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Bioshock 2
May. 6th, 2010 03:08 amJust finished Bioshock 2. It is made of win and awesome. Playing as a Big Daddy is pretty great. And I have the best daughter ever. <3
City of Andrew Ryan
May. 28th, 2009 04:03 am[Team] Darkside Gerbil: I'm going to be so mad in I16 when I have to choose between ultimate power and badges :(
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his fingers?
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: No says Positron! It belongs to Architect Entertainment!
[Team] ROBOKiTTY: ((meow?
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: No says Statesman! It belongs to Portal Corp!
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: No says Synapse! It belongs to my datamining!
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: I rejected these answers.
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: Instead I chose the impossible. I chose... Badgewhore.
[Team] ROBOKiTTY: ((>_>
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: A place where the haves would not oppress the have-nots. A place where PVP would not occur unless it was for badges. A place where people could gather without fear, and share their exploits.
[Team] ROBOKiTTY: ((\o/
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his fingers?
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: No says Positron! It belongs to Architect Entertainment!
[Team] ROBOKiTTY: ((meow?
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: No says Statesman! It belongs to Portal Corp!
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: No says Synapse! It belongs to my datamining!
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: I rejected these answers.
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: Instead I chose the impossible. I chose... Badgewhore.
[Team] ROBOKiTTY: ((>_>
[Team] Darkside Gerbil: A place where the haves would not oppress the have-nots. A place where PVP would not occur unless it was for badges. A place where people could gather without fear, and share their exploits.
[Team] ROBOKiTTY: ((\o/
Bioshock (PC) Review
May. 16th, 2009 07:19 amBioShock is the spiritual sequel to the System Shock games, which you may be able to deduce by noting a similarity in their names. There are a lot more similarities than that in the games, but we'll get to it in due time.
BioShock is a first person shooter (FPS) which combines elements of roleplaying games into the FPS structure. With the various in-game currencies (Money and Adam) and the weapon upgrade stations the main character's abilities are highly tailorable and get stronger as the game goes, even beyond just acquiring bigger guns.
Right off the bat, I'm just going to say this: BioShock is beautiful. I can't speak for how it looks with the graphics turned down, but with them cranked up the lighting was gorgeous and the art deco styling of the submerged city of Rapture were rendered lovingly in their full glory. If you have a system which is contemporary to this review and pretty beefy for its time, just stop reading the review and get BioShock. Your eyes are in for a feast that's worthwhile even if the rest of the game was trash. Fortunately the rest of the game is anything but junk.
The controls handle fluidly and intuitively, and the only real trouble I ran into was with ammunition management. Movement is responsive, aiming is as good as it gets in a FPS. Each weapon has a very different feel, and the wide variety of Plasmids bring great versatility to the tactics available.
Oh I didn't mention the Plasmids? They're essentially the magic of the game. You can shoot fire, freeze enemies in ice, or if you really want to do something unique you can shoot bees from your hand. New Plasmids can be found in the game world, earned by doing research on enemies, or bought from upgrade stations in exchange for Adam.
Adam is important stuff, much of the game is based around it. The enemies you fight, the so-called Splicers, have access to Plasmids as well. The iconic Little Sisters and Big Daddies harvest Adam. One of your goals is, of course, to accumulate lots of Adam so you can use it to 'splice' new Plasmids into yourself. There's a lot of Adam around in the game, but there's not enough of it to turn the player into an expert at everything. You'll have to make choices, and the game is balanced enough that you can employ a wide-range of different choices and still find success. There are stations around the submerged city of Rapture that allow you to change your Plasmid layout on the fly, so if it turns out that shooting fire out of your hand just isn't your thing, you can swap something else in instead.
