f13.net

Discuss Bioshock here, spoilers from anything outside of the demo will get you a ban. How long? Who knows.

Serious question - why would you want to add Bioshock to Steam? As it's an offline game the only thing I can imagine Steam doing it not letting you play if your haven't changed to offline mode and your internets go down. 

To let every hour count for the community? I'm a data whore.

Also, I'll never have to put the CD in the tray.

que?



point.

That's what Megagames is for.

I do that sometimes, for some games, but I don't like fucking with my .exe files for games I play online. As much of a pain in the ass the discs can be, it feels safer than risking my key being banned.

Not that Bioshock is online...

But it activates online doesn't it?

Also, anyone have any heads up on where to buy this 360/PC, I hear Circuit City has -$10 off.

Oh yeah, definitely.  For games like Battlefield 2 I just accept the fact that I'll need the disc to play.  For other games, I create a folder inside the game install directory called "Original EXE", and I just keep the .exe I replaced in there in case I need to patch in the future.

I'm glad I'm not the only one.  I seriously hate putting cd's into drives.  I'm that lazy.  My friends laugh, but I haven't played most of the games I've bought for that reason.  Yet, games that just load up off my hard drive, including the ones I rent from the internet, get played all the time.

Case in point: MMO's and XBL.

This forum lists why.... there is a workaround for the 2nd processor, but the video card hoses me (see second thread). This sucks.
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=69958
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113501

Loved the demo, but I realized I am going to have to bite the bullet and hope my PC can run it reasonably. I tried, I really tried to play with thumb aiming, but it just sucks unholy ass.

Ya, this is why I'm pissed about the demo releasing today.  I was going to go to Circuit city and pick it up tomorrow for 360, but I'd much rather have it for PC.

Also, the local Gamespot appears to now stock 4.5 PC titles concerning Bass fishing, and nothing else. It's just easier to buy PC games via Steam or Amazon. Fuck you physical box retailers.

edited in an attempt to provide some sort of context to my ramblings...

ThePirateBay has the PC Demo up on the internets.

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3778797/BioShock_PC_Demo

I'm pretty sure avoiding fileplanet is Not Piracy.

That is just weird.

I have to go to bed early to get up early for work tomorrow, so no 'staying up till midnight to play it on Steam' for me.

I will do my jaunty trip over to Best Buy to pick up the boxed copy.

I'm still torn between PC or 360 - my PC is pretty beastly and could run it no problem, but I also want a reason to use this new HDTV I got. My roommates have used it more then I have, because I'm an MMOTard and spend all my time in the room that doesn't have the HDTV.

Going to sleep at 4 to start playing at 12:01.

Plug your computer into your HDTV.

F.T.W.

Bah, Hat beat me to it.

Sounds like he doesn't have free reign over the TV.  That might complicate things.   :roll:

Anyone know if EBgames is doing a midnight release?

It does complicate things.  I had to buy another TV.  If Verizon would hurry up and run me a fiber line, I'd be great w/ multiroom DVR.

I'm getting it shipped, but this is Gamestop's last chance. If they don't deliver on that 'street date shipping' promise they adverted, they are dead to me and it's amazon from now on. But I did make one concession to haste in trying that shipping thing, I'm pretty excited to get my hands on the game.

Can someone confirm that the torrent isn't infected with computer AIDS?

After playing through the demo 3 more times. I have decided on Xbox. The 60 inch TV + Surround sound + achievements > Keyboard + Mouse.

Honestly, who gives a shit about achievements?

<-------


Who ever designed them should get a huge raise from MS. Addicting little fuckers.

I want to hate achievements, but there is a little something they tickle deep down inside when I get one.  I think it is my inner cocaine seeking rat jumping for joy.

That said, I'm getting the PC version; I'm a sucker for games sold through Steam.

I loves me some achievements, and the game was STUNNING on my TV, but the frustration of moving and aiming with the sticks on the controller exceeded it. It will run like crap on my PC, but at least I will be able to survive longer/react better.

I do the exact same thing. Right down to the folder name.


Checked the pricing on Steam - as it turns out, it's basically a 40%/au$40 saving by buying from Steam. As much as I like boxed product, this likely makes enough of a difference.

Anything exciting in the boxed version I should know about?

With the possibility of a significant PC upgrade for me being years away, I figure I need to start getting good with thumbsticks.  Might as well be a game I have no prayer at running anywhere near as pretty as it will be on my TV.

I like achievements also.  They're fun in a completely optional carrot/stick way. Achievements added significantly to the replay value of Dead Rising for me.

Love that they have it on Steam though.  Just wish that my computer didn't become irrelevant so goddamn fast.

Once again I sing the praises Of steam. New puter? No problemo. Log in and all my games are available for download. Purchase Bioshock, tell the system to preload and it preloads. All the games I have bought are available but not loading until I tell them to. It just don't get no better.  :heart:

Seriously though, the point behind my incoherent ramble is that it is simply not worth my time to go to a Gamespot any more. They literally have one little rack of PC titles surrounded by console hardware displays. When I asked the manager, his stated that that is Gamespot's policy for stand alone stores (no PC titles) and that they stock more PC titles in Mall stores (What? 15 copies of Bass Hunter Deluxe instead of 4?).

Translation: fuck off and drive to Belleview.

Response: Yay Amazon if I want the physical DVD. Steam or Driect2Drive if I want to avoid swapingDiskSyndrome.

*shrug*

On topic: 60" TV or PC modding goodness..... quite the dilemma.

1.84 GB for the (legit) pc demo? 

This has better rock my world  :-P

Anyone have any good demo links? I think I need to run it on my PC before I decide.

you can get it on Steam, it's the only place I've actually been able to download it (and now that it is downloaded IT FAILS TO LAUNCH)

Oddly, the countdown clock reads 19 hours to go. . .

Penny Arcade has links to 3-4 different sites.  I'm using Worthdownloading.com.  I've apparently got 10-12 hours left, but I don't have time to try it out tonight anyway.

Heh, Gamespot game it a 9.0/10.0, so the people there are shitting their pants over it like the 8.8 review for the mediocre Twilight Princess.

since I can't get the demo to run I'm going to stay up until 12 so I can at least experience something entertaining.

T2k Forums  seem to indicate this game doesn't go live until 3PM eastern tomorrow.

If that is true, and everything seems to indicate that it is, that's funny.

Saw it advertised in most recent jbhifi catalogue for $A74...but not on shelves today.

Gamespot has been the most conservative score I've seen - the reviewer seemed disappointed that the combat wasn't harder, like in other FPSs, with a higher death penalty.

The collector's edition gets a soundtrack CD and a Big Daddy miniature (which reportly breaks easily... during shipping) and maybe some other stuff. Normal box edition doesn't get any extras.

Plus you won't have to wait until Friday.

Ta. Though that still makes it over $10 more than Steam works out to be. And if there's nada special in the regular box, I'll likely Steam it. In a week or two. If this forum is still spooging about it.

with the "soundtrack" being 3 remixes it is increasingly hard for me to justify CE...and I've already preloaded on Steam.

also if anyone comes up against the game refusing to run at all try the "-dx9" command line switch :cry2: it took me way too long to find that.

ohohohmananannana

this was one of the best days ever. Capped off by the face I woke up at like EXACTLY MIDNIGHT.

Oh man. fucking rock.

i feel like a golden god today

ok bioshock time

ok

my key won't work

am i in hell?

i can't find the shift key

i am not good with computer

TWELVE MORE HOURS

TWELVE HOURS


IS THIS
A
FUCKING
JOKE?

I'M NOT LAUGHING

It's like watching someone paint a Dali with their own blood. This is so awesome.

You poor bastard. I'm going to wait until it's $12 in the bargain bin.

6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est6am est

seems i have to wait til then

Not 3pm EST?

not according to 2k games tech support

that's ok, a certain somethingsomethingsomething is up

im going to go get some motherfucking food

the food of hate

the food of ages

food that makes your stomach scream wtf

this is how i feel

(http://www.lilithgallery.com/arthistory/romanticism/franciscogoya-Saturn-Eating-Cronus.jpg)

i never thought i'd feel like my favorite painting of all time

oddly i feel like my second favorite painting too

(http://www.etsav.upc.es/assignatures/tih03/tard06/1019/goya_may3rd.jpg)

So uh. It works. :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Mine doesn't, I'm assuming you got some special love the rest of us won't recieve. Plus I think I was exposed to the three words that could give the whole thing away last night.  :-(


I'm going on the assumption that they were just saying  stuff to fuck with people. But my mind won't let it go.

Snape kills Dumbledore?

Anyway, the regular PC edition activated just fine at exactly 6:00EST. We're talking on the fucking nose.

Just took my first real break.

Game is a fucking masterpiece.

Awesome to hear, what's your PC specs if you don't mind me asking?

E6600, 8600GTS, 2GB 1066 RAM.

1680x1050 with everything running at max, with 1 particular thing turned off - All World Reflection or whatever they call it. That type of shit is Never Worth The Performance Cut. Ever.

Unless the game was called Hall of Mirrors.

I'm not posting them here, for obvious reasons.  I may post them at the Spoiler board, but I'm trying to rid my mind of the comments.

However,  I wouldn't go near the t2k boards, or any place that is known for screwing  with stuff and ruining it for everyone.

As long as it doesn't involve Shodan and a time machine, I'll be happy.
.
.
.

Actually, that'd be pretty cool too.

I'd be interested to hear on how it runs on P4s and AMD64s using DDR(1) ram.

60" tv + surround sound + keyb/m > achievements + thumbsticks

 :hello_kitty:

On Gamestop. We have a mall store, so it's got a decent pc section. I'll cruise by to check the bargain bin if I'm in the area. It's a better selection that walmart, but worse than Alliteration Electronics. But that's what the internet is for, I don't buy pc games at B&M unless it's a bargain bin title. Waste of my time to drive and buy something.

On the truck for delivery, I'll be installing tonight right after work rather than driving to the mall. Winnar!

GOD DAMMIT I STILL DONT KNOW WHICH vERSION TO GET

ok i'll get pc

Delivery day is fun. I get to pop into the front desk every ten minutes and ask if the UPS guy is here yet.

Not that I can play it any sooner, it's just tradition.

And kudos to gamestop for getting them out on the street date for once.

So I strolled up to EBStop today at about 9:55 EST (They open at ten) and there was a crowd of people gathered around the entrance.

Guy asks me, "Bioshock?"
I answer, "Yep."
He responds, "PC or 360?"
I reply, "PC."
He states angrily, "PC people are assholes, they posted spoilers last night and they ruined the game for me."
I ask him, "Why would you knowingly look at spoilers -- nobody forced you to look at them."
He looks a little confused and replies, "Well, it is hard to miss them when they are posted in a thread title. Fucking PC people."
I laugh a little and say, "It's not really feasible that PC gamers posted spoilers considering they were locked out of the game until this morning."
His anger level rises a bit, but just then the door opens and we all go in. The employee behind the counter says hello and whatnot and everyone gets in line. The guy who was previously talking to me is first and begins trailing on about how PC Bioshock will suck but is interrupted by the cashier.
"360 or PC?"
He proudly boasts, "360!"
She asks him, "Do you have a preorder?"
He replies, "Preorder? Who preorders games?"
She replies, "Well, hopefully you if you wanted to get one for the 360. We don't have any spare copies for walk-ins."
He starts to mumble something, but I interrupt him and ask her if there are any copies for PC. "Smart man," she tells me. "We have plenty in stock."

