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I'm
wondering if -- this is, like, so out on a limb, and not related to anything,
so feel free to not answer, but: I heard several years ago that Doug Church at
EALA was working on a System Shock
sequel -- and this was years ago, at this point -- I'm wondering if there was
any connection there, or if you guys looked at those games, or anything.
CB: Oh, System
Shock? We've all played System Shock,
for sure, so... I don't know how much influence it had on us. There's going to
be some similarities in our game and theirs. Theirs is like a nice
hub-and-spoke level design system, where you start out in one spot, and you go
over and come back.
They have a good upgrade system. Their game is really
brilliant, and we love that game. We didn't really seek to ape that game,
specifically, but there was some admiration there, and I'm sure that crept into
some of what we're doing.
A
lot of thematic similarities.
CB: I think so. Yeah, because the emotional
tone they strike, and the gameplay feel that they strike, is really what we
like as well, right? So we're trying to do... Like every good horror film that
comes out is in the horror genre, and System
Shock is a very specific kind of game, and we want to be in that genre, and
do a good version of it. So the similarities are kind of in that vein.
It's
funny, there are hardly any western-developed horror games. Like, if you think
about it, there are very few. I don't know why, but...
CB: It's mostly Japanese, it seems like,
that do that. And we've got a lot of Japanese influences on our game. All the
tentacles, of course, are really very Japanese; and the style of horror seems
to be very Japanese, you know. So, it's weird that there's not more here.
People keep telling us that, "Why are
you in this genre? There are so many people doing the sci-fi, the horror, this
and that," And I'm like, "Really? How many are there...?" There
are that many sci-fi horror genre [games]? I feel like there's sci-fi, and I
feel like there's horror, but sci-fi horror, I don't know that I can really
name that many.
No.
Well, like you said, there was Doom 3,
but I can't really think of much since then.
CB: Yeah. It's not like it's a gigantic
field of -- I mean, it's not like World
of Warcraft, where you've got fantasy games all over the place, and
dragons, dwarves, and elves are just a constant language for people...
So, we feel like it's not a niche, but
we're exploring a great territory. People want something that's familiar. They want that horror feeling when they play horror games, and we're going to
do our own version of that, with our own innovations, with all the mechanics
that we talked about.
Any
thoughts, generally, on making a multiplatform game? With something like this,
these days, where you've got to deal with all the PC compatibility issues, and
then closed platforms of the consoles, and then the difference in hardware
between Cell, and all that stuff.
CB: Right. It's really challenging; PC is
very challenging, but we're happy to take that on, and we have a PC SKU coming
out. But everything is parity, so the way that you have to develop in that
environment is, you develop a core product that's capable of working to the
best it can on all those different platforms, and then you make sure that
everybody's looks the same, and does the same features, right?
But really, we don't have time to design
anything specifically that's going to be all outstanding -- we've got
all of our focus groups on this one game, right? It needs to work the same on
all the platforms; we don't want there to be any deficiencies anywhere, so we
make sure that whatever we're doing, everything can handle it.
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Real is how System Shock felt to me and to this day it's still one of my most memorable experiences in gaming. System Shock 2 failed in this sense, because of poor decisions on the developer's part. Things like unrealistically fragile weapons and re-spawning monsters from thin air took away from that sense of it being real -- and it ticked me off. The choice of different classes also made the game worse, because it made the game feel incomplete and unbalanced.
I thought this game looked like a cross between RE4 -- loved the Wii version -- and System Shock and now I know that it is to a degree. :)
I look forward to this game. I hope it's story is truly immersive like System Shock, where I feel an actual sense of accomplishment after completing it, but I also hope that it's as re-playable as RE4 Wii, which is easily one of my favorite console games. I didn't play System Shock again, because it probably traumatized me. Shodan's voice was scary as hell.
Anyways, I'm playing this on the PC, so for the love of all things good, I hope this isn't another focus-group-jacked console game like BioShock.
