutely not necessary for beating the game. Maybe if you want to max out both tonics and plasmids, but you can absolutely get by with like 3 basic plasmids
- I'd say player choice with the Big Daddies lies not in *if* you fight them, but where and how. Later in the game you have many different methods to set up ambushes that clip like 1/2 of the big daddy's health as soon as you engage it
- There's no ammo capacity upgrading because that would remove the resource management element that's one of the key components of the game.
- Rapture is basically a ruined society, with the player piecing together its history along the game. Therefore asking for the player to interact more with the setting is IMO kind of moot, because anyone left who's sane enough to be interacted with in the first place is either insane, trying to kill the player, or getting axed off by Ryan.
- Maaaaaat.........
.........dIamoND xP
- Maaaaaat.........
.........dIamoND xP
- Maaaaaat.........
.........dIamoND xP
" *Interactivity*, not player choice, is the most important one" I think he is treating those as the same thing. you're making a distinction between mechanical choice/interactivity, and narrative choice/interactivity, ok, but both of those are important to games and neither can exist in most other forms of media.
Excellent arguments, it's a really good counter to some of the weaker arguments.
First bullet is apples and oranges. Interactivity implies player choice. The difference between the great games and the railroads is the consequences/effects of the interactivity. How much weight do those interactions carry depending on what you choose to do?
I was literally thinking about all these points when he was talking about it. I had a counter argument to nearly everything he criticized. For me to go into all of it would be about as long as his own script he made for these videos, but you did a solid enough job.
What player choice did you have in Doom? You could either complete the levels or turn the game off. There wasn't any important story decisions that could be made. It's fun to kill demons, and that's the point. You _don't need_ anything more than fun gameplay for a game to be fun. What "player choice" do you have in most fighting games? Racing games? Match 3 puzzle games? Board games? Just because a medium is interactive (unlike movies) does not mean that player _needs_ to be more heavily involved than necessary to _play the game._ Would "connect 4" be more fun if it involved building a huge story around why you are dropping red and blue tokens into a matrix? Maybe. But is it necessary? Obviously not!
The real Andrew Ryan was the friends we made along the way.
Maybe the real Andrew Ryan was inside us all along
the real Rapture
😂😂
I got a heart big ❤️ city
If 2007 was such a bad year for gaming, then what about STALKER?
Halo 3 would like to say hello.
You have some valid pieces of criticism here. Though sadly it's buried under a mountain of perceived superiority for not liking this popular thing. This had the potential to be a stellar review that challenges the idea that Bioshock isn't the 10/10 game people think it is (it isn't). It instead comes off weirdly antagonistic and brutally, unfairly nitpicky. It's so weird to see this after watching your awesome Morrowind and Oblivion retrospectives. You've gotten a lot better at what you do.
Glad someone else noticed this, I had to stop the video before I even reached halfway because it was giving major edgelord vibes
Having watched most of his reviews, I'm fairly certain that Pat has always (and continues to have) a superiority complex. It's just much easier to detect when you disagree with the video in question. Watching his Morrowind & Skyrim reviews (games I didn't care for & liked, respectively) is where I picked up the tone the most, whilst this video & Oblivion stand out less to me.
Every game he reviews is either that best thing ever made or the worst, and anyone who enjoys the latter is a low-brow caveman. I mean that tonally, rather than his actual score of the game.
@@gurigura4457 There were definitely times in some vids I felt like he was insulting me
You would look down on it too if you remember games journalist treated this game like the second coming of christ for the last ten years.
I also think it’s a bit of a character he writes. The superiority is part of that and I think it helps him keep focus on critique rather than jumping back and forth
Even though I'm a fan of this game, I'd say a lot of your criticism is pretty valid. It's certainly not a perfect game for sure. As a kid, I didn't own anything like it. I feel like I never thought about the problems you mention until Infinite where those problems really stood out. They improved a lot of the gameplay, but the story suffered greatly I think. (Ludonarrative pissadance and all that.) The stories of all the games are more interested in performing lip service to a lot of amazing ideas than actually fleshing them out. And as I kid I didn't understand the difference between those two things.
There was probably a large generation of kids (and 360 console gamers) who were just sorta mesmerized by having what felt like a big story-driven experience. I feel like the set dressing and the intrigue we got at the time was certainly unique for the 360. We had a lot of cool games for sure, but nothing as pretty for the sake of it, or as weird and dark. (i am not saying "graphics good, story bad" just trying to infuse some nuance.)
That Andrew Ryan payoff at the end is on everyone's top ten twists for this reason. Regardless of if it was any good it still affected a lot of people. And regardless of whether or not I agree with you on pleb tier, I certainly understand your points.
Personally I think System Shock 2 did a lot of what Bioshock did better, but I do get why Bioshock was impactful for a lot of players back in the day. I first played it a number of years after it came out in high school, and there was a time when I considered it one of my top three shooters alongside Half-Life and Halo.
I have since dropped Half-Life and Bioshock from that position in my mental ranking.