I don't know if I have ever smirked at someone before, but immediately when he turned to leave the store, he looked me in the face and there was most certainly a smirk on it.

I surprised my girlfriend with the title. It was sitting on her PC when she woke up this morning. :D

Thank you Bioshock. I'm definitely getting some tonight.

Nothing like some mutant lovin I guess...

I'd also like to add talking to Schild at midnight when he is jonesing and unable to get his fix..was great.

Not if you're asleep by the time she finishes up playing for the night.

Noob.

Please, sir. Some of us are still in our early twenties and driven by the almighty penis. It isn't my fault that your wife sapped you of your will for sex. :)

And five hours until the steam version unlocks?

Mine won't be delivered until this afternoon.  PC, since we don't have a 360 yet.  I've canceled several game orders because they're making the same games for the 360, though.

Trust me, young man, you'll eventually learn to accept IOU's.  Even if they have to be redeemed with a shovel.

Started the Steam download before I left for work. I am praying I can get decent FPS on my aging machine. Everything is above min spec except the processor, which is 2.2 instead of 2.4 ghz. Watched my buddy play through the demo on my 360 last night...he was blown away.

Wait, I didn't come over last night....

UPS guy brought mine in while I was eating lunch. Good deal. One of the games I built the new PC for, should run nicely at 720p.

Oh. hey. I get to make fun of Sky's tv. AWESOME.

720p doesn't do it justice. Sucka.

Ok, I downloaded the demo on the 360 last night. Just picked up the PC version at lunch. Only $49.00, I was amazed.

Here's hoping it lives up to the hype.

Children sap you of your will for sex, not wives.  Wives just stop giving out sex; there's a difference.  Those morning wake up blow jobs?  Those are gone, as are any other moments of spontaneity in your sex life.

But the good news is that you'll die eventually.

So my graphics card gave a big ole' NO to that demo.  And my system is top of the line!  ... or maybe that was four years ago.  Sigh. 

What's your system?

You will find some wives that will give the early morning  BJ after kids. However,  I have determined that most of those women are not simply mentally  imbalanced, but actually batshit insane. It's a choice you have to make, and most of us chose safe and boring. That and the alternative of messy divorce leading to hooking up with someone who'd make you regret thinking with your dick in the first place.

I'll second the children sapping the will for sex. First it's because you're too damn tired, later it's that fear of being walked in upon.  You and the missus swinging from the chandelier only to see little Timmy  at the door is enough nightmare fuel for all concerned to last through years of psychotherapy.

This day is advancing at a crawl, I want to go home  and play.
 
 There's one thing about Vista, the scoring breakdowns make it real easy to see if something  will or won't run on your computer. I'm assuming if I can run LORTO at very high quality with no Slowdown, I should be ok for Bioshock.

Lock the door?

Hell, we can't even get it on with the dog in the room.  His eyes burn holes in my soul.

Re: Vista, that's pretty awesome about the scores, has that always been around, and how does it work?

I want to go home and not come in tomorrow.  But I have so little leave time now :(  Also, I'm dreading walking into Circuit City at 8pm tonight, only to find that they are sold out of Bioshock.

These last 3 hours of work seem like a fucking eternity.


You sir, are a pussy.

Lock the door?     Then you get to hear  "Daddy, what are you doing to Mommy?" through the door, which also ruins the mood for some reason.

Edit:  I 2nd that the day is dragging, wife bought me the 360 version of the game!

Dell Inspiron 9100 (fat gaming laptop)

From the System properties info:
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.80Ghz
2.79 GHz, 1.00 GB RAM

Graphics card is ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 - have had trouble getting recent drivers or ever non-official drivers like Omega that work.

I have the PC version of the game in my possession. It is now a matter of waiting out these last two hours.

BANG BANG.

This is the exact same laptop I have but with 2 gigs of RAM. I wonder if I could run it on my laptop. (Mine's the 8600 though).

I dated someone that liked to keep the dogs in the room during relations.  It wasn't so much the eyes, as the fact the he realization  that she :really: liked her pets that ended that relationship.

Vista does a performance check on your system whenever you install  or run the computer for the first time. It keeps a numerical score  for  CPU, Memory, Video and Hard disk  performance. Games under the Games for windows banner come with a number for minimum performance and recommended. The score for your system is the lowest rating of any of your components.

I have the PC version in my bag - partially because they were sold out of 360 copies and partially because too many people watch my tv to let me get enough 360 gaming done.

Oh and I got a free baseball hat with my copy. It says "I PWN". I kid not.

Lulz. Picture of the hat is necessary.

I'll take one later if I remember, got the same hat from Future Shop. I lol'd.

What's with the crazy cat ladies?  It must be encoded into the female genetic code, because I can't count the number of women who'll drone on and on about their fucking cats.  Even women in their twenties.  It's disconcerting, and tells me to stay far, far away.

So the question is, do old crazy cat women have the cats because they're alone, or are they alone because of the goddamn cats?

Thirded. Mine came in at 1pm, so it's been a four hour wait. Over now! :)

I been playing it on pc on high graphical settings.

Shit, y'all it's the next robot jesus

i mean shit

It came a couple of hours ago and I played for a bit.  I think it might be a little too creepy for me to play while the house is empty so I stopped for now.  I have manly hands.  On an up note, my specs are a bit below the required and well below the recommended, but it seems to run like a dream even on high settings.  :-)

at 640x480?

320x240?

I'm running it pretty well on 1280 x 1024.

I only have a P4 2.8 ghz
2 gig ram and a Nvidia 6800gt.
On Windows XP.

Awesome game so far, although I only got to play for an hour.

Good to hear. I was a little worried seeing that my 7900 is the exact "recommended" spec.

The PC demo ran great on my system at 1900x1200 at all settings on high.

PC Demo ran like dogshit on my system at almost any setting for some reason.

AMD 4400+ X2
2GB of RAM (DDR1)
GeForce 7900GT.

Tried the beta drivers, no real improvement. 1680x1050, largely unplayable at max settings, barely playable at medium.

Just a note.  AVG hates the install program on the DVD.   Had to kill Resident Scanner before it'd install.

To report in. Downloaded over night and during work day via steam. Come home from work. It has downloaded. A new version of steam is available. Would I like to upgrade? Sure. After upgrading bioshock starts deincripting. OK, couple minutes. It gets done. I go to my games. Select Bioshock and it starts downloading? Started at 80%. Been 2 hours and it is at 92%. I am not an unhappy camper at this point but it is kinda unexpected. I will report again when I can launch the game. Just to let all know who might consider steam as a purchase option.

Launched. Wow just Wow. I am 2 seconds into the game and I am allready shrunk up to my knees. As in scared shitless. Great art, great atomsphere. This is a rich dish, to be savored. Was about a 3 hour down load. Let me be clear. I bought on steam last night. i selected preload. After 3 hours I was around 50%. Slept, went to work. Ill guess 6 to 8 hours would have downloaded the game. At any rate 18 or so hours later when I get home steam thinks its done. New version of steam and the game unencrypt. I go to my games, double click Bioshock and it starts downloading. HUH? 3 hours later and I have the game. I really hope the guys that made it do well. It just reeks quality.

Every Fry's near me sold out in the morning. This is looking grim.

Try Wal-mart.  I went to EB, Best Buy, and Circuit City and they were all sold out.  Hopped over to Wal-mart and they had like 20 copies on the shelf still.

I want to act smug about ordering through Amazon, avoiding the hunt and having it come right to my door, but it isn't because I'm wise.  It's because I'm inherently very lazy, and any service that can be delivered directly to me is the method I'll use.

The reason doesn't matter.  I'll act smug with you as long as I don't have to, like, you know, move.

Woot! Success! I literally got the last copy at one of my local Best Buys. And they had Rune Factory as a bonus.

Denied!  Well, that is to say i got a copy, loaded fine, activate fine, plane crash scene, swim in and take the bathysphere, but i appear to be one of the people who cannot make it past the second loading screen when the bathysphere docks in the city.  It either locks up the whole system, or blackscreens.  Tried every setting and got the latest beta drivers.  No luck.

Checked the forums, a LOT of people seem to be having the same problem.

le sigh.

Well, the opening 3 minutes looked nice...

I can't stop playing this fucking game.  I need to eat.  GAME IS GOOD.

I'm going to try pacing myself.. it's just.. hard.

I hate you all. I got the download and then the update done. Got through the opening scene in the airplane. Crash. Rebooted and tried again. This time I got to the bathysphere. Crash. Updated my drivers. Got the the Loading screen after the swim through the city. Crash (Xfire Exception this time!). Rebooted. Killed Xfire. Launched again. Got to loading screen. Crash. Tried 3 more times. Crash. Crash. Crash.



Fuck.

Did you reboot between crashes?

Yea, you were annoying me with your MSN spam.

WayAbvPar - your hate is nothing to someone who has to wait until Friday because of the later European launch AND of someone who pre-ordered the CE, not ever considering that this game might be available for full download. Now I've got to spend my time dodging spoilers and fanbois who have already finished it.

we could pretend it's a text adventure easily available for download so you don't miss out!

Well, I live in Europe, but I already have the Steam version activated and running on my machine. :P

Steam + US proxy = profit!

I haven't actually PLAYED it yet, though, since even after decrypting the game files there was even more stuff to DL (apparently preloading only counts for 80% of the game)... so it's sitting at home downloading while I'm stuck at work, sigh.


-- Z.

I've just stumbled out of twelve hours of gametime and holy shit, they managed to top SS2.  The only edge that the System Shock duo have are Shodan and the Many; I'm dubious about whether Bioshock can top such supremely perfect antagonists.  But for everything else, Irrational took everything I enjoyed about System Shock and polished it to a mirror shine; the game is magnificent.  I reeeeeeally hope that Irrational takes the giant pile of money that they're going to make off of this game and uses it to remake the System Shocks with this engine.  Bioshock's going to get so many fans that all the poor suckers who've never played System Shock will surely buy it if it gets remade.

As far as non-spoiler information goes, I have two pieces of advice: One, Bioshock is blessedly free of most signs of consolitis, but it has console hand-holding turned on by default with a magical arrow that points to mission objectives and sparkly glowies around items.  Those things can be turned off in the game options, and anyone wanting a more immersive atmosphere will likely be happier if they do so.  And two, autofire weapons have a fucking ton of recoil; don't hold down the trigger or you'll be shooting the ceiling.  Rapid clicks will get you a high rate of fire without the crazy recoil.

Why would they bother remaking System Shock/2? They're much more likely to follow on from Bioshock with Bioshock 2 etc with a new/following-on story. etc...

EA owns the rights to the System Shock name and Irrational was bought by Take-Two so if there is to be a SS 3 (and there are rumors that EA is at least thinking about it) it's not going to be done by Ken Levine and Co.

So has anyone managed to compare the 360 to PC versions?  I've just finished the PC demo, and it ran ok on my rig, but I could notice slowdowns when things got hairy with lots of bad guys (E6400, 2Gig Ram, 6800GS, Medium Graphics) - I've been saying for a while when I need to spend cash to upgrade my PC for a game is when I buy a 360 and get a better game for the money, with the advantage of Feroza, Dead Rising etc.  Just trying to work out if this point is here yet.

