BioShock - Review
High:
Low:
Very few games start as triumphantly as BioShock. From the moment the game's opening cinematic begins to roll to the very end of the adventure, you can't help but become glued to your TV. 2K Boston originally Irrational Games has created an absolutely riveting, atmospheric and gorgeous first-person shooter.
The game opens with your character in a plane, but not before long, it crashes into the ocean, and you're floating in the dark. Jet fuel floating around you has ignited, and a wall of fire surrounds you. The flames provide just enough light for you to see the tail-end of the plane, which is steadily sinking deeper into the ocean. The scene is frightening, but it immediately hooks few games manage such an instantly-captivating opening, but BioShock isn't your average game. Swimming to what appears to be safety, you discover the top of a building sticking out of the water. One more glance behind you, and you see the last part of the plane finally succumb to the ocean, sinking out of sight. In front of you is the unknown; some building of some kind mysteriously awaiting you in the middle of the sea. As you walk through the dark corridors, lights flicker to life, revealing a path before you. Eventually, you step foot into a capsule, and you descend into Rapture.
Rarely do we experience something in a video game that actually sends a shiver down our spines, but our first glimpse at the underwater metropolis of Rapture did just that. Set in the 1960s, the city is glowing bright with a wide assortment of colors, which realistically blur due to being under water.
Andrew Ryan is the mastermind behind Rapture and its existence. It is a place for the talented to rise to the top, but one look inside the aquatic city reveals a disturbing reality for what should be, according to Ryan, a utopia.
Once inside Rapture, it truly does feel like you've stepped foot into a world separate of earth's. The dystopia is chock-full of the city's people, all of which have gone mad. There's blood smeared across the walls, mask-wearing crazies wonder hallways, trash is littered across the floor, windows are smashed, things are on fire, delirious screams from its once-happy inhabitants fill Rapture's air and propaganda posters are pasted across whatever walls are still standing. Over the city's radio, disconnected voices broadcast more half-truths. The mood is eerie. The city of Rapture is disturbing on so many levels, and yet every inch of it is absolutely fascinating, and you can't stop looking at the unfolding devastation.
BioShock rarely takes control away from you, which is what sets the game's storytelling apart from every other cookie-cutter shooter on the market. Although there are the occasional cut-scenes, which are needed to push the story forwards, they're few and far between. The majority of the story unfolds while you're controlling your character, which means there are no rough transitions between gameplay and cut-scenes it's all seamless.
As you explore the enchantingly unusual city of Rapture, the story moves forward via radio messages, which you can listen to while playing. The mechanic works well and 2K Boston has gone to great lengths to keep you immersed, using a static sound effect to add realism to the messages. Unfortunately, due to a mix of static, accents and sometimes-quiet volume, some recordings can be rather difficult to hear. Making matters worse, while the game supports subtitles, they're surprisingly poor skipping forward, backward and lagging, making them rather useless.
While this is a first-person shooter at heart, it's anything but a routine one. Indeed, while you carry weapons around, you also have access to creatively-designed plasmids. These magic-esque abilities let you interact with the environment in a number of different ways. One plasmid lets you shoot fire from your hands, allowing you to melt away ice and burn nearby enemies. The plasmid abilities break up what would otherwise be non-stop gunning.
2K Boston has carefully designed and paced the adventure, and it shows. For example, during our play-through of the game, we always had just enough ammunition, money and EVE (required to use plasmids) to get by, creating a winningly intense ambiance. While BioShock is a first-person shooter, it requires a smarter play style than just running and gunning. The game features intelligent AI, and in fact, it's easy to forget that you're playing against computer-controlled enemies and not other humans.
One example, in particular, of the game's excellent AI is demonstrated any time you square off with a Big Daddy. The metal diving suit-wearing characters roam the buildings of Rapture, but unless they are accompanied by a Little Sister, they will not try and harm you. However, it's required that you fight and kill the Big Daddies to progress into the game, and these fights never fail to deliver a rush of excitement and challenge.
The game challenges you to choose between killing or saving Little Sisters, and it even manages to bring some emotion into the equation. There are plusses and minuses to either decision, so there's no right or wrong path.
While BioShock is a magnificently intense and atmospheric adventure through and through, it's not flawless. For example, it would have been even greater if the game featured co-op play. The worst problem, though, is that the game sometimes feels overly formulaic and even repetitive. It sends you all over the place, but every time you arrive where it tells you to, you're then immediately sent off in another direction because somebody either died or an area was blocked off by some scripted event. Along the way, you kill any enemies you find. More importantly, you have to find and kill or rescue every Little Sister in each area of the game before you can progress, otherwise the game will "become extremely difficult," as the game itself warns you when you try to progress further into the game without dealing with each Little Sister in your current area. The formula can be broken down into going from goal to goal and finding Big Daddies and Little Sisters along the way.
Regardless of the fact that BioShock is not a perfect game, it is still an amazing one. This is the most atmospheric game available on Xbox 360 and it's one of the most atmospheric video games of all time, period. The game is incredibly polished and well done on every level. It's a graphical and audio showpiece, to boot. There are few games that manage to captivate and enthrall the way that BioShock does. The intriguing storytelling, smooth pacing, varied level design, gorgeous graphics and incredible audio all come sweetly wrapped together in one must-purchase package.