There's a variety of guns, each with several different kinds of ammo. Managing the ammo is the only thing I had trouble with while playing, and often the half-second or so of lag (and sometimes swearing) was enough time to let the enemy get in a hit or two on me while changing from regular bullets to armor piercing. For weapons you have a simple revolver, a tommy gun, a shotgun, a crossbow, a chemical sprayer, and of course the wrench to hit people with. The basic guns are pretty self-explanatory, letting you fire munitions tailored for anti-personnel or anti-armored target work. The crossbow has one bolt which strings up electrified tripwires, enabling elaborate traps. The chemical sprayer can spray fiery napalm, freezing liquid nitrogen, or even lightning, letting it mimic the effects of some Plasmids. Ammo is relatively plentiful, even if the enemy doesn't drop much, there are still good supplies laying around and if desperation sets in there is always a vending machine somewhere nearby to purchase from.
Enemies come in a disappointingly small variety, considering that Adam lets splicers change almost anything about themselves. I really had been hoping to see some really strange looking enemies in the game, but most opponents were boringly too-human, even if horribly grotesque human. The general darkness of the game also worked against it here, cloaking the enemy models in detail obscuring shadow all too often. The Big Daddies are a sight to behold, especially the first time one appears; the tenth or so Big Daddy isn't so fresh and wonderful, the luster wearing off quickly. Little Sisters aren't really enemies, but the game early on gives you a choice: kill them for more Adam now, or save them from having to produce Adam for less immediate gains. The animation for all the characters is well done, but the animation used when healing the Little Sisters is particularly nice to watch with great lighting effects coming into play as the effect spreads.
The sorts of tasks given out are pretty standard things for a FPS: go here, kill those guys, get that thing, click that button, and so on. The dialogue and narration linking the tasks together is top-notch and of games like this only the venerable System Shock 2 strings together a more compelling narrative. The story progresses through various means. Obvious is in-person dialogue either spoken to your character, though there's little of that past the intro, or just chatter from enemies setting the mood and tone. Various people, including the game's two big characters, Andrew Ryan, who runs Rapture, and Atlas, who's leading the popular uprising against Ryan, contact the player over his radio. This is generally how the player gets whatever task the current mission is. The back story leading up to the player's involvement in Rapture is laid out through tape recordings that can be found scattered all over the game. These recordings are often insightful, cool, or just generally amusing, and they serve to gradually reveal the madness that's set in on the city.
I'm going to skimp on discussing the story's plot except to note that it seems somewhat weak to me, but having said that, it's well told and compelling. The big plot twist comes somewhat out of left field, I think, but once it's happened it helps make sense of some of the things that the player's been through.
Now for a quick scoring summary for those of you keeping track of the numbers:
Gameplay: 10
Really great gameplay. Polished controls and a wide variety of weapons and powers to pick and choose from, which help keep things fresh. The difficulty curve seems a little steep, because even performing research to get damage bonuses enemies seemed to exist solely to soak up unacceptable amounts of ammunition from my guns.
I also haven't mentioned hacking before now, but it's a handy tool to turn robots, or defenses against your enemies. It also lets you open safes and such. Sadly hacking has a sometimes annoying minigame associated with it. Losing the minigame costs the player health, so there's always a risk to trying to hack things. Fortunately if you're loaded with cash, most things let you spend cash to skip the hacking minigame.
Graphics: 10
It's not that things in BioShock are beautifully rendered, though they are. It's not that the setting is unique, which it is. The retro-styling of Rapture won me over, and would have gotten the game a 10 from me anyway. Fortunately the game is great looking and a real joy to watch.
Sound: 8
The sound is very well done. The music is appropriate, the voice acting is well done, and the sound effects are generally great.
Replay: 2
I think BioShock is a game I'll revisit in a year or so to relive the experience. Being able to swap my Plasmids around during a single game is a blessing in that it doesn't tie me down to a single playstyle, but it's a curse in that I get to fiddle with multiple builds during the course of a single game. The choice of killing or saving the Little Sisters also doesn't provide much incentive to replay the game immediately because ultimately it really only changes the far too short endings.
Other: N/A
I'm not sure what I was expecting from BioShock, but what was delivered was not it. It's still quite an awesome game, but I don't think it lives up to all the promises that were made. For instance, enemies were supposed to have motivations for what they do other than simply shooting the player a lot. This is true for the Big Daddies and Little Sisters, at least until you shoot at them, but the Splicers throughout the game are, except for a few rare incidents, pretty much just out to get the player. The level layouts also don't feel right to me, a little too contrived and a little bit too unlike actually being in buildings maybe. Once I shed myself of these notions and accepted the game for what it was, the experience turned out to pleasantly surprise me.