Managed to snag the last 360 copy at Circuit City last night. I haven't even finshed the part w/ the demo.

My reason for getting on the 360: The demo wouldn't even run on my PC, and I can't be bothered to upgrade the drivers.  Also, surround sound.

It ran really well on my PC. I can play it at full settings on my 7900 at 1680x1050, though I'd probably get a higher framerate if I dropped the settings a bit. So far, I am very impressed. I am curious as to whether I will ever run in to a denizen of the city that doesn't want to eat my spleen.

The only thing I think need to upgrade there is your vid card. an E6400 should handle it fine, but a 6800gs is two card families behind.

Ok, having played a few hours last night. Total NEG. Looks stunning, ran with everything cranked, 8xQ FSAA and 16x AF locked at 60Hz, I'd be surprised if it ever dipped below 60fps, it ran so smooth I was amazed. Stunning effects, especially getting hit with gunfire, that really enhance gameplay.

Great game. Great. All the atmosphere of SS and Thief rolled up into one. Style, atmosphere, and good  game mechanics. The bar has been raised, I hope Irrational sells a bajillion copies (so they can make another Freedom Force game :P).

I couldn't find where to change the AA settings in game, did you configure your video card to force it or am I missing an advanced options page somewhere?

Because of AWESOME, is why.  But Trippy speaks correctly about the rights to the game being tangled in EA's web, sadly.

Anyhow, my computer is much like Schild's, Intel E6600, 2 gigs of RAM, but I'm using an 8800GTS as a video card.  It looks and plays great; this game single-handedly justifies the money I put into building a gaming PC.

Played for about four hours last night. had six or seven complete "Holy shit" moments. at least a dozen "RUN RUN RUN!" 

Can we use the help thread to put our thoughts  as we're in the middle of the game?  I"ll even post tiny and spoiler black if it will help :)

I'm thinking this game isn't AA, that and the widescreen issue seem to be biggest gripes from the people that will whine about any damn thing.

This is the number one reason I got it on 360. And in fact, get all multiplatform games on a console now. Add in surround sound and a 56" hidef TV and my computer is back to *shudders* productivity applications.

If I never have to spend 6 hours making some damn game work ever again I'll be happy.

BTW, this game rocks. It rocks so hard it tore me away from Persona 3 and I'm on the summer vacation part of that game. I literally had to force myself to stop playing and go to bed so I could come to work this morning. I honestly thought about calling in sick so I could sit in my sweats and play it all day. I only ate dinner last night because my girlfriend cooked it for me and put it on a TV tray next to me as I played.

I just wish I could use a kb/m on my 360.

My aim/movement is pretty crappy with the thumbsticks.  Movement more than aim though.  Haven't had too many real problems getting through parts (heh, some reloads here and there), and I'm not good at FPS games by any stretch.  I suppose it just means less headshots.

I played for like 6-7 hours straight last night.  Game is just fantastic.

Edit: Still, having a problem pulling away from Persona 3.  I'm going to be a goddamn zombie for the next month.

I force AA in the driver. I'd notice at my resolution (720p) if it wasn't working, it's supah-chunky (the main reason I built my /last/ computer was for better FSAA).

Widescreen issue?

Also, it was plug-n-play for me, I had already updated to the recommended drivers. Installed and played for hours without a problem.

It's a minor issue, but  when played at widescreen, the  top and bottom portion of the screen get cropped. like putting a mat on the picture that limits to the perspective.

In short, you don't see as much ceiling and you miss seeing all our heroes right hand and sleeve.

Oh. I don't sweat shit like that. People go fucking nuts about Battlefield 2 doing that. Whatever. The game was designed widescreen, so if anything 4:3 is +hor and a bonus.

It is odd that the hero has no legs and casts no shadow. He's a vampire torso!

I couldn't even install the game. AVG Antivirus is giving false positives for a trojan horse in the BioShock PC installer (retail and demo). It appears you have to temporarily uninstall AVG to install BioShock.

Of course, I only looked this up after spending two hours running a virus scan...

Stormwaltz, go to the CD and manually run _setup.exe.  AVG gave me the same hassle, but manually running the installer took care of the problem.  AVG still pops up trojan warnings, but I just tell it to ignore and the game continues on without a problem.

I had the same problem Stormwaltz.  You don't need to do a full uninstall - Go to the test center and deactivate the resident scanner and you should be fine.  That's what I did anyhow.

Thanks for the advice, guys. I'll try those tonight.

In other news, people have discovered you can only install the game twice. Ever.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/more-bioshock-shock/bioshock-pc-+-you-only-install-twice-292222.php

I have.

I played both demos, and I ended up buying the Xbox version. I have a 60 inch HDTV (Sony) with good surround sound. I also have a very good computer. Honestly, it almost feels more intuitive on the controller to me. The way the left bumper and trigger control the plasmids in his left hand, and the right bumper and trigger control the weapons in his right hand. I honestly might spring for the PC version from Steam also, just so I can play through it on my computer as well. Honestly, you cant go wrong with ether. I would say that unless you have a very top of the line computer, get the xbox version, they look almost identical.

My computer is e6600, 2gb ram, 8800gtx.

Holy crap, I can't believe that.  Now I'm going to have to support pirates if I want to play the game I legally bought in the future.  I sincerely hope they have only implemented this during the initial launch of the game and that in six months they will remove such an idiotic limitation.

Nor can I believe this widescreen hack job, so now I'm going to have to play with everything stretched wide in order to see more?  That's insane, they cheated to adhere to the so called rules of "gaming for windows" about having to support widescreen.

Edit: They are trying damage control for the widescreen decision. (http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/home.html)

OK, I was on the fence, but this puts me solidly in the "Fuck bioshock" realm. I won't be buying this game.

I hope to god that the wrath of hell descends on that call support center as a message to other companies who have this sort of "bright idea" -- the cost of having to take all of those angry calls coupled with the bad press doesn't even come close to the amount of money supposedly 'gained' in sales by putting such a shitty limitation in place.

So, in conclusion, fuck them right in the goat-ass.

This is a ridiculous statement. You are not supporting pirates. You can't support pirates. Unless you're donating to black-cats each month or something silly.

On that same note, Take 2 is fucking around with what could be one of their best selling games in years.

Just buy it on Steam? Then you can have Steam install it whenever right?

There is a very simple solution to this, which they probably won't do but they f'ing should.

They should let the key from the retail version register the game on STEAM.

Support as in "GO HACKERS! Maybe I don't dislike you anymore, fight the power!".  Moral support, not financial.

No, steam is also constraining you to two installs but at least there you seem to be able to delete them (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6623735&postcount=25), sort of like iTunes.

And in that link he says two "hardware configurations" not two installs.  I would be slightly less angry if it locks the game to my motherboard config but lets me reinstall on the same computer as many times as I want, the way the other article was talking made it seem as though a simple format would invalidate the game.

It's a joke right? Or a misunderstanding? Like, that can't be serious.

If I uninstall the game twice, I can never play it again? Ha ha ha. Very funny.


Tell me you're joking.

Still the pinnacle of retardedness. I figure I will have to change my hardware configuration twice before the game runs at acceptable speeds and by then I will have to change to a pirated copy? Let alone replaying that game in a few years like I do with System Shock regularly.

Wow, good thing I didn't know about that yesterday, or I would've felt morally obligated to not buy it.  Thankfully enough of a stink is being kicked up about this stupid DRM that I'm confident it'll be patched away soon.

As for the widescreen, well, don't care.  The tippy-top and bitty-bottom of the screen aren't holding any vital information in any event, I doubt anyone would've noticed if it hadn't been pointed out to them.

The xbox controller on the pc has the same layout, according to the manual. I was thinking of maybe trying that because having both rather than having to rt click to do the 'one-two' combo was not intuitive. I wish it had been left button = weapon, right button = plasmids.
It's not damage control. They developed the game in the widescreen resolution, screenshots and art have been widescreen. They make a decision to allow 4:3 folks to play without letterboxing and look what they get. The game is FINE in widescreen, it's better than fine. Stop being stupid.

The two install thing? We'll see how that shakes out. My money is on not pissing off the customer base of a potentially huge game and easing up on that restriction, it's happened before. If not, I'm still quite happy giving my money to Irrational and playing an excellent game. Possibly I don't have moral obligations.

I could see a moral reason for the DRM issue.

But, if you want to miss out on one of the best games you will ever play, with enough tension excitement and Story to fill a Supertanker, because you can't see the  ceiling and the floor as much as some schmuck who has a square monitor or TV? By all means , knock yourself out.

Enough story to fill a supertanker is questionable at this point. Very questionable.

The whole point of using a widescreen monitor is so that you can see more of the image, not less.

This is stupid. (http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11658)  As said by the people that you constantly link to whenever widescreen comes up.

(http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/1517/bioshockfovzs0.jpg)

Yes, that's exactly what I said.  I've burned the disc and its packaging in anger. :roll:  The game is still great I just don't agree with two of their decisions, the widescreen one being a minor nuisance.

That image demonstrates just how insignificant the cropped portions are, that's less annoying than it would've been if they letterboxed the widescreen picture onto a 4:3 monitor with black bands on top and bottom.

I downloaded the demo and played it... I found it depressing rather than frightening. Beautiful, mind you, beautiful and technically spectacular (water effects, yow!) but it made me feel grim and weary. Maybe I haven't run into the plot points required to start hating these people enough to beat them with a wrench, but I can take no joy in slaughtering a bunch of psychotic drug addicts. It's like killing brownshirts in the original Wolfenstein3D. I could only gun down so many before I felt sorta sick.

Self-defense? Sure, in context... but I'm choosing to play the game. Sadness is not an emotion I seek from my entertainment.

Apparently if you properly uninstall the game it will free up one of your two allowed computers, so if you plan on playing again on a different computer in the future just be sure to uninstall bioshock before you give your computer away or format the hard drives.

Edit: This has proven to be false, it was supposed to but doesn't.  They say they will release some new tool to unlock copies...

That's kind of part and parcel with the whole horror package, pxib.  In System Shock 2, you spend 99% of the game killing innocent people/robots who have committed no greater crime than being victims of a malevolent force.  The fact that the real bad guys are taunting you from safety as parasite-controlled zombies rush at you while begging you to kill them is part of what makes the situation a terrible one.  It's not supposed to be, "Yay, I just shot this guy in the face, he deserved it 'cause he was a fucker!"  It's supposed to be, "This place is fucked, these people are fucked, I'm fucked for being stuck in this place and surrounded by these people..."

You have many deep and serious issues.  Every normal, sane person killed brownshirts in W3D and loved it.  Pixels painted like people aren't people.  They aren't even really representations of people, they are opportunities to exercise game mechanics.  They could be orange balls for all the difference it makes to the game.  The only reason they look like people at all is to make story telling easy (or, in reality, non-existent).

Whoa there, I dissent.  Pixels painted like people and walking around while crying, gibbering, giggling, and insanely ranting are definitely meant to invoke the emotional response of being people, not orange balls or cardboard cutouts.  I don't go overboard like Jack Thompson and claim that shooting pixel people in any way enables someone to shoot real people, but in this case the pixel people are very intentionally meant to be as people-like as possible.

The parasite-controlled zombies beg you to kill them. It's euthenasia.

