Bioshock

[Shindig]

Bioshock

Format reviewed: Xbox 360

Developer: Irrational Games

Publisher: 2K Games

Yes, the biggest game of the year sneaks in whilst other contenders slip back. It’s received some astronomical critical praise but opinion is divided and some super spastics are selling it on. So, how do I feel about the spiritual successor to System Shock 2? Pretty good, actually.

System Shock 3

In essence, this game is a System Shock title running in an Unreal 3 environment. It borrows heavily from the 1999 PC release and then adds more to the mix. You’ve got the regurgitating chambers that’ll respawn you after death; you’ve got vending machines to buy stuff and you have a hacking system that can pretty much become a regular occurrence, if you let it.

Also, it thrives on its atmosphere. You get nice ambience throughout this game and no score is needed to set any tension up. Enemies will give up their position with their ramblings (which, while good, tend to repeat themselves too much) and water flows from every orifice in Rapture. You’ve got this wonderful art deco design littering the place and skylights letting in whatever light you can get at the bottom of the ocean.

In fact, that’s probably my first criticism of the game. Whilst some areas are wonderful and try to offer some variance in the game’s look, it still looks grim. Yet, I can’t honestly see Rapture looking any other way. Much like how I can’t see any of System Shock 2’s ships looking any other way. How else do you expect a man-made underwater city to look?

Bioshock offers more systems, though. Hacking is completely overhauled into a mini-game reminiscent of Pipemania. It can get massively repetitive and some of the hacks you have to perform seem unforgiving. Luckily, some machines will offer buy-outs or you can automatically hack it with tools. There are also the ADAM and EVE systems. ADAM is the main currency of Rapture as everybody scrambles for some self-improvement. To get it, you must get to Little Sisters. Once acquired, you can gather some extra Plasmids, open up new slots for them and basically power-up your nameless antagonist as you see fit. Money is used to buy items such as medkits and ammo. You can also invent ammo with little tit-bits you grasp along the way.

Gather Round, Ken’s got a Story to Tell

The game opens with a tiny cutscene that basically outlines the fact you’re in a plane crash and you’ve managed to become the lone survivor. Luckier still, there’s a lighthouse ahead and the sea is calm enough for you to swim to it. Once you enter the lighthouse, you discover it’s actually Rapture’s discreet entrance. One the lights kick in, you’re confronted with a spectacular gold bust of Andrew Ryan, Rapture’s architect.

Along the way you’ll pick up more of the story via audio diaries and some radio chatter. To get to these diaries, you have to explore Rapture. Plenty of them are dotted around the main drag but ultimately, you won’t get a complete picture of Rapture’s downfall. The tale this game tries to tell is rather deep. Touching on philosophies and the futility of man, Rapture’s narrative intends to really provide an ambitious story. Coupled with the atmosphere, it can really pull you in.

Artificial Intelligence

Now we come to what Ken and the others were raging about with all their gameplay videos and show demos. The ecology of Rapture or, to put it another way, how the AI react or go about their daily business. It’s a bold idea and a difficult one to achieve, but it’s managed. Enemies will basically stumble around looking for things and usually continue until they clock eyes on you. At which point combat takes over. Now, FPS purists don’t seem to like the splicers’ methods of execution. Personally, I love it.

Rather than them developing military tactics, running for cover and trying to outwit you, they become rather erratic, strafing and becoming rather difficult to anticipate and destroy. Much like when you step into a deathmatch mode on any other first person shooter. There’s also a sense of planning that seems to creep in to certain fights. Thanks to the Plasmid system, you’re given the option not to waste bullets. See on oil slick on the floor? Entice splicers into it and light the buggers up. Set one on fire and watch as they run for water. Then promptly shock them to death. It encourages you to be inventive. You can have some real fun with the system. You can also rig healing machines to poison splicers.

Then we come to the Big Daddies. They’re at the heart of one of the most intriguing relationships of the game. They protect the ADAM-rich kiddies known as Little Sisters. ADAM makes the world go round and splicers will regularly throw hands with the tankish drill-armed bodyguards. When not in battle, they wander around whacking on vents to bring the Sisters into play. You can have a lot of fun just watching them jog along like wildlife. Obviously, the game has always played up to this morality aspect.

