BioShock

"FPS will never be the same again"

Introduction - BioShock, this game has now become the new standard for FPS. Basically this game is doing for the FPS Generation of games now what Half-Life did in the past. From easy to master Controls to breath taking and sometimes mind wrenching graphics to the often over looked sounds and music. BioShock is truly the next Gen of the FPS world. So come with me and let us descend into the depths of Rapture. Before I get into the review I would like to mention I will be speaking from a PC point of view and not the Xbox 360 version.


Game play 8/10- IF BioShock falls even a little short it's here. For the most part, under all the new and wonderful advances this games holds it is still a pretty much standard FPS. You have your typical bunch of weapons. From the standard Melee weapon to the Grenade Launcher and so on. And each weapon has different ammo numbering typical 3 different types. Each type of ammo is more effective against certain types of foes and less effective against others. This helps make up for the fact that the weapons don't have an alternate firing mode. Switching between ammo is fairly easy even though it requires 2 buttons to do. You will also drive yourself nuts trying to conserve ammo as much as possible for it is truly scarce and runs out quickly. How then do you do that without reverting back to your melee weapon all the time. The answer my friend is Plasmids.

What are Plasmids? Well, Plasmids are basically a chemical that alters your DNA in various ways to allow you to do what could be called super human things. These Plasmids are broken down into 4 Areas. 1st is your Power Plasmids. These Plasmids allow you to do a variety of various powers. Anything from Zapping foes with blots of electricity to unleashing a deadly swarm of bees on a group of foes to distract them while you moe them down with one of your weapons. 2nd is the Combat Plasmids. These modify your body in many different ways from allowing you to run incredibly fast to making you able to kill most normal foes with a single swing of your melee weapon. 3rd would be the Mechanical. These help you in the areas of hacking the various machines around Rapture. They can slow down the energy flow of the machine while you hack or make it so you take less damage if you fail. Finally there is the Physical Plasmids. These modify your body to help you do things such as Gain health and Plasmid energy from just health packs or gain increased health from the health packs. The most difficult part will be deciding what Plasmids to have with you. At the start you'll only be allowed to have 2 Plasmids per Category and you'll get more Plasmids then you have slots to be sure. You can increase how many slots you have as well as buy more Plasmids and increase your health and Plasmid energy by the use of Adam.

Wait wait... just as I'm understanding Plasmids now you're telling me about some guy named Adam? He..He.. No. Adam is what makes ( or made ) Rapture go round. It's what allows you to do all those wonderful things I mentioned about Plasmids and making them more powerful. Getting Adam however is a whole nother story. The only way to get Adam is from Little Sisters and the only way to get to a Little Sister is through her body guard Big Daddy, and that my friend is like taking on a tank with a paint ball gun. I have to admit, the Big Daddy and all his different incarnations ( yes there is more then one type ) is far and away my Favorite mob in the game. What looks slow and cumbersome is actually a killing machine with incredible speed and unbelievable power. The good thing is a Big Daddy will not attack you unless you make it mad by attacking it or by getting to close to or attacking a Little Sister. What I really like is how the big Daddy will warn you if you get to close to a little sister and even push you away if you get closer but won't attack you. That's just one of the things that set BioShock apart from other FPS is that not EVERYTHING will KOS you, just... almost EVERYTHING. Once you do finally get past the big daddy you'll have to make a choice. I don't want to say to much other then you can either get a lot of Adam or some Adam from the Little Sisters it just depends on if you can live with your choice of how you go about it.

What I really like is the combinations of different ways you can take out a foe or a group of foes in BioShock. This is the major separator from other FPSs. This is not merely a point and shoot game. Like I said before Ammo is scarce and you'll want to conserve it. So how can you take down a group of foes without running your ammo dry? By using the environment and a combination of Plasmids. Most EVERYTHING in the environment is usable in one fashion or another. I'll give you a few obvious ones as not to spoil the game. See a bunch of Splices ( the bulk of your foes ) standing in water? Zap the water with your Electric blot and it will fry them all instead of just stunning one. Want to take down a Big Daddy with your Nade Launcher but only have Heat seekers left? Set the big Daddy on fire first, and even that can be done in a few different ways. There is literally hundreds of ways to kills the various foes you'll encounter in Rapture.

