Bioshock

[George]

Bioshock presents a challenge to reviewers. Besides the undoubted pressure that comes with putting a much anticipated game to scrutiny, Bioshock emphasizes a tightly knit integration of in-game mechanics and narrative. This emphasis alone is praiseworthy, though it leaves little to describe without spoiling the very experience that the reviewer wants a potential player to have. Regardless, it’s no challenge at all to recommend Bioshock for all but the most squeamish.

A short time after World War II, visionary Andrew Ryan sought to escape the clutches of big government and its cultural stranglehold over science, art and industry. “The sweat of a man’s brow,” as he put it, belonged to man himself. On this precedence, Andrew Ryan built Rapture, a hidden city that sits at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and serves as Bioshock’s setting. Free enterprise and unmitigated scientific research attracted the world’s greatest minds to Rapture, ushering a period of both prosperity and moral ambiguity. The discovery of Adam, a substance that seemed to share Rapture’s dream of freedom and change, served as the catalyst to the greatest change of all. The player, a stranger to the world of Rapture, sets out to survive its depths as well as uncover the secrets to its downfall.

Irrational Games (Now 2K Boston) markets Bioshock as a “genetically enhanced first person shooter,” and is an apt description. At its core Bioshock certainly is an FPS, but has mutated above and beyond what many have grown accustomed to with the genre. It transplants what few clichés it borrows from other games into their truly well constructed setting and narrative, adding more than just a fresh coat of paint to the tried and true. For example, much of the weaponry in Rapture is home-made, due to the tight weapon control that was present in Rapture. Similarly, part of the narrative is revealed through the use of “audio diaries,” using tape and a small recorder to illustrate the time period that Bioshock takes place. Clothing, advertisements, architecture, even character behaviors all help to indicate Rapture’s culture, a sort of exaggerated post-WWII America.

Gameplay in Bioshock allows for a number of different play styles, though the result is still the same: Destroy your opponents or solve a puzzle in order to reach the next segment. You are directed on your objectives as you accomplish them, making Bioshock mostly linear, though you are free to return to areas you have already explored in order to retrieve items you may have missed. In addition to weapons, which themselves can be upgraded at various stations throughout Rapture and have 3 types of ammunition each, the player has access to Plasmids, or special abilities to aid you in combat or stealth. Examples include shooting lightning from your palm or igniting a fire with the snap of your fingers. Furthermore, Gene Tonics offer passive abilities that enhance your character in whichever way you choose, from greater defense to enhanced combat, sneaking or hacking skills. These abilities add the bulk of the depth to Bioshock’s gameplay, but it means nothing unless the player has access to Adam, the miracle substance that allows for genetic modification in any individual. It’s the ceaseless obsession of every denizen of Rapture, and your character is no exception.

Acquiring Adam and spending it on new abilities is the building block of your character’s progression, and naturally is a challenge to acquire. Without explaining too much, Adam is housed within young girls that roam the halls of Rapture, collecting Adam from the many dead bodies strewn about, accompanied by the hulking Big Daddy, a bodyguard of sorts. To get to the Adam, one must first defeat the Big Daddy, which is never easy as they are fast, huge, and powerful. The next challenge is to take the Adam...one way or the other. Moral dilemmas are a large part of Bioshock’s atmosphere. Does the absence of order give way to chaos, greed, and violence? Or does choosing empathy at the expense of furthering one’s abilities mean anything in Rapture? Interacting with the so called “Little Sisters” and their Big Daddies is an integral part of both gameplay and story, and serves as the ultimate example of Bioshock’s effort to seamlessly bind the game and narrative together.

On the Xbox 360 or among the higher settings on the PC version, Bioshock’s graphics prove to be astounding, from soft shadows and detailed textures to the magnificent water effects, the proudest feature and deserving of praise of its own. Similarly, the sound is appropriately ambient, with drops of water, rushing currents, gunshots, screams and loud footsteps coursing sonorously through every hall in Rapture. There are few moments where the player is not bombarded by some audio cue, whether it be a gunfight or an audio diary or just the player walking down an empty hallway. Controls are responsive and switching between weapons and plasmids is elementary, even moreso on the PC version. The average player can complete the game within 15 hours, promoting multiple runs through in order to endlessly experiment with the plasmid and gene tonic combinations, as well as potentially acquire a different ending.