@@clydemarshall8095 I played Bioshock first, it was okay. And then Infinite, which was...a bit less than okay. I went to System Shock 2. It shows clearly how the trend downwards was everything after SS2. The same plot twists, the same combat systems. Its all the same. But less.
I came ready to get mad. Don't get me wrong, I am mad. But, I can't argue with your points...
I agree on some of these points, but I think there are many environmental set ups for the big daddies and Rosie's that you can use to practically wipe them out without ever firing at them, sometimes even in the early stages. My last playthrough was on the hardest difficulty.
He specifically chose to buck against the systems the game set up, and then ironically derides the games lack of actual choice. He's trying to play the game like it's Doom or something, and bitching whenever the game tells him it's not Doom.
Big Daddy's are supposed to be something you fear and hide from until you've set up a plan. If you use the environment and all the tools at your disposal to set up ambushes, they are rather easy. It's also funny how he complains about rivet guns being hitscan while the video clearly shows them having a trajectory. They just move faster than than he is used to, git gud.
If you are smart about ammo and know how to play, the shotgun and chemical sprayer are extremely effective. You can't sit there are say the chemical sprayer is useless when you have plasmids, then at the same time complain the plasmids are too weak. That's because they aren't the same thing, he didn't ever actually use the weapon.
The fact that everyone who plays this game has a slightly different experience, and preferred an entirely different set of weapons, is a testament to the open ended nature of this otherwise linear game. That is the charm of immersive sims, which is a genre he just doesn't understand.
@@Hylonomus yeah, I would literally hack every turret and camera, set up a few trips along the path way and have a good corner between it all to peek and contribute.
Isn't the entire game supposed to be a commentary on the illusion of choice within video games, and how there really isn't actually a choice to be had? That's why there are chains tattooed on his wrists, that's why there's a command word to control him. You don't get a choice, and that's the whole point.
18:34 Tell that to the guy who beat the game using only the wrench. He killed a few Big Daddy's.
I dislike the phrase immersive sim because it's an oxymoron. A simulation is inherently trying to be immersive and the games that are classed as such aren't really Sims. Bioshock is first person shooter.
Sounds more like a Tautology than an oxymoron.
Why can't an fps also be a simulator?
Not necessary. Some are simple models to just approximate reality. Think of a technical simulation in an engineering facility. It is not intended to be immersive or fully realistic, just do the job
My problem with the remaster wasn’t that I didn’t notice a big graphical improvement, they went and added things that weren’t there that looks so much worse. When you first get to see rapture in the bathysphere, they added a bunch of starfish in jellyfish in colorful things that really over complicated that first big impact view of the city. I was so surprised they decided to do that
If you want to experience some grade A immersive sim contend I'd recommend playing prey if you didn't do so already, but mostly for the mooncrash dlc. This shit rly pushed the medium forward in my opinion and it's almost a crime how overlooked it is. Great contend as always, keep it up my mans.
I played 2017 but not the DLC so I'll add it to my backlog. Thanks for the recommendation.
Goddamn 2007 was a good year for games. You've made me wanna go back and play Bioshock again for like the 5th time.
Reading your comment I feel like I'm missing something here
@@olzhas1one755 I meant exactly what I wrote.
You should replay Dead Space. You know you want to.
@@Serahpin ¿Porque no los dos?
If you weren't aware it might tickle you to know a whole BioShock novel was written just to detail backstory on Rapture. As an aside, the remaster was technically given out for free as when it released everyone who had a copy of the original on Steam also got the remaster. There's also something screwed with BioShock's shooting which has made it nearly impossible for me to go back and replay the games - I have a sneaking suspicion it was designed as a console shooter first and then got the laziest possible port treatment for PC since when I originally played the game on the 360 I don't remember it feeling so awful.
Hahaha, that novel is one of the worst professional books I've ever read. Such a shame
@@eddiespaghetti6485 Yeah, the effort is appreciable but the execution left something to be desired. Can't wait to see if anything but a caricature will be left by the time BioShock 4 releases.
@Starless I hope so, unpopular opinion as it might be 2 has always been my favourite so if you were to ask me what the best chances are for a good BioShock continuation I'd say in their hands.
@@eazyv2069 i'm glad this comment section is filled with big brained kings who realize that 2 is the best bioshock game by a country mile
@@FrightNFight Ironic username given it's kinda the counterpoint and focuses in on critiquing the opposite side from Ryan a bit more. (not that 1 didn't cover phony altruism as manipulation etc with Fontaine and Ryan's 'charity' work.
So you like Morrowind, don't really like BioShock and semi-like Dishonored? We're a rare beast you and I my friend! I'm glad I subscribed!
God I feel this.
...I'm home.
I feel a kinship with this.
Welcome brothers
I admire your analytical style, but this review feels extremely cynical and pedantic. I mean you can tear anything apart if you want to, so why not focus on what it does well?
well, because he IS pedantic
I admire your comment on his video, but your comment feels extremely cynical and pedantic. I mean, you can tear anything apart if you want to, so why not focus on what the video does well?
Because sometimes there are flaws, and sometimes there is a necessity to point out those flaws. This is critique, and it too is art.