Maybe the case is ultimately the same in Bioshock, and it will be revealed that I'm working towards destroying something so terrible that it will somehow justify the moral choices my character is making but... right now it's not like Ive been turned into a cyborg against my will. I'm just some soldier who survived a plane crash. There's a man on the radio who says his family is in danger somewhere, but there are many other human beings in the way. Worse yet, I'm totally certain that I will find his family has been killed. In fact, that sort of inevitable disappointment is all I have to look forward to until the end of the game. I'm not making progress, I'm just going through the motions.

I need some motivation to keep wading through the bloody corpses of these sad, broken people.

Zombies I can kill in great numbers. Demons? Aliens? Monsters?  No problem. I'm just lousy at dehumanizing humans. I couldn't get through the second-half of Half-life where I had to start killing soldiers. In Half-life 2 I had no problem because those soldiers were the agents of a destructive, oppressive regime. In the first game we were theoretically on the same side, trying to take control of a bad situation... they just didn't know it and I COULDN'T TALK TO TELL THEM.

I guess it's just my version of "Why did I just inject myself with a syringe I found in a vending machine?"

Who am I to decide whether these trapped, twisted people deserve to die? Brutally. With a wrench.

Well you could opt not to beat their heads in and see what happens. I suspect you will be done with the game much sooner than the rest of us. Personally, the moment they start shooting me I tend to lose much sympathy. I did feel bad about nuking the woman with the baby carriage before she attacked me, but once I got close enough it was pretty clear she was a splicer. The rest of the fuckers trying to eat my Adam or whatever; toast.

Look Mr. Bubbles its an angel.

I consider the splicers to be just as much a lost cause as the worm zombies, just with a different mechanism behind their doom.  They're all very clearly insane and hostile, so there's little alternative but to fight when you run into them; these aren't people that you can sit down with and have a reasonable chat over coffee.

Maybe it's because I started playing video games when the closest representation to a person looked like this:

(http://a6.vox.com/6a00c2251e0427549d00d4143932663c7f-120pi)

Or that I have created and rigged 3-D models in 3D studio max or that I know pretty well exactly whats going on at those 1's and 0's move through the graphics pipeline to make them look the way they do but I feel no connection to the images put forth by the computer at all.

People, on the other hand, I have a pretty hard time even getting upset with when they serve me beer out of a tap that tastes like it hadn't been cleaned in 4 years.  Which should probably merit summary execution in any civilized locale.

Oh yeah, I realise the bottleneck is my video card.  I'm just finding it hard to justify spending any money to upgrade my gaming PC when it seems these days all the cool games are either coming out on console only, or both.  Thats just what I'm trying to come to grips with.

Well, I've noticed that...

Ha ha.  Nice.  Baited me right into a long discussion on the story elements I've experienced thus far.

Mine arrives in the mail today. I cannot frickin' wait to get home and throw this in the 360. Sooooo excited, i'm almost giddy.

I take back the story part,which wasn't directed as much tio the people here as the jacktards on other forums. I  do know something's up. and  . . . I'll leave it at that.

Too symmetrical.

Which one of you bastards is going to patch this thing so I can play it?

I am now the proud owner of both xbox 360 and PC versions. I may end up hooking my wired second controller to my PC. I like using the controller but the image quality of my 360 suffers. At least compaired to my PC. Oh well, I can pause the game and cruse the forums. Well I have 2 PC and xbox360 so that was lame.

Please elaborate. Do I detect disappointment?

I'm not far enough along in the game to say anything extremely conclusive, but if I did, I'd probably want to put that in the Spoilers thread.  Hence why I didn't go into it in any detail earlier in this thread.  All I can say is I understand schild's position.

Speaking of the little sisters - I can't bring myself to harvest them.    I made the mistake of rescuing the first one and that ruined me. 

Yea, that goddamn music. Heh. It makes you feel really nice, it's a moment of peace in that awful world.

I've intentionally put some steel in my spine, and have decided that I'm harvesting every last one of those little bitches the first time around.  Then I'll replay it and save 'em all for the hot, hot achievements that gives you.

This new hallway was definitely creepy. Creepy sounds were happening! So I looked around the corner. Some crazy shit tried to kill me, so I had to fight it and then search everything to try to pump myself back up to enough of a condition to press on. Man, this place sucks. I read this audio log that underscores that fact, too. So I stepped over some broken shit and moved on. This new hallway was definitely creepy. Creepy sounds were happening! So I looked around the corner. Some crazy shit tried to kill me, so I had to fight it and then search everything to try to pump myself back up to enough of a condition to press on. Man, this place sucks. I read this audio log that underscores that fact, too. So I stepped over some broken shit and moved on. This new hallway was definitely creepy. Creepy sounds were happening! So I looked around the corner. Some crazy shit tried to kill me, so I had to fight it and then search everything to try to pump myself back up to enough of a condition to press on. Man, this place sucks. I read this audio log that underscores that fact, too. So I stepped over some broken shit and moved on. This new hallway was definitely creepy. Creepy sounds were happening! So I looked around the corner. Some crazy shit tried to kill me, so I had to fight it and then search everything to try to pump myself back up to enough of a condition to press on. Man, this place sucks. I read this audio log that underscores that fact, too. So I stepped over some broken shit and moved on. This new hallway was definitely creepy. Creepy sounds were happening! So I looked around the corner. Some crazy shit tried to kill me, so I had to fight it and then search everything to try to pump myself back up to enough of a condition to press on. Man, this place sucks. I read this audio log that underscores that fact, too. So I stepped over some broken shit and moved on. This new hallway was definitely creepy. Creepy sounds were happening! So I looked around the corner. Some crazy shit tried to kill me, so I had to fight it and then search everything to try to pump myself back up to enough of a condition to press on. Man, this place sucks. I read this audio log that underscores that fact, too. So I stepped over some broken shit and moved on. This new hallway was definitely creepy. Creepy sounds were happening! So I looked around the corner. Some crazy shit tried to kill me, so I had to fight it and then search everything to try to pump myself back up to enough of a condition to press on. Man, this place sucks. I read this audio log that underscores that fact, too. So I stepped over some broken shit and moved on. This new hallway was definitely creepy. Creepy sounds were happening! So I looked around the corner. Some crazy shit tried to kill me, so I had to fight it and then search everything to try to pump myself back up to enough of a condition to press on. Man, this place sucks. I read this audio log that underscores that fact, too. So I stepped over some broken shit and moved on.

That sounds like you are playing DOOM III.

Well, I can report success today.  After reinstalling the beta drivers and Direct X 9c, i was able to play the game fine by disabling the High Detail Shaders.  Have you tried that Way? Dual core, 1 GB ram and a geforce 7900 btw.

And yes, the game itself is robot jesus thus far.  Art direction, decent use or darkness and light, sounds, story that ties together so far, clue delivery via audio logs, options for weapons/powers and thier use (i.e. shocking groups on enemies standing in pools of water) etc.  Definately scratching that SS2 itch.  I couldnt bring myself to harvest the little sisters after seeing the first turn back into normal little girl, which to me is a sign of a good game environment.  I buy into the atmosphere.

A person who has gone through the trouble to look for all the tapes who has one quarter of a brain will figure out the first big twist shortly after you get to the fish market. One tape in particular is like *DING DING DING*

No, doom III was:

Oh cool there's some armor and/or ammunition lying on the ground I think I will go pick it up. Shit! A bunch of completely unexpected enemies popped out of absolutely nowhere, unexpectedly! Now I'm all hurt. And I still can't see. Well, let's find ourselves some more gear and keep slogging through this wretched turbocyber shit-pit. Oh cool there's some armor and/or ammunition lying on the ground I think I will go pick it up. Shit! A bunch of completely unexpected enemies popped out of absolutely nowhere, unexpectedly! Now I'm all hurt. And I still can't see. Well, let's find ourselves some more gear and keep slogging through this wretched turbocyber shit-pit. Oh cool there's some armor and/or ammunition lying on the ground I think I will go pick it up. Shit! A bunch of completely unexpected enemies popped out of absolutely nowhere, unexpectedly! Now I'm all hurt. And I still can't see. Well, let's find ourselves some more gear and keep slogging through this wretched turbocyber shit-pit. Oh cool there's some armor and/or ammunition lying on the ground I think I will go pick it up. Shit! A bunch of completely unexpected enemies popped out of absolutely nowhere, unexpectedly! Now I'm all hurt. And I still can't see. Well, let's find ourselves some more gear and keep slogging through this wretched turbocyber shit-pit. Oh cool there's some armor and/or ammunition lying on the ground I think I will go pick it up. Shit! A bunch of completely unexpected enemies popped out of absolutely nowhere, unexpectedly! Now I'm all hurt. And I still can't see. Well, let's find ourselves some more gear and keep slogging through this wretched turbocyber shit-pit.

That is one of the things that really annoys the shit out of me in games that have any sort of tragic or misled antagonists, why the fuck can't I talk to them at all?

In Bioshock the splicers have NO PROBLEM talking with eachother for every dumb plot event, even if they are half-hostile to eachother. Why can't I just let a splicer that uses the "I JUST WANNA TAAALK!" and "I'M NOT A BAD PERSON! WHY DO THEY ALWAYS RUN!?" voice set swing and swing and swing and miss until he tires out enough for me to say, "Hey stupid, you're not hitting me and I got nothing you can really use. How about you let me go fuck up the psychopath who didn't do anything to keep you safe?"

I've never heard of a game that lets you do stuff like that ever. How awesome would it be to be able to negotiate to end a gunfight while in the middle of one? Trade shots from cover while doing a dialog tree/minigame at the same time instead of the Bioware-style "POOSH X, GET GUN BATEL, POOSH Y, GET PEECE" stuff?

Some of the enemies negotiate to get away in uhhhhh

Samurai Western.

But it's always scripted.

I also got the game to work only by disabling high detail shaders.  Otherwise it would crash ridiculously often.  And this really pisses me off, because the game looks MUCH better with the shaders on, and it was running at perfectly acceptable framerates as well!

WHY.

I'm running with everything set on High (it defaulted to that) on a 7800 GT with ForceWare v94.24.

I am becoming increasingly angry with this game. That might be because I still can't play it.

Because 2K's web site is down - presumably due to the furor over the genius and flaws in the game - the patcher would not work. To my considerable surprise, aborting the patcher deleted the entire 8 GB install from my hard drive.

I posted this in the other thread a week before the game came out.

ignoring logistics there are definitely some wtf-mate decisions feeding this terrible monster. like not being able to re-arrange plasmids/weapons (minus swapping out plasmids), or not being able to check what tonics you currently have on the fly...or the section just before the end of the game. f f fuck. the ending made up for that last bit though. no rest for the wicked.

Wow that sucks.

None of the Shock series have ever had a story to speak of, the protagonist's always mute.  If you went in expecting some Final Fantasy thing of scripted love and betrayal, you bought the wrong game.  The protagonist never has the free time to indulge anything but the constant effort of survival, and certainly doesn't have the time to stick around for a few weeks to build lasting relationships with the other characters.  The storyliine in the Shock games is always in the past, its events and characters revealed to the player in tiny pieces as they play, allowing the player to learn the whole of the situation without compromising the action.

So make sure you don't suffer from a fucking severe crash/power surge/computer meltdown/stolen computer/etc kids. Else they'll expect you to call up secureROM..


Since I'm not worried about playing this game RIGHT NOW, I'll wait and see how this pans out before deciding whether to buy it via Steam or get myself an "evaluation copy".  :-P

Love ya.  That's what I wanted to hear.  I was getting increasingly edgy.