Overall: 9
BioShock would get a 10 from me, except that I simply don't feel compelled to replay it. It's not long-enough to make a replay daunting, it's just that there doesn't seem to be enough meat there for a second trip through. Having said that, it's an incredible experience that I can recommend to any fan of first person shooters, and virtually every fan of videogames out there.
BioShock is a first person shooter (FPS) which combines elements of roleplaying games into the FPS structure. With the various in-game currencies (Money and Adam) and the weapon upgrade stations the main character's abilities are highly tailorable and get stronger as the game goes, even beyond just acquiring bigger guns.
Right off the bat, I'm just going to say this: BioShock is beautiful. I can't speak for how it looks with the graphics turned down, but with them cranked up the lighting was gorgeous and the art deco styling of the submerged city of Rapture were rendered lovingly in their full glory. If you have a system which is contemporary to this review and pretty beefy for its time, just stop reading the review and get BioShock. Your eyes are in for a feast that's worthwhile even if the rest of the game was trash. Fortunately the rest of the game is anything but junk.
The controls handle fluidly and intuitively, and the only real trouble I ran into was with ammunition management. Movement is responsive, aiming is as good as it gets in a FPS. Each weapon has a very different feel, and the wide variety of Plasmids bring great versatility to the tactics available.
Oh I didn't mention the Plasmids? They're essentially the magic of the game. You can shoot fire, freeze enemies in ice, or if you really want to do something unique you can shoot bees from your hand. New Plasmids can be found in the game world, earned by doing research on enemies, or bought from upgrade stations in exchange for Adam.
Adam is important stuff, much of the game is based around it. The enemies you fight, the so-called Splicers, have access to Plasmids as well. The iconic Little Sisters and Big Daddies harvest Adam. One of your goals is, of course, to accumulate lots of Adam so you can use it to 'splice' new Plasmids into yourself. There's a lot of Adam around in the game, but there's not enough of it to turn the player into an expert at everything. You'll have to make choices, and the game is balanced enough that you can employ a wide-range of different choices and still find success. There are stations around the submerged city of Rapture that allow you to change your Plasmid layout on the fly, so if it turns out that shooting fire out of your hand just isn't your thing, you can swap something else in instead.
There's a variety of guns, each with several different kinds of ammo. Managing the ammo is the only thing I had trouble with while playing, and often the half-second or so of lag (and sometimes swearing) was enough time to let the enemy get in a hit or two on me while changing from regular bullets to armor piercing. For weapons you have a simple revolver, a tommy gun, a shotgun, a crossbow, a chemical sprayer, and of course the wrench to hit people with. The basic guns are pretty self-explanatory, letting you fire munitions tailored for anti-personnel or anti-armored target work. The crossbow has one bolt which strings up electrified tripwires, enabling elaborate traps. The chemical sprayer can spray fiery napalm, freezing liquid nitrogen, or even lightning, letting it mimic the effects of some Plasmids. Ammo is relatively plentiful, even if the enemy doesn't drop much, there are still good supplies laying around and if desperation sets in there is always a vending machine somewhere nearby to purchase from.
Enemies come in a disappointingly small variety, considering that Adam lets splicers change almost anything about themselves. I really had been hoping to see some really strange looking enemies in the game, but most opponents were boringly too-human, even if horribly grotesque human. The general darkness of the game also worked against it here, cloaking the enemy models in detail obscuring shadow all too often. The Big Daddies are a sight to behold, especially the first time one appears; the tenth or so Big Daddy isn't so fresh and wonderful, the luster wearing off quickly. Little Sisters aren't really enemies, but the game early on gives you a choice: kill them for more Adam now, or save them from having to produce Adam for less immediate gains. The animation for all the characters is well done, but the animation used when healing the Little Sisters is particularly nice to watch with great lighting effects coming into play as the effect spreads.