That’s another wee criticism. The morale choice isn’t much of a choice at all. It’s straight-forward, black and white stuff. Kill the bairn or divn’t. Either way you’re rewarded. There’s no grey middle with you genuinely thinking about it.

There’s also an issue with Vita Chambers. They’re a system you can really abuse. Still, they come in very handy with certain boss fights and Big Daddy scraps. Ultimately, it’s up to you if you want to use them.

In Conclusion

So, is it really deserving of the critical orgasms it’s provoking? Not entirely. Bioshock, however, is a really impressive and ambitious experience. It rewards exploration and inventiveness. As a shooter, it’s hardly top of its class but as a whole package, it certainly should be a game worth playing. Certainly the 360’s game of choice, in my eyes. One of the real milestones of this generation, I would say. It gets me really thinking with it’s handful of intriguing characters and a game hasn’t done that to me in a long while. I would certainly encourage others to give this a spin.

On the negative side, combat can become repetitive, not aided by the potentially gamey but necessary respawning of enemies. Vita Chambers provide players with the possibility of cheating the way through and wearing down tougher enemies and Rapture’s environments don’t particularly seem varied. After seeing the grandeur and spectacle of the game’s opening, it seems disappointing.

Overall, though, it’s a stunning 12-20 hours of your time and it encourages you to replay it. With any luck, you can get it second-hand for £30 from some elitist prick who didn’t like it.

[Timmo]

I'm off to sell it in a sec, because I know I'll never play it again. Does this make me a prick? Cool, chicks dig pricks.

[Shindig]

Chicks dig bastards. You're going to have to up your game.

I just really like Bioshock. One of the rare FPS experiences I can throughly enjoy.

[Timmo]

I just punched a baby in the neck.

I really enjoyed it. I just never want to ever see it again. Or YOU (not really)

[Mogget]

With any luck, you can get it second-hand for £30 from some elitist prick who didn’t like it.

Elitist prick ?

[Shindig]

Yes, people who overly hate things because they can only emote in binary.

Wow, that's a sentence I'll never use again. Better savour that.

[SM47]

I've not even played it yet, getting it on monday hopefully, I was a big fan of System Shock 2 so if its similar I'll play it til completion. I've managed to avoid the massive thread in discussion, so I don't know much about it. Is it as scary as System Shock 2?

[Shindig]

Wouldn't regard it a scary game. Not unless you bask in the atmopshere a lot. The game doesn't tend to let you do that, though.

It is basically System Shock 2, though. Just without the inventory and a new hacking game. Oh, and an easier learning curve.

[son_of_helvetica]

Wouldn't regard it a scary game. Not unless you bask in the atmopshere a lot. The game doesn't tend to let you do that, though.

It is basically System Shock 2, though. Just without the inventory and a new hacking game. Oh, and an easier learning curve.

It's scary until you realise you can use those Vita-Chamber to your advantage, and it soon becomes less scary. Still, at least they didn't have the stupid fucking "ohnos your weapon is brokened!" feature of SS2.

[Mr Cochese]

Having to maintain your weapons is one of the best things in System Shock 2. It means you're really up against the odds, scrimping and saving ammo and tools to survive as best as possible, instead of running around like Arnold with nine colossal guns strapped to your back somehow. Lots of people hate it, but then, lots of people can kiss my arse.

Also, splicers "strafing" in an underwater city - I imagine that would be quite difficult.

[wretcherd]

You mean with the absence of helicopters?

"Actually it's pronounced ped-aunt-ick."

[ThePinkNinja]

I saw someone on gamer tv or something describe this better than I could think of. He said he wished he could forget everything about bioshock purely so he could play through it again and be completely suprised by it.

I don't get why there is so much negativity towards this game but opinions are different, who cares.