High:
- Immersive atmosphere
- Gorgeous visuals
- Superb production values
Low:
- Hard to hear some in-game recordings
- No co-op play
- A little formulaic
Very few games start as triumphantly as BioShock. From the moment the game's opening cinematic begins to roll to the very end of the adventure, you can't help but become glued to your TV. 2K Boston originally Irrational Games has created an absolutely riveting, atmospheric and gorgeous first-person shooter.
The game opens with your character in a plane, but not before long, it crashes into the ocean, and you're floating in the dark. Jet fuel floating around you has ignited, and a wall of fire surrounds you. The flames provide just enough light for you to see the tail-end of the plane, which is steadily sinking deeper into the ocean. The scene is frightening, but it immediately hooks few games manage such an instantly-captivating opening, but BioShock isn't your average game. Swimming to what appears to be safety, you discover the top of a building sticking out of the water. One more glance behind you, and you see the last part of the plane finally succumb to the ocean, sinking out of sight. In front of you is the unknown; some building of some kind mysteriously awaiting you in the middle of the sea. As you walk through the dark corridors, lights flicker to life, revealing a path before you. Eventually, you step foot into a capsule, and you descend into Rapture.
Rarely do we experience something in a video game that actually sends a shiver down our spines, but our first glimpse at the underwater metropolis of Rapture did just that. Set in the 1960s, the city is glowing bright with a wide assortment of colors, which realistically blur due to being under water.
Andrew Ryan is the mastermind behind Rapture and its existence. It is a place for the talented to rise to the top, but one look inside the aquatic city reveals a disturbing reality for what should be, according to Ryan, a utopia.
Once inside Rapture, it truly does feel like you've stepped foot into a world separate of earth's. The dystopia is chock-full of the city's people, all of which have gone mad. There's blood smeared across the walls, mask-wearing crazies wonder hallways, trash is littered across the floor, windows are smashed, things are on fire, delirious screams from its once-happy inhabitants fill Rapture's air and propaganda posters are pasted across whatever walls are still standing. Over the city's radio, disconnected voices broadcast more half-truths. The mood is eerie. The city of Rapture is disturbing on so many levels, and yet every inch of it is absolutely fascinating, and you can't stop looking at the unfolding devastation.
BioShock rarely takes control away from you, which is what sets the game's storytelling apart from every other cookie-cutter shooter on the market. Although there are the occasional cut-scenes, which are needed to push the story forwards, they're few and far between. The majority of the story unfolds while you're controlling your character, which means there are no rough transitions between gameplay and cut-scenes it's all seamless.
As you explore the enchantingly unusual city of Rapture, the story moves forward via radio messages, which you can listen to while playing. The mechanic works well and 2K Boston has gone to great lengths to keep you immersed, using a static sound effect to add realism to the messages. Unfortunately, due to a mix of static, accents and sometimes-quiet volume, some recordings can be rather difficult to hear. Making matters worse, while the game supports subtitles, they're surprisingly poor skipping forward, backward and lagging, making them rather useless.
While this is a first-person shooter at heart, it's anything but a routine one. Indeed, while you carry weapons around, you also have access to creatively-designed plasmids. These magic-esque abilities let you interact with the environment in a number of different ways. One plasmid lets you shoot fire from your hands, allowing you to melt away ice and burn nearby enemies. The plasmid abilities break up what would otherwise be non-stop gunning.
2K Boston has carefully designed and paced the adventure, and it shows. For example, during our play-through of the game, we always had just enough ammunition, money and EVE (required to use plasmids) to get by, creating a winningly intense ambiance. While BioShock is a first-person shooter, it requires a smarter play style than just running and gunning. The game features intelligent AI, and in fact, it's easy to forget that you're playing against computer-controlled enemies and not other humans.
One example, in particular, of the game's excellent AI is demonstrated any time you square off with a Big Daddy. The metal diving suit-wearing characters roam the buildings of Rapture, but unless they are accompanied by a Little Sister, they will not try and harm you. However, it's required that you fight and kill the Big Daddies to progress into the game, and these fights never fail to deliver a rush of excitement and challenge.
The game challenges you to choose between killing or saving Little Sisters, and it even manages to bring some emotion into the equation. There are plusses and minuses to either decision, so there's no right or wrong path.
While BioShock is a magnificently intense and atmospheric adventure through and through, it's not flawless. For example, it would have been even greater if the game featured co-op play. The worst problem, though, is that the game sometimes feels overly formulaic and even repetitive. It sends you all over the place, but every time you arrive where it tells you to, you're then immediately sent off in another direction because somebody either died or an area was blocked off by some scripted event. Along the way, you kill any enemies you find. More importantly, you have to find and kill or rescue every Little Sister in each area of the game before you can progress, otherwise the game will "become extremely difficult," as the game itself warns you when you try to progress further into the game without dealing with each Little Sister in your current area. The formula can be broken down into going from goal to goal and finding Big Daddies and Little Sisters along the way.
Regardless of the fact that BioShock is not a perfect game, it is still an amazing one. This is the most atmospheric game available on Xbox 360 and it's one of the most atmospheric video games of all time, period. The game is incredibly polished and well done on every level. It's a graphical and audio showpiece, to boot. There are few games that manage to captivate and enthrall the way that BioShock does. The intriguing storytelling, smooth pacing, varied level design, gorgeous graphics and incredible audio all come sweetly wrapped together in one must-purchase package.
Scores:
Graphics: 94
Audio: 94
Gameplay: 90
Replay: 90
Overall: 92
Graphics: 94
Audio: 94
Gameplay: 90
Replay: 90
Overall: 92