The sorts of tasks given out are pretty standard things for a FPS: go here, kill those guys, get that thing, click that button, and so on. The dialogue and narration linking the tasks together is top-notch and of games like this only the venerable System Shock 2 strings together a more compelling narrative. The story progresses through various means. Obvious is in-person dialogue either spoken to your character, though there's little of that past the intro, or just chatter from enemies setting the mood and tone. Various people, including the game's two big characters, Andrew Ryan, who runs Rapture, and Atlas, who's leading the popular uprising against Ryan, contact the player over his radio. This is generally how the player gets whatever task the current mission is. The back story leading up to the player's involvement in Rapture is laid out through tape recordings that can be found scattered all over the game. These recordings are often insightful, cool, or just generally amusing, and they serve to gradually reveal the madness that's set in on the city.
I'm going to skimp on discussing the story's plot except to note that it seems somewhat weak to me, but having said that, it's well told and compelling. The big plot twist comes somewhat out of left field, I think, but once it's happened it helps make sense of some of the things that the player's been through.
Now for a quick scoring summary for those of you keeping track of the numbers:
Gameplay: 10
Really great gameplay. Polished controls and a wide variety of weapons and powers to pick and choose from, which help keep things fresh. The difficulty curve seems a little steep, because even performing research to get damage bonuses enemies seemed to exist solely to soak up unacceptable amounts of ammunition from my guns.
I also haven't mentioned hacking before now, but it's a handy tool to turn robots, or defenses against your enemies. It also lets you open safes and such. Sadly hacking has a sometimes annoying minigame associated with it. Losing the minigame costs the player health, so there's always a risk to trying to hack things. Fortunately if you're loaded with cash, most things let you spend cash to skip the hacking minigame.
Graphics: 10
It's not that things in BioShock are beautifully rendered, though they are. It's not that the setting is unique, which it is. The retro-styling of Rapture won me over, and would have gotten the game a 10 from me anyway. Fortunately the game is great looking and a real joy to watch.
Sound: 8
The sound is very well done. The music is appropriate, the voice acting is well done, and the sound effects are generally great.
Replay: 2
I think BioShock is a game I'll revisit in a year or so to relive the experience. Being able to swap my Plasmids around during a single game is a blessing in that it doesn't tie me down to a single playstyle, but it's a curse in that I get to fiddle with multiple builds during the course of a single game. The choice of killing or saving the Little Sisters also doesn't provide much incentive to replay the game immediately because ultimately it really only changes the far too short endings.
Other: N/A
I'm not sure what I was expecting from BioShock, but what was delivered was not it. It's still quite an awesome game, but I don't think it lives up to all the promises that were made. For instance, enemies were supposed to have motivations for what they do other than simply shooting the player a lot. This is true for the Big Daddies and Little Sisters, at least until you shoot at them, but the Splicers throughout the game are, except for a few rare incidents, pretty much just out to get the player. The level layouts also don't feel right to me, a little too contrived and a little bit too unlike actually being in buildings maybe. Once I shed myself of these notions and accepted the game for what it was, the experience turned out to pleasantly surprise me.
Overall: 9
BioShock would get a 10 from me, except that I simply don't feel compelled to replay it. It's not long-enough to make a replay daunting, it's just that there doesn't seem to be enough meat there for a second trip through. Having said that, it's an incredible experience that I can recommend to any fan of first person shooters, and virtually every fan of videogames out there.
Finally finished Bioshock today. Being a goodie two-shoes I saved all the Little Sisters can got the good ending. Highlight: the last battle against what is essentially a superpowered art deco statue. Lowpoint: Srsly if explosives are in short supply, why were there hudreds of Nitro Splicers throwing grenades?
GameSpot Bioshock DRM Editorial
Aug. 25th, 2007 02:13 pmLong URL is Long
In 2005 Sony included with its music CDs software that would install DRM automatically onto Windows PCs without notifying the customer (source). This caused a major backlash from consumers where Sony ended up recalling over 50 albums to replace with DRM-free CDs. Now, 2K Boston has done the same, only not issued a DRM-free version. There is nothing wrong with installing rootkit software, as long as it is disclosed to customers. However, retail packaging has no notification that DRM software is installed along with the copy of Bioshock. In the financial world, lack of disclosure is a crime, and this type of situation is likely to bring about the need for industry oversight.
