[Intrepid Homoludens]

I've seen it happen regularly in this and other adventure gaming communities, that when a new game is announced many of us immediately want to know if it's 2D p&c or whatever. When a 3D game receives lousy or even mediocre reviews it's immediately lumped and subsequent 3D titles are associated with bad quality (leave it to the publishers and devs to help perpetuate this generalization by not designing a better game). Combine that with the often severe adherance to the status quo and, well, we've discussed it all before countless times.

[EvoG]

Yep we have...though I have to ask...isn't Beyond Good and Evil highly regarded in the community as a whole, or was it simply people like you being vocal about its quality that made it appear so? It seems to be the one game that is contrary otherwise to the opinions here about AG's, but I never questioned if it simply was lauded by the few like we are now with Bioshock, or if it somehow broke that barrier and was regarded globally(community).

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

The same argument can be made about people who would rather not ride a rollercoaster simply because they're at the amusement park to relax, not to get 'stressed out', or moviegoer's refusal to see a horror flick as opposed to an Ingmar Bergman one.

Ingmar Bergman's movies are scarier than horrors.

[EvoG]

Actually I have his number...

You know whats funny, speaking of Ken Levine...and I SWEAR this is not me name-dropping...but I worked with him eons ago when they were still developing The Lost, and I absolutely do not remember his accent being that heavy, especially how it is at the begining of the video prior to actually demostrating the game. I can't tell if it's for show or if I'm going crazy...its almost distracting!

As for system specs, the only thing you need is a 360...but if you MUST have it on the PC, be very very prepared. We're doing Unreal 3.0 development here, and I have a 3.4 ghz machine, 2 gigs ram and a 256meg 6800GT, and the shit craaaaawls...with only a character or two onscreen. Mind you we had like 6 dynamic soft-shadow casting lights on for glamor shots(overkill), but most of the demo's ran just slow enough to show how inferior my machine is to the Xbox...so with that said, not know how scalable they're gonna make Bioshock, I'd say get the best parts you posssibly can...its not like you can't use it for Crysis as well.


EDIT: Removed a smilie...that many was ridiculous looking.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Yep we have...though I have to ask...isn't Beyond Good and Evil highly regarded in the community as a whole, or was it simply people like you being vocal about its quality that made it appear so? It seems to be the one game that is contrary otherwise to the opinions here about AG's, but I never questioned if it simply was lauded by the few like we are now with Bioshock, or if it somehow broke that barrier and was regarded globally(community).

Hey, watch where you toss those superfluous smilies, some of them ended up in my post!

There was - and still is - a small but very vocal group of us touting Beyond Good & Evil for its very adventure game-y atmosphere, NOT in terms of featuring the old-and-tired puzzle concepts or traditional inventory systems and interfaces and the severely stingy lack of hotspots and interactivity, but for harking back to the what made adventure games very enjoyable - story, characters, exploration, and a deep gameworld you can lose yourself in. Plus, of course, the high quality was there in spades.

[EvoG]

So its the vocal group, not necessarily a full agreement by the community as a whole?

Oh, I found another! ...here ya go

[Spiwak]

What RPG community are you talking about? I looked around for decent RPG message boards but couldn't find any.

You work on BioShock?

[EvoG]

Originally Posted by Spiwak

What RPG community are you talking about? I looked around for decent RPG message boards but couldn't find any.

www.rpgdot.com
www.rpgcodex.com (beware...really...enter at your own mental risk...tough skins only need apply...just remember, you LOVE Fallout/Arcanum, and you HATE Oblivion and wished it were more like DaggerFall, and you should be okay. Also, and this requires some research, but depending on who you talk to, you MIGHT like NWN, KotoR and BG series...but dont commit til you are sure its alright to do so. )

Originally Posted by Spiwak

You work on BioShock?

That would've been nice, but no...there was a game they were working on, now cancelled, called The Lost. This was about 1999 - 2000 if I recall...right around the same time they were begining the first Freedom Force, and I stopped working with them right when Looking Glass closed doors, and Ken hired all his ex-teammates(I was/am freelance).

[Spiwak]

Originally Posted by EvoG

www.rpgdot.com
www.rpgcodex.com (beware...really...enter at your own mental risk...tough skins only need apply...just remember, you LOVE Fallout/Arcanum, and you HATE Oblivion and wished it were more like DaggerFall, and you should be okay. Also, and this requires some research, but depending on who you talk to, you MIGHT like NWN, KotoR and BG series...but dont commit til you are sure its alright to do so. )

That's good then, since that all applies to me. Except I haven't played Oblivion.

Originally Posted by EvoG

That would've been nice, but no...there was a game they were working on, now cancelled, called The Lost. This was about 1999 - 2000 if I recall...right around the same time they were begining the first Freedom Force, and I stopped working with them right when Looking Glass closed doors, and Ken hired all his ex-teammates(I was/am freelance).

