Comments on: BioShock 2 Confirmed, Sort Of Dated

By: rahul

rahul — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 18:09:07 +0000

@Larington
Yup. HL was the category-killer circa 99.

By: Larington

Larington — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:49:29 +0000

Yeah, Bioshock is nice in its whole spritual successor to System Shock 2 thing it has going on, but lets, you know, see an actual System Shock 3… And THIS TIME make sure its release date doesn’t co-incide with something that distracts all of gamingdom for the next year or so…

By: rahul

rahul — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:43:17 +0000

mistake magnified.

By: rahul

rahul — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:07:44 +0000

Since 2K have fine-tuned the Unreal3 engine to suit the BioShock Universe revived some elements of the System Shock universe through BioShock..shouldn’t EA get together with 2K and re-develop System Shock since EA ought to know that the -System Shock IP is still ‘fresh’ and EA own SS ‘IP’ and also that
-BioShock is testament to a RPG FPS combine capable of taking on plain vanilla FPS titles ? I’m sure I’m not the only ‘pathetic creature of meat and bone’ with a healthy penchant for Shodan.

By: rahul

rahul — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:04:38 +0000

@ the Sombrero Kid
Since 2K have fine-tuned the Unreal3 engine to suit the BioShock Universe and revived some elements of the System Shock universe through BioShock..shouldn’t EA get together with 2K and re-develop System Shock since EA know
-the System Shock IP is still ‘fresh’ and EA own SS ‘IP’
-BioShock is testament to a RPG FPS combine capable of taking on plain vanilla FPS titles ?
-EA have a ready to use game engine with U3E ?
I’m sure I’m not the only ‘pathetic creature of meat and bone’ with a healthy penchant for Shodan.

By: The Sombrero Kid

The Sombrero Kid — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:04:56 +0000

ironically the only hope for this project is EA! hell has frozen over

By: Hidden_7

Hidden_7 — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:32:11 +0000

I’m not even remotely interested in this. The fact that Bioshock was from word go marketed as a “franchise” the fact that it’s just being passed off to some spin off devs, and the fact that Bioshock itself suffered some sell-out issues and the fact that there really doesn’t appear to be anywhere for that story to go, (at least not without vastly reimagining it, and lets face it, they are making a sequel so they can throw the big daddy on the box, slap a number two after it and sell it on the marketing force of the first one) leads me to not hold out much hope for the cash in sequel. But hey, I’d love to be proven wrong on this one.

By: Muzman

Muzman — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:51:19 +0000

He only did the first Thief and System Shock 2 (slow posting for the win).
But for that I am torn. The writing in Thiefs suffered after his departure. That game was a pretty unique combination of a lot of good stuff and it’s hard to pin it all on his absence for the slide. Never the less Bioshock’s writing was high standard stuff with a lot of character and reminded me of Thief 1 and SS2 (even if Bioshock’s plot wasn’t as effective as the others in the end). I do expect the quality of the writing might suffer in Bioshock 2. At the same time he’s pretty much to blame (according to him) for the “re-focussing” of the gameplay as a shooter, which I hold responsible for it being largely a detached, confused and generally wishy washy experience for me.

Have we heard who of the old team went over to 2k Marin yet?

By: Aimless

Aimless — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:39:24 +0000

Dracko, he only worked on the original Thief, I believe. However, seeing as he was the lead designer on System Shock 2 I think we can let him off. Oh, and I’ve heard some people rather liked Tribes: Vengeance, Freedom Force Vs. The Third Reich, SWAT4 and BioShock.

As for BioShock 2, well… I know what I’d like to see, but I can’t imagine any of it happening. Basically I’d like it to have the aesthetics of the first game wrapped around a first-person survival game where you need to venture out of a safehouse to look for Splice-free survivors and resources. And there would also be elements of Luigi’s Mansion…

By: Dracko

Dracko — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:07:05 +0000

It’s becoming a “franchise,” isn’t it?

What? You didn’t think it would be?

No Ken Levine might actually help it be a good game. What has he done beyond the two initial Thief games that wasn’t dross?

By: James T

James T — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:27:18 +0000

The original was pretty much a first-class art department in search of a game, so I guess I’d be more interested in the whereabouts of those boys and girls, and Susan O’Connor et al on the writing staff, than Levine. …If I were actually interested.

Well, if they made Bioshock 2 an actual RPG (say, in the Deus Ex mold) in a spacious pre-collapse Rapture (with a heavy emphasis on corporate espionage/sabotage, say), then I’d be pretty damn interested. Outside of that lone game’s worth of spinoff potential, I can’t think how a Bioshock ‘franchise’ could possibly be worth a damn.

By: Russell

Russell — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 01:03:09 +0000

Some confusion as to whether Levine is involved or not. According to shacknews he is involved in some capacity…