Doesn't change anything. In that case 2K already hinted that they will close Irrational's doors or restructure the company after Infinite's release.
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BioShock Infinite's Combat Director & AI Lead Leave [And Floating World Specialist]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Doesn't change anything. In that case 2K already hinted that they will close Irrational's doors or restructure the company after Infinite's release.
Bioshock 2 was better than the original in everything except it wasn't original at all and should have been an add-on. Also it missed the nerve. No Fort Frolic level there.
Neuromancer
Member
When did they say that?
BobTheFork
Member
I'll disagree. I think everything about 2 felt like a reaction to the first Bioshock. I thought Lamb was created soley from the idea that 'hey, what about someone who is as crazy as Ryan, but thinks the opposite of him. It was a good game, but not once did I get any of the chills or excitement I felt from the first.
I'll take the side that this isn't a deathnail for Infinite or doesn't mean the project is screwed. I think the people leaving have done thier work and want to get out. I do think the dev cycle has been very trouble for the game. So maybe they are done and they have had enough or maybe the studio won't be around in the same form and they already know that.
Clay Davis
Member
this is true, but the downloadable content, minvera's den came very close to replicating the level of fort frolic from the first game.
apart from that, I do agree that the game lacked a certain something compared to the first.
Never? Read the whole conversation before posting. Irrational shutting doors is just one assumption of many. The last post was only about a detail (Irrational being closed by 2K instead of being broke).
Bioshock Infinite has come across to me as being far more pretentious than Bioshock.
Neuromancer
Member
Oh I see, you were making a funny. Here I thought you had some actual information.
I hope, but this doesn't seem very usual for the industry. Most of the time do the people stay with company until the game is completely done.
Not anymore, their trailer-guy left as well probably.
Jack Scofield
Member
I remember Shawn Elliott leaving GFW to work on this game in 2008. Wow.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
They must have all stuck around to design the DLC, get in the credits and leave.
5 years making a game is insane.
5 years making a game is insane.
so it's better
Visualante2
Member
Can't help but feel this is one of those snowballing stories. They showed too much of Infinite, too early.
Fans got restless and in their research discovered a couple of people left. The blogs ran the non-news and now the turnover has turned into something else.
Fans got restless and in their research discovered a couple of people left. The blogs ran the non-news and now the turnover has turned into something else.
The objectivist stuff in Bioshock will be hard to top, I had a lot of fun with that. Does a man not deserve the sweat of his brow?
Neuromancer
Member
Yeah don't you have to stay at the company to get the bonuses when the game does well?
It really is nuts. I imagine a few people at Irrational have been working on this before Bioshock was even done, too.
BobTheFork
Member
I really seems like there was some major development hell. I think all these guys are done with their contribution and just want to get heck out of there.
when I was playing Bioshock for the first time I didn't know anything about Ayne Rand, objectivist stuff and so on. I enjoyed it just because the game mocked the player and was using its mechanics for it. When I learned about objectivism it added nothing to the game or what it was for me. The game was ultimately about a choice that was made for you and you being the sucker to follow it through.
Z
ZombieFred
Unconfirmed Member
Damn, Microsoft really is cooking up the talent pool with their internal studios. Hopefully they will have their internal studios share technology and resources, like Sonys' ICE team, bringing out the best tools for them. Now I got more stuff to look forward from Microsoft outside Halo and Alan Wake!
You missed the part where Bioshock 1 feels like a carbon copy of System Shock 2 (except streamlined and worse) and Bioshock 2 is its own game to a much bigger extent.
In other words, typical GAF overreaction based on a lot of speculation.
We can all bitch come the trailer if needed.
System Shock 2 was a great game and I agree about Bioshock being a copy but I tend to look at it a spiritual successor. Also I played Bioshock before I played System Shock 2, so Bioshock is imprinted as an original game in my brain forever, sorry. And Bioshock did some story stuff which SS2 didn't but people who played SS2 tend to ignore this. whatever.
He is probably at his Microsoft job interview.
Muffdraul
Member
Because MS can write a check so big it sounds like brick when it hits your desk.
lol
SeanNoonan
Member
I agree though the problem wasn't so much that it wasn't original, more than the story just wasn't as interesting as the first game. Superior gameplay and level design for sure, though. And for the first month that people played, the multiplayer was awesome.
Dunno what it's like at Irrational, but it probably isn't a good idea to post in a thread like this if you work there.
Ugh. BioShock 2 was garbage narratively.
Neuromancer
Member
Haha
Yeah, the characters were written awfully. Whoever came up with the idea of Lamb was like someone who looked at Ryan and said "LETS MAKE A COPY OF THAT EXCEPT OPPOSITE"
Freedom = $1.05
Banned
But Minerva's Den is arguably the best piece of Bioshock content currently available. So there's that.
Sorry, I never played it. Maybe I should.
MS has been building teams from the ground up for a while now. Best time to go over there tbh.
Yeah, there's been a lot of news about them beefing up their internal talent for a while now, and considering outside of Halo 4, we've really yet to see anything come of it... it's safe to say that it's a move for the next generation.