5 times, not 2
Aug. 25th, 2007 12:27 amhttp://www.gamingbob.com/2007/08/23/bioshock-installs-rootkit-including-demo/
So now you can install your Bioshock 5 times, instead of only 2. Phew. And here I was worried about the activation server not being there in 5 years when I want to replay the game. At least they install a rootkit for me so my security is blown wide open.
So now you can install your Bioshock 5 times, instead of only 2. Phew. And here I was worried about the activation server not being there in 5 years when I want to replay the game. At least they install a rootkit for me so my security is blown wide open.
Bioshock Widescreen Gimping: Intentional
Aug. 22nd, 2007 04:57 pmhttp://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/7032/
So, from the ground up, Bioshock was designed to gimp people with widescreen displays, instead of people with ye olde fashioned ones. Nice way to embrace the future there.
Irrational (now 2K Games Boston and Australia) then made concessions for the 4:3 aspect ratios by increasing the vertical FOV to accommodate the increased "height" in visual real estate.
So, from the ground up, Bioshock was designed to gimp people with widescreen displays, instead of people with ye olde fashioned ones. Nice way to embrace the future there.
http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/7034/
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.
It seems that the over-zealous SecuROM only permits the PC version of the game to be installed twice. After two installs, the game DVDs are then only fit to be used as coasters -- or perhaps, possibly Frisbees.
Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.
Last Bioshock Post Today, I swear
Aug. 21st, 2007 07:58 pmAmidst the billions of glowing reviews, there is, of course, a bad one. And I bring it to you, in its full glory from someone who could actually get the game working. An excerpt:
And IGN is legally threatening it's own customer base for downloading Bioshock from their Direct2Drive service. Remind me not to do business with IGN. Such strong arm tactics are inexcusable from a corporation that's supposed to server its customers.
But the claims of a completely interactive environment? Eh. I didn’t feel like I could do all that more than I could in any other shooter I’ve ever played. Most things can’t be destroyed. Nothing can be picked up or interacted with unless it has a specific purpose. Want to wear the bunny mask the guy you killed just had on? Tough shit. You can shoot it around the floor, but you can’t touch it or move it otherwise. Did you break that concrete block to clear the path? Good, good. You can’t shatter this other concrete pillar, though. And hacking robots is a neat concept, but the pipe-dream rip-off minigame you play to do it is utterly and completely lame.
And IGN is legally threatening it's own customer base for downloading Bioshock from their Direct2Drive service. Remind me not to do business with IGN. Such strong arm tactics are inexcusable from a corporation that's supposed to server its customers.
Bioshock, again
Aug. 21st, 2007 07:47 pmAll is not woe in the land of Feger, today. But it dissappoints me that a game I've been anticipating since it was announced years ago seems to be specifically designed to not work on my, or thousands of other, computers despite having technical specs well in excess of the minimum requirement. It's ludicrous. I was looking forward to copious toilet detail like in System Shock 2. And, I mean, just look at this promo shot, it's awesome. And getting into philosophy in a game is always fun. System Shock 2 needed a successor, and this should have been it. Instead, I find myself hamstrung. My dual GeForce 7800 GTXs, SLI'd together should let me run this thing. My 3.something GHz Intel CPU should lollercaust at the minimum requirements. But no, no! I might get to play it, instead of writing these posts.
Activating Bioshock
Aug. 21st, 2007 07:44 pmIt's not just Steam users that are having trouble getting their legally purchased copies of Bioshock running. Other people are having trouble getting the game to activate. There are stories all over the official forums of people undergoing similar trials. And hey, if your internet happens to go, sucks to be you. Maybe you'll get to play it tomorrow, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
albedo777, maybe you'll get to play tomorrow.
albedo777, maybe you'll get to play tomorrow.Bioshock and Steam
Aug. 21st, 2007 07:35 pmAmidst the myriad other complains and problems people are having, apparently people that tried to use Steam to purchase Bioshock in a more convenient manner than going to the store were shafted by two titans of the gaming industry colluding and conspiring.