@@gadellomagnollo1810 this, I don't understand the point of saying "EVERYTHING IS SUBJECTIVE ANYWAY" when it comes to quality of product. Example A in this thread where if you criticize anything people turn passive aggressive, pointing out an observation is an observation like it means something
The gameplay problem with Bioshock and every other immersive sim out there is that you can deal with enemies in a variety of ways of your choosing, but it is never as viable as blasting their heads with a shotgun, and it is usually just a long way to aforementioned blast. Like, yeah, sure, i can spend five minutes luring splicers into the pool of water and then electrocuting them... Or i can blast their heads with a shotgun. Yeah, i can stun a splicer with a bolt to make him stand still to blast his head off... Or i can go straight to blasting. Etc.
The only thing that ever bothered me about this game's story was after you break the conditioning.
After that happens you'd expect player choice to open up. It's kind of the entire point of the story that you haven't been able to make your own choices until that point, and now that Jack is free, he can do whatever he chooses.
But no, the voice in your ear just swaps from Atlas to Tenenbaum. You still have to do everything you're told, just with a new goal.
I've softened on this criticism with time though. Going after Fontaine is really the only thing that Jack would choose to do, other than saying "fuck this" and leaving Rapture which would just end the game. It's still not great, but I understand the limitation.
In an ideal world there would have been more factions remaining in Bioshock that the player could have chosen to side with after breaking the conditioning. Siding with Fontaine himself should never be an option so the final boss would be the same in each route.
About your port argument. it seems a bit unfair. if you owned both Bioshock 1 and 2 already you get the remasters for free which is functionally superior, kinda makes your point of how they should have just updated the original redundant.
The original port is full of unfixable kinks (which made the game unplayable for me at the time): sound glitching out when things get busy mouse control is terrible, and you even showed in your video the fov plugin you have to activate that isn't native to the game. What's so bad about the remaster? you didn't even elaborate on that.
The remaster is unplayable on Xbox unless you go offline. Weird!
The plane crash by the lighthouse is not convoluted; it’s contrived.
I love the irony of them going out of their way to make all the areas seem "lived in", like entire families and societies living peacefully in Rapture, and then go a step further to display ADAM and the Plasmids as this amazing "consumer item", yet pragmatically speaking all you can do with these is shoot lightning bolts, Ice Shards and Fireballs. Because that is something the consumer would really enjoy and get highly addicted too. "Oh nice! My very own Fireball magic to heat the water in my cooking pot..."
You'd really think these plasmids had more of a normal societal living effect, that you could abuse for damaging effects. But nah, it's just different types of lvl 1 D&D Spells.
Which still makes a lot more sense than whatever the fuck the magic in Infinite means, and why that suddenly exist without the ADAM producing snails. But Bioshock Infinite makes no sense in any other way either, so what sense is nitpicking all of that game's dirty corners if they couldn't even get the main floor right?
i dont like infinite, but the tonics there are made from the adam from rapture, its described in the dlc. But it still does not make a lot of sense.
People Got More Out Of The Gene Tonics Then The Plasmids And Are You Talking About The Tears Or Vigors?
@@theeternal2734 Don't fuck with us Bioshock fans, we don't even know the basics to the story, and we still think it sucks!
I wish the rest of Bioshock was as good as it's soundtrack.
I would guess the main purpose of the thrower is to let you use some of the other plasmids you would probably had by that point. The main 3 elements are basically permalocked in your plasmid bar without it, so if for some crazy reason you really wanted to use the bees plasmid I guess it makes it more of an option
I will say in bioshock's defense that the grand reveal when Fontaine backstabs you was impressive the first time around.
do you acutlly think 2007 was a bad year for gaming?
I didn't appreciate the shotgun until I actually started shooting guns. It has WEIGHT, especially early in the game. Shooting a shotgun chambered in 12 gauge 00 buck will rock you. At close range it would rip a normal human apart (the fucking thing is meant to kill large game animals).
I can't weigh in on the grenade launcher or flamethrower though....yet.
This was one of those games that I thought "yeah that was fun" and then never really played all the way through a second time. I do think it is big weird that people applaud this game for being this revolutionary title that reinvents the immersive sim. Like, its literally just a shooter that gives you slightly more versatility and the level layout is slightly less linear. Like cool. The actual gunplay imo isn't even that responsive or fun, it just works well enough to not be terrible. In fact, I liked bioshock infinite more because at least that game embraced the shooter elements and just worked to make the gunplay and shit feel good.
I dissagree with the pleb tier rating but it's still a very good video. I think that what made this game so impactful for me as a young person was purely it's atmosphere. Gameplay wise, and even story wise the game may feel really flat, but honestly so does i.e. half-life nowadays. I notice the flaws now, but they are still overshadowed by the great memories of me playing it for hours on my shitty laptop in a dark room when my parents were asleep. I dunno man, I at the same time agree with everything but still think it's an amazing digitalization of a cool world concept.
