Bioshock
Would you kindly hurry up and play this game?
Tags: BioShock Categories: PC Reviews, Reviews, Xbox 360 Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Oct 3rd, 2007
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| BioShock (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
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I’ll cut to the chase – Bioshock is easily one of the best games of the year. Now, what makes it so special isn’t some new graphics technology or some great gameplay innovation – most of the elements that makes Bioshock what it is can be tracked back to older games like the Half-Life series and even Bioshock’s spiritual predecessors, the System Shock games. However, while on a purely technical level there’s little here that’s completely new, this is certainly a package that manages to be more than the sum of its parts.
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If Bioshock had one claim to fame, it would be the strange, creepy and fully realized world it presents to players. The story goes, in the late 1940s, entrepreneur Andrew Ryan decided to build his own society based on the philosophies of Nietzsche and Ayn Rand, a society grounded firmly in the tenets of capitalism, where the government would not get in the way of a man and the almighty dollar. To shelter this society from the outside world, it was built under the sea, a… utopia aquatica, if you will, named Rapture.
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The game takes place years later, placing you in the role of a passenger on an overseas flight that crashes late at night in the middle of the ocean, where you discover a nearby lighthouse that leads to Ryan’s underwater paradise. However, time has not been kind to Rapture, crippled by disrepair and apparently host to revolt and upheaval. The free market philosophies that have been applied to scientific experimentation have led to a populace addicted to and mutated by a gene-altering drug called Adam that imbues them with superhuman powers while gradually driving them insane. What’s more, the place is overrun by freakish “little sisters” and monstrous “big daddies”, another scientific endeavor with grotesque results. Meanwhile, Andrew Ryan has also apparently descended into madness, becoming paranoid and seemingly oblivious as to the living hell his little society has become.
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It might all sound far-fetched, but the story is told in a way that actually feels quite natural. The game’s intricate plot is learned via communiqués with Rapture’s inhabitants, as well as recordings left behind by others. What’s more, both the level design and the power-ups tie heavily into the story. While you do get some traditional (albeit old-fashioned) weaponry like a handgun, a shotgun, a machine gun, and so on, things really get interesting when you start to use plasmids.
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Plasmids are essentially Bioshock’s version of magic, which allows you to do any number of things, such as flinging lightning bolts out of your hand, using telekinesis, or even throwing pheromone balls at the big daddies to trick them into protecting you. These plasmids often allow you to interact with the environment in various ways. For example, electro bolt can be used to disable robots long enough for you to hack into them and make them work for you, and a fire plasmid can be used to melt ice or ignite standing pools of oil. Other plasmids offer more passive abilities, such as a boost to your health and defensive capabilities, more proficiency with hacking, or various other tweaks to your abilities.
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All of these plasmids are powered by Adam (yes, the same stuff that drove Rapture’s populace nutso), which quickly becomes one of the game’s biggest moral choices for the player. You see, those “little sisters”, once normal and innocent little girls, are now essentially walking talking incubators for Adam. When you come across one (and manage to defeat the big daddy protecting her), you’re given the choice of harvesting her for her Adam, or “freeing” her, returning her to normal (and giving you only half the Adam you would have received otherwise). It’s really an interesting question – it’s just a videogame, right? Is it wrong to kill them just to get ahead in the game? Do your actions in the game say something about you? It’s times like this that the game actually manages to get the player to be a bit introspective.
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The controls using the Xbox 360 pad are smooth and easy to get accustomed to, although it is a bit too easy to inadvertently tap one of the buttons to use a health or EVE (the game’s equivalent of MP) refill, wasting it at a time when you don’t need it. It also incorporates a bit of auto-aim, which I know ticks off some FPS players out there, but considering that this is a single-player only game, it shouldn’t be quite as contentious as it is in games with heavy competition. For those playing the PC version of the game, the mouse works just as smoothly, with your right-click switching between standard weapons and plasmids, and your left-click using whatever weapon you have currently selected. It’s not the standard fire/alt-fire setup, but it’s surprisingly effective and easy to get used to.
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Graphically, Bioshock is a feast for the eyes and ears (but perhaps not for the weak stomach). The entire habitat is styled with a 40s/50s art deco style, with advertisements that do a magnificent job of conjuring up the era – even the characters speak as if they lived in that era, 60 years ago. What’s more, it seems like every room has a story to tell, whether that story shows corpses strewn amongst protest signs, a cornucopia of food rotting in the farmer’s market, or the romantic underwater arboretum rendered eerily quiet. Even the way the detailed characters you interact with look and behave tells you something about the story.
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The underwater habitat of Rapture looks and sounds creaky to the point where you can almost hear the rust forming and the bulkheads starting to bend to the crushing depths, and you can always look out the nearest bit of glass panelling to view the underwater landscape and nearby buildings. The music is especially evocative and the soundtrack is amazing. There’s a three song EP that remixes a few bits with a modern sound, which is decent and a good companion to the soundtrack that came with the limited edition of the game.
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That’s the thing, really. While the gameplay is very cleverly designed, and the graphics are outstanding, it is the story that is the main pull here – players are introduced to plot elements gradually, and each area of Rapture essentially reveals another piece of the story telling just what went wrong in this paradise lost. In one chapter, audio logs will reveal the ethical decay amongst Rapture’s chief physician as he discovers that Adam allows him to play god with his patients. In another, you’ll learn how Ryan’s distaste for thieves and smugglers gradually brought him to massacre the more vocal members of an upset and rebelling populace. And always, everywhere, you’ll see the advertisements and the propaganda, trying to sell you on Ryan’s dream, or at least sell you on the goods and wares in the vending machines spread throughout Rapture. It quickly becomes the case that exploring Rapture beyond just the necessary goals is less about getting more weapons and power-ups and more about discovering every last piece of the story.
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Are there complaints? Certainly. The enemies aren’t particularly varied, and combat actually becomes a bit tiresome before the game is done. What’s more, the gameplay is never particularly challenging, thanks largely in part to the vita-chambers spread throughout Rapture, which revive you after death, but leave any damage you’ve done to enemies, making battles more of a test of persistence than skill or strategy. Also, it would have been awesome to use plasmids in a multiplayer arena, perhaps in some sort of Counter-Strike-esque buy/fight round-style play. Alas, as I’ve said, this is just a single-player game.
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Still, when it comes down to it, it’s hard to complain about Bioshock when it seems like such a complete experience. If you enjoy a single-player campaign with a unique setting and an unforgettable story, you absolutely must get a copy of Bioshock. Yeah, the Xbox 360 crowd is fawning over Halo 3 by now, and for those looking for a multiplayer FPS it may be just the ticket. But if you want to sink yourself into an experience like no other, hop into a bathysphere and immerse yourself in Bioshock, right away.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ Amazingly unique setting + Incredible story + Wonderful graphics and immersive sound + Plasmids are a great twist on traditional FPS gameplay |
9.3 |
| What Doesn't | |
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- Limited variety of enemies - Gameplay can get a bit repetitive - Vita-chambers essentially rob the game of any real challenge - Lack of multiplayer seems like a missed opportunity |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Bioshock is an instant contender for Game of the Year. It meshes impressive graphics with an inventive gameplay system, and uses them to push an amazing story in a refreshingly unique setting. Unless you faint at the sight of blood or you absolutely despise FPS games, you should consider this game a must buy. | |
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Tags: BioShock
Posted by Jake McNeill on Oct 3rd, 2007 and is filed under PC Reviews, Reviews, Xbox 360 Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