Ah, I see. Either way, you're that much closer to working with Ken Levine than I am (which will never happen since I don't care about working on video games). Do you happen to know if his sense of grandeur is really as big as he makes it seem in BioShock previews?

[Melanie68]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Many 'devoted AG-ers' would most likely dismiss this game the very moment they see a gun (and in some instances, violence) on the screen. Then they would complain that there is no point & click interface, then, unsurprisingly, that it's in real time 3D. That's pretty much how far they'll get with it, so they may not see how central the story - and its compelling ideologies - will be, and how every situation is in itself a puzzle (even though it's not a slider or Myst style contraption, even if it's just as challenging as those).

In other words, they may not be able to discern the actual substance, quality, and inventiveness of Bioshock merely because it doesn't feature the conventions and superficialities of the games they've been used to playing for years.

Obviously there are some adventure gamers who won't ever play a game like this but there are probably some who are dismissing even trying a potential demo and/or playing the game because it doesn't contain what they're used to who might change their mind once they did play it. There has to be some way to present the game or some way to open up their minds to give a try ( despite my bitchiness at times I'm still an optimist at heart ). How do you do that?

[EvoG]

I know your response answers me indirectly as well...but you didn't reply to me along with Trep.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

(((((EvoG)))))

Originally Posted by Melanie68

Obviously there are some adventure gamers who won't ever play a game like this but there are probably some who are dismissing even trying a potential demo and/or playing the game because it doesn't contain what they're used to who might change their mind once they did play it. There has to be some way to present the game or some way to open up their minds to give a try ( despite my bitchiness at times I'm still an optimist at heart ). How do you do that?

It's a difficult undertaking. We vociferous adventure gamers who frequent these communities online and incessantly post our opinions are but quite a small group within the huge macrocosm of 'gamedom'. My bet is that there's a massive number of other gamers out there who love adventures but are much more receptive to - and adept at - experiencing various kinds of games that share a lot of the same elements that adventure games have (categorically speaking, natch).

Prejudice, no matter what context it's in, will always be there. Often times the only way to reach 'tightened' gamers is by having them sit down and sample the actual game. We've had people here who almost always play only adventure games, and they get wind of a game that's so extraordinary in how it uses the elements traditionally associated with adventure games - Beyond Good & Evil, Silent Hill 2, ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, Okami - and sample it and fall madly in love with it. Conversely there were other hardcore gamers who had abandoned the adventure game genre because they got disgusted, sick, and tired of seeing the same '2D-p&c-slider-puzzle-Templar-April-Ryan-wannabe-mediocre-quality-Myst-clone' over and over and moved on to other kinds of games that incorporated adventure game elements and even arguably made them far, far better than most standard adventure games today. Then Indigo Prophecy came out, and they were ecstatic - finally, a NEW kind of adventure game for them.

But to get back to your question, personally I don't know if you could even puncture through the blinders of the more conservative adventure gamers. It would have to take a series of beautifully designed, highly successful 'sympathetic' games to win them over to being more open about trying things they've never done before. It would have to be an extended trend. By sympathetic, I mean games that begin on a foundation of adventure game elements - story, character, exploration, discovery, and intellectually challenging situations (not necessarily puzzles) - what we've always loved about the genre, but conceived, designed and executed in the most inventive, creative, imaginative, and wonderously original ways possible.

And I think games like Bioshock and Okami are these games. But the 'tightened' adventure gamers will only filter these games through their prejudices and refuse to play them, making excuses such as "oh, it's a 3D game", or "direct control? forget it!".

Oh, before I forget, I think this is true for other kinds of gamers. As EvoG stated, many hardcore RPG gamers are the same way.

[samIamsad]

Originally Posted by EvoG

www.rpgcodex.com

Comedy gold. That whole idiocy goes in circles though... I remember that back then a really small vocal minority (vocal minorities are the worst) was bitching about Baldur's Gate not being a true RPG™ (what they really meant: A carbon copy of Curse of The Azure Bonds/Proving Grounds of The Mad Overlord/Whatever else they were playing back then when speaker sound and config.sys was king.)

Nowadays you see people bitching about Oblivion being nothing like Fallout, PS:T, etc. Yes, I've seen people complaining exactly about that, since, hey, with the lack of any deeper character interaction that surely can't be an RPG™. Never mind that the Elder Scrolls series never worked that way. Doesn't matter, it's not a real RPG™. Is that a bad thing? And who the hell cares about that anyway? Labels can be so stupid. Bloody fools. Next time you visit these forums, put this link in your sig: http://www.thief-thecircle.com/darkproj/manifesto.html. Ace stuff. Ace, ace, ace.

[AFGNCAAP]

It's great how the topic about a game that has little to do with AGs somehow turned into the same old drivel about how AGs need to change and how the more conservative crowd wouldn't know a good game if they sat on it. And all this based on the negative opinion that people supposedly would have stated if asked about Bioshock.

To paraphrase Voltaire: If there were no "purists", you guys would have to invent them.

