Ben X

The Big FPS Playthrough MISSION COMPLETE

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I think it does more than imply it!

 

But yeah, looking at it again perhaps he means 'if you're enjoying BS2 you should play MD too as it is very good'.

 

EDIT: anyway, here's a quite good video on the cleverness of the Fort Frolic area from the first Bioshock:

 

 

EDIT 2: and here's a long interview with Ken Levine and Shawn Robertson hosted by Geoff Keighley. (My suggested feed is full of Bioshock now!)

 

 

Biggest reveal: Ken Levine is the voice of the Circus Of Values machines!

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I liked Bioshock 2 a lot. Gameplaywise it was better than either BS1 or BS3. Never got around to Minerva's Den tho, despite hearing great things. :/

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I would also agree that BS2 was the superior game but BS1 the more memorable, and not just because it came first although that certainly had a lot to do with it.

 

And L4D is another game I'd love to get in on if I can.

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I probably wrote vague and incorrect English. My comment was supposed to mean just that I hope you will play and experience also the DLC and not just the main game. :)

 

And since you actually have Minerva's Den mentioned in your opening post of this thread... :getmecoat

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On 9/7/2017 at 7:45 AM, Ben X said:

 Other little things - remote hacking, a new hacking mini-game (hit a key to stop a needle on the correct part of a scale) which so far I prefer but seems like it may leave less room for error once the difficulty goes up) and some proximity mine things.

If I remember right it's much nicer with auto hacks later in the game than the first is. Doing that hacking minigame in the second one gets old after a while even if it's significantly shorter than Pipe Dream.

 

I also agree the the Little Sister raids were very fun. I liked upgrading my weapons just for the sake of being better at those more than anything else.

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I'm starting to go off those a little, actually. Perhaps it's because I did a ton of them in a row, then one of them culminated in a Big Sister fight. It just feels like 'Big Daddy fight -> mini-siege -> mini-siege -> Big Sister fight' is a bit much every time I want to get some Adam. They do at least put them next to cameras and oil slicks and what have you, which is helpful.

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I'm about two thirds of the way through now, I think, and am starting to get bored. I've got about 200 Adam and nothing I'm interested in spending it on enough to justify having to get more, so I'm going to try and speed through the plot now rather than attacking any more Big Daddies or searching through every little corner. Follow that arrow!

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I definitely remember that happening both times I played. There was lots of stuff I could buy, but I simply didn't feel like I needed anything else.

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Welp, the very next objective after I decided that was to harvest three Little Sisters in a row! More than a usual level and I was being forced to do it! Gah! So I pushed through that section and managed to complete the game without harvesting any more little sisters (except for a couple that I got by accidentally picking fights with Big Daddies - but I didn't bother with the Adam-harvesting sieges), despite the game warning me against it. There were a fair few weapons and plasmids that I never really bothered with either.

 

I've finished now, and have very similar feelings to those I had at the end of the first game - that was all very cool, but I wish there'd been less of it. On the one hand, it was pretty sweet laying down a ton of sentry guns, then calling two sentry bots and my kickass Big Sister daughter into a massive fight, but on the other hand I've killed like a million of these guys already. And again, a lot of the plot passed me by.

 

Overall a good game, though, but I think I'd have to rate the first one higher just for pure surprise value of the setting and a story that was tied in more closely. Even though the sequel does polish up a lot of the mechanics, it doesn't really introduce anything new or expand at all. I'm glad I've got at least one game to cleanse my palate before heading into Minerva's Den.

 

Making Of

RPS review

Art Of... videos (this links to 1 of 5)

Forum thread

 

I already played Metro 2033. Here are my posts from the time:

 

Quote

I think I agree with Dan that it's a bit of a slog. No quick-saves, and more of this RPG-lite stuff where you have to buy bullets and you've got a million different little things you have to worry about - charge your flashlight, change your gas mask, etc. The writing's not great either, and yet there's constantly people in the background all talking over each other with their little monologues and constant cutscenes. Also, there's no option for v-sync but it's jaggy as fuck. I might give that a google, and then give this a little while longer, but all in all it feels pretty creaky. [EDIT: Rob Fearon sums it up well here. Glad I'm not the only one annoyed by the enemy toughness and spamming!]