0:20
Peggle came out in 2007 bro
Bioshock is not exactly an Immersive sim, if you want to play actual immersive sims then play deus ex (mainly the original but the sequel prequels are also good), system shock 1&2 (there's a remake coming out for ss1 this year), dishonored, vampire the masquerade bloodlines, thief series and prey 2017 and its dlc
now this video is old so I don't know if you've played any of these since this came out but it's fairly known that bioshock is a much more streamlined game than all the games it takes inspiration from, I think Ken levine did this in order for the game to be less niche and reach mainstream success, which it did and even though I don't like things being dumbed down I still believe BioShock is an amazing series
Wow, I feel like you are missing the point of the entire genre. The fact that you give Morrowind concessions for genre staples and then get overly pedantic over the very basic tenants of an immersive sim just makes this whole video seem like you are really reaching to justify your dislike of something popular.
If you strip away all your complaints about Bioshock, you end up with Bioshock Infinite, which is a vastly inferior game.
Remember when 40 minutes was too long for a single PatricianTV video?
I enjoyed Bioshock when it came out as one of those mind-bending narrative shooters, but I agree that it's not much of an ImSim. You're railroaded through the content, your upgrade paths are pretty linear, and the plasmids do what you think they're gonna do. Saying that shocking a pool of water with electricity or turning a turret to your side is immersive sim gameplay is like saying the same thing about shooting red barrels. I never did any out of the box thinking like I did with Deus Ex, Prey, or Dishonored.
I have the same gripes with the Thief games too, I love them but I don't really see how they're immersive sims.
I mean, yeah, they're not. They're just good first person stealth games.
Never followed the story so I might be wrong but; you said the splicers didn’t use plasmids enough as the plasmids made them go insane, but later say that Andrew Ryan was making people go insane with pheromones.
That will be why splicers don’t use lots of plasmids.
I think I said they don't use them enough gameplay wise. But you are correct.
As much as you're right, it's still a stupid move to play a game on hard difficulty, when that difficulty's only modifier is literally just inflating hp values and making enemies hit harder. Otherwise, good video.
What happened to pt 2?
Theres a lot wrong with this review in terms of the Lore. Most of the key points are mentioned in dialog out side audio logs, which you mentioned as being lost if those were ignored. The gameplay faults are absolutely correct, this game is very easy to win even on the hardest difficulty without dying. The Big Daddies are push overs if to just spam electric damage effects, ammo is always plentiful, money if everywhere, etc. The gameplay is janky overall, but its still perfectly serviceable.
The main gripe that I agree with however is the dam camera, it sucks. Its probably the worst element in any game I've played. Al it does is slow down combat and try to cover for the shit enemy scaling(They actually fixed it in Bioshock 2, but thats basically the forgotten child of the series).
As other people mentioned, your reviews became more balanced and research in the future, which you also seem to have noticed. Bioshock wasn't the best game ever, but it was good. Have you ever played it in the middle of the night, in a pitch-black room, on a massive projector with surround sound? If not, you should absolutely try it. I'm not saying that is how the game needs to be played, let alone how it should be played, but it does crank the atmospheric dial to 13, especially when you're a Freshman in high school (which back then felt old, but now you realize how much of a kid you were), it was something else.
It's like they wanted to design a metroidvania with the plasmids being the thing that unlocks progression, but they just kind of shoehorned it into their linear FPS as contrived mcguffins instead
It's Just A Simple Magic System, The Only Force You To Have 3 Plasmids Anyways
The American Krogan's review of the making of the game(s) is eye opening.
Speaking of buying the remaster and getting the original free, I own the original and got the remaster free. On steam.
@Micah Nillini I’m kidding. I don’t want you depressed. I want you to accept that a sovereign nation has a right to defend itself. Because it does. :)
@Micah Nillini So, what do you want me to do about my profile picture?
I thought 2007 was pretty good for shooters. Halo 3 carries it for me, but you also had Bioshock (which might have been a little overrated, but isn’t that bad), Crysis, COD 4: Modern Warfare, and I think Half-Life 2: Episode 1.
says the revolver is worthless
says he saves ammo for bosses that never came
proceeds to shoot a big daddy with a revolver...
What the fuck if i may ask?
Yeah, I'll do better next time in building my narratives by omitting details and using vague language. Thank you for helping improve my content.
Given your other work, I think this video stands out as an oddball. Is there some joke I'm not getting? Is the joke that this is a collection of shallow skin deep takes masquerading as critique?
Do you have something against bioshock?
I love this. I don't agree with much you're saying, but that seems to be irrelevant. Well done.
I've tried to like Bioshock for more than a decade, and i absolutely love imsims (still replaying SS to this day). But it just goes against most of the really important tenets to emergent gameplay too often for me to actually enjoy it. I know the legacy it left is more because it was the first (really) succesful "immersive sim" to release on consoles and it kinda opened the gates for the new breed of immersive sims (Arkane's). But the actual soul it sacrificed on its attempt to run on ridicoulously limited hardware, besides some ABSOLUTELY HIDEOUS design decisions (Vita-Chamber implementation and a default experience terribly hand-holding) just kill the experience for me.
