Double Shock

[lobotomy42]

For example:

You can light someone on fire and they'll run to water to extinguish the fire, when they are in the water you can electrocute them. Or, they might simply continue running to you and set you on fire.

Or you can use a big daddy to get rid of some people. You can made the big daddy think (can be done in several ways) one of the other people tried to hurt the little sister and the big daddy will attack them.

And there is of course the head on option where you kill them yourself.

So,,, it comes down to killing people through environment hazards (either existing or created by yourself), using NPCs or doing it yourself.

That sounds like a way that is quite new for games. Usually when you can do things like that it's strictly scripted. OR very limited.

Maybe I'm still not getting it, or maybe I'm just overly cynical.

I just feel like this is the same type of thing we saw in Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (or whatever it was called). The fantasy-shooter game that used the HL2 engine, and you could break the wood under the creatures, or throw them off, or just hack at them, etc. Or, heck, even in No One Lives Forever 2 I remember setting traps, and then throwing a coin somewhere to lure the guards out and then killing them with the traps. Or, again, Deus Ex.

Hmmmm. Maybe I'm just one of those people you mentioned who are disappointed it's a shooter.

The demo for PC comes out tonight. Mayhaps I'll give it a go and see if my impressions change.

[elmuerte]

I just feel like this is the same type of thing we saw in Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (or whatever it was called). The fantasy-shooter game that used the HL2 engine, and you could break the wood under the creatures, or throw them off, or just hack at them, etc. Or, heck, even in No One Lives Forever 2 I remember setting traps, and then throwing a coin somewhere to lure the guards out and then killing them with the traps. Or, again, Deus Ex.

Watch these videos

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/23296.html

http://www.beyondunreal.com/daedalus/singlepost.php?id=10695

[brkl]

It's absolutely wrong to disregard Bioshock because its gameplay isn't innovative enough. Most of the gameplay just improves on the already great foundation of System Shock 2. It's the setting, the premise, the story that's making such an impression on people.

[toblix]

Give it 3 to 9 months before someone will announce that idea.

Sure, but usually the idea is presented as if though the game is fantastic, while the truth is they've thought of and implemented something for that particular situation. Like the Bioshock stuff. The burning guys don't run to the water because of any "real AI". They're scripted with the specific concepts "fire" and "water" and "movement". Likewise, they didn't just happen to notice that water conducted electricity. There's code for the special event that "electricity" touches "water" and so on. I'm not saying it's bad or anything. Obviously it's the best and only way to do this stuff right now.

That trick is already possible (well at least in UE3 using PhysX and ai-implant or Kynapse).

PhysX includes cloth simulation, of course you could also use very thin plywood that would simply break.

ai-implant and Kynapse can dynamically adjust waypoints and reach specs according to changes in the environment. Usually used to create obstructions. But you can also introduce new paths (all dynamically).

I seriously doubt that trick is actually possible with today's technology. At least, I doubt that it's possible the way I described it. Sure, there's cloth physics simulation and dynamic path finding and all that, but this is still "stupid" technology that has to have the environment conform to a really simple set of particular "environment elements" (like "water" or "ladder" or whatever). Even in Assassin's Creed, with the climbing and stepping on all kinds of shit, I'll bet my ass there's a huge bunch of particular code and map markers in place to make it work.

[elmuerte]

well, you can't expect a universe to conform to arbitrary rules that have not been defined.

Of course you need to define the rules, but it becomes more and more easy to define generic rules. And that's what's it all about.

[toblix]

well, you can't expect a universe to conform to arbitrary rules that have not been defined.

Of course you need to define the rules, but it becomes more and more easy to define generic rules. And that's what's it all about.

Well, yeah, exactly. And the point I was trying to make was that today these rules are really simple and there aren't many enough of them, so it's usually very obvious that the game world isn't alive, but rather reacting according to the "if you're burning, go to the closest water entity" rule.

[lobotomy42]

It's absolutely wrong to disregard Bioshock because its gameplay isn't innovative enough. Most of the gameplay just improves on the already great foundation of System Shock 2. It's the setting, the premise, the story that's making such an impression on people.

I think this is exactly what I wanted to hear. Alright, sold, I'll get it.

[lobotomy42]

It's absolutely wrong to disregard Bioshock because its gameplay isn't innovative enough. Most of the gameplay just improves on the already great foundation of System Shock 2. It's the setting, the premise, the story that's making such an impression on people.

I think this is exactly what I wanted to hear. Alright, sold, I'll get it.

[brkl]

Excellent. And I haven't even played the demo, so what do I know?

[elmuerte]

You're going to get it twice?

[toblix]

You're going to get it twice?

Zing!

[Thrik]

An interview with Ken Levine that exudes quality at a respectable level. He even mentions Grim Fandango and Psychonauts!

It’s funny, as when we were making Shock 2, any time there was any deviation from Shock 1 there was a lot of very angry people. And now people are forgetting that Shock 2 really added all those RPG elements and character growth stuff that wasn’t in Shock 1, which was more of a clean FPS. There may be some more similarities, in that regard. And hey! I’m cool with that.

[chunks]

I wouldn't necessarily associate bioshock with deus ex, as bio shock has little to none npc interaction. The world in deus ex was alive in thriving, its the total opposite in bioshock as was system shock 2.

[brkl]

I don't know if I'd call Deus Ex' Hell's Kitchen 'thriving'.