What was that? Splicers? Yes.. Splicers in all their various forms will be the bulk of the foes you face. From the Atypical melee swinging weak splicer to the truly creepy spider splicer. Each splicer has different abilities and each has a better way of taking them down easier, you just need to find out how. What sets Bioshock apart from other FPSs is that the splicers are not static foes. They don't stand there and wait for you to come in before they become active. They roam around the various parts of Rapture. Often talking to themselves and even scavenging for things among the wreckage and bodies in the areas. They'll even fight with each other over said scavenging. I Shadowed one Splicer for awhile listening to him talk and the truly demented things he said and even saw him get into a fight with another splicer. I laughed myself silly till both splicers happened to spot me.. then it wasn't so funny...... The only drawback to a splicer? They are predictable. Each " Class " of splicer fights in the same exact way as all his or her buddies without fail. so once you know how to deal with one... you pretty much know how to deal with the rest of that " Class "

Finally Bioshock does put a little twist in the game with hacking. Hacking can play as large or small a part in the game as you choose to make it. You can go the entire game without hacking a single thing or you can go and hack just about ever machine and safe you come across and each hack has it own rewards. Disable a turret and hack it and it will shoot at Splicers instead of you. Hack a security bot and it will follow and defend you. Hack a security camera and it will send bots after Splicers. Hack a vending machine to make it cheaper to by things and open up new things. The hacking mini game is easy to get for even the most casual of gamers. Connect Point A to point B using the various pipes you uncover by clicking on squares. However there are quite a few obstacles to over come depending on how difficult the hack is. A little meter gauge will let you know how difficult it will be before you decide. If you are lucky you can use an auto hack tool to gain an auto success or if you have cash to spare you can actually buy out the hacking. To top this off you can also invent things in the game. You do this by collecting simple things all over Rapture such as Screws, rubber hoses and even bullet shell casings and combining them in an invent-o-matic machine. Just a nice little dusting on the top of the game to add just that little bit more to the impressive scope of BioShock.

Now for the down side of the game play and trust me, it's not that down. First Are the levels themselves. Though they are stunning to look at and even more stunning in sheer size, they, do tend to get a little tedious from time to time. Especially when you have to go and do the often buzz killer fetch quests. No FPS anywhere should contain Fetch Quests unless it involves killing someone to get it. Bioshock unfortunately includes non killing fetch quests. The game tries to make up for this some by claiming to have a various Spawn not only making it so you can't memorize where foes are but increasing the Game play value by making it so no 2 times through are the same. Well this is partly true. I discovered that the Splicers do actually tend to spawn in the same areas all the time, it's just a matter of IF they spawn. I found different splicers in the same room in the same spot doing the same thing far more often then I would of liked to though it does help some that they do seem to wander truly randomly. I will say this much, the first few Levels of the game really sucked me in and even creep me out to the point I had to take a break it was so disturbing but it really feel like the environment team slowly lost that creative edge as the game moves deeper into the city. It is a small but unfortunately unavoidable hiccup in the close to perfect game of Bioshock.

Story 9/10 - The story of BioShock will draw even the most hardcore FPS player in. I myself have been guilty of rushing the story or even getting up to get a snack when the action stalls for a story segment or plot line. With BioShock I dared not move from my seat without being able to pause the game. I didn't want to miss a thing from the story. You start by surviving a plane crash and of course you are the ONLY survivor. When you finally manage to struggle your way to the surface you look around and see what looks like a light house in the middle of nowhere. Having no other else around you swim for the lighthouse making your way up the steps and into the building. As lights snap on you make your way down to what looks like a diving bell which is known here as a bathysphere From there you pull a lever and thus begin you decent into the Dystopia of Rapture and into the most compelling and mind blowing story you'll ever encounter this side of a Final Fantasy game. Such as the story behind the doctor. I won't say much but I will say it truly sent shivers down my spine and I know it's given me a new phobia about going to a doctor for anything. The various twists are truly mind bending as you follow the various Characters through the demise of rapture. However this is not merely done by just plot line connection through story telling. This is also done through what is basically the personal diaries of various key people from Rapture. what makes this a little frustrating is you have to find these voice recordings all over each level and there are quite a few of them. There is a third way the story is told and that's through Ghosts that you'll encounter through Rapture. Where you'll actually get to see little glimpses of things that happened. Finally, and I'll only touch on this in a VERY small manner. You'll be spooked from your seat one and awhile that image flash backs your Character will have from time to time. All these elements slowly will pull the story together.. and keep you riveted to your seat.

