Bioshock

[Arkan]

Question...is there a good way to defeat the Big Daddies? It seemed like the only way to do it was to just shoot whatever ammo I had at them, and let them 'kill' me, rinse and repeat.

[Slowtrain]

Question...is there a good way to defeat the Big Daddies? It seemed like the only way to do it was to just shoot whatever ammo I had at them, and let them 'kill' me, rinse and repeat.

 

 

The Vita chambers make everything pretty easy when it comes to combat. Since there is no penalty for death, really the only reason to avoid dying is to simply avoid the inconvenience of having to retrace your steps from a vitachamber back to whre you died. System shock 2 used the same gameplay idea but in that game being revived cost nanites, and since nanites were fairly rare and required for everything, it forced a much more conservative approach to allowing yourself to be killed and revived.

 

Anyway, experiment a bit and you'll find that the big daddys are easily killed in a variety of ways.

[Moatilliatta]

Anyway, experiment a bit and you'll find that the big daddys are easily killed in a variety of ways.

 

Electric gel

. With a full magazine of that, I could just continually shoot at them and wait for their death. Especially considering that you never have to fight one in anything but one-on-one. That was possibly the most broken part of the game.

[skuld1]

The whole idea of making a sequel is dumb except from a profit point of view. Of course, as Bioshock was already mostly about the profit, there will be some sort of continuity.

 

I'm pretty sure that just about every AAA title is mostly about the profit...

[Spider]

Question...is there a good way to defeat the Big Daddies? It seemed like the only way to do it was to just shoot whatever ammo I had at them, and let them 'kill' me, rinse and repeat.

 

 

I used the electric plasmid and whatever ammo I had for the grenade launcher most of the time. Zap them, hit them with a rocket, zap them etc...

 

[Pidesco]

Question...is there a good way to defeat the Big Daddies? It seemed like the only way to do it was to just shoot whatever ammo I had at them, and let them 'kill' me, rinse and repeat.

 

 

If you know how to use strafe, the wrench should be enough.

[Meshugger]

The first 2-3 hours of the game was incredible. Musice, art, production values and story. Then i realized that there were no penalty for death, i could get every plasmid i wanted, hacking was a nonissue. Basically, i went on and became a jack of all trades. Also, the story fell apart in terms of end boss, C&C for the little sisters and the ending itself.

[Musopticon?]

Question...is there a good way to defeat the Big Daddies? It seemed like the only way to do it was to just shoot whatever ammo I had at them, and let them 'kill' me, rinse and repeat.

 

 

If you know how to use strafe, the wrench should be enough.

And if you're ****ing pissed about getting caught in the rumble effect like the rest of us, mine and tripwire a hallway, then use armor-piercing machine gun rounds to force a big daddy to run that gauntlet. Cleanse the cinders with electric gel. Or do it like a real man and take all the electric damage bonuses you can and shock him to death in a puddle. I used the illusionary plasmid to lure a Big Daddy to a water field and threw Electroshock at the water three times. It's usually enough.

[Slowtrain]

To me Bioshock is one of the best examples of how game developers are using reduction to make games that will sell more copies.

 

It's perfect as an example because Levine basically copied his previous game, System Shock 2, and changed only the things he felt that would make the game too complicated for mass sales appeal. And al those changes seem to be mostly around reducing complexity or the need to make game-affecting decsions. For me, personally, complexity is an important part of a gaming experience: the more disparate pieces I have to struggle to put together to achieve "success" within a gameworld, the longer the game will interest me. In SS2 there are so many pieces to put together that not only did the game interest me enough to get me all the way through, it interested me enough to get me through about 50 replays. The experience of SS2 was like that of reading a novel where each reading uncovers more and more aspects and possibilities.

 

With Bioshock however, due to its simplistic game design, I very quickly reached the point where I felt I had mastered (or near enough) all the pieces of the gameworld, exhausted all possibilities for a new experience within the game, and once that happened my interest dropped dramatically. Level 4 and Level 5 were basically just played in "grit your teeth and push through to see the end mode", sadly that failed to motivate me for very long and I went back to more compelling activities such as picking lint out of my naval.

 

Bioshock is depressing to me because it shows that even game developers who have developed complex and notable games in the past, games that have become "classics" in their own right, are also taking thepath of least resistant and creatign simplified games that are much less tahn they ddi years before. I expect simplisitric games from Todd Howard, who appears to believe that gamers are troglydytes, I don't expect them from Ken Levine. Or at least, I didn't. Once.

 

Biggest disspointment in a very long time == BIoshock.

[Arkan]

Question...is there a good way to defeat the Big Daddies? It seemed like the only way to do it was to just shoot whatever ammo I had at them, and let them 'kill' me, rinse and repeat.

 

 

I used the electric plasmid and whatever ammo I had for the grenade launcher most of the time. Zap them, hit them with a rocket, zap them etc...

