On topic: Those of you that finished the game, did you like this more or less than BioShock 1?
i can say its worthy of being part of the “Shock family”
system shock is the immortal grandfather
deus ex and bioshock are the offspring, all of which have their own steller quallities
one thing the shock family all have in common is mixing fps and rpg elements
another could be the psi/augmentations/plasmid/vigors
I think its important to note that the “Rapture Elizabeth” has part of her right pinkie missing like in infinite. Though I am not 100% certain.
I’m glad other people have this mindset.
They have equally good gameplay imo, but Infinite has a much better story. Although Rapture is just a tiny bit cooler than Columbia.
Also, since I’m a youngfuck, I haven’t played Systemshock, should I buy it on Steam?
The only “new” gameplay elements so far that I have noticed are the skylines and npc partner throwing you items, just two. They dumbed down the rest tho… it’s noticeably less varied compared to Bioshock 1.
But in my opinion, Columbia is easier to play as there’s less of the “claustrophobic” feeling to it.
For the story, it’s quite hard to follow in comparison to the first one, which wasn’t the easier to comprehend in full either. I listen to all the npc dialogues and recordings and yet I still have no idea from where Booker knows this pirate guy that just sent a waves of pawns on me.
From the little I got so far:
- It’s obvious that the two are one and the same, doesn’t take a genius to figure out, since they look exactly alike besides one being older. That brings question as how come no one noticed. I still don’t get how that is possible, hopefully it ain’t another “John Connor-Kyle Reese” paradox.
- I have also noticed that the angel statue home tower thingy that got destroyed by the songbird or what shi* was again more or less intact (just burning) after he regained consciousness.
A plothole may it be, but how come doesn’t everyone on Columbia use Vigors?
I wouldn’t say the dumbed the rest down. Plasmids are “cooler” than vigors but vigors are way more useful in combat.
And I actually like how they made you only carry two weapons because that makes 1999 mode much more interesting. You have to think about what weapons you’re going to use before just charging into combat and sometimes you’re forced to change to a new weapon.
And “pirate guy sending waves of pawns”? The fuck are you talking about? If you’re wondering about how the whole of Columbia knew Booker was coming then listen to the voxophones and you’ll know how.
And I don’t think vigors were made to be used in combat, when you look at all those “Shock Jockey” and “Possesion” posters they don’t scream “USE THIS ON YOUR FOES!!!”. Bucking Bronco is made to lift heavy items, Shock Jockey is for when you’re in need of electricity to power stuff in your house, etc etc. And those that are for combat (e.g. Murder of Crows) are being used by different enemies. Combat would be tedious as hell if everyone used vigors.
Then they should have reserved the two weapon limitation specifically for the 1999 mode.
By pirate I meant the old military guy that hates Comstock and fights for “colored people” I’m just on my way to obtain Shock Jockey.
I got the idea that the Vigors were a common thing from the fact that they are sold on streets. You are given your first by this chick. And tedious? Maybe, it could be balanced. But one would think that using the enemy’s weapon against him would be the best course of action.
Oh, you mean Slate. Yeah, interesting fellow.
As for the vigors “plothole,” I’d always assumed that the Firemen were using Devil’s Kiss, since the first one you kill drops it…
Firemen use Devil’s Kiss, Zealots use Murder of Crows, Slate use Shock Jockey, et cetera.
Spoiler: [And Slate isn’t fighting for coloured people or anything, he was fighting against Comstock because claims that Comstock is lying about being present at Wounded Knee and the Boxer Rebellion, but Slate was surrounded from all side and then sought refuge in the Hall of Heroes. He doesn’t want to be slain by a Tin Man, he’d rather want a “real” soldier (Booker) to kill him.]
I’d have to agree that the two-weapon limitation is annoying. It could have been annoying, but the problem is that there are quite a few heavy weapons, like the sniper rifle or the RPG, that you only take out during boss fights. True, you can get them from tears sometimes, but it still makes the rarer, more powerful weapons somewhat useless. It also didn’t work very well at all with the weapon upgrade system.
Edit: And as for the vigors, you can hear some civilians at the fair at the beginning saying that they want to wait for Fink to work out all the kinks before using them; it’s sorta implied that they’re new and still imperfect. One thing I really did love was the implication that Fink [[color=’#191919’]used tears to steal vigors, as well as other things, from Rapture.] In fact, did you notice how some of the vending machines have lines that are throwbacks to Bioshock? “Return when you’re got some currency, fella!”
I actually found the sniper rifle to be incredibly useful at all times. I pulled it out at the tower-defense part in the end and just stood right in front of the tower, absorbing all the damage and using my sniper rifle to take down the fuckers. My tower lost almost no health at all and I only died once.
Edit: Oh, and about what you said about the vigors; they said “Have you tried any of the NEW vigors?”, so we don’t know for sure if they’re all new. I also have a few theories on plasmids and vigors if any one would care to hear: [In Bioshock a plasmid would cause the user to be subject to hallucination and eventually turn the user into a splicer. It’s kind of weird how Elizabeth never reacts to you drinking a vigor and seeing your hands burn ‘n’ shit like that, isn’t it? Maybe those cool hand animations are Booker’s hallucinations? Maybe he would turn into a splicer as well if he had used them for a longer period of time? Columbia is relatively young, but you do go to the future in Comstock’s house and see a lot of odd people with those president masks, if you removed those masks, would you see a splicer’s face?]
Yeah, but my point is that they’re useful but you have to find them, and all too often they just aren’t there, rather than being able just pull them out whenever you need.
I wouldn’t have a problem with the two weapon limit if the enemies used the full variety of arms more frequently. That’s the reason why the limit in a game like Halo works. You have guys on your side and their side constantly dying and dropping weapons making the concept of an oldschool style persistent inventory completely redundant. Plus units tend to have weapons that work excellently against themselves. You kill a grunt which typically has a plasma pistol and use it to take out the shields on the elite behind him. You can’t just slap a two weapon limit into your game, you need the rest of the game to work with it. Infinite didn’t do this right.
About the eyepatch guy, I was just wondering if the Booker you play as really does know him, or if the memories are of Comstok?
It made me wonder if a version of the eyepatch guy really did exist in our Booker’s universe or only in Comstok’s.
Who is the eyepatch guy? Is that something from Clash in the Clouds?
Slate is his surname, isn’t it?.. I don’t think it’s that hard to figure out what I mean.
Well [Booker was Booker in Comstock’s universe until the baptism which is AFTER Wounded Knee. I presume Slate thought Booker just “disappeared” after Wounded Knee and never knew that he became Comstock. So to Slate, our Booker is the same as the pre-baptism one in Comstock’s universe.]
My theory about the vigors is that they’re neither mutating you nor giving you hallucinations of being mutated - they’re mutating you, but shunting off the mutation on some inconsequential alternate universe version of yourself, but leaving you with the memory of it. Sometimes this process doesn’t work and leaves you with the mutation, particularly if you indulge in the vigors excessively as the Firemen and Zealots have.
By the way, came up with an original enemy design for BSI which I think would be neat to include in a mod someday. 
It’s called a Safe Unlearned, and it’s basically a small child that’s been overdosed on Return To Sender, leaving it as an indestructible skeleton that reflects all damage done to it. The only way to get rid of it is to knock it off the side of Columbia. Thankfully their only way of hurting you, besides reflected damage, is meelee.
But Comstok-Booker was a false war hero, so he likely never fought the Indians. Our Booker did, yet the eyepatch guy somehow knows. Doesn’t that mean he is from our universe and arrived in Columbia and got memories of its version of eyepatch guy, or even in reverse, that he is native but got false memories from our Booker universe’s version of himself?