I'm only ever a few years behind

[trinityvixen]

I've just played and am re-playing on the hardest difficulty, BioShock. It's easy to compliment the game on just about every front. It has a fantastic setting that is even more fantastically realized. The story is interesting, told in piecemeal by the man on your radio and the audio diaries left behind by others. There's the famous twist near the end, which is amazing and kind of heartbreaking all the same.

(It's stupid to say it, but, after reaching said twist, I...missed Atlas. I know, I know, he never existed. That's why the reveal is so freakish and creepy. But at the same time, it's like losing a friend. And the goading done by Fontaine afterwards seems almost fake. He's so different, you can't even find them all that similar. Poor Atlas!)

But one thing I have noticed that is worth mentioning is the gameplay scales up beautifully. There is a nearly perfect correlation with your improved ability to kill shit up with said shit's increasing imperviousness to your abilities. As you get better, so do the enemies, but they never get so much better and you never get so much better that the fight is boring.

That, awesomely, also translates to when you scale up the general game difficulty. Playing on a harder mode actually requires broad shifts in the way you play the game, as opposed to just making enemies impossible to kill or having them outnumber you by larger margins. I played through at first on easy, and that was the sort of gaming where you could just walk up to people and smack them once and they were dead. On hard, you have to work out how to engage them, sneak up on them, corner them in rooms where you have mechanical assistance. I'm replaying the game immediately after my first play through and I'm not bored because it feels like I'm playing an entirely different game. That is good design!

Comments

[equustel.livejournal.com]

I know, right?! It's a completely different experience. I played a bit of the first game on hard and remember having EPIC HUNTS for health packs. I also got a big surge of adrenaline every time I successfully took out a Big Daddy without, like, dying five times? Whee.

I like playing on medium (both the first and second games), 'cause strategy is necessary but it doesn't stall the flow of the story too much. I admire people who can play through entire games on hard the first go 'round, but I do not have that patience!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think the fights against the Big Daddies require the most strategy, which I'm actually loving--finding the corners to hide in that they can't get me, and so on. I also love hiding behind Big Daddies when splicers I'm not ready to face are menacing. Thus far, it's been a very serviceable strategy for me.

I would never play hard through the first time. It's only possible for me to play through the second time because I'm less unsure of what to do and how to do it. And even then, I'm lost more than I'm found!

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Wait until the Bioshock 2 gather sections--those are full of strategy. It plays very well to the part of me whose favorite TF2 class is Engineer, as I stand in the corner and watch 3 hacked robots, 2 turrets, and a series of trap rivets and spears take out all the splicers without my help :)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I like a good old-fashioned fight, myself, but there is something about being able to set up traps and execute them that is so appealing...

[cagexxx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I played through on easy mode before aborting and going through on hard for the achievements. On easy, I would load the shotgun with electric shells and shoot a Big Daddy FOUR TIMES to kill it. This was so ridiculously easy as to be a very effective money-maker, not that money was difficult to come by even on hard mode.

On hard mode, I think it took seventeen shots. That means two reloads, a lot of dodging, some winter blasting, and quite a bit of pain plus judicious use of a nearby healing station if I don't feel like being too strategic. Oh yeah, and I would make a trip to an ammo store between kills because you can only store 24 rounds (or 30, I can't remember).

Bioshock 2 seems much more difficult overall on easy mode...can't comment on hard mode yet.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I use exploding buck on the Big Daddies. Depending on how lousy my aim is at any given point, it eats up at least 10 shots. I mix it up, though, starting with an electro bolt shock and then some grenades or landmines and sometimes freezing him with liquid nitrogen. I like having the option. And I like--from what I've seen of the sequel--that you get rewarded for killing things in new and inventive ways. I'm a fan of hack-and-slash, one-button kills if anyone is, but that still appeals to me. It's a challenge, but not necessarily one you have to meet.