So yeah I took this day to finish Bioshock. I made a thread yesterday about how I wasn't enjoying my experience with the game (original thread here) and I've gotta say the experience pretty much stayed the same, except for the supposedly HUGE TWIST OMFG YOU HAVE  TO SEE THIS TWIST WHAT A TWIST. Yes Atlas is Fontaine. Goddamn that was so stupid and kinda predictable. Ok, I'll be honest, I wasn't thinking Atlas was Fontaine (I actually thought he was Ryan) but still I knew this dude wanted to use us for his own means. So yeah after us killing Andrew Ryan (which I thought was a really cool scene, it was shocking and in first person, it would have sucked as a simple cutscene) and the big revelation, it all kinda went downwards. I still loved the little sisters helping us and to be honest I was expecting another twist where Tenenbaum turned her back against us or something but no so that's cool, I like these stories where you can still rely on someone and you're not getting fucked by everybody.  
 
Man I'm getting the idea this is gonna be a pain to read so I'll just keep it short and simple:
 

• MAIN PROBLEMS I HAD WITH THE GAME

1. Turrets, cameras, and sentinel robots all throughout the game, in every single freaking room, everytime. What a pain, at least thanks to the thread I made yesterday I stopped bothering to hack them, because quite frankly, these things are in the most unexpected places and they're fucking useless to hack because no splicer is gonna go through there.
   
2. Shooting sucks, unsatisfying, viva la wrench forever (except for Big Daddies I guess).
3. Vitachambers = lazy game design. If you don't want to take the time to put balanced fights in, put a vitachamber or something similar in your game. I can't help but think what a mess this game would have been without Vitachambers, I mean you can have either extremely easy fights, or just enter a room full of Splicers, two turrets (machine gun one and rocket launcher one, which are the worst) a camera and a Big Daddy. Yes. I think I've seen something like that in the game. It was nuts.
   
4. The ending. I got the good one and I thought it was cool when the little sisters went and finished Fontaine, but the last cutscene felt kinda rushed. I kinda felt it would have been better if it wasn't a cutscene and they kept in first person just like the rest of the game. Yeah, as you can see I'm not a big fan of cutscenes. If you wanna put cutscenes in your game just go make a movie you bad game designer (Kojima *wink* *wink*)
   

• WHAT I DID LIKE

1. Incredible atmosphere. I haven't felt like that since I played Half Life 2, or Metroid Prime even. This game is incredibly immersive and we need more of that. Rapture is incredible, the sole idea of an underwater city is a great concept and they managed to make it look even more beautiful than we would have imagined. Kudos for that.
   
2. Even if I criticise the story, I still think it's among the best written in this medium. That doesn't mean that as far as stories go it's incredible, but way above average, and for a videogame it's really good, but yeah, we have miles to go to tell a good videogame story.
   
3. I've been thinking for a while about what else I did like, and couldn't find anything, so that must be about it. Sorry.
   

Oh also to all developpers: would you kindly (blahaha) not put escort missions in your game? Specially if it's the last one, yes?

Actually I hacked just about everything I could find. Those things were life savers on the harder difficulties as you back track a lot, and more often than not, there are a whole mess of splicers waiting for you. Thankfully the hacked turrets and cameras made my life incredibly easy.

bump before i go to bed and to make sure noone gives a shit about the thread.

Disagree on a lot of points, but I'm glad you ended up (sort of?) liking it. It's definitely one of my favorite games out there.

" Disagree on a lot of points, but I'm glad you ended up (sort of?) liking it. It's definitely one of my favorite games out there. "

" @Noodlearms said:

" Disagree on a lot of points, but I'm glad you ended up (sort of?) liking it. It's definitely one of my favorite games out there. "

would you kindly (wooooo) develop the points you disagree with. For the sake of conversation mostly and to know what other people think about this game because I know there's people who didn't like it and stopped playing it before they reached the end, so for the effort I made I would like at least to discuss why people like it so much. "

• I enjoyed the turrets/security cameras/robots because I really enjoyed hacking. I literally hacked everything I saw. I had the tonic that gave me eve and health when I hacked though, so that was a good incentive.
• I enjoyed the shooting. I know this is people's main gripe but I felt that the guns really felt powerful and had an impact. I remember disliking the machine gun until it got the recoil upgrade, though. That thing was way too inaccurate.
• I really can't comment on the vitachamber point since I only died like once or twice and just loaded saves when I died instead of using the chambers.

" @Goly said:

" @Noodlearms said:

" Disagree on a lot of points, but I'm glad you ended up (sort of?) liking it. It's definitely one of my favorite games out there. "

would you kindly (wooooo) develop the points you disagree with. For the sake of conversation mostly and to know what other people think about this game because I know there's people who didn't like it and stopped playing it before they reached the end, so for the effort I made I would like at least to discuss why people like it so much. "

• I enjoyed the turrets/security cameras/robots because I really enjoyed hacking. I literally hacked everything I saw. I had the tonic that gave me eve and health when I hacked though, so that was a good incentive.
• I enjoyed the shooting. I know this is people's main gripe but I felt that the guns really felt powerful and had an impact. I remember disliking the machine gun until it got the recoil upgrade, though. That thing was way too inaccurate.
• I really can't comment on the vitachamber point since I only died like once or twice and just loaded saves when I died instead of using the chambers.

 I do, however, agree on the ending. It was much too short and thrown together. (I too got the good ending.) My only other gripe would be that it starts off scary as fuck (I'm easily scared) and loses the scare factor a little less than half way through. Other than that, it's one of my favorite games. I still play it from time to time. "

I think the biggest thing about this game isn't the story within the game, but more the story of the player playing the game. 
 