 

 

I don't have a grenade launcher! Where do I get one?

[Arkan]

Grenade launchers, electric gel, mine and tripwiring...are you all talking about later in the game?

[Slowtrain]

Grenade launchers, electric gel, mine and tripwiring...are you all talking about later in the game?

 

 

In the early game the best way is the shotgun with the electric buck. The electric buck will freeze the big daddy momentarily. Circle strafe while you fire against the Rosies and you won't take any damage usually. The bouncers have a melee /lunge attack that can't be strictly avoided in a circle strafe

[Krookie]

Armor piercing rounds for your Tommy Gun

[Moatilliatta]

Grenade launchers, electric gel, mine and tripwiring...are you all talking about later in the game?

Well obviously. It is ussually in the later parts of games where you get actual options, because games tend to want to introduce stuff gradually. Also the big daddy's toughen as you progress and I didn't find them much of a pain at the start.

 

 

A thing that you should remember early on is that there is indeed a big difference bewteen armour-piercing, normal and the third kind of bullets, so use what the situation calls for.

Otherwise the only way for early big daddy kills is to use whatever FPS skills you have, alwasy be on the move and keep an eye out for how his weapon works and how he intends to damage you, then you just have to counteract him.

Another good tip is to wait till you have nearly finished the level, because you are generally stronger at that point than at the start of the level.

 

[Slowtrain]

A thing that you should remember early on is that there is indeed a big difference bewteen armour-piercing, normal and the third kind of bullets, so use what the situation calls for.

Otherwise the only way for early big daddy kills is to use whatever FPS skills you have, alwasy be on the move and keep an eye out for how his weapon works and how he intends to damage you, then you just have to counteract him.

Another good tip is to wait till you have nearly finished the level, because you are generally stronger at that point than at the start of the level.

 

 

That's all needlessly complex. Just walk up and shoot them, they are not that tough. Death is irrelevant anyway.

[Pidesco]

You can turn off Vita chambers now. Unfortunately, the game is still easy and badly designed.

[Moatilliatta]

That's all needlessly complex. Just walk up and shoot them, they are not that tough. Death is irrelevant anyway.

Some of us like to pretend that it isn't.

 

Edit: Anyway death has been irrelevant ever since someone first used save and load in video games.

Edited January 14, 2008 by Moatilliatta

[Jaesun]

I found it an incredibly beautiful (I have a machine that could run it with all the pretty graphics), but OK FPS game.

 

I was expecting it to be a bit like SS2, but it's more like SS2 lite.

[Slowtrain]

Edit: Anyway death has been irrelevant ever since someone first used save and load in video games.

 

That's totally true, but at least you once had to suffer the penalty of the annoying save/load function, and wearing out your F<whatever> key.

 

Bioshock manages to eliminate even that penalty.

 

 

I'm not sure if that is a good thing.

[Moatilliatta]

That's totally true, but at least you once had to suffer the penalty of the annoying save/load function, and wearing out your F<whatever> key.

True, but suffering that has little to do with difficulty, which was what my comment was directed at.

 

To be honest though, there is a marked difference since save/load doesn't allow you to wear the enemies down, but instead has more to do with watching the enemy and adapting.

I'm not sure if that is a good thing.

Getting rid of the 'penalty' of save/load was good as that part of it is merely annoying.

The interresting part of the save/load mechanic is that it makes tough fights more intense, at least that is how I experience it (probably because having to load a save game is equal to loosing). If it would be possible to remove the first and keep the second aspect while not allowing the player to wear mosnters down, all the while integrating it properly into the gameworld, then I think it would be a good mechanic.

[Pidesco]

The interresting part of the save/load mechanic is that it makes tough fights more intense, at least that is how I experience it (probably because having to load a save game is equal to loosing). If it would be possible to remove the first and keep the second aspect while not allowing the player to wear mosnters down, all the while integrating it properly into the gameworld, then I think it would be a good mechanic.

 

 

They've already done that. In SS1 and SS2.

[Moatilliatta]

They've already done that. In SS1 and SS2.

Your post is of no use if you don't explain how they did that.

 

I did try to play SS1 once, but it didn't work very well on computers made twelve years after its release, not even with emulators like dosbox.

[Pidesco]

The System Shocks had resurrection chambers similar to the ones in Bioshock, with a few gameplay balance differences that made a proper alternative to the quick save and load schtick. The differences were that they had to be activated, had a usage cost, and only restored a minimal amount of your health meaning was a free ride, and thus compensating for the advantages a simple resurrection brought. I'd say that the Vita Chambers in Bioshock are basically a broken version of the QBRMs.

[Arkan]

So I just finished the game. I liked it overall. Worth what I paid for it.

 

Just one question: Is the ending different if you

choose to harvest all the little sisters throughout the game, instead of saving them?

 

[Pop]

The ending's different if you harvest just one little sister. As far as I'm aware, harvesting all of them just makes the epilogue music more ominous.