 

Quote

I had the impression that this was generally well-thought of, but it seems critics were just a good 5-10% too generous thanks to the 'atmospherics'...

 

Quote

Fuck this game up its stupid arse. I refuse to pick up the same fucking hidden ammo packs over and over again because all the bandits can take three shotgun blasts from a foot away before dying but even on easy mode I take one shot and I'm fucked. Uninstalled.

 

Oh well!

 

Forum thread

 

Onto Sniper: Ghost Warrior. I generally enjoy sniping in FPSes, so hopefully this'll be fun.

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1 hour ago, Ben X said:

Onto Sniper: Ghost Warrior. I generally enjoy sniping in FPSes, so hopefully this'll be fun.

Have you played any of the Sniper Elite games? I loved the hell out of 4, but starting with it made going back to 3 very hard, never even bothered going further back to 2 or 1

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No. I've got v2 but it seems to be third-person with sniping so I kept it off this list.

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Word on the street (internet) is that Sniper Elite are the good sniping games and Sniper Ghost Warrior are the bad sniping games. I've never played the Ghost Warrior ones tho, but I did like SE2 and 3, haven't gotten around to 4 yet.

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4 hours ago, Ben X said:

No. I've got v2 but it seems to be third-person with sniping so I kept it off this list.

Its third person when not scoped but first person when scoped, in 3 and 4 higher difficulty levels have realistic wind physics and bullet drop to compensate for.
 

3 hours ago, Henke said:

Word on the street (internet) is that Sniper Elite are the good sniping games and Sniper Ghost Warrior are the bad sniping games. I've never played the Ghost Warrior ones tho, but I did like SE2 and 3, haven't gotten around to 4 yet.

 

That is what I have heard as well, The new Ghost Warrior game is sitting on my wish list till it drops below $10. I really enjoyed Sniper Elite 4 and highly recommend it.

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31 minutes ago, Cordeos said:

Its third person when not scoped but first person when scoped

 

Yeah, that's what I meant. Don't know how you'd do sniping in third person! Just get reeeeeeally close to their shoulder?

 

Well, if GW turns out to be crappy I'll abandon it and return to Rapture. Either way, I'll put SEv2 on my list of good non-FPSes to play once I'm done with this damn list. (Although I may be so sick of first-person that I stringently avoid any games that include that mode in any way for a while!)

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So far this game has given me: tutorial; bit like the flashback in CoD:MW where you follow a dude around for a bit; bit like the stealthy sections in a Crytek game; corridor FPS bit.

 

The tutorial failed to convey a lot of the mechanics to me, so I had to learn those myself in the game proper with a lot of save-scumming. The CoD-style following simulator bit was what it was. The stealthy bit - what I'd expected the meat of this game to be - was quite fun but rather unpolished, with enemies spawning out of nowhere and no real clue as to whether corpses will be noticed, how well hidden I am, bullshit super-sighted enemies. The corridor FPS bit is terrible - the shooting mechanics are awful, to the point where every gun except the pistol is useless, and you're not allowed your sniper rifle despite there being a turret guy who's seemingly unkillable and impossible to bypass and despite this being a SNIPER GAME.

 

It looks very nice, but it's pretty unpolished and the 'story' is dull as dishwater but waffles on at you every five minutes about which soldier is going where. I'm going to have to check a walkthrough to see if I'm missing something on this corridor FPS otherwise it's going to be a very early rage-quit! I think the issue is that they're trying to make an action sniper game, which isn't really plausible. From the sounds of it, the more realistic sim Sniper Elite games are the way to go 

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I checked a walkthrough and also restarted the level, but could not get past it. The turret guy shoots through walls across the whole level, all your weapons are shit and all the enemies are crack-shots with magic vision and insanely high-powered guns. The walkthrough only suggests I let my friendlies take all the heat, but they just hang out near the start of the level doing fuck all.So I've uninstalled it. From what I played so far, I'm not missing out on anything. I can always play Far Cry again.

