Judas - Ken Levine's new game

[67b9ecee261f9fox]

Apparently there's no dedicated and unlocked thread for the "spiritual successor to the spiritual successor of System Shock" anymore. I think we should have one, now that the game is seeminlgy shaping up and there's a slew of new interviews and footage.

Judas Interview: How Ken Levine Is Building on BioShock With 'Narrative LEGOs'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIqmnoo8Ui4

Here's how Judas is trying to be more than just 'Bioshock in space' (Hands-on Overview)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtyUZA5CPgY

The man is still showing passion and what he says about his ideas sounds pretty good. What will actually be released, remains to be seen but I am way more hopeful now, that they are improving on Bioshock.

[67b9ecee2644fAristarhys]

I fear not the man who has did 3 bioshocks, but I fear the man whom doing another one for like ten years now.

There is always a lighthouse, there's always a man, there's always a city - i think it's like foreshadowing of Ken Levine career roadmap on meta level - to grab same formula but brew it a bit differently each time.

To be honest the whole "choose a side" was executed not in great way in bioshock(s) (see Comstock vs Elisabeth vs Vox Populi) and in the end i think it will probably slide again into rails of "forge your own destiny" for for the sake of plot making choices useless (or some "could you kindly" plot twists rendering them minor at best).

If the whole "they all robots" premise in Judas spoiled in overview i have hard time personally to expect anything ground breaking there.

[67b9ecee26561fox]

I just want a good, ImSim-leaning game, doesn't need to be ground breaking. I too have learned to keep my expectations for upcoming titles low though. Nothing wrong with that.

[67b9ecee266a8ZylonBane]

Looks like Five Nights at Freddy's in space.

I can't believe they seriously slapped a DreamWorks Face on that robot girl.

[67b9ecee267f8Join2]

Looks like shit. Just be happy with the classics. The last worthy Immersive Sim was 22 years ago (Arx Fatalis). It's done for.

[67b9ecee268f9fox]

Yeah, yeah... Just admit that you're brimming with glee over the juicy new target for your glorious leet-gamer hatred, emerging on the horizon.

[67b9ecee26a56icemann]

Looks like a Prey - Mooncrash clone to me, considering its a roguelike that resets whenever you die. Would have prefered something more original.

Would I play it? Sure. If its anything like Bioshock then count me in. Recently played through the series and had heaps of fun there.

[67b9ecee26b59Join2]

Leet gamer yes. Gleeful takedown no. I am quality-oriented above all. I most likely wont waste my time and money playing this. Trust another Levine game? I should have learnt my lesson multiple titles ago, but better late than never.

[67b9ecee26c76fox]

Not expecting it to turn out as promised is absolutely fair, not least due to previous experiences with Ken Levine. Still, I don't want to close myself up entirely to the possibility that this could become an enjoyable game. From my point of view, damning this game at this point already, is just as unreasonable as hyping it. 

[67b9ecee26f26unn_atropos]

Something unrelated: in the first video they have a Vetrex in the background constantly showing the games title. I'M not 100% certain, but this may lead to screen burn. Not a nice move to treat a Vectrex like a mere decoration piece 

[67b9ecee271e5RoSoDude]

I recall Ken Levin's "Narrative LEGO" talk at GDC 2014 as sounding like some half-assed thing he came up with in a few hours at his hotel room the night before. There was nothing in that talk that wasn't already present in Fallout: New Vegas, or any other RPG with a faction reputation system. I am surprised that this is making it into promotional interviews for a game a decade later.

[67b9ecee2737bfox]

The "narrative LEGO"-thing has been mentioned pretty much everytime the words "Ken Levine" and/or "Ghost Story Games" had been name dropped anywhere over the last few years. It's a catchy buzzword but as far as I understand it, it's neither groundbreaking nor a half-assed idea but simply an attempt to include story-elements in the pursuit of player-driven emergent gameplay by breaking it up into smaller pieces and adding more "if then"-branches for the player at more points of their journey, like P&P-RPGs have been doing forever.

[67b9ecee27b12sarge945]

More like Ken Has-been

[67b9ecee27c1eicemann]

Ba-dum-dush

[67b9ecee27d68fox]

"OK Boomer" would've used even fewer characters.

[67b9ecee27fe9fox]

gamesindustry.biz: "The future of storytelling with Ken Levine"

I don't think there's one way to make games, but personally, as a narrative games maker, I've never been a big fan of cutscenes because they're not interactive. One of the reasons Judas is taking so long is trying to figure out how we get the game to be substantially more responsive to player decisions. That's a really hard problem, and that's why you don't see a ton of it [in games].

[67b9ecee28199fox]

gamesradar.com: "BioShock Infinite “may not have been the thing I wanted, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t the thing the audience wanted”: Ken Levine guides us through his entire gameography"

[67b9ecee291eballenwrench1]

gamesradar.com: "https://www.gamesradar.com/games/bioshock-infinite-may-not-have-been-the-thing-i-wanted-but-that-doesnt-necessarily-mean-it-wasnt-the-thing-the-audience-wanted-ken-levine-talks-edge-through-his-collected-works/#"

it was what 2K wanted... now it will be the thing Take-Two Interactive wants.

[67b9ecee29333sarge945]

I just noticed the thumbnail text of the first video posted.

"How Judas builds on Bioshock"

hmm.....if only there was a game that had more built-up, complex, and interesting versions of Bioshock's mechanics...

[67b9ecee295b8ZylonBane]

hmm.....if only there was a game that had more built-up, complex, and interesting versions of Bioshock's mechanics...

You mean System Shock 2's mechanics.

IIRC Prey lifts exactly one unique mechanic from Bioshock, the research camera.

[67b9ecee29781voodoo47]

how nice of them to copy the most annoying one.

[67b9ecee29a80JDoran]

I never found the research camera in Bioshock 1 to be annoying, other than having to manually select it from the onscreen weapon wheel (the console versions didn't have a specific button to bring up the camera). And Bioshock 2 managed to improve on the camera mechanics (as B2 also improved on so many other of the mechanics of the first game), by making you only need to select and use the camera once per enemy or per multi-enemy conflict.

On the minus side, even for Rapture, the two cameras stretched credulity, given their ability to somehow scan a person's DNA and abilities, and further transfer the subject's abilities to the person using the camera. But of course, the Bioshock games are closer to fantasy than the more science-fiction based System Shock games.

And Bioshock 2's camera perhaps introduces a small plot-hole, in that the camera is shown to be owned by a private detective, who follows and photographed cheating spouses for a living. So why would he use a presumably very expensive genetic-capable camera just for proving someone is cheating on their spouse? Surely the private eye would have used a much cheaper, normal camera for his work?

For me, the most annoying thing in either of the first two Bioshocks is the 4,823,753.452,124 times you have to do the 'Pipemania' hacking game in Bioshock 1 (something else that was thankfully fixed in the sequel), especially since sometimes the board was impossible to complete, though losing it and restarting it mostly had no real negative consequences, at least.

I've only played through Bioshock: Infinite either two or three times, as it bores me, so I can't recall that entire game well enough to recall what I found most tedious about it.

[67b9ecee29ba2voodoo47]

the only game where I hated research more than in Bioshock was Bioshock2. that really was a "hold my beer" moment right there.

[67b9ecee29c88fox]

It was alright. I don't think it was in Infinite.