Bioshock is an FPS first, front and center. There seem to be a lot of complatnts from people who wish that Ken Levine and co. had made a completely different game, which puzzles me. Because they're a FPS studio, they make FPSes primarily (Tribes: Vengeance, SWAT, SS2) and their most critically acclaimed game was an FPS where you blow mutants away with your guns and your gnarly powers.
The moral choice in it is significant, because honestly, I can't think of another FPS that actually has any moral choices at all. Unless you start to invoke Deus Ex and its sequel, which are primarly focused on being RPGs with a FP interface, at the expense of the action and balance of Bioshock and SS2. I can't even begin to comprehend how expensive the dev costs of Bioshock would be to build in tangible consequences for dozens of smaller moral decisions, 5, 6, or 7 endings and a Deus Ex RPG-like open-ended structure into a game with the level of production that Bioshock has.
The developers knew what they were doing, and a they were emphasizing the FPS nature of the game, and building some choices into that framework. For their intent, I think they made a game that people will still be talking about twenty years from nowT. he philosophies in the game are explored seriously. You don't have absolute control over decisions like you might in an RPG, but it's not what the designers wanted to emphasize. It's not the ultimate game for all people, it's a game for FPS fans who want something brilliant. You still, at your core, need to like the genre to enjoy Bioshock. If you're merely tolerating the act of running around spooky, dimly lit corridors shooting or hiding from bad guys, you're playing the wrong game.
And with regard to vending machines, you're stealing from a maniac who's trying to kill you, and from companies in the game who have probably long since jacked themselves and their employees up with plasmids into raving lunatics that roam the city trying to chop you into pizza toppings... morally, I'm square with that. You CAN get zapped if you fail at hacking a vending machine. And you do have to expend valuable adam to beef up your hacking skills. It does injure you, so there is a consequence there! Not a plot consequence, but man, on Hard, those first aid hypos start getting scarce...
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Date: 2007-09-04 10:26 pm (UTC)The moral choice in it is significant, because honestly, I can't think of another FPS that actually has any moral choices at all. Unless you start to invoke Deus Ex and its sequel, which are primarly focused on being RPGs with a FP interface, at the expense of the action and balance of Bioshock and SS2. I can't even begin to comprehend how expensive the dev costs of Bioshock would be to build in tangible consequences for dozens of smaller moral decisions, 5, 6, or 7 endings and a Deus Ex RPG-like open-ended structure into a game with the level of production that Bioshock has.
The developers knew what they were doing, and a they were emphasizing the FPS nature of the game, and building some choices into that framework. For their intent, I think they made a game that people will still be talking about twenty years from nowT. he philosophies in the game are explored seriously. You don't have absolute control over decisions like you might in an RPG, but it's not what the designers wanted to emphasize. It's not the ultimate game for all people, it's a game for FPS fans who want something brilliant. You still, at your core, need to like the genre to enjoy Bioshock. If you're merely tolerating the act of running around spooky, dimly lit corridors shooting or hiding from bad guys, you're playing the wrong game.
And with regard to vending machines, you're stealing from a maniac who's trying to kill you, and from companies in the game who have probably long since jacked themselves and their employees up with plasmids into raving lunatics that roam the city trying to chop you into pizza toppings... morally, I'm square with that. You CAN get zapped if you fail at hacking a vending machine. And you do have to expend valuable adam to beef up your hacking skills. It does injure you, so there is a consequence there! Not a plot consequence, but man, on Hard, those first aid hypos start getting scarce...