porous_shield said:
Treblaine said:
Just another example, the Big Daddies. Great concept from design to animation.
The problem: all that is undermined by how their AI is programmed, how you can run right up to one and they'll almost completely ignore you. They are easy to kill from how you can set up all sorts of traps and everything and they won't be in the least bit aggressive till you attack them.
I mean how cool would it have been if you were terrified one was going to walk in and as soon as he sees you would destroy you on sight... and all the other Splicers would scatter when they notice one coming. But I get it, the artist didn't want people running away and not seeing their creation, but that could have been solved by saying "their vision is based on movement" when cornered you have to stay still and dare that it doesn't get close enough to see you and be threatened. Then running away is the main way you survive big daddies, running away and finding a hole to squeeze through smaller than they can follow, and not somewhere they can throw a grenade in.
I think you completely missed the point of the Big Daddy. They were made to protect the Little Sisters while they went around collecting Adam, they weren't meant to slaughter everything in sight. The trigger to enrage the Big Daddy, that Suchong gave them, was hurting a Little Sister, so if you attack them, they attack back and if you don't do anything they won't bother you. I think it's somewhat ironic in a way. I mean everything else in Rapture is trying to ruthlessly murder you and the only thing that minds its own business and doesn't bother you unless you bother it, you ruthlessly murder for its Adam.
Yeah, but it's not "ironic" for a creature that is supposed to be intimidating to be as irrelevant as background clutter till you attack them. It's not ironic that it's so easy to kill them by obviously setting up traps right in front of them. I feel like an utter jerk setting up malicious pranks for a mentally impaired person.
The first big daddy you meet is in a first person cutscene/scripted-sequence, when the splicers hear it coming they immediately run away in fear. It seems the only reason you aren't attacked is because the BD thinks you are dead but the Little Sister doesn't. Yet later in the game splicers wander around totally oblivious to Big Daddies and little sisters, bumping into each other as they walk along corridors.
The trigger for the big daddies was - in practice - attacking the big daddies, the "Harvest/Save" option is not available till big daddy is dead and you'd have no reason to hurt the Little Sisters.
The big Daddies SHOULD work by the threat of killing anyone they meet to make everyone give them a wide berth to do their job of collecting Adam and, of course, killing the odd person would leave a body of Adam to harvest.
They were made to protect the Little Sisters
That's done best by attacking anyone they see till they retreat, and hunting down and destroying anyone who dares attack them.
And once you've taken a Big Daddy's Little Sister... he does re-spawn in the game when he does... he should HATE YOU! He should be out for your blood and you are gong to have to run, hide or fight for your life.
Not shoulder check them later as they wander around alone. That's not "ironic", that's simply incongruous.
Dear Diary (it's from the tvtropes page on Apocalyptic Logs)
The most plausible audio logs I've come across, that I can remember, are the Arkham Asylum ones. They're in the right places in the asylum and it makes sense to record the meetings with the patients. I thought they were absolutely insufferable though and I hated listening to them. Other than a few good lines I thought they were very hammy.
I actually thought the Fear messages were done quite well too (voice messages left on phones), some were quite long, but they made sense and I didn't see them as exposition chunks. They just seemed natural to me.
I wish they took the time to make them make sense in the context of the story like Treblaine has been saying. I know I've come across audio logs in strange places and places where someone wouldn't leave an audio log. Like they've been there for five minutes and they probably won't be coming back and they just leave an audio log behind. It just doesn't make sense why they would do that.
Akrham Asylum had the unique advantage of being set in a mental asylum, it's not a stretch for important conversation between Psychiatrists and patients to be recorded for deeper analysis.
Plausibility isn't my only concern. After all, Bioshock is a game where you inject yourself with some concoction that lets you shoot lightning from your fingertips. It's a matter of whether it fits within an established in-game logic or not and whether that logic is even conducive to making a good game.
Big Daddies, I think were inconsistent in their depiction and their final de-facto depiction as you having no reason to avoid them undermined their character. I mean how would Darth Vader's reputation be if Luke and Han hanged around with him for ages, Vader bumbling around aimlessly and the heroes knowing Vader wouldn't make a single violent move unless they attacked him first.
I thought FEAR messages were well done, but by gawd, why were SUCH LONG messages left on answer-phones? For things like that, brevity is the key. I think the problem for FEAR was outside of those phone messages there were very few other opportunities to give insight into the story.
