Widescreen Gaming Forum

Initial thoughts on Bioshock, given the demo...

1) Runs really well on my gaming rig. Way better than I expected, given the skuttlebutt doing the rounds. Nice a smooth, even at 1920x1200 with everything at max. Of course, how that plays out to the full game is beyond me, given that I've had demos run beautifully, and the full game like shit... and vice versa. Obviously, no DX10.

2) Dark. Doom 3 levels of dark. That is quickly going to really piss me off. Dark is OK if you moderate it... but... someone give me a fecking flashlight!

3) Pretty. Obviously, this is with the graphics on max... but still. Pretty. If UT3 looks this good, I'll be impressed.

4) Standard Epic Games methods of getting into the console don't work. Hm...

5) Unless this demo really makes me go, "Oh my God, this is awesome..." very quickly, this will not be something I buy. Despite the graphics, I've not seen anything that really makes me say, "I want. I really, really want..." and it also has to overcome my dislike of Internet Activation. Which is a big, big hurdle - it took Half-Life 2 and some of my CS:S mad friends a hell of a long time to persuade me to try Steam for Half-Life 2... and while my Steam experience so far hasn't been a bad one, overall, it has left a bitter taste in my mouth and honestly, Half-Life 2 wasn't (in my opinion) as good as I was hoping it was going to be.

6) I've been looking forward to Bioshock for a while now (basically since I first saw a preview) and I'm... disappointed.

...

That's all that I can really say so far. I've not got all that far in the demo.

Interesting...Care to enlighten us which games in your opinion outclass Half Life 2 and Bioshock? Just curious.....

Regardless of the messed up FOV issue, I am super excited for this game especially after playing it on my PC. I have my 360 and PC both hooked up to my 37" monitor. I had the demos running on both and could compare the games "side by side". The game looks amazing on both platforms, but the PC version looks significantly better. The shadows in particular look much better on the PC. I don't know if it is simply because of the higher resolution, or DX10 is rendering the shadows better. This was clearly the case when you see the shadow of the splicer woman standing over the crib. I don't have XP installed so I can't change the DX API codepath to DX9 to compare.

I played the 360 demo last week when it was released and got pretty excited, but after experiencing it on my preferred platform (PC), I am 10x more excited. 2k did a great job at creating 2 separate menu systems in the PC version. When you have the xbox controller enabled, the menus and button press indicators are an exact match to the 360 version. All references are to the 360's controller and buttons. When you disable the 360 controller, the menus completely switch to a more PC-friendly layout. This was a great touch by the developers and proved that they don't consider PC gamers as "second-class citizens".

Another nice touch that so many games screw up, is they allow you to map keys to all of your mouse buttons. Seems rudimentary, I know... but SO many games only allow you to map the first 3.

If the full game can maintain the feel, quality and polish of the demo... we may have our Game-Of-The-Year already.

Unless this demo really makes me go, "Oh my God, this is awesome..." very quickly, this will not be something I buy.

This is exactly how I felt at the end of the demo when the splicers are trying to bash their way to you. The screen flickering casting shadows of them as they try to get to you. The "Please Stand By" flickering behind them. The sounds were also equally as creepy.

I remember specifically thinking in my head "Oh my God, this is awesome".

I hate you all. It's so hard not having the demo.

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I hate you all. It's so hard not having the demo.

Wha?

Your finger broken and you can't click on a link and download the demo?


Or are you staying away from the demo to keep the game fresh for the full release?

Gabbo - I think if you right click the icon in the Games folder thing of Vista, you can force the game to a DX9 codepath. Also, in the demo I installed, there was a DX10 on/off option in the Options... whether or not that is toggle-able (is that even a word? :lol:) in Vista I don't know - it's greyed out for me.

khula - My opinion is my opinion. I didn't really care for Half-Life 2, but I can see why others would do. So far, for Bioshock... the same. But games that I think are better than the two of them... Deus Ex instantly springs to mind. I think F.E.A.R might well be an option as well, as I enjoyed that a lot. Far Cry... possibly. Bear in mind that I'm trying to stick to games of a similar vein here; if I wasn't, the list would be rather much longer.

Johhny - trying to hold back for the full game? ;)

...

I didn't get a chance to play any further last night, but I will try to tonight. I guess we'll see what happens, ne? ;)

Ummmm...fork that. Just havn't had a chance. Tried a few times and got home and it had not worked. Baaa. I installed Getright this time, to make sure it gets it.

Full game comes out on Friday, yet I'm scared taht I don't want to play it in non widescreen. So forking dissappointing.

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moboP8P67-M-PRO-V3 cpuI5-2500K-3.3GHZ ramOCZ8GB gpu260GTX hddOCZ-VERTEX II-SSD psuNEOHE550W hudBENQ20"

khula - My opinion is my opinion. I didn't really care for Half-Life 2, but I can see why others would do. So far, for Bioshock... the same. But games that I think are better than the two of them... Deus Ex instantly springs to mind. I think F.E.A.R might well be an option as well, as I enjoyed that a lot. Far Cry... possibly. Bear in mind that I'm trying to stick to games of a similar vein here; if I wasn't, the list would be rather much

I can see why some people might not like HL2, even though I loved it. It is a very different game to the original, but I think it plays out very well. I didn't care for the limited selection of weapons, the gravity gun was equal to about 3 good weapons in my opinion, but there were still more in the first game taking that into account. Also, I know that a lot of people didn't care for Alyx, although I liked the human touch she brought to the game. Also, there should have been more than just the Antlions and the Antlion Guards. There had better be some new aliens in Episodes 2 and 3 (I'm not counting Combine Aliens). As to FEAR and Far Cry being better, both of those two do something much better than HL2 - COMBAT - SURE, fear is a bit repetitive, but the combat is intense and visceral. Far Cry also had great combat, and beautiful open levels. Still, neither of those two games have a certain special something that HL2 has, and it's hard to put my finger on it. It just feels more epic I guess, and like you are really in a big worldwide event.


Anyway, back on topic, I shall be playing the Bioshock demo in a minute!

khula - My opinion is my opinion. I didn't really care for Half-Life 2, but I can see why others would do. So far, for Bioshock... the same. But games that I think are better than the two of them... Deus Ex instantly springs to mind. I think F.E.A.R might well be an option as well, as I enjoyed that a lot. Far Cry... possibly. Bear in mind that I'm trying to stick to games of a similar vein here; if I wasn't, the list would be rather much longer.

No probs. I re-read what I put and perhaps it looks a little abrupt. I didn't mean to be. I was genuinely curious. FEAR and Far Cry are both excellent games. As is Deus Ex. System Shock 2 is superb and this is why I like Bioshock (demo). It's just the setting is different. But... you still get the logs, the ghosts, the sense of a catastrophe that slowly reveals itself.

I think nostalgia is probably colouring my judgement.

Oh and by the way, there is a high def texture pack for the original Deus Ex.......

Right. :D

Interestingly, the only one of those three games I would unreservedly say is better than Bioshock is Deus Ex. Despite being old. The other two... well, lets just say that it would depend on my mood. ;)