 

Contemporary review (accurate though the scoring's too generous)

 

Next up: Minerva's Den

 

I've played through the first level, and so far so Bioshock 2. It's probably unfair to expect anything else from DLC other than 'more of the same', but I'd got the impression from around the internet that this is the best DLC ever and jostling for best Bioshock game too, so I thought there might be something more going on. That said, I've only done the first area and they've levelled me up pretty quickly already. There are some new weapons and enemy variants too, and the story has an intriguing Portal 2ish feel to it. I'm going to try to get by without doing any Little Sister harvest sieges or nook-and-crannying for a while, see how it goes.

 

Best thing so far: having a sentry-bot buddy called Scoops.

 

 

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On the third and final level now. I've decided to only do Little Sister stuff that crosses my path, I'm not going to trek around looking for it. I've got myself to a point where the sieges are relatively easy - I've got enough money to buy trap rivets and turrets and I can summon bots. It's pretty fun when they give you a corpse in the middle of a ton of friendly turrets and cameras so you just find a good spot and watch the mayhem, picking off any stragglers and helping out with brutes or repairing downed bots. The story's the usual 'crazy antagonist must be defeated, you get told to run around the place pushing buttons', but I at least have a good handle on who everyone is this time. Quite a relief to know this is relatively short - no padding! Although I hope it throws some different stuff at me (without giving me an FPS crutch like an on-rails section or stealth section!) before the end.

 

Latest best thing: the guy who has scrawled messages all over the levels is called Reed Wahl.

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Finished. It didn't throw anything new at me, but I think my expectations were majorly off. I hadn't realised going in that this was essentially a three-level mission pack for BS2 with some new story. A 'Tale From Rapture'. I'd got the impression that it was going to do some really different stuff. So, for what it is, pretty cool. Well structured gameplay and levels, and a clearly told, interesting story that (I now realise) pre-dates Portal 2. It seems to me that there are a lot of people escaping Rapture over the course of these games, though! I wonder if Infinite or Burial At Sea (the latter of which I don't own, but which I'm tempted to break my rules to buy for lore-completionism's sake) address this at all - whether the real world becomes aware of or affected by the outflow of Rapture citizens at any point. Of course, with all the games having multiple endings, the lore is probably a bit of a mess either way.

 

I'd be really interested to hear what people here particularly liked about Minerva's Den, though.

 

Interview with Steve Gaynor

Retrospective (also with snippets from Steve)

Minerva's Den is the best Bioshock

 

Reminder: Designer Notes eps 29 and 30 interview Steve about this and other games. I think I'll leave them 'til I've played Gone Home (which is not part of this list but will be high on my priority list once I'm done).

 

Okay, onto Crysis 2. I really enjoyed my replay of the first game, and did not care much for Warhead. I hear this one is the worst of the franchise and the most linear, so I'm not expecting much.

 

I'm also hoping to organise some TF2/L4D2 co-op gaming at some point soon...

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Wait! I've just realised that I missed Condemned: Criminal Origins (and that Stanley Parable shouldn't really be on here)! I'm going to jump back in time and slot that in here before Crysis 2. I bet once I've done this list I'll look through all my scattered game libraries and find a load more I missed.

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Oh fuck dude, I love Condemned. That was a hell of a launch title to usher in a new console generation. 

 

It kinda jumps the shark, but, you know, video games. They rarely know how to end. 

