Judas - Ken Levine's new game

[67b96bc32b5dbsarge945]

You mean System Shock 2's mechanics.

Gold star. Congrats for getting the reference.

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

The camera isn't exactly unique. The "visor to detect weak spots" mechanic has been in countless games for a long time. Some of the Metroid games come to mind especially. The research camera is definitely a reasonably well made framing device for this particular mechanic, and it's set up in a way that makes it potentially feel unique, but it's really nothing special.

I would say the camera is all style and no substance, but that's true of pretty much every aspect of Bioshock.

The ONE genuine improvement BioShock made over SS2 was having cameras that weren't as trivial to destroy. But they also learned this lesson when making Deus Ex, which is why the security mechanics in both games actually function, unlike in SS2

[67b96bc32bbceJDoran]

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

Why? All you had to do in B2 was to select the camera, look at the enemy you wanted to be scanned whilst you killed him/her/it, press the fire button (which started the camera), and then fight the selected enemy. Other than selecting the camera, then pressing the fire button, it was no different from just fighting the enemy, you don't even have to manually stop the camera - it times out after a short time.

...
The ONE genuine improvement BioShock made over SS2 was having cameras that weren't as trivial to destroy. But they also learned this lesson when making Deus Ex, which is why the security mechanics in both games actually function, unlike in SS2

I don't follow you, how are the cameras harder to destroy in Bioshock than in System Shoc 2+? I don't remember that (though of course in Bioshock I don't tend to destroy the cameras, it's more useful to hack them)? The Bioshock cameras do have more 'health, so they are harder to destroy in that respect, but the difference isn't worth mentioning, in that respect, as it still doesn't take much effort to destroy them even with just the wrench.

[67b96bc32bf25sarge945]

I don't follow you, how are the cameras harder to destroy in Bioshock than in System Shoc 2+? I don't remember that (though of course in Bioshock I don't tend to destroy the cameras, it's more useful to hack them)? The Bioshock cameras do have more 'health, so they are harder to destroy in that respect, but the difference isn't worth mentioning, in that respect, as it still doesn't take much effort to destroy them even with just the wrench.

Maybe I am just misremembering, but I seem to recall them being strong, mostly on par with Deus Ex cameras, so generally not worth destroying unless you're prepared to waste big ammo.

They may not be particularly well tuned, but at least they aren't the pushovers from SS2, which are trivial to deal with.