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Looks like Bioshock demo is out on PSN EU

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Fallout-NL said:
I've downloaded and played the demo for a bit, and while it most certainly doesn't look bad or anything. It does have that grainy look most PS3 ports seem to have. It lacks a certain clarity, which the 360 version I played last year did have. Some framedrops here and there too, nothing dramatic. Just not as clean as the original.
Really? I saw basically the same thing that I played on my PC with max settings back then, "graininess" and all (Bioshock always did look kinda... old). The framerate did dip in a few places but certanly nothing that takes your attention away from the game.
 
Up until the medical area, you mean the surgery area? That's a pretty long demo. Also, they've been right to put the jump on triangle, in this game you're always activating stuff, and you almost never jump. I don't mind R2/L2 for shooting, but there definitely should be and alternate control scheme where you use R1/L1. Some people won't like this at all.
 

sykoex

Lost all credibility.
Finished the demo and really couldn't get into it. Too much shooting like any other standard fps, which I hate doing with analog sticks. Maybe if there was lock-on like Metroid Prime I could play it, otherwise I definitely wouldn't buy it.
 
Kind of OT
But based on the Demo so far should I get this on PC or PS3?
I played the demo from Steam and i had to bump things down to Low/Medium to be able to run and not have a horrible framerate. Any Mods or other factors i need to consider?
 
Downloading now from NYC... it's going surprisingly fast, started it about 10 minutes ago and it's already at 35%.

It took about 3 hours to download the 1 gig WipEout when it dropped. :lol
 

Speevy

Banned
sykoex said:
Finished the demo and really couldn't get into it. Too much shooting like any other standard fps, which I hate doing with analog sticks. Maybe if there was lock-on like Metroid Prime I could play it, otherwise I definitely wouldn't buy it.



Too much shooting? This must be different than what I played on the 360.
 
It depends on your PC, if your run it in low/medium, then you shouldn't have much shader activated and it will certainly look way better on PS3, but you should just see by yourself which version suits you better by testing the demos.
 

Nizz

Member
Revolutionary said:
Downloading now from NYC... it's going surprisingly fast, started it about 10 minutes ago and it's already at 35%.

It took about 3 hours to download the 1 gig WipEout when it dropped. :lol
So it's up in the East? Cool, I'm curious to see how this one feels compared to the 360 version....
 

Synless

Member
I can tell you guys right now that this port is not as good as the 360 one. The textures arean't as good, compare the section when you get your first plasmid and you see the little sister and big daddy. Look at big daddy, his textures are pixalated to all hell, also little sister clips in and out of the screen.
 

sykoex

Lost all credibility.
Speevy said:
Too much shooting? This must be different than what I played on the 360.
Well it was pretty much all "shoot something to move on to the next room". Hardly any puzzles, except for the hacking minigame which was awesome.
 
xKilltheMx said:
Kind of OT
But based on the Demo so far should I get this on PC or PS3?
I played the demo from Steam and i had to bump things down to Low/Medium to be able to run and not have a horrible framerate. Any Mods or other factors i need to consider?
The console version is basically the PC version set to high, so that would give you a way better experience. Unless you really don't want to play it with a gamepad of course.
sykoex said:
Well it was pretty much all "shoot something to move on to the next room". Hardly any puzzles, except for the hacking minigame which was awesome.
The demo is very linear compared to the rest of the game which has a lot more freedom and exploration. Also, once you start getting some of the more interesting plasmids and weapons you'll be able to use the environments to set traps and such, you'll also get access to a bunch of passive abilities so you can tune your skills to better suit your playstyle.

Though it is still a shooter at heart, and if you don't like that then... well you should probably look for entertainment someplace else.
 

madmook

Member
sykoex said:
Finished the demo and really couldn't get into it. Too much shooting like any other standard fps, which I hate doing with analog sticks. Maybe if there was lock-on like Metroid Prime I could play it, otherwise I definitely wouldn't buy it.
Bioshock is supposed to be a FPS, its never been touted as anything else.
 
fps fanatic said:
So it's up in the East? Cool, I'm curious to see how this one feels compared to the 360 version....
Nah, sorry I didn't specify - downloading from the EU store... from NYC. lmao
 
Speevy said:
Too much shooting? This must be different than what I played on the 360.
He more than likely doesn't understand the whole plasmid part of the game, if he approached the game as a shooter.