Read all about it at the interestingly named Coffee-Ninja. Here's a sample:
The story goes on and on, just see what's going on at Online Props. "Luckily, I have just enough time to call my credit card company, issue a chargeback, and drive to Best Buy and get the CDROM."
Here's a post titled I'd say Steam botched the Bioshock release at a blog titled Jason Preston. And the same sort of experience is reported in a humble livejournal. And here, have another tale of Bioshock and Steam woe.
Read all about it at the interestingly named Coffee-Ninja. Here's a sample:
WRONG.. Not only was not ready to go.. its not even fucking installed! Now I have to wait 45 minutes for it to update? And thats after 10 minutes of 'unlocking'! Not to mention the fact that I could have went out and bought the game when the store opened this morning, or the fact that I could have played it for hours already while waiting for it to be 'released' on Steam.. (it was released at 2PM MST). Last time I buy anything on Steam.
The story goes on and on, just see what's going on at Online Props. "Luckily, I have just enough time to call my credit card company, issue a chargeback, and drive to Best Buy and get the CDROM."
Here's a post titled I'd say Steam botched the Bioshock release at a blog titled Jason Preston. And the same sort of experience is reported in a humble livejournal. And here, have another tale of Bioshock and Steam woe.
Bioshock Widescreen: Mini Roundup
Aug. 21st, 2007 07:22 pmSo, just to continue my string of posts while I'm all >:E and before I go off to play some game that actually works as advertised (like Astro Empires or Dawn of War or etc. and so on), I thought I'd drop a bunch of links here for people talking about the Bioshock Widescreen problem.
I already linked this one:
The Daily Jump says "We want to see the stuff in the red too" and who can blame them? The game's freaking gorgeous. If only it did what it claims to do.
XBoxic covers this too, linking to a statement by one of the game's programmers saying: "You will see more in widescreen. We use a different projection matrix; there is no squashing or stretching of the image involved." So not only does Bioshock's widescreen not work like it's supposed to, they lie about it. It's okay though, they're aware of the complaints. I suppose so, the thread complaining about this has, at this time, 441 replies and over 100k views. It makes for bad PR, so you have to say something, right?
Just random links to linkify this post even more:
http://m.onstro.us/2007/08/21/widescreen-issues-in-bioshock/
http://xbox360truth.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/bioshocks-widescreen-format-is-a-cropped-standard-format/
http://www.gamingbob.com/2007/08/21/bioshock-widescreen-support-screwed/
I already linked this one:
Now I'm sure that most people won't care about this. There is no real loss in play ability of the game as the cropping only removes part of the ceiling and floor. The main complaint is that rather than being able to see MORE, you can see less. 25% less in fact. Some people are so upset that they are actually saying that they will not buy the game until the problem is resolved.
The Daily Jump says "We want to see the stuff in the red too" and who can blame them? The game's freaking gorgeous. If only it did what it claims to do.
XBoxic covers this too, linking to a statement by one of the game's programmers saying: "You will see more in widescreen. We use a different projection matrix; there is no squashing or stretching of the image involved." So not only does Bioshock's widescreen not work like it's supposed to, they lie about it. It's okay though, they're aware of the complaints. I suppose so, the thread complaining about this has, at this time, 441 replies and over 100k views. It makes for bad PR, so you have to say something, right?
Just random links to linkify this post even more:
http://m.onstro.us/2007/08/21/widescreen-issues-in-bioshock/
http://xbox360truth.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/bioshocks-widescreen-format-is-a-cropped-standard-format/
http://www.gamingbob.com/2007/08/21/bioshock-widescreen-support-screwed/
Bioshock and You
Aug. 21st, 2007 07:07 pmWhile there are many people out there gushing over how awesome Bioshock is and yadda yadda, other people can't even play at all, or they notice terribly inconvenient truths about the game.