What I got from the story is that, as a video game character, we go through missions or get past levels or hunt down bad guys without any thought as to why. Maybe I was just really, really, way into the story and read more from it than was intended, but that was the takeaway I got from it.  
 
I don't know. Maybe I'm too arty for my own good. 

" I think the biggest thing about this game isn't the story within the game, but more the story of the player playing the game. 
 
What I got from the story is that, as a video game character, we go through missions or get past levels or hunt down bad guys without any thought as to why. Maybe I was just really, really, way into the story and read more from it than was intended, but that was the takeaway I got from it.   I don't know. Maybe I'm too arty for my own good.  "

Also, think about the Big Daddies. These are enemies that don't become enemies until YOU fire that first shot. And all they're doing, the whole time, is protecting the Little Sisters. In a weird way, I felt kind of bad for them when they'd look for a Little Sister in one of those holes, and no one would come out. They seemed genuinely saddened and alone. 
 
Or, to flip that, I loved rooting for Big Daddies whenever a Splicer wanted the Little Sister. Sure, that meant one less enemy for me, but more importantly, it meant someone was protecting the girl that I myself would hunt down and Heal / Harvest.

The twist is even worse when you consider that (SS2 spoilers)
 

" The twist is even worse when you consider that (SS2 spoilers)
 

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

It's pretty much the same twist that happens with Shodan, only without an awesome and extremely memorable character (SHODAN).

Yeah, I don't get all the love for BioShock, I hope Infinite is more interesting. "

" Also, think about the Big Daddies. These are enemies that don't become enemies until YOU fire that first shot. And all they're doing, the whole time, is protecting the Little Sisters. In a weird way, I felt kind of bad for them when they'd look for a Little Sister in one of those holes, and no one would come out. They seemed genuinely saddened and alone. 
 
Or, to flip that, I loved rooting for Big Daddies whenever a Splicer wanted the Little Sister. Sure, that meant one less enemy for me, but more importantly, it meant someone was protecting the girl that I myself would hunt down and Heal / Harvest. "

After playing this game at least 5 times, here's a few points to REALLY improve the gameplay:
 
1)  If you don't like hacking (myself included), don't bother hacking anything but safes.  Autohack the safes, just buy from vending machines, blow everything else up.  Hacking is just too boring to bother with for me.
 
2)  The best way to take on turrets/cameras is the decoy plasmid.  Most people probably ignore the utility plasmids, but this one is awesome because you can cast it around corners.  I used to electrocute bots but this method is WAY better.
 
3)  Don't conserve special ammo.  I went gun builds most of the time, and basically there's NO bosses worth saving your ammo for.  Use heatseaking rockets, trap bolts, flammable bolts/shells etc. as often as you can.  Just save enough ammo for the big daddies: 6 rockets, 8 electric shells, and all your anti-armor machine gun bullets.
 
4)  Turn off vita chambers in options.  You'll have to save more often, but its worth the added danger.  And of course hard mode is a must if you want challenge.
 
 
It sounded like you had trouble with a few rooms, and I think I know which ones (like just before getting the camera).  Just breakout the grenades and those should be cake. In trapped rooms like the bee-honey area (I hate that room!) bust out the motion detecting mines.
 
This game has huge replay value.  I've played so many times yet I kept finding more items and more story elements (like how the bibles were the counterfeit items, did you figure that out?).  Only letdown was how weak the plasmids were, most couldn't compare to the guns.

" @Goly:  Yeah, I found out about the twist before playing it too because fucking GS didn't think to give readers a spoiler warning in their Greatest Games of All Time feature. I still enjoyed it though, and that specific moment is still intense even if you know about it beforehand. "

hahahahahahah!!!!
 
I'm glad I got to point this out.  It was NEVER explained but they wanted the player to figure it out.  In neptune's bounty there was all that talk about counterfeit items, with bibles and crosses lying around and stuff.  Basically religion wasn't allowed and this was how Fontaine made his first break, by having the fishermen bring in crates of bibles.

" hahahahahahah!!!!  I'm glad I got to point this out.  It was NEVER explained but they wanted the player to figure it out.  In neptune's bounty there was all that talk about counterfeit items, with bibles and crosses lying around and stuff.  Basically religion wasn't allowed and this was how Fontaine made his first break, by having the fishermen bring in crates of bibles. "

 Here's some other interesting points:
 
There is a vita chamber in Ryan's office, but it is turned off.  Turns out the vita chambers were built to only work for his dna, so he was basically immortal in Rapture.  But in the end, he decided to turn it off, to prove he wasn't a slave and could decide his own fate.
 
The really tough splicers you face in the residence areas that are dressed in a sort of fancy outfit with a emblem on their shirt?  Those were the police. 

The houdinis are using the teleportation plasmid that is often advertised but you never get to use.
 
Oh, and I've been told that you can find the names of Atlas's wife and daughter, Patrick and Moira, in Fort Frolic.  Apparently, when he needed 2 names really quick to convince you he had a family, he thought of two actors from the area, what a conman.  I haven't founded these myself though.

"  Here's some other interesting points:   There is a vita chamber in Ryan's office, but it is turned off.  Turns out the vita chambers were built to only work for his dna, so he was basically immortal in Rapture.  But in the end, he decided to turn it off, to prove he wasn't a slave and could decide his own fate.  The really tough splicers you face in the residence areas that are dressed in a sort of fancy outfit with a emblem on their shirt?  Those were the police.  The houdinis are using the teleportation plasmid that is often advertised but you never get to use.  Oh, and I've been told that you can find the names of Atlas's wife and daughter, Patrick and Moira, in Fort Frolic.  Apparently, when he needed 2 names really quick to convince you he had a family, he thought of two actors from the area, what a conman.  I haven't founded these myself though. "

" @Goly: So there you go. BioShock goes DEEP. =) "