[Kolzig]

It's kind of funny now that I think about it, when Levine in that video said in the beginning that they are tired of all the old fps clichés.

Then I started thinking about one fps cliche that has always been there, and seems to still be in BioShock too...

All the enemies from the same type look the same.
I get it why Big Daddies and Little Sisters look alike because those are genetically manufactured clones, I think?

But for example those women that have the ability to jump to the roof and throw some stuff at you, why do they all seem to look the same. it would be great to finally have every enemy look different and have a different looking physique.

[Melanie68]

Originally Posted by EvoG

I know your response answers me indirectly as well...but you didn't reply to me along with Trep.

Sorry.

Originally Posted by AFGNCAAP

It's great how the topic about a game that has little to do with AGs somehow turned into the same old drivel about how AGs need to change and how the more conservative crowd wouldn't know a good game if they sat on it. And all this based on the negative opinion that people supposedly would have stated if asked about Bioshock.

To paraphrase Voltaire: If there were no "purists", you guys would have to invent them.

I tend to agree with you. There are all sorts of gamers (I tried to allude to that in the post prior to this one). I asked how would we reach that segment of gamers who might be interested but why do we necessarily have to reach all of them (including the more 'conservative' gamers)?

Those gamers who have moved on, those that have tried new games, I'm glad you've found something for yourself. I have tried some new types of games as well but please don't have an elitist attitude (which is what it comes off as at times) because you have moved on.

[TM3]

Originally Posted by EvoG

...err nothing...it was just a throw away comment...thought perhaps you would've just rode it out with me.


Considering the quality of the narrative here (as evidenced by System Shock 2), and a more thought provoking aspect of the gameplay, I was midly curious how people who are devote AGer's would feel about a game like this. If you've read what I or Intrepid or Sam or a bunch of others have discussed about the need for adventure games to evolve, games like this come close to, if not surpassing (IMHO), adventures in gameplay while being story centric and more intelligent in approach.

Ah yes...forgive my idiocy (is that even a real word). I consider myself a semi-newbie to the point & click adventure genre. I've completed a couple of free-independent adventure games and "The Longest Journey." I do indeed admire the genre.
I am an "action" gamer but it's good to to play something where you don't have to worry about death sequences or platforming. Something where you sit back, mouse in one hand, and just enjoy the story unfold. Of course most of the puzzles in these games piss me off and I know it's all part of the challenge, but some of these puzzles are really "out there." Shamefully, I admit I have used walkthroughs (but who hasn't).

[Fop]

RPGcodex is nothing compared to No Mutants Allowed. Yikes.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by TM3

I am an "action" gamer but it's good to to play something where you don't have to worry about death sequences or platforming. Something where you sit back, mouse in one hand, and just enjoy the story unfold. Of course most of the puzzles in these games piss me off and I know it's all part of the challenge, but some of these puzzles are really "out there." Shamefully, I admit I have used walkthroughs (but who hasn't).

Admittedly one of the biggest gripes I have about adventure games of the past several years is their embarrassingly redundant and unimaginative puzzle designs. I do like a little break from the all chaos and mayhem of action games but is it worth it to me to deal with those puzzles that are, as you stated, 'out there'? That's why I enjoyed Indigo Prophecy and, to some extent, Dreamfall. While not perfect by any means, these two games least attempted to break away from the sickeningly moldy concepts of what a challenge could be in a game of their ilk.

I think the last adventure game I seriously had fun with in terms of puzzles was Gabriel Knight 3 (they were well integrated into the story, and even when questionably out of context, they still at least had a couple of threads connected to the narrative). Ironically that was the first adventure game I ever played.

But interestingly I played marvelous games like KOTOR and Silent Hill 2 mostly for their adventure game elements, not necessarily for the action. And I think their way of doing it trumps most modern adventure games.

[Spiwak]

Originally Posted by Kolzig

It's kind of funny now that I think about it, when Levine in that video said in the beginning that they are tired of all the old fps clichés.

Then I started thinking about one fps cliche that has always been there, and seems to still be in BioShock too...

All the enemies from the same type look the same.
I get it why Big Daddies and Little Sisters look alike because those are genetically manufactured clones, I think?

But for example those women that have the ability to jump to the roof and throw some stuff at you, why do they all seem to look the same. it would be great to finally have every enemy look different and have a different looking physique.

Originally Posted by Spiwak the Magnificent

My only complaints were that the character moved rather slow, and that the enemies all seem to have the same models (it's ok for something like HL2 where they're all in armor, but in this they're supposed to be normal people and I think the impact would be greater seeing uniqueness. I suppose that would take forever, though).

I thought the same thing. Do you think that might be something they'll be working on in the next year or whatever? I would find it really impressive if they were able to create unique models for the once-people. There's no excuse for at least SOME variation, considering HL2 had several different models for the City 17 citizens.

The little girls should also look different. If they all look the same, I think the impact of killing them would be really diminished...

I hope they work to create some different models while they're still working on it.