What do you mean?
I couldn't stand the first part of System Shock BTW. I almost wrote the game off completely, but decided to give it another go when they released the enhanced CD version. Unlike BioShock which became a repetitive Disney ride, SS evolved into a complex and suspenseful game that was actually worth finishing.
BioShock was "FUN" for a period time, but here lies one of its biggest faults. I know these are games, but BS shares its name with two of the "scariest" games I've played. It shares its name with a lineage of sci-fi horror games. Why on earth did they call this game a Shock, if the game wasn't scary, but FUN? The kind of enjoyment I got from the first two Shocks wasn't fun, it was suspense and in some cases horror -- especially in the first Shock. They evoked emotions that can be equated to viewing a really scary movie, but they brought it to a much higher level, because they were able to instill that I was that guy saving the day -- more so in SS than SS2.
At no point in BioShock did I feel any real concern. It was like any other FPS, I'll just re-spawn if I get killed. There was never any real sense of danger in this game, so it became a why even bother, it's not what I paid to play, it's not what I was expecting based on my experience with the other two Shocks.
Anyways, loving a game like BioShock over the other Shocks, would be like loving a sequel to "No Country for Old Men" directed by Michael Bay and it's now a typical Holllywood action movie.
Anyways, back to Dead Space. I want this game to be thrilling. I'm looking for that level of suspense that SS conveyed so well. If everything these guys are saying is true, I'm going to love this game.
You consider Ken Levine an amateur?
Lets do a cutscene and FORCE the player to watch our WORK!
The majority of hte time it comes off like a masturbation for wannabee hollywood types...im sick of it...
Bad company was a great example, a couple of the cutscenes I had no idea who the 4th guy in the screen was...then I realized "oh sometimes me, my avatar is in the movie and sometimes its in 1st person" seemed like a pretty poor decision.
Wow, what an appalling decision, lead by ideology, trying to maintain the horror suspense, but one which ultimately can only affect the end user gameplay to its detriment.
I can understand the reasoning for it, but in practice i've yet to find game where it doesn't cause more grief than suspense. So whats the point? I'd rather lose a little of the sense of 'dread' than frequent dying due to a poor game mechanic designed solely to prevent on the fly reactive adaptation to events.
Take for example the recent 'Alone in The dark 5', that had all manor of wonder contraptions to build, but you were often exposed to danger in doing so. As the player you then have to adapt to avoid this, meaning reliance on tried and trusted combinations, pre-building specific combinations, running away and hiding etc.
Unfortunately without the foreknowledge that the game designers have you never know what or if you'll need a specific tool. All too often this can lead to having something equipped that you don't need or is the wrong tool and to top it all you're now in close courters fighting and don't have the time to re-equip. So you spend far too much time dead or disadvantaged, due to decision to take away control from the player.
Conversely BioShock does pause the game, especially useful for switching weapons when dealing with multiple enemies, requiring different ammo types. I'm sure they deliberately added this after testing with the 'no pause' option, but can't find a link to back that up atm. Anyway, a simple change it empowers the player to be far more productive and react dynamically to events as they unfolded, with impunity. Giving a far better game experience.
Now obviously having yet to play the game or a demo i've not seen the full context that the 'no pause' inventory system is used within. It may be that the use of the inventory doesn't implicitly mean encountering the issues i've outlined above, in which case all will be well. However I suspect from the type of game and similar games from the past that this will end up being frustrating, but thankfully not to the point of killing the game. Perhaps one of the first calls for being patched though ;)
Still even with this slight dampener, I'm so looking forward to its release at the end of the month. I was enthralled after I saw the first released video demo as it instantly brought back memories of System Shock 2. It may have looked similar to Doom 3, but unlike that game I suspect this will have real jump out of your seat moments. I have to say I like the concept of no cutscenes and the use of environment along with audio/video logs to tell the story should be perfect, after all it worked so well in SS2.