Ending!?! Seriosuly, people without jobs should not be allowed here.

The clue in the Fishmarket is rather heavy handed, but thats as far as I've been so far. Really though, the revelation of that twist just made me more curious as to what is really going on.

When did this become the discuss Bioshock plot thread? Go away and post in another thread!

I was going to harvest them on the theory that they're little demon children and it'd make humanity safer from Japanese horror films. But my girlfriend was watching and she was like "No save her!" So I did. And now I can't help saving them and have been known to do horrible, evil things to splicers that try to mess with them. *sighs* damn emotional manipulation.

Yeah, there be spoilers in here... small ones, but spoilers none the less.

I got my copy last night and played about an hour past the demo. I'm loving the game so far. I just wish there was a bit more interaction with the splicers other than 'Nuke 'em before they see you'. Plus, it would be nice to be able to peak around corners when I can hear voices. I feel like I'm always going 'a-HA!' as I jump out with a fist-full o' lightning and a wrench.

It's a fine line, and no one has made the jump to spoiler forum yet. You want to talk about the game, but you're not done and you don't want to find out the Snape Killed Dumbledore, you just want to talk about that point in the middle that you thought was really good.


Fuck it. I'm heading over to spoiler town. I have an idea.

Something Awful's "Truth Media" has put up an incredibly error filled review (http://www.somethingawful.com/d/truth-media-reviews/truthmedia-bioshock-review.php?page=1) on purpose just to see the most militant fanbois' reaction.  They also only gave the game a 7.5 because so many people were upset at gamespot only giving it a 9.0 :-).

If you have a friend who loves the game and you want to yank their chain send them the link...

sorry for misleading anyone; this game, in fact, has no end. the last bit is a realtime ocean-floor footrace with a big daddy. first one to Mexico gets the jewels, but not before they're seduced by a feisty mother of five who gets by on wits and a little bit of luck.

My friend actually hates the game.  For real.  His complaints:  Looks like shit on his computer (his is top of the line) and auto-aiming (huh?  I'm pretty sure this doesn't exist).

So to yank his chain I just send him the metacritic link and laugh as he gets exasperated.

Auto aiming on the 360, not on PC.

I read about the High Detail Shaders problem last night on the Tech Support forum and was going to ask if anyone had any luck with it. I didn't have time last night, but will check it out tonight and see if it helps.

Glad you got it working! I can't wait to play it.

I also played this last night for about an hour after the demo.  Holy crap, I love everything about this game.  Is it just me, or is this game just creepy? I'm comfortable enough with my own sexuality to admit that I jumped at a couple parts, with the speakers turned way up. There hasn't been a game in a LONG time that has held my attention as intently as this, this is going to seriously cut into my guitar playing efforts.

I haven't noticed any auto-aiming on the 360.  I believe that's something I would have picked up on.

When I got to try out the Xbox version I felt some autoaim, but not the 5000 different kinds of notautoaim tweaks that the Halo series uses. The wrench seems to magically find people's head's a lot.

Try lobbing explosives at something using Telekinesis.  I would account for any terrain that was in the way of my target, such as them hiding behind a pillar, or if I could see them because I was behind a hill, but auto-aim would cause my Telekinesis throw to go straight at the target, thereby wasting whatever clever use of environment or counter-tactics I had performed.  Oh, love Telekinesis.

I've noticed that the aiming for Electro Bolt on Splicers is *extremely* spotty, such that I have to use it twice in most cases just to get a hit.  It's easier to just close to melee, dodge their melee, and fuck them up.

Why would you even say something like this in this thread, you fucking cunt.  Shit.

Yeah, autoaim really messes up telekinesis when you try to lob stuff over a piece of the terrain. It's slight, but it's definitely there.

I'm sorry, what did that ruin?

Well, of course, knowing that the game ends. Isn't that the whole point to playing games?

 :-D

So my friend loaded the demo on a Vista machine at his work, and he said the difference is amazing. He said it looks really really good on DX10.

Ahh, that explains it.  I really haven't used telekinesis more than the occasional trap disarming and remote loot grabbing.

It has so many uses in the game you'd be ridiculous not to have it.

Still can't grab Rosie's prox. mines in mid-air for some reason.

I haven't gotten that far, though throwing the high explosive canisters and oil barrels at helpless schlubs is lots of fun.   Or playing grenade catch with a Big Daddy.

Yes. You can.

I'll give it another shot, but I think the game is saying "Oh you want to grab that Teddy Bear? I can do that even though a Big Daddy is throwing a highly explosive mine at you."

Oh, you know what I should really try? Getting one Big Daddy to fight another.

Rosie is the specific name for the Big Daddy you fight that throws prox. mines at you. The other variant, the first one you encounter, is called a Bouncer.

Rosie also throws a mean rivet.

it aims like the pistol without a crosshair, but instead of using bullets it only costs 1/2 of your total eve! aside from telekinesis/tag plasmids it was the only power I used though. ah loves me some electricity.

My only real annoyance so far with the TK is when I trigger it too soon trying to anticipate a grenade, and endup picking up a corpse instead. I've then deseperately tried knocking an incoming grenade out of the air by throwing the corpse at it - it doesn't work.

Leads me to believe the physics in this game are not *that* great. (Have you seen the multiple problems with corpses and just-killed enemies?)  I can't really use TK as a shield because when I pick up something that would make a good shield, it keeps rotating around and doesn't stay in one place in front of me.  If I was TKing a, say, wooden palette, I'd love for it to stay as a shield in front of me, as opposed to, say, a gas cylinder, which I would prefer to have face like a bullet ready to shoot in front of me instead of being a bigger target to catch bullets and blow up in my face.  The latter hasn't happened yet but I came close once.

I'm not terribly impressed with the physics. It seems like there isn't enough friction and the objects don't seem to be as heavy as they look.

But damn if it isn't a pretty looking engine.

(http://www.filedump.net/dumped/00311b1187966471.jpg)

Picked it up for 360 at Best Buy last night.  They had about 10 on the shelves.  The Gamestop, or whatever it is, clerk down the street looked at me like a I was a fucking idiot for not pre-ordering.  Uh, yeah.  I should provide no-interest loans to huge corporations out of the goodness of my heart.

The grenade-lobbing splicers who wear hats bum me out. Because of course as he throws a grenade at me, I want to telekinetically snatch his stylish chapeau.

About using telekinesis for shields, I was a bit surprised that a hovering tank of flamey stuff didn't explode when machine gun fire passed directly through it. They definitely cheated there. Also, corpses can be twitchy.

My girlfriend likes the art style and music, hates the gore and gloom, she won't stay in the room while I'm playing.

I came across the first Little Sister encounter last night and found my that I didn't have a moral dilemma as much as I had a 'What choice gives me the most cool stuff' dilemma.

speaking of (orchestral):

So it seems that the PC version of Bioshock and its demo, install a SecuROM rootkit. This is pretty fucked up. 2k is not handling this very well.

See the user comments.

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6979

Also, it seems like the line they gave people "If you uninstall the game, you get one of your installs back" was BS. They have come out today saying they are working on app that you have to run after you uninstall the game to get one of your installs back. I am glad I bought the Xbox version now. And I think its horrible how 2k handled this.

THIS IS APPROACHING STAR FORCE LEVEL IDIOCY AT LIGHT SPEED.

God damn it.

No shit.   I applaud 2k's attempt to wrench defeat from the jaws of victory.   

I expected some forum of 14 year olds rambling about "FUCK YOU 2K!!11" and all that kinda shit. Surprisingly enough some intelligent people are up in arms about this. Does the Steam demo install this?

I've never been happier that my computer sucks.

Im happy Im a sucker for Achievements. But I probably have the rootkit since I played the demo. Im going to check for it when I get home.

(http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/536/biorootvs7.gif)

So, I picked up the PC CE edition today. My Big Daddy was unbroken.

... that could be misinterpreted.

Okay, after 2 hours play: wow. The water is pretty. Some very nice environments and I'm enjoying using the plasmid variations. Great story thus far with a fantastic intro.

I got the game on steam.  I was running daemon tools + YASU to play my legally owned copy of pro evolution soccer 2007 (eariler) that I lost the dvd for.  Got a securom message when I tried to play bioshock over steam.  Why is this possibly necessary?  Fucking ASSHATTERY.

Hehe.

How the fuck do I get rid of a rootkit? Does it come with the Steam version? I can't see why it would, but Christ knows 2k hasn't done anything smart yet.

Fuck. Trias_e posted while I was typing. God that pisses me off.

Im thinking this fiasco is about Front Page level. We need us a front page post.

Lol, 116 page thread on the 2k boards regarding SecuRom now.

At first, I was like 'neener neener, my 360 version works great', but this is getting beyond ridiculous.

(http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/9523/adhwhz6yvexjw45vqwfsonmje3.jpg)

So it turns out that every rose does have its thorns.  The most anticipated game of the season installs a rootkit onto the machine that is to run it.  Further, if the user finds that he or she cannot run the game, needs to upgrade more than one piece of hardware or simply buys a new machine instead, they will have to prove to 2K that they are a legitimate user.  Microsoft pioneered this kind of nonsense, but at least Bill Gates has the money to employ 24/7 call centers in other countries to 'validate' the copy of Windows that I bought six years ago and have installed countless times on several machines.  Does 2K have the same resources?  Its one thing for a company who has cornered the market on operating systems; its another animal when its just one of the thousands of competing game producers.  Competition has a way of purging bad ideas; lack of competition breeds bad ideas.

And that's really what this comes down to.  It's economics.  If your product is quality and people desire it, then you will profit in spite of piracy.  If your product is crap and no one is willing to pay money for it, then people will pirate it because it isn't worth the investment.  Note that in both scenarios, pirating will occur.  The only difference is the quality of the product, which is the measure of how much legitimate users are willing to pay for it.

There is no doubt that Bioshock is a quality product.  It has a metascore of 96, on par with Half Life and Half Life 2.  It actually peaked at 97 at one point last night.  But it may suffer despite its ratings because legitimate users are not willing to endure this ever increasing intrusion by software companies.  If the choice comes down to installing a rootkit in order to play the best new game, or playing that older one without all of the hassle, I'm afraid that many people will opt for the less intrusive of the two.

This situation smacks of a genuine lack of foresight.  Too many real questions seem not to have been asked.  That, in turn, stinks of upper-level management thinking, where the concerns of the user are ignored in favor of the allmighty dollar.  What if this "technology" is adopted throughout the industry?  Will I need to install a rootkit for each game that I install?  And what happens when Microsoft gets tired of programs subverting its operating system and, finally, initiates serious security?  I suppose at that point we will switch to dongles.  Will I need to invest in a 24 slot external USB expansion bays to keep all of these dongles installed at one time?  How long until users are required to provide thumbprints to launch programs?

The best part about this type of system is that it penalizes the legitmate users, while the piraters will continue to pirate no matter what roadblocks are put in place.  They see this type of system as a challenge; the rest of us suffer because we must endure it.

I say we quit farting around and go right for the dongles.

From that thread:


"Is man not entitled to the game he buys?

NO, says the man at Securom. It belongs to 2K.
NO, says the man at 2K. It belongs to us.
NO, says the man at Microsoft. It belongs to our license purchasers.

I rejected those answers.

Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose...piracy! Where the gamer would not be censored, where the PC owner would not be bound by petty encryption, where the buyer would not be constrained by corporate greed. And with the downloading of your torrents, piracy could become your salvation"

Heh. That's pretty funny.

Every time this discussion comes up my inner nerd pipes up with, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more systems will slip through your fingers."  Funny old world, ain't it?

I have one of our old dongles sitting in a place of honor at my desk. We would actually get in trouble if we refered to it as a "dongle" on the phone with a client. It was to be refered to as a Hardware Key.

My favorite old tech call: "My software won't run!" "Mam, do you have the key plugged in to your printer port?" "Yes" "Do you have a printer plugged in to your key?" "Yes"
"Well mam, to fix it, you will need to remove your printer." "Then how will I print?" "..."

http://www.pcgamer.com/

When PC Gamer has a 3 part article on their front page called 'DRMShock'  (brilliant writing), you know you might be in trouble.

Sooo... Has anyone that had problems with Bioshock.exe crashing found a solution yet? Picked it up last night at Best buy, but it crashes right after the beginning airplane scene. Just a black screen,and then the "bioshock.exe has stopped responding". Tried turning off the shaders, and a few other things suggested on the 2k forums, but I had a hard time wading through all the other problems.

That's not a 3 part article! You lied! It's also not brilliant writing! I wanted something more than an inch wide and six inches long! I can get that anywhere on the internet!

The only reason this isn't a grief link to a monster penis is because I am at work.

This just in:

One of my friends has confirmed that if you have multiple users on a PC, Bioshock needs to be activated separately WITH SEPARATE ACTIVATION KEYS for each user, even if you do a universal install.

Uh... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?


 

Roger that.

Having just played this game for the first time, if 2K wanted to implant a rootkit in my skull I might actually agree.  It's that gorgeous.

Oh it gets worse than that. The online activation limits the number of times you can activate a particular key. If you uninstall the game you don't get "credited" back that activation, contrary to the information that T2 is giving out. That means if you reformat your drive, want to play it on some different computers down the road, or just fuck up the install enough times you won't be able to install the game anymore (that was the complaint in the above PC Gamer article). Even Adobe at its most fascist and draconian was not this bad (though they are working their way back to that point with their increasingly obnoxious CP schemes in their CS products).

The original install limit was 2. Thanks to the outcry they've raised the limit to 5, apparently, but people who are having trouble activating are still losing "credits" and there's no way to get them back.

There's also some confusion whether or not this is actually a real rootkit or just an exceeding obnoxious protection scheme. Running Rookit Revealer shows a suspicious looking registry key which is where this all started from:

HKU\S-1-5-21-343818398-1993962763-682003330-1003\Software\SecuROM\!CAUTION! NEVER DELETE OR CHANGE ANY KEY*

but that doesn't mean it's a rootkit. Heck even MS has a key in the registry which is flagged by RR:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Cryptography\RNG\Seed

and Opera for some reasons "stealths" some of its cache files.

Just to confuse things even more this article (http://www.gamingbob.com/2007/08/23/bioshock-installs-rootkit-including-demo/) that just got linked to on Slashdot has a little blurb at the end from SecuROM saying:
However I don't see that service listed in Services and when I run Process Explorer (PE can highlight processes that start and then immediately stop) to see if it gets loaded by launching Bioshock it won't start and I get a link to this page:

(http://f13.net/media/images/securom_process_explorer.jpg)

So while I'm still not positive it's a rootkit it's certainly doing its best to act like one.

All this suggests to me is that within a week or so, someone's gonna figure out how to disable the hardware sniffer and be able to install the game on any computer as many times as they wish.

I await the inevitable cracked and hacked warez version. 2K can go fuck themselves at this point.

I almost bought it on Steam last night, too.

Anybody who wants to pirate this game will pirate this game. Nothing they do will stop this. It's not like anyone is pretending that you don't have fully hacked and cracked versions of every new game on the torrents within a week. The only thing that they can do by pursuing these ridiculous schemes and hackwork kids is to infuriate and enrage the people who are willing to be legitimate legal customers, driving more to the dark side and further borkening the PC game market viability.

Everything that they are doing to try to keep piracy down is just going to turn into a flurry of increased moral acceptance for pirating, and by virtue of that fact, these dumbass moves and license protection schemes are only aiding and empowering piracy.

Has anyone else noticed their 360 version pausing often, having texture loading issues, etc?

I had a lot more fun once I forced the game to go 60fps.  Very smooth, and didn't mind if there were texture issues since I had already played most of the game with them.

Nope.

Actually, let's wait a bit.

Sounds to me like what it does is provide admin/superuser/root/etc... access to users (programs) that have been specifically restricted from having that access and privileges by circumventing your established security.  Sounds like a textbook definition of a rootkit to me.

Some 2k apologist posted the above on the forums. Anyone here aware of STALKER or C&C3 install rootkits and suchlike on the host PC?

edit - just did some checking and it's apparently a different version of Securom. I will have to visit GCW or MG though to strip the SecRom out of my UK copy of STALKER, though.

Ok, I've completed the 360 version and am currently playing the PC version on Hard. The difference DX10 makes is certainly noticeable. The DX10 texturing is very, very slick.

Also, I would like to make it public knowledge that Schild came onto steam and scolded me for not playing bioshock at the time, basically busting down the door gestapo style.. It is also my belief that he was shitfaced during this time.

Beware the cruel overseer.

Heh, I've been told that Famitsu gave Bioshock a 24/40.

Excerpts: despite Bioshock's obvious charm, that charm is short lived and at best it fails to deliver on its full promises. The constant emphasis on combat, something many have come to expect from North American titles (particularly in the last 3 years or so after an equally overrated combat intensive title, Half Life 2 and the subsequent episodic content released via ‘Steam’). Bioshock maintains a dark, sometimes comical atmosphere

Bioshock was a title that promised to deliver, but sadly, despite the potential of the game and its setting, it achieves at best a mediocre level of satisfaction from playing.

Shame on Irrational Games  2K for not having more grind and rescuing kittens from trees and only a single repetitious  mini-game. 

I can't fathom the Japanese mindset (obsession with cuteness, weirdness for the sake of weirdness, and pedophile perversions), and don't like it.  I also really don't like it when Westerners latch onto this shit like it's the height of culture.  Personally, and I know this will sound racist, but I have a real dislike for a lot of asian culture in general.  These fuckers think completely differently from westerners, and to me, it's creepy.

There, I said it.

Not so far.

Well, I'm only a few hours into the game, but I'm kind of seeing where they're coming from, I think.  The game is very atmospheric, and the setting is cool and all, but the gameplay itself (the basic, "shoot guy in head, reload, circle strafe, etc.") seems like pretty standard FPS stuff.  No particularly mind blowing new mechanics or anything; mostly it seems kind of like System Shock 2, minus a few of the more annoying elements like weapon deterioration.  Which is cool, but not really new or anything.  If they don't find the setting interesting, then I can understand why they'd think the game was boring. 

Disclaimer: Maybe it gets more varied later, obviously.  I don't know.  That's just my experience so far.

Sounds like it's more in how you're playing it.  I very rarely even use guns, most of the time my plasmids and hacked bots/turrets do all my killing for me.

If you're treating the game like a run & gun shooter then you really can't complain; the game allows you to play in other ways, you're just not making the most of it.

Could be I just suck, then.  I've only come across maybe three bots, and they tend to go out in a blaze of glory fairly soon after I hack them.  The plasmid system (as far as I've seen which, conceivably, might not be very far) seems a lot like the generic "psychic power" systems used in System Shock 2 and Jedi Knight and similar, and I always seem to be running low on juice anyway which limits the amount I can use them, so I don't really have much of an alternative to using guns most of the time. *shrug*

Edit: spelling

Famitsu: There is not enough detail in the raping of the moe children =^o^=

The first part before you start getting Atom is pretty straight forward, and is a long tutorial in what you can do, but you're fairly limited still.

There are 8 "parts" to the game, and by the time you get to the 3rd one, you'll be finding you need to do more than just shoot the bad guys in the head, though that is still a working system it becomes...less efficient. Doing wacky stuff like controlling Big Daddies, frezzing enemies, shocking them in water, lighting them on fire when standing on a pool of oil, setting traps up all while having the security shoot at them...

I'm only on Medium and still killing a lot of enemies with the guns (I've pretty much maxed out the research, which you also boost), but I can imagine hard being a different game completey.

You do end up specializing in plasmids and tonics, though there is an ability to change your spec without an issue.

If you want, you can get more bots to show up by setting off one of the security cameras, and then use one of the bot shutdown panels.

The death system makes this game trivial.

:(

I find the same of quick save / quick load systems.

Doesn't mean I don't appreciate having them.

Here's the thing (which applies tangentially to the point above and more broadly to other comments about this rootkit): when it comes to AAA releases, a week piracy-free counts. That's some extra units sold and money straight back to the company.

I'm not saying that the system isn't broken and that I'd wish I'd know these things before installing it on my PC, but I still would have gotten the game. I also can't get behind this geek smugness of "OMG! the DRM is bad! give us our free game that we've now twice justified pirating!". Out of all the games I've seen this year, BioShock is one that deserves your money, crappy DRM protection or not. Provided the damn thing doesn't reformat my hard drive when I remove it, I can live with it.

Besides, I remember all this crap from when HL2 / Steam launched. And now Steam is a-okay, apparently.

I wonder what numbers are commonly accepted in the industry for this accounting?  Obviously the cost of the DRM has to be less than the perceived increase in sales by not having a hacked version available until after launch (perceived because I can't see how accurate predictions could be made).  A bit of bad word of mouth can do a lot more damage than increased sales for a couple of weeks to the bit-torrent crowd though.

Honestly, I don't think that people who regularly pirate games are going to be swayed by a delay in release by the pirate community.  I doubt if their thought patterns are, "Well, Fairlight dropped the ball this time.  Fuck 'em I'll go get it at the store."  I would much more easily believe that all it means to them is that they wait a bit longer and play something else in the meantime.

Bioshock is that hot girl who really deserves your money, venereal disease or not.

Played the demo and I'm very very unimpressed. I'm really hoping the demo is just very shitty and doesn't do the full game justice. The graphics are technicaly not that impressive, artisticly it's like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow but under water. The basic plot is pretty intresting but isn't developed enough in the demo to really mean anything. So, really, what's the selling points of this game? I haven't played SS1 or SS2.

This game is not a Robot Jesus. Its a polished FPS, for certain, with a lot of imagination put into the art work, the world building, and some game play functionality. That said, the mechanics are standard, and to be honest, I prefer HL2's engine, as far as performance and physics. I'm still enjoying it, but so far, there's nothing in it that I haven't seen before.

I played Deus Ex (the original) 5 or 6 years after it was released, and I thought it was still a fantastic game. This feels similar.

If you don't think there's a difference between the two, I'm happy to debate it tomorrow when I'm less tired.  Suffice to say, I'd have been a much happier bunny if it HAD been a quicksave/quickload system.  Dying and waking up in a Vitae Chamber RIGHT NEXT TO THE SPLICERS THAT KILLED YOU makes no sense.  It's very anti immersive.

Not to mention it makes Big Daddies Trivial.  As previously mentioned.

Don't mistake me.  I'm enjoying the hell out of the game.  But.