His loss.
 

Zeliard

Member
madmook said:
Bioshock is supposed to be a FPS, its never been touted as anything else.

It was touted as the spiritual successor to System Shock 2, which was just as much an RPG as an FPS. That is the source of most people's major disappointment with Bioshock.
 

madmook

Member
Zeliard said:
It was touted as the spiritual successor to System Shock 2, which was just as much an RPG as an FPS. That is the source of most people's major disappointment with Bioshock.
I don't remember ever hearing about RPG-elements.
 
You know, I normally don't like the idea of using L2/R2, but after having tried the demo, I think I'll be alright. Only problem I had was.. to get decent sound, I had to fucking crank the volume on my receiver to near maximum.
 

sykoex

Lost all credibility.
Zeliard said:
It was touted as the spiritual successor to System Shock 2, which was just as much an RPG as an FPS. That is the source of most people's major disappointment with Bioshock.
This.

I'm sure it's an awesome game if you like Halo.
 

EagleEyes

Member
Synless said:
I can tell you guys right now that this port is not as good as the 360 one. The textures arean't as good, compare the section when you get your first plasmid and you see the little sister and big daddy. Look at big daddy, his textures are pixalated to all hell, also little sister clips in and out of the screen.
I definitely agree with you. I just compared both of them and the clarity difference is what jumped out the most to me. It seems like another port thats running under 720p. Oh well, no double dipping for me.
 

Synless

Member
EagleEyes said:
I definitely agree with you. I just compared both of them and the clarity difference is what jumped out the most to me. It seems like another port thats running under 720p. Oh well, no double dipping for me.
It's not just a clarity difference, there is a texture difference as well. One look at big daddy and it's completely obvious.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
sykoex said:
Finished the demo and really couldn't get into it. Too much shooting like any other standard fps, which I hate doing with analog sticks. Maybe if there was lock-on like Metroid Prime I could play it, otherwise I definitely wouldn't buy it.

I bought the game day one on PC and felt the same. Infinite respawns of enemies as you're exploring really killed the game for me. The combat in this game is downright horrible (thanks to great imbalance of plasmids and the fact that guns suck outside of a few niche situations). Half-Life 2's gunplay isn't much better, but at least it never restricts you ammo-wise, so you're not fighting to conserve ammunition for subpar weapons. The atmosphere was good, but subpar to STALKER. My favorite part of the game was the voice tapes.

Bioshock would have been a far better game with about 20% of the combat/shooting.

All-in-all, I'd say Bioshock is the most overrated game of 2007.

edit: nevermind...maybe I'll leave that award to Metroid Prime, which suffered from the same damn bloated game length.
 

65536

Banned
  • Exact same demo as the 360.
  • Framerate sucks—slows down a lot. Particularly bad considering the 360 version was pretty much locked to 30fps most of the time from what I remember.
  • No option to disable v-sync.
  • FOV option is there, defaults to the restricted view.
  • Artefacts around the edges in cutscenes—often bright white borders. (will only affect displays without overscan)
  • Can only select easy/medium difficulties in the demo. (could also play hard on 360)
  • Looks pretty much the same as I remember, possibly more aliasing but that could be changes in my setup. (didn't really go looking for texture differences etc., just ran through the demo quickly)
  • DX9 Class water effects, just like the 360. (white ripples rather than shader effects)
  • PS3's brighter output makes shadow detail easier to see, removes some of the "pop" of the 360 version—particularly the start. While I do miss the more vibrant look of the 360 game, I seem to remember some areas feeling too dark and that wasn't an issue here.
  • Loading seems quicker than I remember, but there are now multiple slides you can view when it's loading which would indicate otherwise.
 

Lince

Banned
well, after playing through the demo twice I could almost hear my PS3 saying "for crying out loud do you really want me to go through the pain of running another Unreal Engine port again?"

- way worse framerate, hiccups and slowdown? CHECK
- Lower-res textures? CHECK
- Longer loadings (running from the HDD)? CHECK

well, the game is awesome and one year ago I bought both the Limited Edition PC version and the tin-case X360 version, I was almost going to triple-dip but sorry I can't aim well in FPS when the frame rate goes this crazy. This game deserved a better port, really.
 

lupinko

Member
EagleEyes said:
I definitely agree with you. I just compared both of them and the clarity difference is what jumped out the most to me. It seems like another port thats running under 720p. Oh well, no double dipping for me.