Never found the story to be particularly amazing, just a sillier take on SS2. Although Levine can conjure up some FANTASTIC writing (Thief, SS2, even Infinite writing was really nice albeit all the problems that game had).
BioShock 2, on the other hand: one of the better experiences one can have with combat focused immersive sims, something probably having more to do with Arkane's than anything else, but still, a big improvement on all respects, even story no matter what anybody says.
VERY big agreement on Bioshock 2, it's ridiculous to me that anyone can view that game as the worst of these three titles. Like you said, an improvement in every respect from the original and just an absolute blast to play
I've never once heard anything good about the writing of Infinite, but if you say so.
Infinite writing is nice but Bioshock’s wasn’t? What?
@@spendsshanks6050 he explained that bioshock 1 is relatively similar to system shock 2's writing also done by Ken Levine, and that it didn't impress him that much having played system shock 20
Bioshock isn't an imsim... I don't understand why people think it is.
I love this game to pieces and it feels so good to have you rip it to bits.
Bioshock isn't an immersive sim, it's just an FPS.
Uhh you can zoom in ironsite in Bioshock. Also Bioshock is like a reimagining of the System Shock games which are almost identical in game mechanics and story but Bioshock is more console friendly.
Fighting every Big Daddy that appears on your way seems very dumb, you know that you do not have to fight every respawning Big Daddy after dealing with the sisters, right?
Well you gave it a better shot than I. I played this game all the way through and I would pick up logs and once they started to get cut off by transmissions I just stopped listening to em. I wasnt going to sit around a campfire to let the game get its point across if it wasnt going to put in the effort to put that in the actual game. Its like Destiny where all the story is in its cards on a website no where near the game and there are two Yters that have a whole channel basically dedicated to just reading these cards so the rest of the community have an actual understanding of whats going on in the story. A characters death happens completely out of game in a random post on Bungies news section on their web site I just dont get not putting your story in the game. Anyway I got to the end of Bioshock one and just didnt understand why people liked this game so much. I watched videos about the audiologs but I couldnt even finish them bc if it was really so important to the story, why wasnt I directly involved with that in the game itself?
Great review mate, keep them coming
Yeah most Splicers use Adam for stuff like super tier plastic surgery rather than to fuel plasmids.
Finally. Someone said it. People used to roast me for not liking Bioshock
Same.
P.S. Loved this armour set in Morrowind from your avatar...
On hard I had no other choice than to kill daddy's with the wrench, and believe me I was patient enough to do it
It's not even difficult and even on the hardest difficulty you can kill big daddy's with the wrench without even taking damage.
I have always thought Bioshock was a pretty great game and that Bioshock 2 was even better.
The gameplay was definitely engaging. The "player choice" was mostly about your play approach.
But the real star of Bioshock 1 and 2 was the environments, which were amazingly crafted and wonderfully creepy.
There are definitely better immersive sims. System Shock 2 is an all-time classic, as is the original Deus Ex. And the Prey (2012) may be the finest immersive sim ever made.
I also thought that the newer Deus Ex games are better in terms of gameplay than Bioshock, though not in atmosphere.
And I have to say atmosphere is a lot in a game.
>God I need to play more Immersive Sims
I look forward to Deus Ex 1.
Bioshock is one of the greatest games/immersive sims of all time, not deserving of the criticism you throw at it.
There is a balance of complexity and streamlining and different people like different thing.
It has great gameplay and a great story.
Plus the original System Shock has less of what modern immersive sims do and more in common with metroidvania.
2007 was a great year for gaming.
And oblivion is a good game too
At least you admit that you seem to regret it in your pinned comment.
Also you are gatekeeping what an immersive sim is or and missing the idea that it’s not needed to have a good game
I don't agree with your opinions on this game and a few other games but you present them well
There were a couple things which turned me off bioshock, for some reason the audio quality was absolutely terrible. The FOV was way too low, and the combat didn’t feel very good, because things were too bullet sponge-ey.
Hold up... This was supposed to be an immersive sim?
2007 was kind of a great year with a bad legacy. See also: 1998.
What was 98?
The remaster was not remotely worth taking up like three? Maybe five? times as much harddrive space.
Wait the plane crash was intentional? Why didn't he just use a seaplane? They were everywhere in the 50s and 60s. (I've only ever gotten about halfway through this game). Bonus: way less chance of dying from impact or drowning and doesn't kill anyone else.
He was more or less a sleeper agent. He didn’t know he was going to hijack and take down the plane until it was happening.
@@Duck0fDoom I see. Thank you for explaining.
If you like long form analysis and Bioshock, check out American Krogan's 6 hour effort.
I like bioshock 2 the most
Good to know im not the only one, I honestly thing 2 is the best one out of the bioshocks.
1 was okay, and 3 was a slog.
and then bioshock 2 did "console" and even coming to a window in order to listen to talking npc was so heavily scripted you couldn't look away.
fuck 2k for making remasters that nobody needed
Patrician: “Someone is getting their ass ripped raw after this video’s done.”
