Finally Beat this Game - Rant (Spoilers)

[The Brown Hornet]

It has been 2 years and over 40 gameplay hours and I have finally completed this game. That is correct, it has taken 40 hours just to beat the game once! I remember back when this game came out it had the highest review scores, everybody was praising it and I always thought this was going to be one of the great fps but for me this game was a complete chore!

#1. Difficulty - I played on normal and I'm convinced normal mode is actually hard mode like Dragon Age Origins, another tough game on normal. The game does not give you a break, every room and location is either splicers, turrets, cameras, and manhacks! Never can you just explore without being attacked over and over and over and over! It gets tiring fighting these enemies on and on

#2. Hacking - From beginning to end, the hacking just dont stop, did the devs playtest this game? Machines, turrets, health stations, the hacking is overwhelming! Not to mention you lose health or set off an alarm if you fail a hack, that alarm gets so annoying!

#3. The big daddies are on every level, even when you think you are at the end of the game, that you cleared all the big daddy fights and saved or harvested the little sisters, there's like 3 more on the next level!! Enough already! And what is up with their aim, they never miss, as a matter of fact nothing ever misses in this game, it is 100% aimbot! Just one or two hits and instant death nearly every time!

#4. Audio logs, radio, diaries - this is literally an entire game where people only talk to you over a radio or tape recorders.Most of the time when they were talking I tuned them out and seldomly paid attention, none of them really say anything, just rambling 50s jargon. Even when you wake at the lil sisters house, Tennenbaum is behind a glass window! There is zero interaction with a friendly NPC, which alienates me as a player. I never felt any of the characters were real, they are all phoney and not worth fighting for!

#5. Fontaine - Long before I got to the "twist" I was getting annoyed with every audio log talking about Fontaine....his name is mentioned more than Andrew Ryan, the so called villain in this game! I had already figured that Fontaine would show up one way or another cause no one in Rapture ever stopped talking about him!! Nearly every audio tape was Fontaine this Fontaine that. Also I didn't like the twist, it was done better in Metal Gear Solid which predates this game by almost 10 years.

#6 Andrew Ryan - You work super hard to finally get to Andrew Ryan and all you get is a cutscene and a nonsensical one at that. What was the point of the golf club through the head? I mean if he has a death wish why wait for me to get there?

#7 Fetch Quest - Find all the pieces to a big daddy suit, find all the samples to a formula, find all the parts to a bomb, etc...you go looking for these parts and like always turrets everywhere, splicers everywhere, manhacks, big daddies, etc...fighting these enemies over and over is your reward for everything.

#8. Rapture - Ok, granted Rapture is well done, however it is a one trick pony, its the same nearly the entire length of the game, 1950s art deco. Maybe in 2007 it was amazing to see but after playing Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, Rapture feels pedestrian. The Arkham games have different artistic designs throughout especially as it relates to specific villains, Rapture is the same everywhere you go.

#9 Fun Factor - This game felt more like "work" more than any game I've ever played! Killing a big daddy is work, die and repeat, hacking is work, fighting splicers ( who later are tougher than big daddies!) is work, customizing weapons, bullets, and plasmids is work. Keeping up with audio diaries is work. Games are supposed to be fun this game felt like menial tasks and chores.

#10 The Ending - I endured a lot to beat this game, only killed about 3 Lil Sisters and I got the "Bad Ending" and wow was this ending a letdown. That was the quickest cutscene and prologue I ever seen in a game this "artistic." I'm actually insulted that the ending was that weak. People complained about Mass Effect 3 but what do you call this? It makes playing to the end feel like it wasn't worth it.

I know people love Bioshock, I've seen the raves and reviews for years now but for me this is one of my most disliked games in the Library. I played through the end cause maybe I was missing something, maybe I'll see the thing that makes everyone say its great. Even as I type I still dont see the point, Ok...I killed Fontaine, big deal, now what, there's nothing at stake in this game, way too much work for no payoff.

[Officer Kevlar]

Interesting. You say this is a bad game simply because you suck at playing it. Lets go through your points though.

1 - It is not difficult. You just need to get better at playing it. It is not an exploration game. It is a story driven FPS. Without enemies to kill, it would have no point.

2 - There is a lot of hacking but you are not required to hack everything. In fact you don't need to hack anything and if you are hacking everything, you are doing it wrong. Sure, hack the cameras and turrets and the odd vending machine. Use an auto-hack on safes.

3 - You also don't need to kill every big daddy you see. Just the ones with little sisters and since there are only a couple little sisters per area, your point about there being too many big daddy's is incorrect. The big daddy's ignore you until you attack them so If you are shooting every big daddy on sight, you are a gigantic bad and you should feel bad.