What kind of truths? Try this one on for size: The widescreen in the game is actually the zoom in of a 4:3 ratio picture. Meaning that if you're one of those people that bought a widescreen monitor or TV so you could see more, well, you're seeing less. Isn't that peachy?
Or how about the developers beaning you with a cluebat because you mistook an "O" in the authentication code for a "0"? It's happened at least once.
And so I'll close this short post with a link to an inscrutable blog post. I'm not sure what he's saying there, but I think I'd like to subscribe to his newsletter anyway.
What kind of truths? Try this one on for size: The widescreen in the game is actually the zoom in of a 4:3 ratio picture. Meaning that if you're one of those people that bought a widescreen monitor or TV so you could see more, well, you're seeing less. Isn't that peachy?
Or how about the developers beaning you with a cluebat because you mistook an "O" in the authentication code for a "0"? It's happened at least once.
And so I'll close this short post with a link to an inscrutable blog post. I'm not sure what he's saying there, but I think I'd like to subscribe to his newsletter anyway.
Bioshock is Failure
Aug. 21st, 2007 06:39 pmCame home from a pointlessly long meeting. Put my Bioshock DVD in the drive. Ate delicious Chick-Fil-A nuggets while it installed. Spent 2 hours trying to get it to work.
On behalf of gamers everywhere whose computers are above the minimum requirements, and on behalf of shattered dreams everywhere, I thank you 2K Games for making your brand name unforgettable to me. I will never again purchase anything you publish, develop, or glance at. Which is sad because that means your company has tarnished brands ranging from The Elder Scrolls to Civilization in my eyes and I will never again contribute money to your coffers by supporting those games, despite how much I may be anticipating future installments. You may have my money for Bioshock, but I assure you, your company will not see a single dime from me ever again.
I jumped through your hoops. I entered the pointless serial number, I let you invade my privacy and activated the software online, I let the auto-patcher run to completion. And 20 minutes later, all your software wants to do is give me a little splash screen followed by the standard Windows crash message? I don't think so. Especially not after 4 other tries at installing it.
I scope out your Official Forum and see tons and tons of complaints. It's ridiculous.
I see this post:
No anti-aliasing? And there may be faulty DVDs? My SLI'd graphics cards may or may not work? Shader 2.0 isn't supported thus meaning that pretty much anyone with an ATI card can't run the game?
At least most of the people have problems that let them get past the quick splash screen thing and can get to the main menu. I can't even get that far. And I'm not expending any more of my life on this fool's quest. When you all are ready to give me a full refund and deliver a game that actually works as advertised out of the box, feel free to drop me a line.
On behalf of gamers everywhere whose computers are above the minimum requirements, and on behalf of shattered dreams everywhere, I thank you 2K Games for making your brand name unforgettable to me. I will never again purchase anything you publish, develop, or glance at. Which is sad because that means your company has tarnished brands ranging from The Elder Scrolls to Civilization in my eyes and I will never again contribute money to your coffers by supporting those games, despite how much I may be anticipating future installments. You may have my money for Bioshock, but I assure you, your company will not see a single dime from me ever again.
I jumped through your hoops. I entered the pointless serial number, I let you invade my privacy and activated the software online, I let the auto-patcher run to completion. And 20 minutes later, all your software wants to do is give me a little splash screen followed by the standard Windows crash message? I don't think so. Especially not after 4 other tries at installing it.
I scope out your Official Forum and see tons and tons of complaints. It's ridiculous.
I see this post:
This is the year 2007, and you're trying to sell me a game that DOESN'T let me enable AA? Sorry, the game would look 10x better with AA, but the way it is now is horribly jaggy, and I will not be buying the game.
No anti-aliasing? And there may be faulty DVDs? My SLI'd graphics cards may or may not work? Shader 2.0 isn't supported thus meaning that pretty much anyone with an ATI card can't run the game?
At least most of the people have problems that let them get past the quick splash screen thing and can get to the main menu. I can't even get that far. And I'm not expending any more of my life on this fool's quest. When you all are ready to give me a full refund and deliver a game that actually works as advertised out of the box, feel free to drop me a line.