Me: “thank u daddy 🥺🥺🥺”
so the wrench is the only good weapon? 🤔 🤔 🤔
Bioshock suffers from the ocarina of time effect.
I recommend American Krogan's review of this game.
No channel with that name in sight
@@feno8104 he's on oddysey
@@coolguy-xd1bg wh
Okay, I finished watching your 12 hour Oblivion video and I'm going through a playlist of all these "classic" games I grew up with. I don't see how your channel doesn't have a million subs already, definitely looking forward to your next video.
Man, I recently bought The Bioshock Collection and replayed the beginning of this first installment. I remembered it being so awesome, but even without a brain that does much in the way of this type of critical analysis I found myself sadly bored. I watched KBash's review video and disagreed at the time (not angrily so, I'm 37-too old for anger of that type) but now agree with you's guys for the most part. I was so blown away back in 2008 when I played this on the ol' 360. I do appreciate what it made me feel at the time, but it sure did start a trend.
It's great to see this video getting more traction thanks to the recent Morrowind stuff. I'm a big fan of the LGS games, so I caught this a while back and I'm watching it again today. I'm glad that *someone* has enough of a brain to see what a dumpster fire Bioshock is, but if anything, you're a little too kind to the game. It doesn't necessarily make the game itself worse, but something has to be said for the fact that Ken Lavine worked on System Shock 2, which came out in 1999, and absolutely slaps Bioshock silly in nearly every way. SS2 isn't even that incredible when it comes to emergent gameplay, and the whole "Immersive Sim" genre is for journalists, but clearly Bioshock was supposed to be a System Shock successor. Almost everything about the game is a downgrade. The combat is marginally better, but that isn't saying a whole lot, and the game has way fewer options for player expression. The story legitimately feels like Ken read the back of an Ayn Rand novel, set it down, then replaced Shock 2 character names. The level design makes even less sense than the first System Shock, and does nothing to ground the setting at all, where as Citadel station and the conjoined ships in Shock 2, while not realistic, had enough elements of a functional floor plan that they seemed somewhat believable, even with chunky, crude graphics. The "cinematic" scripted sequences, and the vocal performances are also pretty pathetic. I imagine that if someone had never played anything other than Gears of War 1, the "Obey!!!!1!!!" thing would have been shocking, but it comes off just as incredibly tryhardy and forced. Shock 2's biggest flaw to anyone who has finished it is that cutscene at the end, so I'm not sure why Irrational would double down on cinematics. We're also talking about one of the same studios making a successor to their game game that has two of the greatest vocal performances ever, with The Many and SHODAN, and they couldn't even come close, despite having 1:1 analogs in Bioshock. There isn't even an option to keep food to eat later in Bioshock, which is such a basic grounding element for an fps/rpg type game. In Deus Ex, or even newer games like PREY, the protagonists have the self control to not shovel all consumables into their mouth instantly, and as weird as it sounds, it's very immersive and humanizing for a badass, gun toting player character to fiddle with a vending machine for a packet of chips after clearing out an area, but again, Bioshock couldn't manage it. On its own merits, Bioshock is this weird, nonsensical shooter with confused mechanics, too shallow to live up to its predecessor, but too cumbersome to enable anything immediate and fluid. To one side of it is Dead Space, which took System Shock and made it into an incredibly engaging shooter, unconcerned with the slower mechanics, and ditching a lot of the player agency. On the other, Deus Ex and Shock 2, while kinda crap action games and both incredibly flawed games, at least have enough mechanical depth that players can sort of steer their own experience.
I've always referenced Skyrim as the most egregious example of this first-time novelty syndrome, where gamers finally try something outside of their normal wheelhouse, and the perspective-broadening effect of trying something new lets a pretty lame product skate as a masterpiece, but at least Skyrim is a okay-ish game, improving on the fluidity of play, having better voice acting than the previous titles, and making other little improvements that make the huge steps down less upsetting. Bioshock was 8 years out of date when it came out, and had its ass beaten by the same people, making the same game 8 years ago. It's below average on its own, but it's borderline insulting in context. There are people in 2020 still saying that it's some kind of marvel of design, and it's baffling. I love a lot of games that really aren't very good, but I'll always admit when I enjoy something due to personal bias or circumstance, and not try to make a proper defense. Bioshock has managed to convince a generation of players that it's a actually a good game.
I'd be interested to see what you think about Bioshock 2, especially if you'd do a long form series on it in the future. I think that it's unfairly put down by rabid fans of the original, while massively improving on Bioshock, and the way that the developers were shit on around Infinite's launch was pretty low. If anything, it's another example of the Irrational dream team being bested at their own game. Void Bastards could also make for an interesting video, seeing as it adapts a lot of the Shock gameplay into a shooter fairly elegantly(while also mutilating the PC controls and not letting me rebind RMB). Seeing as you've done Dishonored and Bioshock, I'll keep tabs to see if you do any other videos about PREY or other LGS inspired games.
