Comments on: Arma II: Mod Tools, Expansion Pack Announced

By: Geoff

Geoff — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:09:56 +0000

Bah. Sorry about the double-post. No preview/edit function, and I got back a “malformed reply” from the server.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:09:04 +0000

@Howard,
You warned that using Bioshock as part of his argument was dicey, but then you made Dominic’s point perfectly.

We’re talking about subjective stuff, and there’s plenty of room for disagreement and taste, but when someone asks your opinion on Shakespeare and you reply with “Total crap, just a bunch of confusing mis-spelled words and fart jokes”, this does not make the listener look down on Shakespeare, but rather look down on you. Meanwhile, if you can say something like “He did some really interesting things with structure, and with combining low-brow and high-brow content, but I think he’s over-rated and not as good as [insert similar author]“, now you convey a sense that you understand the material being discussed, but disagree with the popular consensus.

Yes, Bioshock is not Shakespeare, but when you say it’s bloody awful, and the good reviews were insanity from Xbox 360 reviewers, it clearly reveals that you don’t know what you’re talking about. One of its vocal fans amongst the critics is Tom Chick:
Review

Yes, I know that’s a 360 review, but if you’re at all familiar with Tom Chick’s work, you can hardly call him an insane simplified console player. And no, he’s not unfamiliar with System Shock:
Recent post

You’re welcome to disagree with him of course. Games are subjective experiences and we all have our own opinions and tastes, but when you speak so dismissively of it, you give the clear impression that YOU missed the point, not us. There is something there, really. The “insane” critics are not just imagining it or sucking up to their corporate console masters.

Which is the same point Dominic was making here – there’s something great in Arma2. There is. If you can’t see it, you’re missing it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. There are also problems there, which an intelligent critic can observe, but to dismiss it as crap is to reveal yourself as having missed it.

By: Geoff

Geoff — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:07:48 +0000

@Howard,
You warned that using Bioshock as part of his argument was dicey, but then you made Dominic’s point perfectly.

By: Psychopomp

Psychopomp — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:43:36 +0000

And Starcraft is nothing compared to X-Com.

So there.

By: aguy

aguy — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:38:36 +0000

gb2 korea
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpuv7VPb2rA

By: SofS

SofS — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:55:29 +0000

The real question here is how either Bioshock or Arma2 compare to Starcraft (hint: both of them are nothing).

By: Howard

Howard — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:54:16 +0000

A fair point, Vinraith, but my inability to like Bioshock is actually nothing to do with System Shock. My complaint there is that Bioshock deliberately tried to peddle itself as the successor to SS1/2 when in fact all it does is rip them off. Everything in BS that resembles SS1/2 is just a cheap imitation of the massive innovations the first 2 games had, lashed onto the side of an ugly, badly crafted and entirely generic FPS corridor romp that, as I say, resembles Serious Sam more than it does something as eloquent and exquisite as System Shock.

Had Bioshock been honest from the start and simply sold itself to us as what it is, a basic, consolised FPS in an interesting surrounding, I would have been fine with it but the hyperbole and bullshit that surrounded Bioshock was staggering. Its developers just would not STFU about how creative, original and wholly unprecedented the game was, waxing continuously lyrical about how filled with choice and player decision it would be. The only decision you got in that game (bar the abjectly naive and dreadfully mishandled “kill or free” with the little sisters) is which one of the idiotically large arsenal of guns or force-powers you used to kill the legions of randomly spawning, identical (and identically FUGLY) enemies you encountered (thus my Serious Sam reference).

There was not a single stick of innovation in that game and while imitation can be the highest form of flattery this just abused a license.

By: Vinraith

Vinraith — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:06:12 +0000

I feel kind of sorry for people that can’t enjoy a good game now just because once, long ago, they played a great one.

By: ourdreamsoffreedom

ourdreamsoffreedom — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:00:53 +0000

I don’t know how anyone who played SS2 could have liked BioShock. Even visually, BioShock was crap. The whole place looked like clown city on a very potent psychoactive. Is that the clue?

KP: Have you tried that in Chernogorsk? If you do, you’ll see at least two big problems: a) awful performance regardless of settings b) an AI that’s utterly incapable to dealing anything that’s not a flat, open space.

By: KP

KP — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 02:14:17 +0000

I haven’t encountered any of those glitches. Today I got to lead two squads of Russian AI against a squad of humans with an AAV. High Command is great. It was a blast. :D

By: KnightOfCydonia

KnightOfCydonia — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:28:22 +0000

Bioshock is nothing to do with System Shock 1 and 2? Really?
Ignoring the REALLY OBVIOUS DIRECT REFERENCE IN THE NAME, they share so many mechanics (The relationship between you and Atlas, for instance, is similar in many ways to the relationship between the hacker and SHODAN, for example, or the Plasmids’ similarity to SS/SS2′s implants).
And yes, Bioshock is a corridor shooter. I fail to see why that’s a bad thing.
Oh, and you’re really dismissing the tapes in Bioshock as vapid and cliched? Did you even hear the story of the White Rabbit, or earlier on, that of Ryan’s secretary?
Calling it ugly, too, is just… I mean, what, because it’s not as shiny as Crysis on Very High, or ArmA II when your computer can handle it, it’s instantly ugly? Game worlds can be beautiful and different and interesting without relying on multi-billion dollar engines, and Bioshock is a perfect example of this.
The fragility of your argument is demonstrated even further by the fact you have to resort to personal attacks, implying I’m on drugs.

By: Howard

Howard — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:20:11 +0000

@KnightOfCydonia
Whatever you are smoking you either need to take a lot more of it or a lot less; I cannot decide. Bioshock is NOTHING to do with the great games that went before it. It is a derivative, boring, repetitive and ugly Serious Sam remake and nothing more. Staggering around some interesting looking though utterly unused corridors while vapid, clichéd pap is spewed out of tape recorders and pretending you are having some kind of insightful experience is just self delusion at its highest.
You really think for one moment that the quality of the hardware I had at the time Bioshock launched had anything to do with my experience? I played it beyond its maximum details and my PC was still bored because it failed to use 1/5th of what the engine had to offer. It was ugly as all hell and had character movement straight from the 90′s. Simply giving you 10 different guns and “psionic powers” does not a good game make. It was just an appalling corridor shooter which was held afloat purely by hype and the pretence it had anything to do with System Shock.

Go back to bed, would you please?