People have been doing interesting stuff at Microsoft for a couple years now.
I remember reading somewhere that Microsoft had earmarked $300m for core games development.
It missed being in Rapture for the first time. It also didn't have any levels as good as Frolic or Arcadia.
Look, people ultimately like Bioshock because it was a NEW, UNIQUE EXPERIENCE, not because it was a good game, because it wasn't. In fact, its big, major point was one of the dumbest things I've seen said, because it basically says "Bioware's right! Choice doesn't matter in games!"
Bioshock 2 was wonderful because it functioned as a counterpoint. Not even getting into bits about how they go into a really beautiful examination of how people function, how they think, and more subtle explorations of morality, Bioshock 2 basically says "alright, Bioshock says this... but what if..."
So where Bioshock says that choice and consequence don't matter, and the experience is ultimately guided, Bioshock 2 says "you know what? That's not on you, it's on us. If you don't have any choice, it's because we fucked up, not you."
Bioshock 2 is a game that shows that games can be so much more than they were. In that way, it's more of a true successor to the Looking Glass ideal than Bioshock ever was. I think that the best thing that can happen to Ken Levine would be for him to realize that he needs to start designing his games like they occupy real spaces--which means that players are real people, which means that the the game and the environment should act to players in this space as if the whole thing is really happening.
The design limited Bioshock. Bioshock 2 was a lot more responsive. It's one of the reasons that simply walking away from someone you wanted to kill was so much more powerful than PRESS X TO SPARE.
That said, Bioshock 2 didn't have talking vending machines, which REALLY irked me.
Not really, no.
A good narrative creates a character who wants something, then takes the character through a journey to get there. It has people who are nuanced and textured--who do things, ultimately, because of the various wants in their life. The best narratives do all this and add some commentary on life, humanity, or something else.
Bioshock 2 does all of these things, and Bioshock... does some, but clumsily.
Bioshock's protagonist wants nothing. He sort of progresses through the game because people are telling him, with no real reason for doing anything. Subject Delta, in contrast, wants to reconnect with his Little Sister. Bam. Motive. Reason for caring about the story.
Bioshock's characters are mostly one-note. Andrew Ryan is little more than a guy who got fed up with the government so he decided to make his own world. Villainface is just a gangster who... um... gangster. There could have been interesting topics explored with the various doctors, whether what they were doing ethically was right or what have you, but nope. Sander Cohen was the most interesting person in the game, but even he was a challenge to understand. Bioshock had a lot of good ideas--the Saturnines, for instance--but it never really explored any of them.
Bioshock 2, on the other hand, plays with a lot of characters. The second-in-command of Sophia Lamb, Grace Holloway, does what she does because she can't have a daughter. Stanley Poole's a greedy newshound whose murder of Lamb's people drove him to kill to cover it up. Few people in the game are downright bad, but they're often not good either. They do what they do because that is who they are. There's a lot of texture in their characterizations that Bioshock simply can't connect to.
Bioshock 2 also has a better story structure.
I could write for hours on both games, but I'm busy, so apologies for the somewhat brief explanation.
I remember reading somewhere that Microsoft had earmarked $300m for core games development.
It missed being in Rapture for the first time. It also didn't have any levels as good as Frolic or Arcadia.
Look, people ultimately like Bioshock because it was a NEW, UNIQUE EXPERIENCE, not because it was a good game, because it wasn't. In fact, its big, major point was one of the dumbest things I've seen said, because it basically says "Bioware's right! Choice doesn't matter in games!"
Bioshock 2 was wonderful because it functioned as a counterpoint. Not even getting into bits about how they go into a really beautiful examination of how people function, how they think, and more subtle explorations of morality, Bioshock 2 basically says "alright, Bioshock says this... but what if..."
So where Bioshock says that choice and consequence don't matter, and the experience is ultimately guided, Bioshock 2 says "you know what? That's not on you, it's on us. If you don't have any choice, it's because we fucked up, not you."
Bioshock 2 is a game that shows that games can be so much more than they were. In that way, it's more of a true successor to the Looking Glass ideal than Bioshock ever was. I think that the best thing that can happen to Ken Levine would be for him to realize that he needs to start designing his games like they occupy real spaces--which means that players are real people, which means that the the game and the environment should act to players in this space as if the whole thing is really happening.
The design limited Bioshock. Bioshock 2 was a lot more responsive. It's one of the reasons that simply walking away from someone you wanted to kill was so much more powerful than PRESS X TO SPARE.
That said, Bioshock 2 didn't have talking vending machines, which REALLY irked me.
Not really, no.
A good narrative creates a character who wants something, then takes the character through a journey to get there. It has people who are nuanced and textured--who do things, ultimately, because of the various wants in their life. The best narratives do all this and add some commentary on life, humanity, or something else.
Bioshock 2 does all of these things, and Bioshock... does some, but clumsily.
