Levine explains Little Sister behaviour Related content
BioShock game info
Levine explains Little Sister behaviour News
PC Xbox 360 News by Tom Bramwell
Irrational Games' Ken Levine has been explaining why you can't just bump off Little Sisters - the vulnerable children who collect Plasmid-enabling Adam in BioShock - in regular combat. Happily, he does this in an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, which gives us just the excuse we want to link new blog Rock Paper Shotgun, put together by Eurogamer contributes John Walker, Kieron Gillen, Alec Meer and Jim Rossignol. Rock Paper Shotgun. Sneaky, eh? Rock Paper Shotgun.
Speaking to RPS (Rock Paper Shotgun), Levine said that not being able to kill Little Sisters randomly actually upset some of the team's audience. "They viewed it as impacting the amount of choice they had in the game," Levine explained, "but for me - and I speak for myself personally as a game developer - I'm a strong believer that artists should be able to make art. And the big difference between art and reality is... guess what? Art is not reality."
"I'm a huge believer in other artists making what they want to make and what they're comfortable in making...for me [killing them randomly] was personally distasteful and irrelevant to the story we were trying tell." What's more, he said, no matter how good your AI is, they're never going to avoid the odd random death. As Kieron Gillen (prosecuting) noted, "An acrobatic Little Sister wouldn't need a Big Daddy."
For more from Levine, including lots on how Rapture came to be, the challenges of balancing the experience so it wasn't too much too soon or too little too far away, and even the odd bit about System Shock, check out the rest of the interview on whatever blog it was we were talking about.
Are you excited about BioShock on PC/Xbox 360?
View Eurogamer readers most anticipated games
Related Games
BioShock
Latest Features
-
BioShock Interview [48]
-
BioShock Review [1109]
-
BioShock First Impressions [74]
-
BioShock Interview [45]
-
BioShock Interview [37]
Latest Videos
Exclusive: BioShock comparison video [15] 4 November, 2008
Bioshock - Plasmid powers [4] 14 August, 2007
Latest News
-
BioShock 1 due for Mac next month [32]
-
Spanish director in BioShock talks [14]
-
BioShock man working on new shooter [13]
-
BioShock and Oblivion UK bundle dated [25]
-
BioShock to get novelisation [14]
Latest Screenshots
20 August, 2007 [30]
Release Date Out now!
Want to comment on this article? Log in, or register!
Comments: 1-18 of 18 in total
|
SomaticSense
21/08/07 @ 10:20
0
Rock Paper Shotgun
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 21/08/07 @ 11:21
|
|
absolutezero
21/08/07 @ 10:26
0
What a cop out explanation.
Art is blah blah blah, I need to offer no further explanation. |
|
jack_klugman
21/08/07 @ 10:28
0
OH MY GOD YOU CAN'T KILL LITTLE GIRL CHILDREN?! WTF?!?!?!!?! OMG!!!!
|
|
BremXJones
21/08/07 @ 10:35
0
How it handles in the game, in terms of the fiction, is actually really good, randomly.
KG |
|
absolutezero
21/08/07 @ 10:38
0
SPOILERS!!! MAYBE.
Actually you choose to "harvest" them. If you choose "yes" the screen goes white, theres some squishy noises and when the screen returns to normal the adam reward tots up in the corner and theres no little sister. If you choose "no" the screen goes white, theres some squishy noises and when the screen returns to normal theres no little sister. You neither see the act of removing the sea-slug to "save" them nor the removal of the adam in harvesting. Theres also no consequences as they run away when saved and melt when harvested. This is'nt about OMG killing little girls, its about claiming that your game is hard hitting and adult. Boasting about all these features that will put you in real moral quandrays and then pulling a Peter Molyneux and not using any of them. The Daddies and little Sisters are a small part of the over-all world of Rapture though, but they've been made the main push of advertising and marketing. That CGI trailer video with you holding up the Sister at the end becomes pointless really. I am however a misrable bastard and you should most likely ignore me.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 21/08/07 @ 11:49
|
|
BremXJones
21/08/07 @ 10:41
0
You finished B-shock, absolute?
