yeah, they do look alike.

Then the sequel could have a French metropolitain, parisian art deco look.

if it doesn't already.

Man, I'm gonna just have to give up like 4 hours to download this demo huh?

I get the same vibe from the ol' Fleischer Superman cartoons.

Try more than 4 hours Popa.

Pretty cool

I read the title and I thought this was going to be an article about how you found Bioshock to be just another fucking pc fps that'll only sell 250,000 units.

Luckily I was wrong. And I love the whole Art Deco style.

Howard Roark FTW.

Yeah.. a whole day should do.

Good find Leigh.

wow, nice

Somebody warn Jack Thompson: we might have plasmid/magnum wielding crazy gamers running amok in downtown NYC!

Did you know Ayn Rand clones are actually inside all of the Big Daddy's?

It must be surreal living in New York or L.A. and seeing your city in video games all the time and I'm not just talking Bioshock riffs here. I live in Vancouver and the only time I've seen anything related to my city in a game was in THPS:Underground, when they made it a level. Weirded me out, man.

Actually, I think someone mentioned Vancouver in Shenmue too, now that I think about it.

Very good comparison pics. Having lived in Cali for 10+ years makes me appreciate the landscapes that some games present, but none of them compare to how many times that New York 'style' is done in video games, and with those comparison shots, even when the style is done in the past, as well as underwater, it is still neat/eerie.

I have a question about Bioshock, did any of you find that the smoke in pretty much every area looked very ugly? I checked my settings and my HDTV switch is on and im running on 720P. Looked more like a bug than a feature, smoke shouldn't look this ugly.

In conclusion... Yes, Bioshock is fap, fap, fap, fap.

I'm a little lost on this article, having not played Bioshock yet.

Is this mean? If so, sorry in advance but I felt it applied.

Interesting comparison and I too was blown away by the surreal game environment of bioshock. Very cool.

What are some of you people talking about? My friend and I downloaded the demo in just under an hour.

Anyway, it's an amazing looking game as expected, but it looks so much better when you're seeing it first hand. It's unbelievable. It's a fantastic game so far that I've seen.

If there is one architecture style that can be used in a fashion of utter horror, surrealism, or beauty it would be Art Deco. I don't know why it striks us as such, maybe it has to deal with how that style was the main thing back when times were hard all around the world, maybe not. I do know this much tho, I have always had a love for the style, well I've had a love for anything in the 1900's to 1950's.

And in terms in BioShock, anyone who considers this another fps has never played an fps lol. Even those of us who play fps's daily can tell you how different this is from the genre. This game is done by the same guys who did System Shock 2 which was one of the most ground breaking games at the time, and it was THE game that proved sound design and atmosphere can completely make the game in a larger aspect then originally thought possible. The only games to even come close to System Shock 2 or BioShocks style of gameplay is deus ex and thief, but even then they never touched the levels of system shock 2 and will be nowhere close to BioShock.

BioShock is the next step. However I fear like it happened in the past, people will see this innovation and rather then trying to do what those who raised the bar did (in terms of being innovative) they will just directly make a clone of BioShock. Mimics need to stop, full on innovation and change of style needs to happen all the time in order for these big jumps to be made.

It's good to see you getting into the genre Leigh, some of the great FPS games of the past brought in a lot of people, like ss2 and half-life. And its always good to see a great game such as this bring in even more people, you will enjoy it ;) even if most of the titles out there now don't fit your appetite after you play bioshock, like many others, you will probably hunger for more!

@dyslixec: maybe you love the style because you played Fallout as a kid? :)

lol pew well yes, good ol fallout. But even before then ive loved the style. History all around my favorite time period was the 1900's to 1950's in that time you have two world wars, and the beginning of the nuclear scare. Plus the style and music was banging back then ;).

Yeah I feel the same way when I see Art deco: happy-go-lucky themes from a "better time". And all that to mask the horrors of impending nuclear doom and to forget WW2. A bit like how japanese use Hentai actually, haha!

Funny thing is, I brought Fountainhead to read with me for the vacation I'm on right now. I've been distracted from it though because I've been reading the Mass Effect book instead. Hurf durf. Also, I'm sure you probably noticed, but unless you didn't.

Ayn Rand = And Ryan = Andrew Ryan

I liked the graphics. Some of the best I've seen. But the gameplay just seems... watered down.

It is nice you posted these pics and I agree with you... but is this really a surprise? I remember many interviews with people like ken levine saying new york was a big inspiration for the art.

It took forever to download, but it was worth it. I am not much of a FPS person, but I found the controls to be well done. But then again I did play the easy mode. Now if I can stop being terrified by every noise, I might make it through the demo.

I'd argue that the demo wasn't that physically interactive, especially when compared to Half Life 2. I wanted to break more things with my wrench but I was dismayed when they simply bounced around or made a 'poof' noise. That was my only complaint with the demo though, everything else was stellar. Just give me more stuff to break. It's a necessity in next gen!

kevnuu, that's a great point! My friends and I shot at a dead kitty for awhile and it bounced around and never quite broke. Which I found really odd. It didn't even look bloody from being shot.

To be honest, this demo caught me totally off guard. I had my volume setup so I could hear every sound effect imaginable. The area in-game felt like it was alive, ready to carve my head into a pumpkin, its insane how surreal it actually felt. At that, it also carried a bit of Metroid-esque intentions, which is solid btw. FPS? Nah, nah, this is another FPA. Definitely worth playing more than once.

Although this "hard" mode I'm very curious about. I'm gonna go play it again, just to see what lurks beneath the waters.

The minute the demo was released Major Nelson put up his Podcast where Ken Levine specifically said he and his wife took tons of pictures of the Rockefeller Center and he knew that was the style he wanted the game to have.

http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/08/12/show-239-the-one-about-the-bioshock-demo-with-ken-levine.aspx

The game isn't that amazing...the water looked nice...same old, same old from a tired, over worked genre

PurpmaN, you are an ignorant douchebag. And that's being generous.

I'm in love with Art Deco style :>

ShadowXor...please enlighten me...what am i missing? becuase in the game i played, i walked around corridors and shot things that jumped at me...did i miss something??