4 - The audio logs are the backstory and the radio transmissions are the current story. You don't need to listen to them all but if you don't, the story will suffer. I find it funny that you say you tuned them out and then in the next line say they don't say anything important completely contradicting your self.The point is that many of the people of Rapture are dead or crazy and the audio diaries are a way to tell their story and illustrate the demise of Rapture.

5 - Fontain is an important character. He is a major part of the back story and part of the reason for Raptures downfall. If they don't talk about him, then the twist at the end will be very confusing wont it. Who do you think people are going to talk about, the Pope?

6 - Once again, you show that you have zero understanding of the characters, probably because you have the attention span of a Jamacan flea and you ignored all of the story. Andrew Ryan built Rapture to escape the bonds of society, be that government or religion. He see's the player as a slave, as less than a human and he tries to get the player to break his chains. He ultimately fails and the player kills him. I believe he also realised that the player is his own son, but then, you probably missed that little fact.

7 - Fetch quests. Well, if everything was in one room waiting for you, then the game would be pointless. I would hate to play a game where everything is handed you me on a platter. You miss the point since it is not about the items you are collecting, it is about the gameplay and story you encounter while on route to get the items.

8 - SHOCK, ERMAHGERD A GAME SET IN THE 50'S AND 60'S HAS DECORATION FROM THAT ERA.

9 - The game probably seems like work to you because you are terrible at playing games. You ignore story, you do things you dont need to do (hacking everything, killing all big daddy's), I'm willing to be you completely ignored the research camera so didn't earn damage bonuses against splicers. You moan about weapon progression yet you complain that enemies get tougher near the end. And seriously, why would you continue playing a game when you are rubbish at playing it and you dont like it?

10 - The good ending is fine. Maybe you shouldn't have been a monster and killed three little girls.

Finally, I'm still trying to fathom how you spent 40 hours playing this game completing it only once. I am very thorough when I play games such as this. I go everywhere, I do everything, I collect everything, I try out every method of doing something. Normally when I play Bioshock, I have a full wallet, full ammo, full health and eve and most of my powers/weapons fully upgraded and that would take me at most about 10 hours. I suggest you look at the gameplay mechanics and at ways to improve your skills before you rubbish a game because of your own shortcomings.

[StreamWhenGuy]

Not a fanboy. But this game is quite good for 2007.

[The Brown Hornet]

Originally posted by Officer Kevlar:

Interesting. You say this is a bad game simply because you suck at playing it. Lets go through your points though.

1 - It is not difficult. You just need to get better at playing it. It is not an exploration game. It is a story driven FPS. Without enemies to kill, it would have no point.

2 - There is a lot of hacking but you are not required to hack everything. In fact you don't need to hack anything and if you are hacking everything, you are doing it wrong. Sure, hack the cameras and turrets and the odd vending machine. Use an auto-hack on safes.

3 - You also don't need to kill every big daddy you see. Just the ones with little sisters and since there are only a couple little sisters per area, your point about there being too many big daddy's is incorrect. The big daddy's ignore you until you attack them so If you are shooting every big daddy on sight, you are a gigantic bad and you should feel bad.

4 - The audio logs are the backstory and the radio transmissions are the current story. You don't need to listen to them all but if you don't, the story will suffer. I find it funny that you say you tuned them out and then in the next line say they don't say anything important completely contradicting your self.The point is that many of the people of Rapture are dead or crazy and the audio diaries are a way to tell their story and illustrate the demise of Rapture.

5 - Fontain is an important character. He is a major part of the back story and part of the reason for Raptures downfall. If they don't talk about him, then the twist at the end will be very confusing wont it. Who do you think people are going to talk about, the Pope?

6 - Once again, you show that you have zero understanding of the characters, probably because you have the attention span of a Jamacan flea and you ignored all of the story. Andrew Ryan built Rapture to escape the bonds of society, be that government or religion. He see's the player as a slave, as less than a human and he tries to get the player to break his chains. He ultimately fails and the player kills him. I believe he also realised that the player is his own son, but then, you probably missed that little fact.

7 - Fetch quests. Well, if everything was in one room waiting for you, then the game would be pointless. I would hate to play a game where everything is handed you me on a platter. You miss the point since it is not about the items you are collecting, it is about the gameplay and story you encounter while on route to get the items.

8 - SHOCK, ERMAHGERD A GAME SET IN THE 50'S AND 60'S HAS DECORATION FROM THAT ERA.

9 - The game probably seems like work to you because you are terrible at playing games. You ignore story, you do things you dont need to do (hacking everything, killing all big daddy's), I'm willing to be you completely ignored the research camera so didn't earn damage bonuses against splicers. You moan about weapon progression yet you complain that enemies get tougher near the end. And seriously, why would you continue playing a game when you are rubbish at playing it and you dont like it?

10 - The good ending is fine. Maybe you shouldn't have been a monster and killed three little girls.

