Ken Levine: First-person shooter.Patrick: Okay. We just finished a review of Shadowrun, and it promised different mechanics but didn't completely deliver. It seemed that it promised to make the gunfire more interesting, and to make magic more interesting, but didn't completely deliver in either category. What challenges did Irrational have in making weapons satisfying, but without taking away from the magical/supernatural elements in gameplay?
Ken Levine: One is tactical, and one is strategic. They're different. When we started, went through some iterations, and at X06 last year, we realized that plasmids [in-game supernatural abilities] are really weapons with different graphics. We looked at the water and thought, "wow, this is beautiful water, but what impact does it have on gameplay?" Suddenly, we had a moment and thought, "wait a minute, let's take this further. Lets use it as something to conduct damage, like electrical bolts." We realized that before, you have the ability to throw bolts, but in normal form, it just stuns people for you to attack. It shuts down machines temporarily. However, if people are in water and you electrify it, it does damage. In technical terms, it will do 3d6 of electrical damage. That's an RPG to me, if you do 3d6 of electrical damage, but this is BioShock, this is what we're doing differently. You don't use those abilities as guns, per se. You've got different things to deal with.
Patrick: Early in Arcadia, when I was playing it, there's a Splicer woman on a bridge with another one shooting at me, and the bridge is doused in gasoline. I shot out pyro at the bridge, and while the woman was gone in a matter of seconds, the other Splicer just chuckled at me, ran off to some water, put himself out and came right back to shoot at me. It was one of those "that system really comes together" moments.
Ken Levine: That's part of what we've been aiming to do with it. We've found that you have to train peoples' expectations a lot less if you're playing within their natural expectations. We feel that it's better to say "yes" to the player. If you think something should work a certain way, have it work. If water puts out fire, then have it do that. If wind knocks things over, then it should do that. Have that as part of the world. There are some liberties you have to take. Some people have had objections, like someone saying that if something is frozen and you shoot it, it doesn't turn into a pool of water. And yes, while we're simulating, it's not like we have a thermometer in the world that responds to a fireball that blows by ice. I think that you just have to choose your battles wisely; it's not the real world, but we're a few steps closer.
