Bioshock video on IGN

[A Black Falcon]

System Shock 1 and 2 are filled with RPG elements and I imagine that Bioshock will be no different.

Yup. Lazy, you haven't played System Shock 2, so you're speaking out of ignorance. These games have many RPG elements. Some even were in the video -- puzzles with multiple solutions (somewhat common in (PC) RPGs, and not in FPSes), stat points to distribute, etc... and I expect the full game to have even more.

Apparently this studio is popular with some of you,

You'd understand why if you had played their games.

Apparently this studio is popular with some of you, but regardless of what the guy said in the video of it being a non-linear non-coridor, free-roam masterpiece (which is exactly how Turok was described) you do in fact follow a set path through a linear storyline and progress through cramped hallways in an underwater city - that is the game. Your progress wil be blocked until you find a weapon/key/security code/cause scripted event/use special item in order to progress to the story's resolution. I understand that the guy in the video wants to tell you how non-traditional FPS it is but the video says otherwise.

Nope. There will be obstacles for sure, but you won't have to get the keycard. Weren't you watching? It showed several puzzle situations, and in each there were multiple options... run in shooting, use the stealth approach and try to sneak by, use deception to get the enemies to go away or fight eachother, wait to see if the enemy leaves the area... in System Shock 2 you didn't HAVE to go find those keycards. You could go out and shoot things to find the keycard, but you could also, for instance, try to hack the door (it's a sci-fi game) or use psyonic powers to kill the enemies and get the card that way... sure, it's not "you can do anything you want and it's completely open ended and you can go anywhere at any time", but it's also a game, and what fun would a game be if you had no obstacles to have to overcome? The focus should (and probably will) be on making each of those places interesting and varied... good, solid puzzles and design is more important than the degree of open-endedness anyway, I think.

No, the whole point is that it's not all scripted. Remember how he said that the 'daddies' and 'little girls' aren't on scripted paths, but wander around looking for things? So that situation in the demo, I'd expect that in the real game it'd be just a chance of it happening there (with both a badguy and the pair of them together)... and the fight between those two wasn't a scripted event either, as he said -- remember how he mentioned that sometimes when he went through that demo they came into the building with him, still fighting, but that didn't happen this time? They're fighting eachother because the player set it off and they were near eachother, not because there is a scripted event there... though they could rig that by having both of them be near that area most of the time or something, of course. We'd need to see more of the game to see exactly how that turns out. Sure there will be places where you have a puzzle you have to solve, but the key is multiple paths... you have multiple ways of going about solving the puzzle, not just one like in 99.99% of FPSes (hmm, do I run in from the right or from the left? Decisions, decisions! ... oh right, there's only one cooridor. :D)

Of course there will be events that you have to do, but non-linear or multi-path games aren't about being completely open, they're about giving the player choices... open levels so you don't have a feeling that all you can do is go to the next location on the railed path (if what he says is true it should be like that, but we'll see), multiple ways to solve puzzles (as we saw)...

The reference to Turok I made was that in Turok (and 2, I dont remember if 3 did it) if you were low on ammo or health, you could run behind an enemy to make another enemy shoot it or otherwise attack it, causing them to fight among themselves while you run through unscathed giving you a huge advantage. The fight went on to the death usually giving you plenty of time. It didn't work if the enemy type were the same though. ie: two raptors wouldn't fight eachother, but a mechanical hybrid raptor would fight a normal raptor - This is exactly how that mechanic works in Bioshock. With the added mechanic of being able to throw some dust on a creature in order to cause the attack and subsequent fight, so you have more specific control over who is going to fight who. But it's still the same thing.

Um, no. The game has a lot of powers, we only saw thee of them... remember the screen with a bunch of abilities? There are more than just 'agression', 'super-speed', and 'threat' (to make that enemy set off the security cameras) for sure...

And I really doubt that there's only going to be just those two weapons in the game. Plus, I like the way the weapons look.

That weapon is awesome! :)


As for any criticisms I have of the game... hmm. One, when he interacts with the world (pressing buttons, etc) the things just happen; there is no arm animation or something. This implies that once again it's a "floating orb with a gun" game... I've never liked that design...

Also, what we saw there isn't as innovative as perhaps he implies; it was done before, if just by people with connections to Looking Glass... I think he just was stating things that strongly because of how few OTHER FPSes vary from the established formulas of cooridors and linear shooting... and that's a very valid criticism. Most FPSes are so similar in their basic gameplay...

Oh yeah, and we can't see how open-ended the level designs are from this test. Is it mostly a cooridor which you solve puzzles along, or is it large open areas which you have to wander around in some fashion to find your goals... are there traditional "levels" or does it just open up new areas as you go along... are there characters to interact with (perhaps unlikely, given how the System Shock games are about being in places where everyone has been horribly killed by a malevolent AI... :) Journals and stuff perhaps? Some form of character interaction would be good though.) Anyway, it looks quite good, and I want to see more. :)