Heavy Rain, BioShock 2 Delayed

Quantic Dream has announced that their much-anticipated thriller Heavy Rain is being pushed back to 2010. Co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumiere said that the game is on-time and on-budget, but also that they don't want it to come out at the same time as many other high-profile games. "Most publishers today realize that it's not ideal to release a new IP or a new genre just before Christmas. It's a very crowded place to be, and certain games need more space to live their life. Everybody at working on the project, both at Quantic and Sony, believe this is the right time." Meanwhile, Take-Two announced that BioShock 2 would be delayed as well, backing off from their October 30th EU release date and saying it will come out during the "first half of calendar 2010."

Comments

Will get over it.

[mjwx]

Bioshock was not that good of a game. It removed the best parts of System Shock, consolised the gameplay and removed any challenge to the player.

Bioshock had no replay value as both choices you could have made led to exactly the same ending. There was no need to ever alter your style of play as you could carry every weapon and every power in the game at once and there were two or three over powered attacks which made it pointless to use anything else, not that it mattered as you simply just couldn't die no matter what you did. 2K completely removed any RPG elements and dumbed down the FPS elements in order to make the game accessable to consoles. If Bioshock 1 is any indication on how Bioshock 2 will turn out I'm not holding my breath for it.

Re:Will get over it.

[alienunknown]

Bioshock had no replay value as both choices you could have made led to exactly the same ending.

Thats not true. The game has three endings that are determined by if you rescue the little sisters or harvest them.

Overall, I think it was a good game but we all have different tastes.

Re:Will get over it.

[wild_quinine]

If Bioshock 1 is any indication on how Bioshock 2 will turn out I'm not holding my breath for it.

Well, you might as well hold your breath anyway. It's not like you'll die or anything. The worst that will happen is that you'll respawn six seconds away from your current position.

Re:Will get over it.

[johannesg]

Bioshock was not that good of a game. It removed the best parts of System Shock, consolised the gameplay and removed any challenge to the player.

Bioshock had no replay value as both choices you could have made led to exactly the same ending. There was no need to ever alter your style of play as you could carry every weapon and every power in the game at once and there were two or three over powered attacks which made it pointless to use anything else, not that it mattered as you simply just couldn't die no matter what you did. 2K completely removed any RPG elements and dumbed down the FPS elements in order to make the game accessable to consoles. If Bioshock 1 is any indication on how Bioshock 2 will turn out I'm not holding my breath for it.

I have to agree with that. Choices in a game can be meaningful if they impact the game, somehow. But ending movies? Do they really think I'm going to play through the entire game again just to see a different 30 seconds of badly rendered movie?

Meaningful choices could include keeping one weapon and dropping another, but as you say, you can carry everything with you all the time. Replay value could also have been increased by experimenting with different powers, but again, you can already do that on your first playthrough so why bother?

Ultimately Bioshock was not a bad game, but it was not a successor to System Shock in any way. Instead it was a highly polished, very pretty Doom-clone. And since I've had enough of those by now, I won't be shelling out for part 2.

Re:Will get over it.

[RogueyWon]

Bioshock was a competent game. It's biggest problem was that it had been massively over-sold. On the gameplay front, it was supposed to be the spiritual successor to System Shock 2, which, as you and others have noted, it wasn't. On the story front, it was supposed to set new standards for depth and intelligence in game story-telling. In truth, it wasn't anything like as clever as it thought it was, failing to rise above the level of pseudo-sophistication I'd expect from an overconfident political sciences undergraduate. The element of moral choice was so black and white as to be ludicrous; you could either be an angel or a demon, with nothing in between. If you want to see moral choices done properly, then turn to Fallout 3, not to Bioshock.

The gameplay was effectively a run and gun shooter with a few irritating-but-easy puzzle minigames and a bit of spellcasting thrown in. I don't actually blame console-ification for this; you can actually have some excellent, deep gameplay on the consoles. I think it was related more to lazy design and a serious underestimation of the capabilities of the target audience.

Of course, it was still a reasonable game, considered on its own terms. The combat was moderately fun, though it suffered from some balance issues that generally encouraged players to be very conservative in their combat tactics, ignoring the more creative ways of using the environment and the plasmids. Visually it was pretty nice, with the art deco theme being generally well realised.

So yes, not actively bad, but if they want to get me excited about a sequel, they need to make clear that they're going to be much more ambitious this time around.

Re:Will get over it.

[Thyamine]

I disagree and agree. Every FPS basically does what your complaints are. Some (like Call of Duty or Halo for example) might limit how much you can carry, but they're all artificial limits. You can only carry two pistols, or one pistol and a rifle, how are those equivalent spacewise? What I loved about Bioshock was the environment and letting myself become immersed in it. I expected a FPS, and got a FPS, but thoroughly enjoyed the art deco style, the fear they build in when you come around corners and here someone singing, seeing shadows around the bend, the environment they clearly spent time putting together.

And if you want to die more, you can turn off the Vita-Chambers (I think that's their name) so that you don't respawn. That's just a toggle setting.

Re:Will get over it.

[FourthAge]

Those are just different videos, though. No impact on actual gameplay. I was deeply disappointed when I discovered this, as I had hoped for a major difference in the later stages of the game. For example:

1. You rescue all the little sisters. The German doctor helps you defeat the bad guy. You are the good guy. Your altruistic actions demonstrate that Ayn Rand^W^W Andrew Ryan's hypothesis was wrong - altruism is not, in fact, the root of all evil, because it saves the city and the lives of the remaining survivors.

2. You harvest all the little sisters. The bad guy helps you defeat the German doctor. You are a puppet of the bad guy. Your self-serving actions demonstrate that Objectivism is a flawed political philosophy, because greed will always lead to tyranny.

3. You harvest some and rescue others. You escape the city, but only by condemning the remaining survivors to certain death. You are the morally ambiguous guy. You embody Objectivism; you have rejected altruism and acted to maximise your own benefit.

That's how you do three endings! That's the sort of conclusion that the game's beginning implied, because Bioshock does start off very well. And yet, nothing. Just a shitty sub comic-book battle with a cyborg gangster, followed by a selection of three different videos depending on decisions that are otherwise irrelevant.

Re:Will get over it.

[Ascagnel]

In one interview, 2K Boston (the developers) said they didn't like their ending and it was more a matter of not enough time than about really putting and ending on it.

"Much anticipated" == lost in the crowd?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

All this anticipation must be hard on a company. What with so many people wanting to buy the product, it's a tough business trying to keep them at bay until the time is right. No sense in releasing on time. It's much better to release later so that people have already spent their Christmas money. After all, if those customers are playing other games and have less money, it means that they are more likely to buy this much anticipated game.

Nothing like giving your competitors a chance to gain a foothold. Nosiree. On time and on budget! Delaying release to maximize customer demand. The logic is foolproof!

Good! This is a GOOD THING!

[MrMista_B]

A rushed game will be bad forever.

Take the time to get it right, and it will /suck less/.

Please, before all the bitching and moaning, remember - what would you prefer? A good game, or a rushed game?

Re:I don't know why people complain about Bioshock

[johannesg]

Because it was just a first person shooter! It was advertized as so much more... In SS2 you have freedom of movement (Bioshock is on rails), you get to make some real choices about how to approach the game (and it matters greatly for gameplay), and it has some fantastic storytelling (of which Bioshock is a pale ripoff).

I've not played System Shock 2

Well, that's your problem right there. Shame it is so hard to find, it is well worth playing, even today.