Ouch, oh well back to the PC version.
 
D

Deleted member 13876

Unconfirmed Member
andycapps said:
Belgium according to his profile. Bandwidth caps suck.

Can't wait to check this out on the NA store tonight.

Yah, our bandwidth cap is 20-25 gb, unless you get a really expensive service plan, which gets you 40 max unless they changed that. Only a few months ago the cap was set at 12 gb, which royally sucked as I usually reached that before the month was half way over and had to buy shitty 5 GB volume packs.
 

okrim

Banned
I have just play. Some textures are worse and framerate too (but not so terrible) it's a porting and I see, no bad but just a simple porting and no more.
 

itxaka

Defeatist
65536 said:
  • Can only select easy/medium difficulties in the demo. (could also play hard on 360)
    .


IIRC the hard option on 360 was only available if you selected it on the dashboard "General game settings" and if not selected the game only showed both difficulties.

I definitely agree with you. I just compared both of them and the clarity difference is what jumped out the most to me. It seems like another port thats running under 720p. Oh well, no double dipping for me.


I hope Blimblim's gang do a sido by side comparision.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
sykoex said:
This.

I'm sure it's an awesome game if you like Halo.
I love Halo, but System Shock 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. Despite that, I still had a blast with Bioshock. No, it wasn't as memorable as Shock 2, but it had its own unique flavor that I still appreciated. Even still, there are plenty of areas where Bioshock was quite superior to Shock 2 (mostly in terms of how everything was presented).

Sounds like the PS3 port is pretty crap, though. I always thought it looked a bit off in various screenshots. I suppose I'll confirm this for myself later on. I was never planning on buying it again, of course, but I was hoping the PS3 port would be decent.
 

Nizz

Member
65536 said:
  • Exact same demo as the 360.
  • Framerate sucks—slows down a lot. Particularly bad considering the 360 version was pretty much locked to 30fps most of the time from what I remember.

  • That's disappointing, when you think of all the teams credited for this version. :( I'll try the demo later on, but there's so many issues (to me) about this version, it's really turning me off. No remapping triggers, slowdown, textures not as sharp.... And this comes out the same time as Far Cry 2? Bioshock was great on 360. The story and atmosphere were/are great. But it blows that this version seems to have problems :(
 

okrim

Banned
dark10x said:
I love Halo, but System Shock 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. Despite that, I still had a blast with Bioshock. No, it wasn't as memorable as Shock 2, but it had its own unique flavor that I still appreciated. Even still, there are plenty of areas where Bioshock was quite superior to Shock 2 (mostly in terms of how everything was presented).

Sounds like the PS3 port is pretty crap, though. I always thought it looked a bit off in various screenshots. I suppose I'll confirm this for myself later on. I was never planning on buying it again, of course, but I was hoping the PS3 port would be decent.
decent but not better. Slightly worse of 360 but not so more.
 
dark10x said:
I love Halo, but System Shock 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. Despite that, I still had a blast with Bioshock. No, it wasn't as memorable as Shock 2, but it had its own unique flavor that I still appreciated. Even still, there are plenty of areas where Bioshock was quite superior to Shock 2 (mostly in terms of how everything was presented).

Sounds like the PS3 port is pretty crap, though. I always thought it looked a bit off in various screenshots. I suppose I'll confirm this for myself later on. I was never planning on buying it again, of course, but I was hoping the PS3 port would be decent.

Concured with the System Shock2 love

...and yeah, it's a shame the PS3 port doesn't sound so hot right now...I actually have Bioshock on PC and can play it DX10 at max settings/60fps+ ....but believe or not, I don't like playing it with a mouse and keyboard setup ...don't wanna play through it with the 360 controller again either

Oh well ....Still want those trophies though so we'll see after I check out the demo for myself
 

Dyno

Member
Zeliard said:
It was touted as the spiritual successor to System Shock 2, which was just as much an RPG as an FPS. That is the source of most people's major disappointment with Bioshock.

Ken Levine himself described Bioshock as a 'genetically enhanced shooter' on multiple occasions. I also recall this 'spiritual successor' but what exactly does that mean? Same genre? Same game mechanics? It's too vague a term to apply any meaning to.

I don't recall a 'Bioshock was supposed to be an RPG' discussion here. I also don't recall very much - if any - disappointment.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
Dyno said:
I don't recall a 'Bioshock was supposed to be an RPG' discussion here. I also don't recall very much - if any - disappointment.