EDIT: In other words, if you think there's no consequences, you're just wrong. KG
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 21/08/07 @ 11:47
|
|
kangarootoo
21/08/07 @ 10:47
0
First off, its all about the game. If this way of doing things fits and makes the game better, then its ok by me.
Second, absolutezero, you should have probably put a spoiler alert at the head of your post. I'm not so fussy (though to be honest, I'm starting to get that way over this game) but some people don't want to know anything in advance and you are giving some stuff away. |
|
SomaticSense
21/08/07 @ 10:48
0
I don't see what the fuss is about really. He didn't want people going around randomly killing Little Sisters. It's his game, and he didn't feel that it would fit in.
I see his point. Imagine going round looking for a Little Sisiter so you can boost your Adam count, but finding that a Splicer has randomly taken her out, thus you missing out on the Adam. In a game where the Adam from the Little Sisters is so important to the gameplay dynamic, it could potentially break the game to a minor degree. This could potentially happen a lot in a game where there is a constant ecosystem in the game world. If you've played Oblivion and had the Skingrad mansion bloke fall from the cliff, you'd know exactly what I was talking about. Plus there's the fact that he didn't feel it would be right for allowing people the opportunity to just go 'Little Sister Hunting'. Imagine how the ignorant non-gaming press would see that.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 21/08/07 @ 11:49
|
|
absolutezero
21/08/07 @ 10:48
0
Please don't hurt me, I have the C.E. on order but I d-loaded the 360 game and played it on a flashed 360.
Im not done yet, I think I want to wait and play all the way through on my main. If things come good in the end, then i'll be a happy chappy. EDIT: What I meant was the immediate guilt over taking this things life is removed as it melts. All the other splicers are left lying about burnt to a crisp and shot to bits, you can throw dead cats about with TK. Yet they melt. :/
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 21/08/07 @ 11:52
|
|
BremXJones
21/08/07 @ 10:51
0
I think they do, anyway.
Avoiding spoiling anything, but there's at least one point part of the way through where people who've played it all have swapped from their initial choice to the other choice. KG |
|
0
Gamersyde has a new Bioshock interview to read, too. With regard to the EG excerpts, though, I can understand the reasoning behind not having Little Sisters able to be destroyed with regular weapons. They're a key partb of Rapture. They're also valuable, as the narrative of Bioshock conveys. That's all shot to bits if you can just gun them down. They've no more worth than any of the other inhabitants, in that event. Bosses have to be defeated, and its perfectly reasonable that the BDs can be, but a Little Sister is just trying to do its job. Its a non-combatant. It never poses the player harm. So, why elect to attack it, anyway?
I think it's a good call, for the sake of narrative integrity and immersion.
Edited 2 times,
most recently on 21/08/07 @ 12:22
|
|
0
Seems like a perfectly decent explanation to me. I'm fed up with comments and reviews of -any- game blindly criticising for NOT being able to do something, when the inability to do it is a design decision.
Of course, you can disagree with the design decision all you like, but what most people don't get is that it's not a mistake, or an oversight, it's a -choice- on the part of the developer. I get annoyed when people say things like 'It's so stupid that you can't do and kill anything you like, whenever you want!' because that's describing a DIFFERENT GAME to the one they're playing. It's like saying 'This banana milkshake is okay, but it would be much better if it was chocolate!' It's banana. Get over it. |
|
afghan_jones
21/08/07 @ 11:54
0
Insofox you loser, everyone knows Chocolate is teh real nexxt gen!
Chocolate pwns b@n@n@ hard! LOLZ FAG! |
|
kangarootoo
21/08/07 @ 12:11
0
@InsoFox
"It's like saying 'This banana milkshake is okay, but it would be much better if it was chocolate!' It's banana. Get over it." Thats good, I'm going to nick it for future use. |
Comments: 1-18 of 18 in total
Want to comment on this article? Log in, or register!