Bioshock's protagonist wants nothing. He sort of progresses through the game because people are telling him, with no real reason for doing anything. Subject Delta, in contrast, wants to reconnect with his Little Sister. Bam. Motive. Reason for caring about the story.
Bioshock's characters are mostly one-note. Andrew Ryan is little more than a guy who got fed up with the government so he decided to make his own world. Villainface is just a gangster who... um... gangster. There could have been interesting topics explored with the various doctors, whether what they were doing ethically was right or what have you, but nope. Sander Cohen was the most interesting person in the game, but even he was a challenge to understand. Bioshock had a lot of good ideas--the Saturnines, for instance--but it never really explored any of them.
Bioshock 2, on the other hand, plays with a lot of characters. The second-in-command of Sophia Lamb, Grace Holloway, does what she does because she can't have a daughter. Stanley Poole's a greedy newshound whose murder of Lamb's people drove him to kill to cover it up. Few people in the game are downright bad, but they're often not good either. They do what they do because that is who they are. There's a lot of texture in their characterizations that Bioshock simply can't connect to.
Bioshock 2 also has a better story structure.
I could write for hours on both games, but I'm busy, so apologies for the somewhat brief explanation.
But the point of Bioshock 1 IS the lack of choice. The game specifically makes you do horrible things to progress on Fort Frolic level and on the last level where you become what you fight the whole game. For me the game was the epithome of life where people think that they have a choice but they really don't as they do what they are programmed to do with very few exceptions.. Like in Bioshock. The price of complete freedom is what Andrew Ryan did. You play as a slave the whole game, not a man. That was the point.
gollumsluvslave
Member
DocSeuss
Some excellent points there, echoes most of my own thoughts.
I think I took to Bioshock 2's story more, because it is a more subtle but ultimately more personal story than the more idealistic but thinner original.
Bioshock 2 has a lot more heart than the original from a narrative perspective.
Some excellent points there, echoes most of my own thoughts.
I think I took to Bioshock 2's story more, because it is a more subtle but ultimately more personal story than the more idealistic but thinner original.
Bioshock 2 has a lot more heart than the original from a narrative perspective.
HA HA HA HA HA. WELCOME TO THE CIRCUS OF VALUES!
Neuromancer
Member
I'm pretty sure that was Ken Levine.
Doug Heffernan
Member
I gotta say for the first time in a while I'm excited for future Xbox exclusives...
-Horizon -Halo 4 -Lionhead IP -2 Rare IPs
-Vancouver Studio -London Studio -Twisted Pixel
-Horizon -Halo 4 -Lionhead IP -2 Rare IPs
-Vancouver Studio -London Studio -Twisted Pixel
CambriaRising
Member
They need to get out in front of this and show something.
chertipros
Member
So much for microsoft "abandoning core gamers". I'm ready for Xbox 8 now microsoft.
Imagine if a video game made the POINT that games will make their players kill people.
It is a stupid point. Thus, the point is not worthwhile. A game that comes after, and makes a more valid claim, like "games can make us better," and backs it up through the gameplay, is a better game.
Bioshock's premise only worked because the game was designed to back up the premise. It dared to make a commentary on the medium, but in order for that commentary to seem valid, the game's design was ultimately limited. The point falls apart when accompanied by better game design.
Bioshock 2 said "that point is invalid, and here's why." While Bioshock made its point cleverly, the point was ultimately one not worth making. Whether or not a player has choices with consequences of any value is ultimately up to the designers. In Dishonored, for instance, I GOT CONSEQUENCES ALL UP IN THIS SHIT. And it's fucking amazing. The same is true for Obsidian games. This is why Bioshock 2 is also the better game.
Levine has missed the point of the immersive sim.
Jack Scofield
Member
Imagine if a video game made the POINT that games will make their players kill people.
It is a stupid point. Thus, the point is not worthwhile. A game that comes after, and makes a more valid claim, like "games can make us better," and backs it up through the gameplay, is a better game.
Bioshock's premise only worked because the game was designed to back up the premise. It dared to make a commentary on the medium, but in order for that commentary to seem valid, the game's design was ultimately limited. The point falls apart when accompanied by better game design.
Bioshock 2 said "that point is invalid, and here's why." While Bioshock made its point cleverly, the point was ultimately one not worth making. Whether or not a player has choices with consequences of any value is ultimately up to the designers. In Dishonored, for instance, I GOT CONSEQUENCES ALL UP IN THIS SHIT. And it's fucking amazing. The same is true for Obsidian games. This is why Bioshock 2 is also the better game.
Levine has missed the point of the immersive sim.
All video games are guided experiences, some a bit more lenient than others. It wasn't a fault of the original Bioshock, or a lack of vision. It was a clever commentary on all video games. Sure, Dishonored may allow for a bit more freedom than other games, but your choices are ultimately extremely limited.
It's one reason why I could never get into RPGs, especially Oblivion or Skyrim. Sure, I could ask these characters a few questions, but always predetermined ones. Why can't I ask this character where a certain location is, or where to buy a special item? I understand the logistics of it, but it totally takes me out of the game all the same.