Bioshock $15 on Steam

I wasn't saying portal was bad.

I was saying portal first slice did not whet my appetite as it was too easy or too short.

 

and that's a bit of a problem when you are locked out of your own games, I hate how I can't play Counterstrike : Condition Zero even though I've yet to try it, I love CS and the whole point of a singleplayer version of CS is to play it when you don't have a internet connection at home.

 

Steam is not necessarily cheaper digi. I always buy my games from sales when they are at least as cheap as steam if not more so.

 

I agree that this is not the most beneficial solution for the end-user.

Steam as a whole is still a great service, though.

 

I have no decent software stores around me with bargain bins, and I really like the "it's always there to be downloaded" aspect of it.

 

No they didn't. SecuROM is still there, the only thing they removed was the 2 or 5 install limit you had. Haven't bought it and wont buy it until secuROM is gone from it (probably never ), don't see why the Steam version needs it?

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=296193&postcount=8

 

Huh? I haven't tried in a while, but Steam used to always let me start in offline mode if I had no Internet connection. It came in handy during my crappy campus network's frequent outages.

 

But you have to be connected for the initial activation of the game, at least I think that is their point.

People who don't have internet connections aren't really Steam's big demographic though, so I don't really get it.

 

All I know is this thread made me go play and beat Portal again. Easily one of my favorite games of all time.

 

Must have taken you a whole hour too.

/me runs.

 

Much shorter than beating the first time. This was however the first time Portal appeared on my Xfire it and lists 2 hours total play. So... yeah not long.

 

Nope, I play often offline. Maybe recently, but 2-3 months ago it worked fine for me.

 

Okay, I took advantage of the $15 special fully expecting to be blown away considering the overwhelmingly positive critical reception this game received. Much to my surprise I noticed immediately that there was something wrong with the physics and death animations. While I get 60+FPS most of the time, the physics are locked at what appears to be ~10FPS. At first I thought there must've been something wrong with my computer, but lo and behold a quick Google turned up this 24 page thread on the 2K tech support forum indicating that this was in fact by design

Now maybe I'm just more sensitive to it than the average user but I honestly can't see how people can stand this. It completely kills the sense of immersion for me when everything moves like I'm in some sort of psychedelic flip book

 

it's probably 30fps. I wonder if the 360 is locked at that rate for everything perhaps.

Most games these days get universal praise. You shoulda asked us, the jaded cynics of B3D, first! Really though, as a $15 purchase, Bioshock is a pretty good choice. Well, unless you would prefer a better game, such as System Shock 2.

 

He mentioned the name of the great one "system shock 2" /Davros bows in reverence to its greatness...

 

Hah, after Googleing "bioshock physics" I came across this thread. So you really think it's 30FPS, 'cause it sure seems a lot lower to me. I did always think it was weird though that the animations in Halo: CE for PC were locked at 30FPS yet seemed so incredibly jerky. I'm usually fine with 30FPS (minimum)...

I certainly agree that game reviews are out of control these days. No way in hell did GTAIV deserve a perfect 10 . I'll have to check out System Shock 2, it seems to get a lot of recommendations from seasoned gamers.

 

Nah it bugs me too, luckily it's only when death/falling objects are involved but damn it's annoying.

 

Well, it's the big difference that you see. Most things are moving at 60fps or so, but some stuff moves at 30fps (or whatever it is). That is very obvious to our eyeballs.

It's a pretty good game. Not flawless, but yeah it's special for sure. It has problems with modern hardware so I have a few links for you to check out to save you some pain.
http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php?PHPSESSID=773e388c5604406c20adb9ec73c2107a&board=15.0 (Kolya SS2 Tool is extremely useful)
http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php/board,2.0.html (SS2 Rebirth Beta and SS2 SHTUP upgrades)
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117616 (Widescreen patch and forced 32-bit color depth mod)

Install the game, then go right to Kolya SS2 Tool to fix it up and patch it. Then set up the Widescreen patch (unless you don't need widescreen). If you have a GF8+ or Radeon HD, you want to set up the 32-bit color depth mod or there will be rainbow dithering everywhere. That involves some relatively simple hex editing though (you need to change a reference to DDRAW.DLL to DDFIX.DLL.) Then you can try out the new models and textures if you'd like. They make things look a lot better while not much different in style than the original assets.

I can help with any of this too. I've set it all up rather recently.

 

Thanks, I'll give it a shot this weekend.