Shocked_ on 11/10/2007 at 14:29
It's a small story about SS2's beginings and development. Inspired by the success of Bio, naturally. Seems like much of it is already known by us shockers but now I finally got it why the psi-monkeys are mentioned in SS2 credits under Ken :) Now if EA would just do the right thing and re-release the game! Or is it re-re-release :P
Note to self: Watch the friggin credits again!
(
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7381&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=0) Link
Mercurius on 12/10/2007 at 15:13
Excellent article, especially liked the monkey part :)
Makes me miss LGS all the more though, they were so nice to baby Irrational.
Also 'twas interesting that Ken Levine has never hidden his motives to create a commercially viable game first and foremost. That probably wouldn't lessen the bawwwwing over in Bioshock forum though.
ZymeAddict on 12/10/2007 at 20:24
I found this quote about why he left Looking Glass to be interesting:
"I left because despite how talented the people were there, in some ways it was more like a university than a games company. There really was a dialogue about advancing the media, but not a lot about making successful products.”
I think this might help explain some of his choices on BioShock. :erg:
And this one one was interesting too:
“The three partners sat down, and we ended up with a game design which was basically our design for Shock 2, but in a totally different world. It was a kind of Heart Of Darkness story, with a military commander gone crazy and your mission was to go to this crazy spaceship and assassinate him.”
I thought Diego looked alot like Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now"! :D
Martin Karne on 13/10/2007 at 00:35
I've always wondered why the most technologically challenged engines, why the most problematic/team/tech/cooperation gives out the most fine games?
Maybe it's because they try very hard to overcome those problems that finally they end up with gold in their hands.
Shocked_ on 13/10/2007 at 01:10
OT
Watched the credits again. Christ I laughed my arse off! It is over 4 am so that might have something to do with it :) I still feel a bit bad for Lulu for getting no fun text. Well, she is a *lamer* afterall :D
Some of the GOLD:
"Long walks on short piers"
"Latin pop sensation"
"Killed by an rogue IP packet"
I'm off to bed right about now.
Mercurius on 13/10/2007 at 03:43
Quote Posted by Martin Karne
I've always wondered why the most technologically challenged engines, why the most problematic/team/tech/cooperation gives out the most fine games?
Maybe it's because they try very hard to overcome those problems that finally they end up with gold in their hands.
Because they were all made by essentially one genius studio :)
R.I.P. LGS
Kolya on 13/10/2007 at 10:58
They certainly tried out a lot. And with SS2 I wouldn't say they always ended up with gold. For example the training years were hailed as building the character *in game* at the time. But after you played the game a few times it just gets very repetitive. A simple selection screen would have done better in terms of explaining to the player what his options are. After all you don't get to play the training years anyway but end up on that short summary screen, which is a bit disappointing and not at all in game. (Hint to FM writers!)
On the other hand a game that makes clear to you from the start (career choice) that you will have to play it several times, to get everything out of it, and then stays true to that, by severely limiting your character upgrades, that was a great idea.
solaris on 13/10/2007 at 12:33
Interesting.
Some statement differs from what you can read in the CD booklet (at least in the german one). There you can read that LG gave him a card blanche; like: "What game would you like to develop?" And he instantly said: "System Shock 2!!!!!"
In that article it looked like he was sorta persuaded to do the sequel because the script he wrote sounded like it'd fit into the System Shock universe. And he was ok with it because he loved SS1.
Edit: Ah ... just found it. Under 'Designer's Notes' in the manual:
When Irrational was formed in 1997, we were approached by Looking
Glass with an interesting proposition. Take the Dark engine used for
Thief: The Dark Project and make a cool, new game out of it. “What
game do you guys want to do?” they asked us. “System Shock 2” was
our spontaneous response, in unison, and in three part harmony.
Kolya on 13/10/2007 at 13:51
Not really much difference. Neurath says here's the engine and they start designing SS2 without having the IP yet. Then EA bites and here Levine makes it sound like they made EA think SS2 was their idea ("Um...sure."). In any case they can make it SS2 officially then.
At least that's how I understood the article.
Levine tried the same later again but EA wasn't interested this time around. So we got Bioshock.
