The legacy of Bioshock

Bioshock was the game that introduced me to the current generation of gaming consoles. I professed in an earlier post that it has left the most lasting memories of any game I have played since. My conclusions have been drawn since that a developed game that has a sole single-player experience will be a far more defined and wholesome experience.

I for one am hoping that the rumours that the multiplayer modes will not surface in next years Bioshock Infinite are true. The new trailer above features all in-game footage and shows possible how difficult it would be to bolt-in a multiplayer element to such a dramatic and almost chaotic looking game. Bioshock was an excellently delivered game where Bioshock 2 – with its multiplayer mode – was a little feeble.

What say you? Do you think devs get side-tracked into multiplayer to the detriment of the single-player campaign and gameplay?

Bitten

(If you want to read the previous posts I’ve made on my play-through of The Walking Dead you can find them here: Brain Scramble(Episode 1), Moral Compass(Episode 2), Gambit(Episode 3) and discover why it’s my GotY).

And there I was thinking things for Lee couldn’t get any worse…

The Walking Dead comic book and subsequent TV series are set in an unforgiving Universe. Brutal deeds done in the name of survival and to see the sun rise on another day of hell on earth. Fun this is not but fascinating as a character study in a pot-boiler of a setting. Thankfully Telltale Games know how to spin these elements into a successful adventure game experience that is everything the comic book and TV series is. The added bonus is YOU get to feel the tension and live with the consequences of decisions made. Telltale Games have done what other media couldn’t. They made it personal.

Never before have I argued out-loud with the events playing out in a videogame but this happened to me in Episode 4: Around Every Corner. Assumption is a key ingredient to the characters lives within The Walking Dead and one such moment of assumption without proof by Vernon made me hit the roof. Man, I was involved. I wanted to swing a wild punch at Vernon’s head. Wanted to burn his accusations back across his eyelids. I got upset and let it get the better of me; I chose to spurn his poorly conceived offer and if I could I’d have swapped his place for the fallen Ben. Never has that intensity of feeling happened to me before in reaction to a videogame experience.

With just one episode to go before this ‘season’ closes out, I fear for Lee and Clementine. There’s no way to disguise the feeling of impeding doom. I’m certain theirs will not be a happy ending. I’m also certain that this experience will live long in my memory as the best forward step by a development team to infuse a sense of belief into an industry stifled with mediocrity.

Early Dunwall

When I recently posted about being a traditional gamer I had hopes that Dishonored would give me the scope to be that gamer again. Let me explain a little more what I class as traditional gaming and why I allude to being that type of gamer.

I prefer the single-player only experience. When I look at a prospective game purchase and see that the development team have opted for Co-Op and/or multiplayer that’s when I get nervous. I believe the SP element of a game gets sold-short once a multiplayer option is introduced. Gameplay within SP seems to always lose out to the longevity of including MP or Co-Op. Having a structured, linear but also a bold world is how I consider good traditional gaming to be.

So going back to Dishonored where, in my short time in Dunwall, I have played through the opening stages in both high and low chaos. I have to say I enjoy the sneaking and less-lethal way that is low chaos to the full on rampage that is high chaos.

The interaction with the world is good and the early quests introduce important allies that will aid you, as Corvo, by finding Lady Emily. Piero Joplin, an NPC who invents your weapons and upgrades, is excellently voiced by Brad Dourif and is my current fave NPC with Granny Rags a close second.

Dishonored has had a few nice touches and surprises already and the game has been shown love by Arkane Studios. Art direction is superbly imagined and it’s no-wonder why really when you have Viktor Antonov involved.

More to come as I get further in. How’s it been for you?

I support no oceans

It’s not just the gaming industry that are still practising old out-dated behaviours. Nope the movie industry alas still resorts to splitting release dates unevenly.

As a video rental store manager back in the early ’90s, delayed or staggered release dates had fewer people talking about as a topic. This was before the social networks that are so commonplace today. It’s incredulous that in an age of digital transfer and in a period of almost zero growth, the movie and videogame industries still like to use archaic formula when it comes to shipping and making available new movie or videogame titles in UK but also the US.

If anyone knows of any benefit derived from e.g Dishonored being released in the US on the 9th October and the UK having to wait until the 12th please leave a comment below.

Traditional not transitional gamer

This a game without the bloat of the modern blockbuster – no co-op mode to allow two friends to assassinate hand-in-hand; no lip-service multiplayer to distract the development team and divert their budget; no upgradable hub to grow or furnish; no open world to impress and weary. Rather you’re given a series of handcrafted missions, each with its own optional twists and turns, each with a start, a middle and an end, the plot written by a designer, the script penned by a scriptwriter and the narrative transcribed by you.

– Simon Parkin, 8th October 2012

The above extract is from the Guardian’s review of Dishonored. It easily sums up how I like my videogaming experience when I get the opportunity. I say that because most videogame titles released today are now a mixture of SP, MP and Co-Op. The sum of those parts don’t often make for a better experience. I prefer a standalone single-player game where developers have not seen their imagination soured by the publisher and their marketing tick-box.

Dishonored will be the first purely SP first-person game that I have played for some time. I really am looking forward to the experience and it got me thinking…what have been my favourite pure SP game experiences that I have completed on the current console generation?

Here’s just a few of those titles that I believe are worth mentioning…

Bioshock – 2K

My PC at the time didn’t have the minimum spec. to run Bioshock. I was disappointed and decided to buy a console and so ending the PC as a gaming format option for me.

Bioshock showed me that games could have meaningful consequences to players actions. It allowed the player to believe in the character and world around him. I applaud 2K because it did something that cinema and TV do well but gaming generally doesn’t – successfully show the passing of time. The above clip is the last scene in Bioshock – if you played nice – and bookends the story with a conclusion that leaves you with no ambiguity.

I mentioned in a recent post that I had a few topics that I hadn’t written-up but hope to soon. One of those topics – How do games approach the issue of ‘ageing’? – is something I wish to explore fully in a separate post but you can see that 2K weren’t shy about ageing your character to his death-bed in this last scene of Bioshock. Death and ageing are two key areas that I believe developers have been very lazy in their approach to. In a pure single-player game experience the topic of age and death could be big, big moments for the player and those moments shouldn’t just be just for allaying NPCs of their place in the story.

— Part 2 to follow —