Bioshock Game Informer write up

[Gryph]

I read the Bioshock article in the latest Game Informer and posted a short summary of it at another site. I just thought I'd paste it here just for the hell of it. Perhaps it will spark some discussion.

 

From the day it was announced I was really excited for it and this just adds so much more to that excitement.

 

The game takes place in the 60s in an underwater city called The Rapture. It was some sort of intellectual Ayn Rand uber-capitalistic utopia gone haywire. The currency there is some biological stuff made from special sea slugs (stem cells, basically) called Adam that let people modify themselves. This causes many problems and brings the downfall of the city. I don't want to give anything else away.

 

The gameplay is centered on player choice and customization. However, if you are unhappy with some customizations you made earlier in the game, you can always change them later on. This will remove "upgrade remorse." They're main goal is total immersion in the story. "We're creating a world for to be in. What you do is up to you, and you have to live with your choices." They want the choices you make to have meaningful repurcissions. You can manipulate the NPCs in the game to do stuff like attack other people or protect you. Oh yeah, the game will have psionic powers.

 

They're creating a walkthrough system that's not obtrusive so people who don't need help won't receive it. Those that do, such as people who haven't played System Shock 2 or other games likes this, will get help. They want to "assume the player is reasonably intelligent and catch them when they fall." There won't be a tutorial like use W, A, S, and D to move, press space to jump, etc. They're assuming you know that. If you don't, then it will help you.

 

"This more subtle approach to story telling will be familiar to fans of System Shock 2, but perhaps not to the console gaming mainstream. 'It's not about big cutscenes that explain everything. It's about piecing together what happened.'" (Console gamers r dum, LOL ) Again, they're hoping the player is intelligent enough to piece things together and not have anything force fed to them.

 

Uh, so far it's coming out on PC and XBOX 360. They skirted the issue when asked about PS3 but it seems they would like to do it. Screenshots look good. Water supposedly looks fantastic in motion as it should since they have a guy working just on that.

 

So far everything about this game really impresses me. I was always excited about it but now knowing stuff about it makes it even more exciting. I like how they're taking a more intelligent approach where they're not dumbing it down just because it's on a console.