There's a couple of things that makes the big daddies trivial. the more I see about how different things can work together, the more in love I am with this game

I agree that BioShock isn't perfect. The physics are odd sometimes (like accidentally kicking a trash can that goes flying off when I can't do it intentionally), the ragdoll has issues (I wish they'd stop waving to me after I've killed them, dammit), the game movement is like a run'n'gun shooter when it is screaming out for stealth and the game has been designed so that death isn't a real problem so that FPS players get annoyed by the ease of playing. I don't mind vita-chambers, but it does raise questions like "Why and I getting rezzed and not all the Splicers I put down?".

However:

This is nothing compared to the polish of the rest of the game. The plasmids are many and varied, opening up a number of options to how you develop your character. In-game sound is just awesome - the noises that Rapture itself makes as you move through it add a lot to the atmosphere, as do the ramblings of your enemies and the tapes you find. Direct combat is fun, but it's often better (i.e. more fun, YMMV) to use the more indirect methods (hacking, plasmids) to get through. Plus this game has a story that is (to the point I've played to) worth following.

Bioshock is a great send-off for Irrational Games and is a greater game than the sum of its parts. Pity about the drama surrounding the PC version.

The only game developers I remember reading about how their piracy protection helped them was a Gamasutra article about a Spyro the Dragon game. It took (from memory) 4 weeks for it to be cracked, which was enough time for sales to exceed expectations.

Yes, there are a group of hardcore pirates who will wait. There are also likely a group of gamers who take everything they can get for free but also want everything NOW. If it takes a few weeks for someone to get around the BioShock DRM, those gamers will go out and pay cash money for it. Then there are the casual pirates etc, etc.

Also: this entire issue of PC games, DRM and piracy is again why consoles look so much more attractive to every dev studio that isn't doing multiplayer online games. Yes, console piracy exists, but it certainly isn't as far advanced as PC game piracy.

May He have mercy on your digital soul.

And, again, I could get stoned for this, but :  I could really do with more numbers in this game.  Beef up the RP aspect of it a little.

(This Plasmid gives you A LITTLE health and Eve when hacking.  How much is A LITTLE ?  Is it less than A LOT ?  WoW.  Informative....)


The story is good, the graphics are great, the sound is awesome, but it falls down for me on 3 main areas :

1 - Death System : Kills immersion a little.  Later on, it kills it A LOT.
2 - Enemy Variation : Schild pegged this one just right - the amount of enemies is woeful.
3 - RPG 'Elements' are too 'trace'.  :(

I think it suffers a little too much consolisation also.  I find that even the highest hacking challenge is either trivially easy with a Mouse/Keyboard or impossible simply due to the placement of Breakers and Alarms.  (Plasmids do, of course, Help.)

I'd like to pre-empt another screed of text from Unsub by repeating something he seemed to ignore earlier :  I'm liking this game a lot.  I'm merely trying to be critical here.


PS - I found the story (of which we'll not talk here) and the way it was revealed to be absolutely fascinating.  Indeed, so fascinating that I didn't even mind that I'd figured it all out by around the second 'act' and most of it in the First.

I may talk more on that later in the spoiler zone.  Maybe.

Me & my best bud are unstoppable fucking gods of hacking because we used to play Pipe Dream on an NES controller.

Here, we gots us a mouse. The only way a hack will not be completed by us is if it is made impossible by alarm/overload tile configuration.

I'm playing the 360 version and one of the first things I thought when trying to complete a 'red gauge' hack was, "This would be about 300% easier with a mouse."  Aiming kinda sucks too, I end up knee-capping everyone for some reason.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the game, but I am going to jump on the "picking it apart" bandwagon.

The death system is an issue to me. I was trying to figure out why I wasn't getting psyched up in the big fights like I have in other games. It hit me - you really can't fail to kill something. Take on a Big Daddy and die. Get rezzed and go back, he's still down health. Hell, using that method, I could kill Big Daddies with the fucking wrench if I really wanted to. It takes the tension out.

Second issue - I'm really liking the story so far, but I really think the immersiveness would have been helped by face to face interaction with NPCs. The shortwave is not good enough. Nor are scenes of someone yelling at you from a balcony or through a window. HL2 at least gave you intermission levels where you actually got to meet NPCs that were not trying to eat you, and the NPCs actully interacted with you directly.

Basically, it's a really pretty game, with cool themes and ideas, but I'm finding it very lacking in immersion and suspense.

Questions like that are answered if you find the right tape recorder.  I think that particular question gets answered about three times actually.

Yes, it does.

Just not satisfactorily.  In fact, none of it makes sense, especially considering [THE SPOILERS].

And whatnot.

The funny thing is that the pirated x360 version runs withtout any troubles... hey, why are you looking at me like that? I live in pirate land.

Incidentally, I've read that Enrage is meant to wear off.  It never does for me.  Am I bugged ?

I just reload when I die.  *shrug*  I think it's cheese and meant that I lost.  So, I reload.

Bunk: You get some NPC face time later on. Not much, but just about everyone is too bugfuck insane.

Bugger.   :|

The game removes all of the 'cycle-back' repetitions of normal computer gameplay, which was the intent. The game's infinite-lives concept elegantly discards, for the sake of convenience, such 'necessary realisms' as death, which really only mean repetition and frustration through reloading. You never actually die in these games, there's only do-overs. So they figured, why not discard the formalities and get rid of deaths that are sure to translate in many ways into un-fun repetition? Additionally, they are kind enough to give you a last shot for your medkits instead of having random catastrophies shunt you brutally into the afterlife.

Some people will say that real death adds to the gameplay experience and that they feel like the lack of any real death in the game degrades their gameplay experience. Subjectively, they are right, but real death is an option, still. You can mandate a forced reload for every vita-chamber respawn. The choice of your death penalty is now essentially up to you, and they've only really added a new option: to say 'that death was bs' and keep playing from that point without having to reload.

Some people say that merely being given the availability of infinite lives destroys most of the game's tension and difficulty. This is true, but this option has already been available to gamers for many many years now in every game that allows you to abuse quicksaves. That said, I wish that vita-chambers had a toggle in the game. You should have been able to turn them off. Shortly from now, you will be able to turn them off.

I find it pretty interesting that the game's been out for about a week, and they still haven't been able to find a crack for it.  A quick trip to the bay of Jack Sparrows finds a few trojans pretending to be a crack, and the most popular torrent is just a rip of the DVD, which states that it hasn't been cracked and you'll need to find a crack for it somewhere else.  I gotta say, pain in the arse DRM and all, I think SecureROM can claim a victory in this particular battle over the pirates - I can't remember a game as hotly anticipated as this being untorrentable for as long as this.

Which of course means we can expect more of this in the future :(

Let me have my screed, dammit!

I never played System Shock 1 or 2 as I was too busy playing the latest incarnation of Quake at the time, so I kept wondering wtf you people could be so excited about.

Then I picked this up while grocery shopping a few days ago, mostly on a whim.  I'm in awe.  It's seriously one of the most engrossing games I've played in years.  Instant classic in my eyes. 

But, it's eating my Persona 3 time!!

I know that your post is mostly in agreement with me, but I have to emphasize that there is a big difference between quicksave and the vita chamber. If I come back from a quicksave, that Big Daddy is still at full health.

I could simply force myself to reload every death, but the problem there is that the game seems to have been balanced to the idea that you will die fairly frequently and just keep respawning. I might be able to play on Easy and get away with it, I don't know.

It's too bad, I was really hoping that this would be one of those really tense games that made want to play with the lights on. For some reason or another, it isn't.

Well, I'm glad its not only me that dies at least 3 times per Big Daddy, runs out of ammo and ends up throwing barrels at the danged thing till it finally dies of boredom.

Indeed.  It's a war of attrition where you have INFINITE SOLDIERS.

:(

Incidentally, if you find yourself liking Bioshock for the story and gameplay and haven't played System Shock 2, you really, really ought to.

Just don't do it for the graphics...

Had my first fight with a Big Daddy last night.  I'm playing on Medium and after about 6 reloads I went with shock and shoot and move as a tactic which seemed to work fairly well but used up a crap load of health and eve and ammo (18 rounds of AP pistol and a drum of Machine Gun ammo).  The fight was WAY tougher than anything up to that point.

Still not sure about the Harvest vs. Save issue on the Little Sisters, I tried both to see what the differences are and I'm not convinced that 'saving' really is the more moral option.

How can you doubt it ??

The pistol flat-out sucks; you may as well be tickling a Big Daddy with the armor-piercing rounds.  And the pistol ammo isn't even abundant; I could see a use for the thing if the ammo was all over the place, or super-cheap at the vending machines, but it's $3 per shot and not terribly easy to find.  The 1-3 bullets dropped by splicers doesn't keep pace with the 3-4 bullets it takes to drop the splicers in the first place.  The machine gun and shotgun were my weapons of choice for general-purpose carnage, with the crossbow and grenade launcher for specific situations.

Exists.  It is very hard to spot most of the time.  I even had a grenade I tossed via MIND CONTROL to curve, and I noticed this mostly because I was trying to toss it behind the guy, since he was hiding behind a column.  The grenades kept hitting the column, with a visible curve to the trajectory.  I think you can turn it off?  I'm too busy playing to look in the options menu.

I haven't read this whole thread in detail but it seems Ironwood is giving out the pamphlet that I was going to.  Has problems, sure, but it's one of the best games I have ever played.

Have you checked out what happens if you 'harvest'?  Let me say that the 'save' option shows no sign of having cured them of their infection just that you treated their symptoms.  And then there is all the stuff Atlas is telling you over the radio about how they can't be cured.  Maybe Atlas is a lying sack of shit, maybe Tennenbaum is.  I'm pretty sure from the tapes that she is just as fucked up as everyone else down there is.  No ones motives are very clear.  Maybe playing further will give me more information but atm I am very unsure about what to do.

edit:  Don't anyone dare spoil it for me either.

I just checked what happens when you harvest. You tear that kid apart to get at the worm inside. That can't be equated with making her look normal again.

If that is a spoiler, please delete it.





Edit: Sorry, the other message was a bit too snarky.

Any direct response to any of your questions would be spoilerific. You get answers. 

If you're worried about harvest/save in a min/maxing mindset, I wouldn't be.  Saving is rewarded (heh, is that a spoiler?).

Are you playing Bioshock ? 

I can't answer a single question without spoiling it, but I can address the harvest versus Not Harvest, since I'm going to assume that everyone saved before choosing and tried both :  In one you rip the girls chest open to get the fat juicy worm of an Adam Rate, in the other you pour a tonic down her throat and she skips off merrily looking like a healthy young girl, while you're left with half the Adam.

What the hell are you talking about ?

I don't think it is a spoiler because when you do it the first time (save a little sister) a box pops up and says, "You will be rewarded more later even though you are harvesting less now."  I'm not worried about the min/maxing at all.

Without spoiling anything else for people as regards to what Tebonas is saying is, that's my point.  Just 'looking normal' doesn't mean to me that the cause of the problem was cured.  Atlas keeps telling you that the Little Sisters aren't human and can't be saved, maybe he's not lying.  Or, maybe he is.