Tell me more about Bioshock 2, I'm not too far in a playthrough (only killed my first Big Daddy) but I want to know if I'll be disappointed too. I heard that fans don't like it so much but so far it feels more of the same. Maybe a little better because hacking is less annoying and plasmids now have their own button making battles flow better. (Didn't use many plasmids in the original because switching felt clunky, idk.)
Bioshock 2 is the same or better than the first, despite being made in less time by a different team. It’s actually kinda embarrassing for Lavine’s team that Bioshock 2, and especially Minerva’s Den, is so good. I’m not really the biggest fan of BS2, almost entirely because it comes after BS1, and that weakens the story a tonne, but if you look at just what’s in each release, it’s a much stronger game than the original.
The fan reaction was actually pretty bad, and as a result of that, it’s basically been retconned and laughed out of the Bioshock cannon. We’re talking about a fanbase and a development team that were impressed by and made a trash, kneecapped version of System Shock 2 with a terrible story, so I’d play it for yourself and form your own opinion. Bioshock 2 realizes it’s a shooter and actually tries to be a competent one, whereas Bioshock is a meandering mess of a shooter that thinks it’s something more, and somehow it tricked millions of people that it was.
"and the vocal performances are also pretty pathetic. I imagine that if someone had never played anything other than Gears of War 1, the "Obey!!!!1!!!" thing would have been shocking, but it comes off just as incredibly tryhardy and forced. "
Okay, tell me, did you recognize he was Quark at almost any point? Armin Shimmerman did a fucking fantastic job.
@Mr. Anaconda Not sure about better, but more immersive than than 2 from what I recall.
I agree, the narrative aspects are overdone and hamfisted. But this was made to appeal to the most people possible, and so it threw nuance out the window. It reduces objectivism into a wacky cartoon world (not that I subscribe to any rand or anything, just saying).
1:37 While I also prefer Original games over their remaster, complaining that you get the OG and the RE together in a bundle for 20 bucks is honestly hilarious, especially since many people like me got the RE for free due to owning the OG on Steam at time of release. Compare this to Dark Souls 1 and 2, both having awfull PC ports which got fixed in a new FULL PRICE release.
Owning DS2 didn't get me SotFS, nor did I get DS Remaster due to owning DS 1. Even worse since all these Games have online aspects and with the OG being unobtanium, said aspects are dead.
Just see it as getting the OG with the RE as a Bonus, at 20 bucks or you just get the entire Bioshock series including DLC for 60. All in all that sounds pretty reasonable to me.
At 9:45 you complain that there are too many resources while at 11:30 you complain that Big Daddys arent a net positive and that you ran out of Ammo. The contradiction of the 2 is laughable to say the least.
13:25 This is probably the best and most objective critizism in the Video.
I don't know if this video was supposed to be ironic or something but Bioshock was never good
Yea
Bruh, I agreed with just about everything with the morrowind vid, but bioshock I'm not with you. Love that game. You do make a lot of good points though. Everyone talks about how good the story/twist is, but I found it all a bit, um, stupid. I do love the gameplay though and the atmosphere. I love how absolutely insane everything about the setting is. I think part of why I enjoyed it was because my first and only playthrough was on the hardest mode. It was a challenge and led to some epic fights. I probably won't play it again any time soon, but I did genuinely enjoy it my first run. I didn't like either of the sequels though, The second one took away alot of what I liked about the first and the third didn't feel right to me, I missed upgrading my guns in the first one and you just toss them aside in the third one. I got attached to my guns in the first one because I spent so much time and effort getting them better. Good review though, I can definitely see why the game isn't everyone's cup of tea.
You're a victim of something a lot of people (way too many people actually) fall for. Something being possibly bad in a given way of seeing it doesn't mean it's not enjoyable. Everything doesn't have to be an absolute masterpiece for you to enjoy it overwise the music world wouldn't be like it currently is, the movie world wouldn't be like it currently is, same for the video games and every kind of media/art you can think of. In the end of the day the most important thing comes down to whether you, as a person and not a critic, enjoy it. If you do, then you enjoy a game. If someone proves to you by A + B that it's somehow a shit game, then you love a shit game no big deal. In this case the review is obviously intentionally harsh because the game is treaded like such a holy masterpiece when it really isn't
Agreed with everything, and despite all of that it's still miles better than that infinite piece of s. I really enjoyed playing this one and 2 back when it came out. Infinite is just sad.
Tell Me Your Problems With The Game Gameplay Wise
Yeah Infinite is a rolling dumpster fire.
To be failr they gave remastered versions for free to people who owned the original games at least in steam. I got bioshock 2 on steam and they gave me the remaster which i never played because my pc is old.
I am so glad to see someone call out the vita chambers for completely undermining any tension in the game.
Once I understood that nothing could actually hurt me and the only thing being truly being tested was my patience I stopped playing.
they (like most of the game mechanics) are pulled from System Shock 2. I didn't use them in either game as they were a bad idea even in SS2 (though at least they cost nanites to use and you got game over if you didn't have enough nanites. (which now that I think of it might have been a way to encourage the player to hang on to a bunch of nanites since you actually need some to beat the game with, which may be why I often make it to the end and can't win because I don't have any)).
lol your loss
Or you can play on console and not worry about "patches" and "incompatibility". It's 2 dollars at the exchange and it works
lol....
