I really enjoyed BioShock, and think that it took computer games an evolutionary step forward (well, if evolution had a direction). I thus was prepped to like this postmortem on the design of the game. Very interesting, and quite frank. No mention, though, of the disappointing ending of the game.

The Slashdot discussion of the article is almost entirely about BioShock’s famously onerous DRM, which the postmortem article doesn’t mention.

(The postmortem points to a fabulous downloadable collection of art from the game.)

[Tags: bioshock games ]

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Finishing Crysis has confirmed my disappointment that PC Gamer chose it as Game of the Year, especially with Bioshock as a contender. Jeesh, what’s a game got to do to win Game of the Year around here?

Crysis was good. The graphics are the most photo realistic ever, even though I had to stop ’em down and revert to DX9 to run the game — and this is with a high end machine and graphics card. But, the plot is totally familiar, the enemies were derivative — Matrix-y vermin, HalfLifey striders — , and the game play was fun until it ran out of steam in the final acts where increasing the size of a boss replaces having a new idea. Overall, Crysis is good but not great, much less best of the year.

Bioshock, on the other hand, was far more creative. It was an improbable yet convincing world, beautifully rendered, with fantastic sound and terrific comic acting. It was involving not just as a narrative but as a place. Yes, there were some nits ,the DRM was especially insulting, and the gameplay was occasionally off — solving the pipe flow puzzle gets tiresome after the first couple of dozen times — and the very last scene sort of sucked, but Bioshock violated rules in the name of creativity and actually had some ideas in it.

In the fullness of time — now — the crowning of Crysis over Bioshock will be seen as the folly it is.

PS: The Orange Box was also better than Crysis, and is officially your PC Gaming Value of the Year. [Tags: crysis bioshock orange_box pc_games games ]

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