I guess my point is that it's such an obvious mechanic that I am wondering if it's a 'gotcha' or if I am just way over-thinking it.  If I actually had to predict the answer my inner cynic says "They aren't that fucking clever."  But don't tell me if it is or it isn't or if I am or am not or if they are or are not.  Don't even hint at it because most of you suck with being obscure.  I'll figure it out on my own.

edit re Ironwood:  Yeah, that's what they want you to think. </Yossarian>

This is completely the wrong fucking thread to have this discussion in.    If your only concern is Adam, then the math works out in favor of harvesting.   If you don't want to kill little girls,  then don't and the hit you take won't be as bad as it initially appears.

Killjoy, who started his third playthrough before the game was released, did the math and you would essentially be missing only one upgrade at the end by being nice instead of nasty.  So my advice is to not worry about it.

And only because their upgrade math is goofy.   120 for a level 2 plasmid and then 150 for a level 3 with no prerequisite requirement.   The problem is that the level 2's come a hair too late prior to the level 3's so are only of marginal use.

You're better off really just upgrade the absolute minimum to level 2 and skipping straight to level 3 if you can.

He also said that, but min-maxing is for Nippon Ichi games.

Atlas only stated that the sisters weren't human up until the point that Tannenbaum whipped out the Save Little Girls plasmid.  At that point he didn't debate that they could be de-freaked, but rather that you were an idiot and going to die if you didn't get as much Adam as possible.  Saving some psychotic little kids is well and good, but if it makes you die and fail to save the city and the kids wind up being eaten by monsters anyways, well.

I think the more cogent question here is: if Tannenbaum cares so much about the welfare of people, how come she doesn't hand you a way to cure the splicers, too?  You save a girl, but have to shoot mommy and daddy in the face with a shotgun, how well is that gonna work out in the end?

And Killjoy is wrong.  If you harvest rather than save, you'll be reaching the end of the game with at least a couple extra upgrades and likely three or four, depending on just how expensive an upgrade you're buying.  Given that an upgrade can cost between 20 and 150 Adam and I don't want to post the exact amount of Adam in a spoiler-free thread, I'll just leave it at 'definitely more than one'.

Weapons are so powerful in the game and ammunition is plentiful that I skipped getting attack plasmids and focused my ADAM purchases on slots first, then good Physical/Engineering/Combat Tonics (you have to buy 53 for an achievement anyway), and had enough leftover to pick up Lv. 3 of all abilities by the time I reached the end without having bought INsect Swarm, Cyclone Trap, or anything over Lv. 1.

[semi-spoilers]

I don't think the difference is that great.  If you want to save them, do it.  You got some very cool stuff you wouldn't get otherwise.

[/semi-spoilers]

Yes, it depends on how you spend your points, and he was being very vague since I did not want anything spoiled so he did not tell me what he bought.  See JWIV's post about skipping early powers.  I seem to recall him saying it came out to a 200 point difference.  It's not something I am going to worry about very much on the first playthrough.

I did take his advice on what weapon upgrade to get first, however, since that was very minor.  Besides, it seemed pretty damn obvious.

I played through my first game rescuing the sisters and never felt that I had too little Adam to continue.  However, I'm used to playing System Shock 2 on impossible difficulty, so I play super-super frugal.  I skipped several health/EVE upgrades and skipped all of the level 1/2 plasmids, except for swarm, because it really amused me.

One thing that I wish I'd known at the time, none of the upgrades you can buy at the vending machines will be found laying around for free.  I stayed away from buying several tonics with the thought that I might find them eventually, and that doesn't ever happen.  What does happen sometimes is finding different versions of a tonic; you might see version 1 in the vending machine, find version 2 by researching things, then find version 3 sitting under a desk.  However, you can use multiple versions of a tonic and have their effects stack, so getting more powerful tonics doesn't necessarily make the lesser ones obsolete.

Can you guys please shut the fuck up with the spoilers in thier fucking thread?
There's two perfectly good threads where you can go on about what Tannenbaum had to say. Some of us are still waiting for the DRM to become less like AIDS before buying the game, yet retain an interest in the game (and this thread being where I expect to first hear about the digital AIDS being removed.)

This is all very general shit in a 10 page thread.  Yah, lets post it in a thread where the end might be given away.  Where are we supposed to talk about playing the game while we're playing it? Do I need to make a new thread? "Trivial crap you'll encounter in the first 30 minutes, discuss it here."  Bleh.

Would everyone kindly not talk about plot points until you can wander over to spoilerville and discuss it?

I figured the Stuck at a Part thread would be used for this sort of stuff. Next time I'll make a "shit from the first 2 hours thread."

Oh, sorry. I thought the initial post described what this thread was supposed to be. You know, what with the title in caps being NO SPOILERS and the banwarning from schild.

Regardless, do you really think though, that the best place to talk about the game while playing through it is the NO SPOILERS thread?

 :roll:

The stuff we are talking about is the very end of the intro section.  Not sure if the unlocking of the last game mechanic in what amounts to the tutorial counts as a spoiler.  Especially when it's just conjecture.

The crap about how to game the plasmids is MUCH more spoilerish, especially the parts where it's discussed exactly which plasmids you should buy or can get away with not buying or are game-breakingly broken.

So, essentially you're saying that some of the stuff people (you) are discussing isn't especially spoilerish, while some of the stuff (other) people are discussing is quite spoilerish. Wonderful.
Now if the more spoilerish stuff could wander off into the other thread, that would be lovely.

ta.

Heh, you think you feel bad now, wait till you get to the end of the game and you wake up with Bobby in the shower...

Nice.

Boy, am I not a happy fucking camper right now.

So it turns out I have one of the evil pirate programs installed on my PC - powerISO. I've never really used it for anything, but was playing around with it yesterday. I didn't think about the fact that it would set itself up in my startup.

So I go to play Bioshock a few minutes ago. Put in the disk, hit play. Nothing happens. Just sits there, no messages or anything. I remember powerISO, and figure that must be the issue. So, I open up msconfig, disable it, hit close. It asks me to restart, I say yes. Nothing pops up to tell me anything is running, or anything like that.

After reboot, dbl click the icon to play = FNF.

It ate the fucking executable. On a game that I'm only allowed to install twice.

Shitty fucking luck, or another hidden feature of SecuRom, who the fuck knows. I just know that I am pissed off enough right now that I have no urge to reinstall the fucker.

Huh. I have PowerISO.

It didn't erase that or fuck around with it. Neither did Daemon Tools.

Will it let you run Bioshock with powerISo running in the system tray?

What happened to me, was that after double clicking Bioshock, it didn't run. No message or anything, it just didn't run. So, I guessed that it was powerISO, and disabled it. After I rebooted, Bioshock had eaten itself. Could be Window's fault, could be Securom's, could be my mother's - I don't really know, I'm just pissed about it.

They have upped the number of installs to five, their system still sucks though.

Here's a question; I'm switching computers; does it let you transfer saved games after you've uninstalled it from one computer to install it on another?

I noticed that under "My DOcuments" there's a new Bioshock folder with saved games. I'm gonna assume that you can transfer that to a new machine, but I dunno.

Not that it does help you any, but it has nothing at all to do with Poweriso, Bunk.

I had the exactly same problem on the day of my initial install. I played for some hours, made a break, and after the break I had the same thing as you. I reinstalled it (without changing any other program) and since then it worked till now.

That pissed me off as well, if you only have a few installs you better not let me waste one of them on bugs. Fuckers!

This game is pretty fun on hard. I finally fired it up last night. My girlfriend and I screamed when we got mobbed a few minutes into the game.


Very fun. I don't know if it is Robot Jesus or not yet, but it certainly is very, very polished. Props to 2k for putting out quite possibly the most polished game so far.


On a side note, is anyone else frustrated that your EVE auto-recharges but you have to hit f for your first aid kits?

Yes.  It also took me quite some time to realise I could reload eve with a key press.

Manuals.  Lolz.

I preferred to manually use the EVE hypos; annoying as hell to wait through the four-second injection in the middle of a fight.

Er, No, you don't quite understand :  That should have been Instruction Manuals, Lolz.

There were plenty of times when manually sticking myself would have been a damn good idea !

 :|

My first Big Daddy encounter on Neptune's Bounty was a revelation in what Hard will be like.  Enemies got tons of hit points, yo!

Which only means you respawn a LOT before they die.

Pointless playing this game on Hard.   I wish I hadn't.

I loved it...only once did I get fed up and zerg-rushed a rosie from the tube.

the majority of the fights (until the end) lasted several minutes, used up tons of ammo and piles of meds/hypos. delicious!

What's wierd is that I can nigh empty a clip off my tommy gun into those spider mutants and they survive it, but if I throw a chair or a corpse at them, they drop dead. Be warned, the same trick doesn't work on a Rosie or a Big Daddy. Unless what you toss back at them is there proximity grenade.

Headshots get a really high damage multiplier, so much that spraying a splicer all over the torso with the tommy gun won't do nearly as much damage as shotgunning them once in the face.  I've found that quick taps on the machine gun trigger to toss out one or two bullets at a time make it much easier to keep them hitting around a splicer's head, doing a lot more damage as a result.  Don't hold down the trigger, it becomes impossible to control.

In A similar vein, a crossbow bolt to the forehead seems to drop anything, even on hard.

You'll also notice a massive damage increase using the same tactic on BD.  Be warned, it'll only work once before you're charged.

:)

So its wise to sneak up on a BD and snipe a headshot with the xbow before the interminable fun of running around getting smooshed repeatedly starts, yes?

Well yes, I'd think so.  Except there's no need to sneak to a big daddy.

 :wink:

Game keeps freezing on me every now and then.  Hard Lock.

So I've been saving.  Alot.  And of course, it seems to only freeze now when I haven't saved in an hour or so.

This is how the Battlefield franchise used to work, back in BF1942. It was all about a stable firing position and short, controlled bursts to the head. After playing in competition with that game, that kind of firing (except the firing position, since the game doesn't really have that except for zoom) is second nature.

Counter-Strike had that "burst firing" mechanic long before BF1942.   :wink:

I just started Bioshock this morning.  I'd heard how pretty it was, but it was still a shock.   :-o

Going back to an early issue with the DRM - I've read elsewhere that the BioShock DRM has been cracked. Now, does this mean that:

1) BioShock has been fully cracked and is now available for all those who want it online?

or

2) The limit of five installs off a single copy of BioShock has been bypassed, but that you still can't play BioShock without a CD?

I've already got the game, but I'm interested if SecurROM only protected BioShock for two weeks before falling, or if only one small issue has been sidestepped.

Wasn't trying to establish a pedigree, just mentioning where I first used the mechanic hardcore. Ymwdv. Also, vehicles lolz (cross-thread ftw).

I've only played two hours of Bioshock, I definitely need to dig back in. Haven't been in the mood, the game is so gloomy.

Yahtzee (British SA Goon) got hired onto the shitpile that is The Escapist to do his reviews (which are fucking great), here's his Bioshock review which is startlingly accurate.

...on another website so traffic doesn't go to The Escapist. HAR.

http://www.dailymotion.com/linguica2/video/4898773

That review was fucking splendid.

Great review. Where can I find more of this guy's stuff?

His youtube page. (http://www.youtube.com/user/yahtzee19)

There's also a thread (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2579800) in which Molyneux apparently emailed him over his fable video.

Stolen from 4chan because it was pretty brilliant.

Lol. That's good.

Finally broke down and rented it last nite.  What an amazing experience.  Played 3 hrs last nite and about 8 hrs today.  I would be playing now, but I am forcing myself to shower and go outside and be with other people.