BioShock

"Wipe the sweat from your bwow and descend into Rapture. It might just change your life ..."

FOREWORD

System Shock is the only game I have EVER given 10/10 to in a review, such is my love and respect for it. I never played System Shock 2 because I didn't want to taint my enjoyment of the first title, but when I heard that a game dubbed "the spiritual successor to System Shock" (Bioshock) was about to be released, I will freely admit, I started to drool.

What's it like ?? Read on ...

OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVE OF THE GAME

Bioshock is a first person perspective adventure game, set in 1960. You play Jack - a character who is cast into a world as bizarre and strange as it is wondrous as a result of a disastrous plane trip you're taking over the mid-Atlantic.

You find yourself in the underwater city of Rapture - a city created by the vision of one man - Andrew Ryan. A city where all that glistens most definitely is NOT gold, and where some things are very, very wrong.

From there it's a case of finding out what the heck is going on, and working out how to proceed, although you do have plenty of assistance during the game from characters that want to help you out, for a variety of reasons.

GRAPHICS - 10/10

Graphically-speaking, this game is breathtaking, plain and simple.

Every visual aspect of the game has been carefully looked into (often researched owing to the period in which the game is set), sketched, planned-out and implemented to perfection.

From the very first time you emerge from the wreckage of your plane crash, you will be AMAZED at the quality of the effects used on the water - they are simply the best I have ever clapped eyes on in a video game, and this is a theme which is carried on throughout the game, Rapture being an underwater city and all. Just try walking under a waterfall and you'll see what I mean.

Designing an entire city is no mean feat, and certainly not one that I would be envious of as a task, but the developers have taken to it with incredible enthusiasm. The playable area of the city (which is considerably smaller than the ENTIRE city, but that's to be expected) is divided up into main sections - seven to be precise, and each comprises a number of sub-sections which are all graphically very varied, very much in keeping with the era of the game, and very true to the terrible tragedy that appears to have befallen the whole city.

Every area has become a twisted reflection of what it would have been like in its prime. The medical facility is spine-chillingly disturbing, the nursery is eerie, the wooded areas are unnatural - it's all BRILLIANTLY done, and creates an INCREDIBLE atmosphere during play.

Nothing is what it appears to be.

So atmospheric are the visuals, in fact, that there have been times during play when I have had to put the game on pause, pinch myself, rub my eyes, stand up, walk around and then sit down again I was THAT into the game.

Whilst there is some repetition in the enemies that you face during the game, I have still found myself standing over their fallen bodies many times just staring at them in morbid horror at the attentiveness to detail in their sprites. Amazing.

The quality of the animation is fantastic, with realistic lurches, jumps, back flips, spinning kicks, dives and so on and so forth, and the visual effects created by the plethora of weapons you have available to you are stunning and varied.

Plasmid technology (basically the equivalent of super powers in the game) is some of the most imaginative graphically that I have ever come across, as it takes into account the surroundings you are in when you use it (if you see a group of enemies standing in a pool of water, zap the water with lightning, NOT them, and watch the effect), for maximum visual impact.

There are some very minor graphical glitches that you will encounter during play, such as people's feet not quite clipping the floor correctly, but given the pace and ferocity of the game, you often have to look VERY very hard to pick up on these, so they do not knock the game off getting a 10 for its graphics.

SOUND - 9/10

Having beautiful graphics is one thing, but that alone does not a good game make. How satisfying, then, that the developers have put just as much time and effort into the sounds as they have with the graphics.

The voice actors have all been superbly cast (Andrew Ryan and his "Bwow" making the perfect protagonist), and the voice-acting is all top-notch, with dialogue so plausible you almost wind up choking as you hear the fear in the voices of the characters.

The majority of dialogue in the game takes place through your finding voice recordings of characters lying around (since there are few characters that want to have a pleasant conversation with you remaining in Rapture), and this adds to the atmosphere of the game as, quite often, you will enter an abandoned area and find dialogue intimating what happened there a year or so ago, in the run-up to the catastrophe that befell the city.

I will freely admit that there are one or two dialogue segments in there which I almost had to put my fingers in my ears to stop myself hearing I was so shocked and appalled - just as there are some which make me burst into laughter every time they're played.