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I'm halfway through the second level of Condemned, and generally liking it. It's basically a serial killer/CSI type thing and boy does it lean into the tropes - Se7en-style opening titles (haven't seen those since SiN and Thief 1), mannequins in abandoned tenement buildings, scanning for clues with little gadgets (no semen yet though). They do lampshade this right at the start, though, with a fellow detective complaining that the serial killers never go to nice clean places for their killings. And tropey though it is, the atmosphere's pretty effective, as you slowly creep around some grotty location, hearing what might be footsteps above you, then seeing a paint can move out of the corner of your eye. Then suddenly a crazy guy's running at you and you're stoving his head in with a lead pipe you pulled off the wall. The serial killer stuff is mixed in with some hints of supernormal abilities too, which is pretty cool. It's not as brutal or as scary as I remember it being when I played the demo (which consisted of the first level) at the time, but I think that might be because I'm just coming off Bioshock which pulls a few of the same moves in its early stages when you're whacking away at splicers with your spanner. And to be fair, I have felt a little nervy walking around the flat on my own after playing it!

 

Some things kill the atmosphere a little - a lot of bad line readings, and the 'find all the dead birds for achievements!' sub-quest which the game sometimes prioritises over the homicidal junkies swinging planks of wood at your head.

 

It's got a pleasingly simple melee system - swing, block, kick, use the taser if possible; basically the Prince Of Persia system, which I see as the platonic ideal. The one thing letting it down is that it's so damn hard to time blocking correctly. I'm sure I had this problem with at least one other game, perhaps Jedi Knight 2? [EDIT: looking back, also TRON and Riddick] If I see a dude start to swing at me and I click block before he hits me, it shouldn't read as mistimed! Or if you're going to insist on there only being a brief window for success, give me a tutorial so I understand it, because it's too damn frustrating having to work it out during the real thing.

 

It's generally doing well at making me feel like Will Graham, though, so I'll be eagerly getting back to it tomorrow (in daylight, phew!).

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Okay, I've done dilapidated abandoned tenement building and metro station tunnels, I'm now onto dilapidated abandoned department store. This is where mannequin guy gets his mannequins.

 

It's feeling a little repetitive already, but there are some new enemies - brutes and wall-crawling weirdoes - to play with. It's introducing more supernatural stuff too, which is effectively creepy - rat-creatures scuttling through adjacent rooms into vents, one guy disappeared into thin air before my eyes and I'm also getting visions of flocks of birds crashing through windows or what the serial killer's been up to. (I think I read a few years ago that the bird stuff never gets explained, but it's still good flavour - they're flocking to certain areas then having brain haemorrhages and die, and these areas are the same that are seeing huge aggressive crime spikes. Presumably the killer and/or myself are giving off some kind of psychic signal.)

 

I'm getting a bit better at blocking. It seems the trick is to wait til the last moment, though this doesn't always work either. I'm wondering if different enemy/weapon combos mean I have to adjust my timing slightly. If so, that's asking for a ridiculous amount of finesse. It's very satisfying when it works, though, and you block a swipe, crack them in the head, kick them to the floor then snap their neck. Combined with the 'tase 'em, steal their weapon' move, you've got a few options. Still some irritations, though, like how stealing someone's weapon causes them to grab you so you have to waggle your mouse to get loose but there's no way to tell when you've succeeded or which way you're facing, so you often end up facing away from them doing a Turner And Hooch impression like an idiot. Or how you're only able to hold one thing, so if you've got a shotgun with 4 bullets but there's one on the floor with 2 you're not able to combine the ammo, and you can't just tuck a pistol into your belt or something to tactically save it for later, you just have to use it on the first mook that comes along until the bullets run out then swap it for whatever comes to hand. The melee system is the focus of the game, so these little quirks glare more than they might in another game.

 

I feel like I might need another game to dip into while I'm going through this, as it's not something you binge-play. The pacing is too methodical for that (not in a bad way), plus like I say there's the repetition. Seems I'm about halfway through, which suggests there won't be much more variety but not much more padding either.

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