Don't think LucasArts adventure games too hard. Something more along the lines of Elder Scrolls or Fallout 3 or maybe even Mass Effect. But all of those have "random action encounters" in the "wilderness"and the BioShock Detective game probably wouldn't have that, or have a "wilderness" area where that could take place. Rather it would have specific action setpieces at specific times... but more "quest" or "story" or "mystery" focused like those games I just listed than the "go into an area, shoot everything that moves, then find the switch that opens the door to the next area, repeat" kind of action-story mix that the current BS games offer. Though I do love the audio journals.
C3PX, have you played Assassin's Creed II yet? (I could just look at your xbox.com profile. And I probably will... but I'm too busy typing just now) In the game you find these "clues" for lack of better term and you have to solve them. In the game they are encrypted computer files and you have to solve the "encryption scheme" to open them. The schemes themselves, though, are pretty interesting. There are 20 total in the game and I've spent a lof of time anxiously waiting to find the next one because they are truly intiguing. They are part brain teaser, part logic puzzle, part story based enigma. There's a slight air of them being similar to 7th Guest Chess puzzles or, shock!, BioShock's Pipedream mini-game for hacking... (mini games that have nothing, really, to do with the story, and are reinterpretations of simple games) but they actually seem to really work within the narrative of ACII and I think something like that would really work well in this BioShock Detective game I'm dreaming about. It's also vaguely similar to Mass Effect using the Tower of Hanoi mini game to restart an AI interface, but less "shoehorned in". I guess, it's a very well done version of the puzzles in, tada! Tex Murphy.
I guess I just want new Tex Murphy games, darnit.
Awkward segue!
I'm thinking about your Jungle Island game, and I think that would actually (excuse my bluntness) feel more like a souless cash-in. It seems it would be like a repeat of the first game, but with the setting changed. Like Die Hard on a Bus. Or Speed in a Skyscraper or something. Although the imagery of a Big Daddy tearing through a tropical island jungle does give me chills!
But your CIA comment- That's more along the lines of what I was thinking. What I was actually thinking was this: (I had to write some of this down, because I was pretty excited about it!)
I thought it would be really great to start the game in San Fransisco in 1949. According to: http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Chronological_Timeline the major founders of Rapture disappeared during the summer of 1946 and the city was finished later that same year. Also, you could mirror some of the "beginning of a new decade" rumination that occured in the first BioShock. The story would start when a case is brought to our seasoned private eye. Probably a missing persons case. A wife, whose tycoon husband has died, but the circumstances were very superstitious. She thinks he had a mistress and she's concerned that perhaps his death was more than what it appeared to be and that perhaps the mistress has some of her money or something (maybe she received the inheritance, but that there is a large portion of it missing). Of course, to jump to the end point, this guy's not really dead, he's run away to Rapture. And there was a mistress, but he was cheating in bigger ways. He and his wife didn't see eye-to-eye philosophically or politically. They were young when they got married, and they realized how different they were over the years, but they stayed together for financial and "keeping up appearances" reasons (it was the 40s). When he was invited to move to Rapture (bizarre invitation!) he saw it as an opportunity to leave her behind as well. ---
The 40's setting in the "surface" world would be an exciting way of showing the gamer the socio-political landscape Ryan was in when he left to found Rapture. As the PI investigates the circumstances of this guy's death, he learns all about the political pieces that motivated this guy in particular to move to Rapture. PI undercovers the fake companies, and the similar disappearances of the other people who have left for Rapture.
Eventually the PI is on the trail of Rapture and Ryan and not so much the missing husband. This leads him all over the country and then all over the world and eventually to an access point to Rapture. Once in Rapture, he does track down the guy. He meets Ryan and perhaps some of the other Rapture leaders. This seems like pretty much a full game, but we just got to Rapture, so either you have to do it in 2 halves, a Surface and a Rapture segment and make them somewhat equal time length wise. Or you go ahead and sign yourself up to do 2 games. The story I just described, and then a sequel which shows you this PI still in Rapture several years later. Perhaps someone is looking for him, and perhaps not. In either case, he can investigate something in Rapture itself just as it's starting to burst at the seams. Maybe make this 1958 or something. He can be instrumental in uncovering the Ryan/Fontaine struggle right as it's all coming apart.
And, of course, work in the CIA and KGB trying to infiltrate Rapture. And a dame. It has to have a dame.
It would certainly be a genre change. Sort of like Mario Bros -> Super Mario Bros -> Mario 64. Or Halo -> Halo Wars. Or Star Craft -> Star Craft Ghost, etc... Not only would there be far less gunplay, but I don't think I would want to retread the Plasmid/Tonic/Eve/Adam mechanic that the first two gaves have had. Maybe some very limited plasmid use, but very different.
Anyways, that's what's been going through my brain on the subject. I just want to see and explore the world of Rapture prior to the fall. Is that so much to ask?