Bioshock is a plebian version of the Patrician System Shock 2.
Bioshock... isn't an immersive sim. It's a linear shooter with light RPG mechanics. Immersive? Arguably. It doesn't simulate anything, however.
Also, generally not a great idea to play games on harder difficulties unless you want to suffer.
There’s some real genius in the vision behind bioshock, but mechanically it’s a rather dull shooter. I get the impression that Ken Levine is just an fps boomer who can’t let go of his ways. It’s kinda hard to enjoy the delightful environment design with the excess of routine violence. Should have had the puzzle/fight pacing of a Zelda game, imo. Bioshock is a near 10/10 when it comes to the art direction, it was so unique for the time (and even now). That might sound high but the bar was not very high for that era (and still isn’t tbh)
Electro traps make Big Daddies convenient walking ATMs and break the games economy balance, which was a God send because this game was such a fucking chore to get through.
This makes sense. I played this in March. Wasn't getting the same revel or pleasure. Half life and fallout was much better
I don't know why people call BioShock an immersive sim, it's one of the most linear games I've ever played.
I thought RPGs were about player input, not immersive sims?
I could never finish this game, never understood the hype.
The first time I played it way back when I got past Andrew Ryan and put it down.
The "Would You Kindly" plot twist was seen as pretty clever at the time. The Little Sisters were a very risque concept in 2007 (this is one year after Hillar Clinton's debacle in Congress over GTA's Hot Coffee). Lastly, the Pseudo-Randian philosophy was considered "High Art" for a video game. Nevermind that that this game does a really bad job actually demonstrating why Randian Objectivism is bad.
Which I'd like to just say is really impressive. Objectivism is an insipid and ignorant philosophy to follow. It does not take much to tear it down, yet somehow Ken Levine managed to flub ripping on an easy-to-hate school of thought.
It was tauted as a must play masterpiece and I slogged through it. Especially the shooting was so clunky. Like a ps1 fps.
@@Hagashager If people thought that generic plot twist was clever then that as is pretty disappointing. It's the classic "har har you didn't know you were a slave the whole time, i have been controlling you along har har *Que the mustache twirl*". The only difference is they used "would you kindly" which rolls off the tongue well.
@@DukeoftheAges To be fair, it was more due to the fact that *players* actually fell for it.
It's one thing to read or watch it, it feels more impactful when you're the one literally controling the character and blindly doing as you're directed.
The issue, of course, is that is not truly free. After the first playthrough the shtick is dead.
To be fair if you own the original games on steam 2k just gives you the remasters for free instead of making you shell out for them. So I can't complain
The game was kinda lackluster compared to proper immersive sims, but the twist was truly amazing storytelling and I'm always going to praise the game for that no matter what else it got wrong.
at the start you make an interesting part about how developers should be obligated to provide a working version of the original game with the remaster and in particular that's making me think about how to this day EA only allows you to legally get American McGee's Alice from 2000 bundled with the sequel and its not only a joke of a way to handle distribution of a legacy title that deserves the spotlight its also like you said morally objectionable of them to include it "for free" AND have it be ridden with tons of tiny blemishes that mostly can be fixed with simple .ini edits
Being that BioShock is one of the best games ever made, I am positive that you were just trolling the audience with this video.
You've clearly set the bar quite low if this is one of your GOAT games.
@@joahnaut Almost as low as your IQ.
At what hour does it become the best? I'm trying to get into it but I find it hard. Is this like a you should have been there (2007) situation?
@@vincentleeadams dohoho, that explains then why you think this game is so good. I'm not a smart man by any means, and this is not a game worthy of any praise.
@@joahnaut He's just a troll, don't fall for the obvious bait man.
audiologs are my pet peeve, it just doesn't make any sense.
I remember buying this game full price with the Prima strategy guide after it got a 10/10 in Gameinformer and I returned the next day because I thought it was trash. Never understood the high praise this game gets.
Now that are some real controversial opinions in this video.
Great critique of the game. It was nice to see someone talk about the game truly and not just jerk off Ken Levine's ego for once. The game is an average console fps that looks cool. It's a worse version of System Shock in almost every way but uses some writing elements and pretty graphics to try to hide this. And it only gets worse after this game, especially Infinite. Seeing the steam reviews for that game, man it makes me realize so many people have low standards sadly. No wonder the industry is a mess.
this review is so full of nitpicking that it gives of an impression that you just want to be that one big brain dude with legit reasons not to like this game. Like the player choice thing. At wich point does this game brag about the variety and impactfulness of ones choices? If anything the twist of the story is about you having no chocies whatsoever! It's like critiquing half life for not having player choice... how can you say there aren't any bosses and then say that big daddies will fuck you up? the only criticisms i found worthy of beeing pointed out in this part of the review are the ones that relate to the mouse not beeing fluid enough the varying health from the same enemies thing and the audio logs. Everything else feels like filler just so you can talk about these flaws wich i admit are flaws.