Sound effects on your enemies (particularly THEIR dialogue) is SCARY - hearing the Splicers screaming as they bicker amongst themselves whilst running around corners to try and get to you is QUITE freaky to say the least, and the sound of hooks being scraped along the floor, behind walls or along ceilings is much MORE than just atmospheric - it's actually pant-wettingly scary.

As with the graphics there are instances of SLIGHT glitching in-game which can be a bit frustrating at times, and that is the only reason I have not given the game 10/10 for its sounds. Basically what will happen is this. When you pick up a new recording, you have to press a key ('t' by default) to listen to it. The glitch is that, once you have listened to that dialogue, the game will then replay a piece of older dialogue which can detract from the moment and, whilst this is usually a very minor inconvenience, if it happens to coincide with a cutscene, it can REALLY screw over the effect of that cutscene, as the dialogue will be lost on you.

CONTROLS - 10/10

Jack is a joy to control using a combined keyboard & mouse control structure, as you have the ability to get him to look wherever you would like him to with the mouse, whilst moving him with the keys.

There are not a lot of additional keys beyond the regular movement keys that you need to worry about, and these are generally confined to examining items, hacking devices, playing back recordings, reloading weapons or changing between weapon functions and so on.

I found it a bit frustrating that Jack cannot jump higher to be honest, as there are a number of times in the game where you want him to jump over what you will consider to be an acceptably-heighted ledge or banister, and he simply won't be able to ... but aside from this minor grievance, the control method really is spot-on.

PLOT - 9/10

To say that Bioshock's plot is convoluted would not do it justice. There are a number of twists, turns and complications to the plot, but the BASIC plot (which you can read without it spoiling your enjoyment of the game) goes like this :-

The year is 1960. Your name is Jack. You begin the game on a plane travelling across the mid-Atlantic, which crashes. You (apparently the sole survivor) swim to the surface and spot a tower (it's actually a lighthouse) jutting out of the waters nearby. You head over to it, and find a door leading inside.

You venture in, and descend down into a chamber with a diving bell (called a "Bathysphere" in the game) at its centre. You enter, and are taken down to an underwater city called "Rapture", which you learn was designed to be an almost utopic city - a city without censorship or bias, where expression would be treasured, and where the sweat of YOUR bwow (Andrew Ryan - the guy that designed the city - cannot saw brow bless him) can make the city YOUR home as well.

Upon arriving at the city you soon learn that something is desperately wrong - something terrible has happened, and as part of your quest to remain ALIVE, it looks like you're going to wind up discovering what that something is.

Guided by an Irishman that is resident in Rapture and has seen your plane crash and you yourself descend in the Bathysphere - Atlas - you begin to venture through Rapture. You'd be lost without him in all fairness.

The plot is both varied and interesting, with its only drawback coming from the strangeness of its subject matter. Fortunately it answers more questions than it leaves as you play along (as I for one HATE games which leave you asking "why ?"), but there are still times when you will wind up thinking "Man that's just funked up"). It's engrossing, however, so you will have difficulty putting the game down until you've finished it, once you've allowed yourself to get stuck into it.

GAMEPLAY - 9/10

Bioshock is a very fun and very enticing game to play. It doesn't QUITE throw you in at the deep end, but it's not far off it - Atlas guides you through the opening part of the game until you find your feet, and then starts to assign you tasks which you need to complete in order to keep the game going.

During play you will encounter a number of other characters (some in person, some referred to from voice recordings you pick up, ALL screwed-up in some way), and this serves to keep the gameplay bobbing along (no pun intended) at a reasonably-paced and enjoyable level.

Whilst the focus of the action in the game is very much on weapons and exploration, there are a number of times when your objectives will become multi-part, in order to keep you in a certain area for a bit longer, and this serves to ensure you soak up the sights and sounds (and more often than not the horror) of the area adequately before continuing on.

Similarly, in order to try and prevent you having to rely exclusively on weapons of a mechanical nature, the game has introduced "Plasmids" - basically super powers, so using those you can throw bolts of lightning, create cyclone traps, hurl flames from your fingertips, send swarms of bees at your enemies and do a whole host of other things, to keep your arsenal of offensive (and defensive) powers varied and fun to use.