Finally, I'm still trying to fathom how you spent 40 hours playing this game completing it only once. I am very thorough when I play games such as this. I go everywhere, I do everything, I collect everything, I try out every method of doing something. Normally when I play Bioshock, I have a full wallet, full ammo, full health and eve and most of my powers/weapons fully upgraded and that would take me at most about 10 hours. I suggest you look at the gameplay mechanics and at ways to improve your skills before you rubbish a game because of your own shortcomings.

Yes I took pictures, plenty of them, and yes it is possible to tune out the audios because I didn't like the accents. Maybe all the British, Irish, cockney, New York, German accents coated in phonograph static was music to your ears but I found it intolerable.

I understand the story and lore is told through the audios but I'd rather had found written journals and diaries, why no option to let the player read newspapers or find hidden messages, for instance "Would you kindly" written in blood was the most effective storytelling in the whole game!

It took me 40 hours because I play to explore not rush through levels, I hack everything, search everything, fight everything, look in every room. I have an RPG mentality and maybe that's why I feel underwhelmed with this game, I spent hours searching and exploring but didn't find anything other than what was revealed the first 5 minutes of the game!

[Thogmar]

Originally posted by The Brown Hornet:

It has been 2 years and over 40 gameplay hours and I have finally completed this game. That is correct, it has taken 40 hours just to beat the game once! I remember back when this game came out it had the highest review scores, everybody was praising it and I always thought this was going to be one of the great fps but for me this game was a complete chore!

#1. Difficulty - I played on normal and I'm convinced normal mode is actually hard mode like Dragon Age Origins, another tough game on normal. The game does not give you a break, every room and location is either splicers, turrets, cameras, and manhacks! Never can you just explore without being attacked over and over and over and over! It gets tiring fighting these enemies on and on

#2. Hacking - From beginning to end, the hacking just dont stop, did the devs playtest this game? Machines, turrets, health stations, the hacking is overwhelming! Not to mention you lose health or set off an alarm if you fail a hack, that alarm gets so annoying!

#3. The big daddies are on every level, even when you think you are at the end of the game, that you cleared all the big daddy fights and saved or harvested the little sisters, there's like 3 more on the next level!! Enough already! And what is up with their aim, they never miss, as a matter of fact nothing ever misses in this game, it is 100% aimbot! Just one or two hits and instant death nearly every time!

#4. Audio logs, radio, diaries - this is literally an entire game where people only talk to you over a radio or tape recorders.Most of the time when they were talking I tuned them out and seldomly paid attention, none of them really say anything, just rambling 50s jargon. Even when you wake at the lil sisters house, Tennenbaum is behind a glass window! There is zero interaction with a friendly NPC, which alienates me as a player. I never felt any of the characters were real, they are all phoney and not worth fighting for!

#5. Fontaine - Long before I got to the "twist" I was getting annoyed with every audio log talking about Fontaine....his name is mentioned more than Andrew Ryan, the so called villain in this game! I had already figured that Fontaine would show up one way or another cause no one in Rapture ever stopped talking about him!! Nearly every audio tape was Fontaine this Fontaine that. Also I didn't like the twist, it was done better in Metal Gear Solid which predates this game by almost 10 years.

#6 Andrew Ryan - You work super hard to finally get to Andrew Ryan and all you get is a cutscene and a nonsensical one at that. What was the point of the golf club through the head? I mean if he has a death wish why wait for me to get there?

#7 Fetch Quest - Find all the pieces to a big daddy suit, find all the samples to a formula, find all the parts to a bomb, etc...you go looking for these parts and like always turrets everywhere, splicers everywhere, manhacks, big daddies, etc...fighting these enemies over and over is your reward for everything.

#8. Rapture - Ok, granted Rapture is well done, however it is a one trick pony, its the same nearly the entire length of the game, 1950s art deco. Maybe in 2007 it was amazing to see but after playing Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, Rapture feels pedestrian. The Arkham games have different artistic designs throughout especially as it relates to specific villains, Rapture is the same everywhere you go.

#9 Fun Factor - This game felt more like "work" more than any game I've ever played! Killing a big daddy is work, die and repeat, hacking is work, fighting splicers ( who later are tougher than big daddies!) is work, customizing weapons, bullets, and plasmids is work. Keeping up with audio diaries is work. Games are supposed to be fun this game felt like menial tasks and chores.

#10 The Ending - I endured a lot to beat this game, only killed about 3 Lil Sisters and I got the "Bad Ending" and wow was this ending a letdown. That was the quickest cutscene and prologue I ever seen in a game this "artistic." I'm actually insulted that the ending was that weak. People complained about Mass Effect 3 but what do you call this? It makes playing to the end feel like it wasn't worth it.