For me this game was fantastic, it took me away from Rainbow Six: Vegas for 2 weeks straight at a time when no one other game had come close to making me want to play something else. When you first start the game and have nothing I was so nervous about going anywhere that at one point in the medical bay where I could hear splicers talking to eachother I just hid in a corner until I realised it was just a game.

Then there's the bit where the splicer stands right behind you as you pick up a tape and see him as soon as you turn around - never have I crapped myself so much over a game! I found it a bit boring towards the end and wish the middle section had some more content or that it was a bit more sandbox and gave you some areas to explore more.

I'm just waiting a month or so til I've forgotten more about the game so that I can play it again and not find it so easy, also going to try it on hard with no saves for the achievement

[son_of_helvetica]

Having to maintain your weapons is one of the best things in System Shock 2. It means you're really up against the odds, scrimping and saving ammo and tools to survive as best as possible, instead of running around like Arnold with nine colossal guns strapped to your back somehow. Lots of people hate it, but then, lots of people can kiss my arse.

Also, splicers "strafing" in an underwater city - I imagine that would be quite difficult.

I disagree. I ended up running about the ship with totally broken weapons and just a wrench - unless that bugger broke too. The time the weapon breaks is normally at the most crucial time - when you're using it. Must have been a great feature - it even survived inclusion in BioS-. Oh, it didn't.

[Meh]

Elitist prick ?

It's a mind-blowing art-wank review of the highest order, isn't it?

His comments on 'the ecology of Rapture' sound like he swallowed every single piece of hype like a drunken hype-slut, with hype still dribbling from the corners of his hype-encrusted mouth. Apparently, they've 'managed it'.

Whatever the fuck that means.

Quite frankly, it's bollocks.

Apparently, people stumble around looking for things. Now, if I were an enraged, genetically modified psychopath in an underwater city, I wouldn't really be concerned with looking for anything other than my fellow man to pummel, unless my DS stylus had dropped to the floor.

They don't go about their daily business. There's no clever tricks going on. They're Resident Evil zombies with stupid, repetitive fucking voices who are about as scary as Rupert the fucking Bear.

"You can have a lot of fun just watching them jog along like wildlife. Obviously, the game has always played up to this morality aspect."

You had a lot of fun watching them? I could appreciate what you're saying if they looked like 8ft kittens with drill-arms mewing playfully on a bed of roses, all unpredictable and full of the secretive hate that cats are great at disguising... but watching Big Daddies is fun to you? Watching them do the same, predictable shit time and time again is fun?

Oh, yeah, Mr. Down With It, where's this morality shite you're spouting about? I can't say the game moved me to consider my actions once, especially since none of it alters the plot (shitty, half-cooked toss-off endings excepted), but then maybe I'm playing it wrong, obviously.

Yours sincerely,

E. Prick.

[MK-1601]

His comments on 'the ecology of Rapture' sound like he swallowed every single piece of hype like a drunken hype-slut, with hype still dribbling from the corners of his hype-encrusted mouth. Apparently, they've 'managed it'.

It's a tossy review (tip for shindig: use the words you mean, not near-synonyms or incorrectly applied figures of speech), but the "ecology" bit is fine. Well, "ecosystem" might have been a better word. Meaning the way the AI behaviours of the NPCs are balanced. It's a valid point to comment on, and I'd agree that they did pull it off pretty well, considering how much of the game relies purely on random spawns rather than scripted setpieces.

I don't think the combat works at all though. The freedom to choose your playing style pales in comparison to Deus Ex or Oblivion's systems.

[Mr Cochese]

I disagree. I ended up running about the ship with totally broken weapons and just a wrench - unless that bugger broke too. The time the weapon breaks is normally at the most crucial time - when you're using it. Must have been a great feature - it even survived inclusion in BioS-. Oh, it didn't.

"Sorry Sir, I wasn't firing because I couldn't figure out which end of my gun to hold. I'm sure my dead comrade's families will understand."

[son_of_helvetica]

"Sorry Sir, I wasn't firing because I couldn't figure out which end of my gun to hold. I'm sure my dead comrade's families will understand."

This was such a good idea it's been included in no other FPS games I can remember.

It was a bad idea. Let's celebrate this fact with cake.