Using a combination of weapons and plasmid powers during combat opens up the REAL fun of the game, insofar as your enemies are aware of their surroundings, and will respond to the stimuli you present them with. I shall give you two examples. A group of enemies are standing in a pool of water. You could shoot them, but your first shot will draw the attention of all of them to you. Instead, fire a bolt of lightning into the water, and electrocute the lot of them - then go loot their bodies.

Second example - using two plasmid powers this time. Incinerate an enemy (which won't kill him immediately - it will cause him to burst into flames) and watch him throw himself into a pool of water to try and douse himself. Then switch to your lightning plasmid, and fry the water.

See ? The cumulative effects you can have when you combine your powers and weapons together in combat are EXTREME and VERY very good fun I must admit :)

The developers have also included what is effectively a sub-game as well, which is played whenever you want to try and hack a device, door, safe or other mechanical contrivance. You have to pick a number of shapes and slot them together to ensure fluid can flow from point a to point b without being obstructed or coming into contact with destructive points on the route, and this is both fun and diverting to play, offering a break in the otherwise quite relentlessly violent and hardcore gameplay.

The developers do try and mess with your head at a number of points in the game as well, putting you in often complex moral dilemmas (the most obvious of which surrounds a group of young girls called the "Little Sisters"), to see how you respond and develop as a character during play.

If I had to pick a fault with the game, it would be that sometimes the level of interaction you have with items, characters and objects is not on par with that in System Shock. I agree with the comment that this is definitely "the spiritual successor to System Shock", as there are a number of parallels between the two titles (including the grin-factor of playing it) - however, it does at times feel like the developers have made the game a bit TOO easy for you to find things ... for example, to search an entire chest of drawers you just need to search any one of the drawers and all the other ones will shoot open automatically.

It's nice, but it does rob you a little bit of the enjoyment of scraping around to find things.

REPLAY VALUE - 7/10

Once you've played the game through from start-to-finish, odds are you will want to do it again to see what happens if you develop your character differently, and how things turn out for you as a result.

However, once you've played through the game a couple of times, I don't think you'll rush back to play it to be brutally honest with you - once you have the plot down pat and know what's going to happen next, it will lose the "Oh my GOD !!" factor it has the first time you play it, so its short-term replay value is high, up until you've completed your second run-through, and then the mid-term replay value takes a big hit.

Longer-term, once you've had time to calm down after playing it, I can see that you'll want to go through it all again, so it does have good longer-term replayability :)

VALUE FOR MONEY - 9/10

I would honestly give this a 10/10, but for the fact that it requires a PC of quite simply almost Godlike proportions to play it on, in order to play it to the best of its abilities.

My PC was good, but it quite simply couldn't cope with the demands of this game, so I had to upgrade it (which cost MEGA £$£$£), but was worth it. Therefore I would STRONGLY suggest that you do NOT rush out and buy yourself a copy of this game for the PC until you've taken the time to ensure your computer will be able to play it. PLEASE - do yourself a favour ;)

OVERALL - 9/10 (This is NOT an average)

Bioshock is a fantastically enjoyable, INCREDIBLY atmospheric and INSANELY beautiful game to play, and the only reason I'm not giving it 10/10 is because it requires a STUPIDLY powerful computer to play; because its replay-value is dented by the generally linear (if very convoluted) plot; because sometimes it feels like "adventuring-lite" when you are searching for things; and because of the sound glitch I mentioned earlier. Aside from those four things, this game is absolutely STELLAR, and well worth investigating.

MAIN GOOD POINTS

* Arguably THE most beautifully handled title (graphically) I have ever played
* Voice-acting is superb throughout
* INCREDIBLY atmospheric - like a really good thriller/horror flick
* Plasmid Powers are varied and enjoyable to use

MAIN BAD POINTS

* The subject matter is sometimes ... well ... terrifying really
* You may have issues getting it to run (you will need a powerful PC to do so)
* Replay value takes a dent after you've gone through it a couplea times

SO SHOULD YOU GET IT ?

I would definitely recommend that you get yourself a copy IF your computer is capable of running it. Would I suggest you upgrade your PC to the extent that it can run it and THEN get a copy ?? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm ... good question - I'd suggest you go play it at a friend's place, or check out the web for a demo, and then decide. I don't regret upgrading my PC to be able to play it, that's for sure :)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/04/07, Updated 09/13/07

Game Release: BioShock (EU, 08/24/07)