The word “immersive” is thrown around a lot lately, and its meaning is diminished whenever attached to mundane features like force feedback and surround sound. While these can certainly help the process, Irrational reminds us with Bioshock that true immersion comes from the ability to pull the individual into a world they can believe, sense, and behave appropriately in by sheer game design. Careful consideration on every level of development has ensured Bioshock a place among the greatest games to date, and likely for many years to come.

[Opaque]

I have to disagree with you about staying power.

[George]

What I had in mind was how often some people might play it, considering the lack of any sort of Multiplayer. I can imagine myself playing through it twice in succession and coming back to it six months later, but even though it does not damage the game's quality in any way, there's a difference between playing it through twice in a week than playing it through and/or staying on board for the multiplayer.

[B-Ri]

Absolutely AMAZING game. Story, progression, and immersion. My BIG problems with the game is were getting a CROPPED picture instead of a native widescreen, and the sound is WAYYY OFF. If i could give a 3.5 on technical achievement i would. SUPER original, absolutely amazing. Fun because there are a bunch of different ways to go about things. A situation i had today was attack a big daddy head on and go, but i looked at my surroundings and found two turrets in a narrow hallway. I hacked both and drew the big daddy into the hallway where i was getting shots form ALL directions making the fight much easier.

The fact it brings YOUR morals and YOUR ideals into the game instead of telling us what to think and believe is the BIGGEST thing that stands out for me in the game, and how the story and atmosphere is being told to us by the eyes of those who lived in rapture opens an even bigger world 2k games was unable to endlessly build for us. Rapture is what has been laid out to us, and rapture is what we have imagined in our own minds through the lives of those who lived in it. i havent been this emotionally attached to a game in a good while.

Staying power? I cant imagine playing this game again anytime this year. An amazing experience to play through one time, and later for maybe just nostaliga.

Without a question, Game of The Year potential.

[Schlep]

Definitely a cut above the rest in story, atmosphere, and polish. The actual core gameplay is pretty average, with repetitive enemies and objectives that become chores to complete. I'm assuming staying power means replayability (?) in which case there's really none, unless you feel like replaying the game and harvesting/not harvesting the little sisters, which hardly changes the gameplay dynamic.

Still, the story and atmosphere really make an otherwise mediocre game stand out.

[youandwhosearmy]

I think its silly to look at this game in a light of replayablity.

The Dev's in every interview I read, were very adamant that the game being fun and the plot being clear and clever was their ultimate goal. I would treat this game as a 1st person Japanese RPG without any of the Japanese RPG Cliche's, where one playthrough is all you should be expecting.

I was mad at their purposeful neglect of multiplayer (since a game this deep has a chance to evolve death matches to a whole new level of depth), but I won't detract points for it.

4.5/5

[Joust Williams]

Pros:
Excellent sound, visuals, story, overall atmosphere
Can play it differently (once with no weapons, once with no plasmids) if you so desire

Cons:
Same twist as System Shock 2
Can get everything in one playthrough
Hacking is tedious
No death penalty is a little weak

[J2d]

Great stuff, my only real complaint is how it's all recorders/radio to drive the story forward. Could have done with some reading material/pics or cutsceenes as well. After a while I just found myself not paying that close attention to what was being said.

[epmode]

Idle Thumbs just did an incredible piece on Bioshock: http://www.twitch.tv/idlethumbs/b/322438377

It's a ~3 hour playthrough with designer JP LeBreton. You don't often see developers being so candid about their own games.

I linked the first of three videos above. If you check out the other links, you'll also find the same dev running through his own Doom de-make of his Bioshock level Arcadia.



(This is the first time Idle Thumbs has done this sort of thing so you're going to notice technical problems with the earlier parts of the video)

[Mzo]

What the fuck is this thread?