Posted by Shawn M. on Sep 21st, 2007
Game of the Year, or an overhyped, underwhelming pseudo-shooter? Read on to discover in this spoiler-free review!By now, you’ve heard the hype, and read the countless reviews of 2K’s ambitious FPS, BioShock. It’s been awhile since a game has gained the universal praise that BioShock has, and I can assure you this praise is deserved. BioShock is one of those games that comes along all too infrequently that completely overwhelms you while you play it. The depths of the story, the incredibly beautiful and immersive world, and the brilliant direction completely draw you in. BioShock is available for the XBox 360 and PC, and this review focuses on the XBox version.
Premise: The underwater city of Rapture was meant to be the best that humanity had to offer. Scientists, artists, workers of all kind were free to hone their crafts without fear of governmental or religious sanctions. With this freedom, technology and science flourished. Not long after Rapture’s founding, a young scientist discovered a breed of sea-slug that secreted pure stem cells. With the advanced knowledge of Rapture, these stem cells were refined and processed with the intention of granting human beings special abilities — pyrokinesis, telekinesis, and all manner of spectacular powers. These processed cells, called Plasmids, revolutionized how Rapture was run.
You begin the game in 1960 as a man named Jack, a seeming regular fellow. You’re on an airplane, casually smoking a cigarette when something goes wrong. Screams ensue, and the next thing you see is the blurry wreckage of the plane crashing down at you. You swim to the surface, surrounding by metal and fire, when you see the lighthouse close by. This, you discover as you swim to it and enter its doors, is the entrance to Rapture. You board the bathysphere, and after a short film narrated by Rapture’s founder, Andrew Ryan, you are treated to your first view of the undersea metropolis.
A voice calls to you over the sphere’s shortwave radio: Atlas, a kindly Irish fellow who wants to help you out. As the sphere surfaces in Rapture’s docks, you see a man slowly backing towards you. Soon, a creeping figure, brandishing two meat hooks, savagely assaults this man, killing him. She turns her sights to you, but unable to penetrate the sphere, she runs off with speed and agility that no normal human could possess. Atlas tells you to get a move on, and that he’ll keep you safe. Thus begins your adventure in Rapture, as you must try to figure out a veritable spider’s web of mysteries and questions.
Graphics: Without a doubt, one of the best looking games ever — BioShock is right up there with Gears of War. The best part about the graphics, though, is the art direction. Everything in Rapture has an authentic 50’s Art Deco style, from posters on the wall to the architecture of the rooms and buildings. Rapture itself is in ruins, but the destruction is oddly beautiful. The mutated inhabitants of Rapture — knowns as Splicers — look grotesque, but not nearly as scary as the creatures in Resident Evil of Silent Hill. Unfortunately, there isn’t much variety to the Splicers, as you’ll be seeing the same character models over and over throughout your mission. The game’s signature enemies — the Big Daddies — are sights to behold, though, as they stomp through the levels, ignoring everything save for those foolish enough to attack their wards, the pitiable Little Sisters.
Controls: BioShock is a First-Person Shooter, and with regards to that, the control scheme is standard for the genre. Your various guns are fired with the right trigger, and an onscreen reticle helps with aiming. Holding the right bumper will bring up a list of your available guns that will let you switch back and forth on the fly. The X button reloads, and you’ll auto reload after going through a round of ammunition. Movement is fluid, and the framerate remains consistently smooth with no signs of slowdown.
BioShock’s main draw, though, are your Plasmids. These are special powers that are found throughout the game that adds a creative twist to the gameplay. For example, your first Plasmid is an electric shock. Firing this directly at an enemy will stun them, and you can then switch to your other weapons to finish them off. You can also use your powers creatively — if you see a Splicer standing in a puddle of water, zap the water to really light them up. Your Plasmids are controlled with the left bumper, while the left trigger lets you cycle through your abilities. Pressing X, with your Plasmids equipped, will give you an injection of Plasmid “fuel”, known as Eve, if you have a hypo in stock. You can also collect passive Plasmids, which will enhance your abilities. Examples of these include increased health and Eve capacity, invisibility, hacking abilities, and a host of others that will make your stay in Rapture a bit easier to deal with.