Eh? Some of us are dissapointed. Bioshock does neither the RPG or shooter elements properly.
 

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
EagleEyes said:
I definitely agree with you. I just compared both of them and the clarity difference is what jumped out the most to me. It seems like another port thats running under 720p
I don't think that's the case, but they do use some kind of edge blur filter or something to hide aliasing, from the screenshots I've seen.

jett said:
Damn it's taking a while to install this bitch...
Always make sure to pause all the ongoing downloads before installing something this big. It will install approx. 10x faster. I don't know why PS3 doesn't do this automatically.
 
Did the water in the plane crash scene get the visual downgrade too? That part always gets me to stop and stare at it for awhile.
 

Dyno

Member
TheExodu5 said:
Eh? Some of us are dissapointed. Bioshock does neither the RPG or shooter elements properly.

Understood, but you are in a slim minority. The game mostly beloved by all. The sales, critic's ratings, and awards won speak to this fact.
 
Oni Jazar said:
Damn that sucks that the port was so bad, but at least now I don't have to download 2Gb for a demo.

Did you play it on the PC or the 360?

If not I'd say give it a shot. The writing, voice acting, music, sound effects and concept are all world class.

And the visuals can't be that much of a downgrade.
 

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
Oni Jazar said:
Damn that sucks that the port was so bad, but at least now I don't have to download 2Gb for a demo.
I really don't think, other than the edge blur effect (and I guess a bit worse framerate) that there are any differences / downgrades in visuals. At least from looking at various screenshots and videos. I don't know how you got the impression that the port is so bad, but if you didn't play the game before, you absolutely should give it a try.
 

Oni Jazar

Member
gregor7777 said:
Did you play it on the PC or the 360?

Yes I have the 360 version. I was just hoping for a good reason to replay it. Looks like this will not be the reason.

Marc I got the impression that the game was bad from Lince. Once he mentioned "Unreal engine PS3 port" I got bad flashbacks.
 

Pallaris

Member
Hmm, been waiting a long time to experience this and I have to say the demo (which is presumably from the final build?) didn't really do it for me. Mainly for technical reasons though.. framerate definitely not good. Slow panning anything shows up consistent stuttering and my display has intermittent white flashing lines around the outside (in 1080p...wtf is this).
 

Nizz

Member
I just don't get it. Isn't UE3 a multiplatform engine? Why are there still problems with this engine on PS3? You would think that after Epic themselves optimized the engine for PS3 with UT3, problems with the engine should be null and void. UT3 ran well, as well as Stranglehold. I've never tried the game on PS3, but I believe Army of Two runs on UE3 and I heard that ran well also. So wtf?
 

65536

Banned
itxaka said:
IIRC the hard option on 360 was only available if you selected it on the dashboard "General game settings" and if not selected the game only showed both difficulties.
Yes, I have my 360 set to default games to the hardest mode, which let me select it. I don't think you can do that with the PS3 so you only get access to easy/medium.

fps fanatic said:
I just don't get it. Isn't UE3 a multiplatform engine? Why are there still problems with this engine on PS3? You would think that after Epic themselves optimized the engine for PS3 with UT3, problems with the engine should be null and void. UT3 ran well, as well as Stranglehold. I've never tried the game on PS3, but I believe Army of Two runs on UE3 and I heard that ran well also. So wtf?
Bioshock is UE2.5 isn't it?

gregor7777 said:
Did the water in the plane crash scene get the visual downgrade too? That part always gets me to stop and stare at it for awhile.
I'd say it lost its impact on my setup, as the PS3 version is brighter.
 

Evlar

Banned
fps fanatic said:
I just don't get it. Isn't UE3 a multiplatform engine? Why are there still problems with this engine on PS3? You would think that after Epic themselves optimized the engine for PS3 with UT3, problems with the engine should be null and void. UT3 ran well, as well as Stranglehold. I've never tried the game on PS3, but I believe Army of Two runs on UE3 and I heard that ran well also. So wtf?
Since Bioshock uses a modified/customized version of UT3 they may have chosen not to utilize the engine as it has been optimized by Epic, and ported the game from an earlier build more compatible with Bioshock 360/PC.

Just a guess, I don't work with these things professionally.

EDIT: ^^ OR it isn't running UE3. :lol
 
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