Graphics 10/10 - This is by far the best part of Bioshock. Te level of detail this game holds is astounding. Look out a window and gaze at the city as is sprawls out around the ocean floor. Try passing under a stream of water and watch how it will actually obscure your view for a moment as the water runs down your face. Feel your skin crawl as you open a locker or some other door and have a corpse fall out at you. Get close to a wall and just look at not only the detail of the wall itself but also how the reflection plays out along the surfaces. Just wait till you get face to face with a splicer in combat. The often disgusting and often all to human look of them will send shivers down your spine. The most notable area is again the hospital area. It is truly creepy. This is the area that was so creepy that I actually had to stop playing and gather myself for awhile before continuing. It was really freaking me out. What I liked is they really nailed the old world feeling of the environment. The neon signs, Jukeboxes and even poster ads all just made me feel as if I was back in somewhere in the 50's... if a very creepy, twisted and demented 50's. However, the best part of Bioshock is the water. It's actually water!!!!! It looks like water, it reacts like water, it reflects light like water. Water and liquid in general has been called the most difficult thing to rendered in animation. Well Bioshock did it dead on. What helps though is you don't need the mother of all gaming machines to play this. a modest machine with a decent graphics card will run the game just fine. Even if you have to lose some of the options it still doesn't take away from the stunning looks of the game.

Sound 9/10 - It has taken a long time for people to come to grips at just how important sound is to any game. Even still many people tend to dismiss the sound in favor of the eye candy. However, what good is all that wonder candy if you have poor sound. The sound is what really binds all the other parts of the game together. Listening to water drip or run, or even splash around as you move through it. The twisted laugh and demented musing of a splicer as they move around. The thudding foot falls and low groans of a Big Daddy. Each one ties you into the game just that much more. Those are just the direct noises, the ambiance noises just make the world come alive. Every so often you'll hear old style advertisements play over a speaker system or a little helpful piece of information such as what to do if you see leaks. You'll encounter music playing from various areas. Jukeboxes and old record players will scratch out tunes from time to time like ( Ugh ) Somewhere, Under the Sea. The action sounds are no different. The firing of each of your weapons, the scraping of a Splicers lead pipe or wrench as he/she runs towards you dragging it along. Even the creeping rustling sounds of an approaching Spider Splicer. You'll often hear a foe before you see him/her as it should be. However there is one MINOR flaw in this. That is sometimes you'll hear a foe as if they are standing right in front of you when in actually they are a room or two away separated by a wall or two. This detracted from the game only slightly though and didn't have any major impact on it.

Play Time/Replay ability 9/10 - This was the only REAL let down I had and even then it's a minor one. It didn't take me all that long to complete the game. It took me around 16ish hours to do so. that's Fairly short in the terms of game play. However there is a very large saving grace here. It is very repayable. Each time through is different enough to make it a fairly different experience. the game does have various endings in the game that will show depending on the choices you make in the game on various different things. The varying difficulty levels also help up the challenge. You can also help by the choices you make in what plasmids you choose to use and what you do with them. Such as Possibly the 2 most effective Plasmids are the flame and Electric Blot. Try completing the game without using or equipping them. There are also Goals you can accomplish through the game that will give you different titles at the end such as finding ALL the voice recordings or if you choose one course of action for ALL the little sisters. So the game is very repayable. As you can see by my score I would defiantly highly recommend this game even to those that don't so much like FPS and even the most casual gamer.

Final Recommendation 9/10 - As much as I would love to give this game a full on 10 I just cannot. If nothing else the game play suffers just that touch to much to make this a perfect FPS game for me. Top that off with the minor sound glitch and just the over all shortness of the game and it is just enough for me to take one point away. That being said, I highly recommend this game. It is the new standard for FPSs by far. Even casual gamers will get sucked into the story and action of this game. The graphics will blow your mind and not your PC. Not to mention give you nightmares for the next few weeks about Hospitals. The sound will draw you in and scare the daylights out of you. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to figure out which Plasmids to keep and which ones to store away for later use. You'll agonize over using ammo as you quickly start to run out. You thrill as you find new and inventive ways to kill foes. You'll shake your head in disbelief and maybe even a little horror as you delve into the slowly going mad minds of the various people in Rapture. and in the end...maybe you'll experience a little rapture yourself. keep in mind though, it helps to be a little twisted and even a touch demented yourself to really understand and appreciate the depths of Bioshock

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/07

Game Release: BioShock (US, 08/21/07)