I know people love Bioshock, I've seen the raves and reviews for years now but for me this is one of my most disliked games in the Library. I played through the end cause maybe I was missing something, maybe I'll see the thing that makes everyone say its great. Even as I type I still dont see the point, Ok...I killed Fontaine, big deal, now what, there's nothing at stake in this game, way too much work for no payoff.

Uh yeah, the atmosphere of the game WAS AMAZING when it was launched, and the devs didnt' have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ time machine to visit the future and compare it against BATMAN games
And it's ONE small complex, it SHOULD have one art style, it's not a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stage play through the ages.

[Fiercest Tuna]

It took me 10 hours to finish the game for the first time.

[TheShadowHatter]

"I'm actually insulted that the ending was that weak. People complained about Mass Effect 3 but what do you call this? "

you can't compare the endings of these games because Mass Effect 3's ending was literally all your choices in the previous games meant nothing as they gave you a multiple choice question "choose your ending" for the big finale. what was the point of giving me a game which supposedly all my choices mattered if at the end you had a "choose your ending" button?

EDIT:

also to alleviate the difficulty of the game, you're supposed to take advantage of your plasmids and stealth. I beat this game on the PS3 mainly using that one plasmid that makes cameras and turrets target whoever your enemies and I'd use that to take down big daddies as well as other enemies. you have to be very adaptive with your plasmids to make the game easier.

[Mr. Casual Crowd]

Hoo boy. I complain a lot about stuff, but it's funny how times change. When it came out Bioshock 1 was considered a little too easy.

I hope eventually you can enjoy the game more. It would be cool if you could.

[The Brown Hornet]

Originally posted by goblinsaint:

Hoo boy. I complain a lot about stuff, but it's funny how times change. When it came out Bioshock 1 was considered a little too easy.

I hope eventually you can enjoy the game more. It would be cool if you could.

Nah, I just really didn't like it, that's part of why it took so long to finish it, I was hoping it would grow on me but it didn't. Didn't like the characters, the voice acting, the story, or the combat. I appreciate the effort that went into it and the artistic design but the game was a lot of work but not much fun.

[Master Richie]

By the way the remastered version of Bioshock is coming out in September also with achievements on steam which would have been a better time to revisit the game if you care about these features.

[Linus Hyper]

Originally posted by The Brown Hornet:

(Buncha cryin' from a sore loser)

You just suck at gaming. It's not the game's fault. F**k off and stop ruin an excellent game with your bullcrap.

[TheShadowHatter]

Originally posted by Master Richie:

By the way the remastered version of Bioshock is coming out in September also with achievements on steam which would have been a better time to revisit the game if you care about these features.

you know if the remastered version is going to fix the current issues this game has? like how the game crashes on startup and random crashes for people enough that it's a sticky post?

[Linus Hyper]

Originally posted by TheShadowHatter🎩:

you know if the remastered version is going to fix the current issues this game has? like how the game crashes on startup and random crashes for people enough that it's a sticky post?

God I really, REALLY hope so...

[Dr_N-gin]

ya I hated this game the first time I played it too. But thats cuz i was too used to running and gunning. I changed my playstyle second time around to use telekinesis and security bullseye more and the game became a whole lot easier and enjoyable

[Baphomet]

1. You are supposed to use every weapon and plasmid you got. And besides what did you expect? It's a action shooter not an rpg.
2. You don't need to hack everything. I never bothered with hacking vending machines and health stations but i hacked security cameras incase of wandering enemies and safes and a few turrets.
3. The Big Daddies respawn every now and then even if you have saved/harvest all little sisters in the area. Quite funny to watch them go to a vent and bang on it and then get angry because they get no response. They also don't attack you as long as you don't attack them or the little sisters.
4,5,6. The audio logs sets up the story for what happened before the player arrived. You are in a failed underwater city utopia where everyone are either dead or crazy and the few sane are smart enough to keep themself away from the rest.
You don't fight for anyone except for yourself and because of the plot twist That you are being mind controlled during half of the game.
7. Yeah it's acknowledged by even the the die hard fans of the game that the game slows down at the fetch quest for the bomb and after the plot twist.
8. It's a city that was built in the late 40s and fell into disarray in the late 50 so offcourse theres 50s art deco what else would expect from a city in the 50s?
9. I had alot of fun using different plasmids and weapon at my disposal to kill enemies and upgrading them. In the end i was playing around in the game with the AI seeing how it would react when i went into a battysphere while being chased by a big daddy with a drill and tossing items and corpses around with the telekinesis. But yeah the gameplay might not be everyones cup of tea but i never felt like it being a chore and the audio logs are optional story fillers.
10. The endings in this game are Meh i agree but atleast they were given due to your choice of what to do with the little sisters instead of throwing away all choices you every done and give you three colored buttons to choose from. ^_^

[Goobins]

fat