Finally, we come to hacking. If you come up to a vending machine, security camera, gun turret, or several other devices, you can enter the hacking minigame. While hacking, you are presented with a tiled grid. Clicking on each grid reveals a different shape of pipe. You must align the pipes to that the flow of electricity from the starting point can reach the ending point. It’s interesting at first, but after a while, it becomes a chore. Thankfully, you also have the option to “buy off” the object and turn it your control, autohack it with tools you find scattered about, or simply smash it to bits.
Sound: Astonishing. First of all, you get a handful of songs straight from the 50’s, such as Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea” and Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child” (the latter is especially touching giving its placement in the game). Secondly, the voice acting in BioShock is the finest I’ve ever heard for a game. The various characters that communicate with you via your radio — Atlas, Andrew Ryan, Dr. Tenenbaum, and others — are done so well that you forget it’s just a game. The Little Sisters, as they sing a nursery rhyme or talk to their hulking Big Daddy protector, are both creepily chilling and heartbreaking at the same time. Unfortunately, the regular Splicers you run across suffer from having only a limited amount of things to say. It won’t be long at all before you hear them say the same thing over and over, and as the game wears on, this really diminishes the creepiness.
Intangibles: This game can be played in a variety of different ways. You can run and gun through the levels easily enough, or you can be creative and set up elaborate traps for your enemies. The way you choose to play is totally up to you, as the use of offensive Plasmids is not as vital to completing the game.
- BioShock’s story is epic, but you will miss a lot of things if you run through. Taking the time to explore and notice your surrounds will give you a better idea of what’s happened in Rapture. While the audio diaries you collect help fill in many gaps and explain quite a bit as you progress through the game, there are many subtle visual clues that expand on the story.
- The second half of the game is not as good as the first, but that’s not to say it’s not very, very good. All of the really great poop-your-pants scares and chills happen fairly early on.
- BioShock is morally disturbing. By now, everybody’s heard of the controversy when it comes to the Little Sisters. You can either save them from their fate, or you can “harvest” them to collect more potential abilities. Neither option is graphically disturbing, but when first faced with the choice, as your character looks down upon a frightened little girl, it’s a very hard decision. And not to spoil, but there is a scene at the halfway point of the game that actually made me sit still for a moment to contemplate how utterly disturbing it was. You’ll know it when you see it.
- The easy mode should have been called “God Mode” for how simple it is. Medium and Hard offer a greater challenge, but overall, BioShock isn’t a terribly difficult game.
- There is no multiplayer, which is a very odd thing nowadays. Granted, having the Plasmid abilities would cause some very odd matches, but this could have been overcome by limiting the types of Plasmids in a multiplayer mode, or simply creating new types that would suit themselves to the typical death matches or capture the flag.
The Bottom Line: I’ve not been this immersed in a game since Beyond Good and Evil, and like that one, BioShock has taken its place high atop my list of all-time favorite games. Immersive is just the word to describe this game, as it is very easy to lose yourself in the underwater metropolis of Rapture. It’s an experience to behold, and a reaffirmation that video games can indeed be works of art. Its only major flaw is a low replayability factor — sure, you can go back and think of new ways to dispatch your enemies, but as this is a story-driven game, it loses its “oomph”. A multiplayer mode would have been nice and would have extended the life of the game, but I can understand why the developers spent all of their energy on crafting a great single-player experience.
To put it simply, if you own an XBox 360 or a gaming PC, you should play this game. Even if you don’t like FPS’s, you should play this game. Even with fully exploring Rapture, it shouldn’t take you longer than 20 or 25 hours to finish BioShock. This makes it a fine rental candidate, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with making it an addition to your library of owned games.
Posted in games, reviews
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