BioShock: Review

Hello, and welcome to my first ever review to be posted on my oh so wonderful blog: Lair Of Funk. As a heads-up to you all, I'll probably start doing review of games, movies, and books more frequently as I start to get into the swing of things, but this is kind of a trial run, and we'll see how thing go from here. Also, this is NOT the "awesome" post I referred to in my last entry, as I've decided to postpone that bombshell until next week. I've also got a few other tricks up my sleeve. Hint: think new videos. Well, enough of that nonsense. Without further ado, I give you my opinion of the genetically enhanced shooter for the Xbox 360: BioShock.

In all it's glory

BioShock is not a game to be played. BioShock is a game to be experienced. This so called "shooter" from the former Irrational Games studio (now renamed to 2K Boston and 2K Australia) may look like a somewhat traditional fps at first glance, but after a few minutes of BioShock, you'll see how truly unique and incredible it is.

Taking place at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, in an undersea utopia called "Rapture", BioShock tells the story of a brilliant vision gone horribly, horribly wrong. You are the lone survivor of a cross-Atlantic flight that just so happens to crash near a lonely lighthouse in the middle of the ocean. Why is it there? Is your finding it a mere coincidence? Upon entering the lighthouse, you find a small, submersible bathysphere which brings you down into the depths of the ocean, where you see Rapture for the first time.

Pretty, ain't it?

Even at your first look of the under-sea city, you know something is not right. Rapture was the spawn of the supposedly brilliant Andrew Ryan, a man whose vision it was for Man to be entitled to "the sweat of his brow". In Rapture, artists were not held back by the weak; scientists were unconstrained by morals and what was considered "right and wrong". These philosophies gave way to several remarkable breakthroughs, most notably, the use of "Adam" and the creation of "plasmids".

Adam is a substance used to alter your genetic code, and thereby changing your abilities as a human being. By using Adam and splicing plasmids, you could do or become just about anything. As one cosmetic surgeon so eerily put it: "What if it is now not my skill that limits me, but my imagination?"

As you might have guessed, the desire for Adam became strong. Very strong. Before long, the people of Rapture were at war. Adam was tearing the city apart. Citizens became so spliced up with plasmids and gene enhancers that they went mad, lost there families, and became increasingly aggressive and violent.

Gameplay-wise, this adds up to some interesting new developments. By splicing plasmids, you yourself can wield fire, ice, thunder, and even killer bees, right from your fingertips. Most of the plasmids work amazingly well, and the number of ways you can take down your enemies still surprises me. But of course, Adam does not grow on trees. You must take it from the bodies of "Little Sisters", young girls who have been modified to become the city's Adam collectors. They roam the halls of Rapture searching for dead bodies from which they can harvest Adam, all the while protected by the gargantuan "Big Daddies", protective, diving suit adorned behemoths. In order to get to the Little Sisters, you'll have to go through the Big Daddy. And they are tough.

Aww, how cute!

This is where the major moral choice comes into play. Once you've defeated the Big Daddy, do you "harvest", or "rescue" the Little Sister? By harvesting, you receive the maximum amount of Adam from the little girl's body, but the process will kill her. Rescuing her will give you much less Adam, but you won't harm the little girl and she will be returned to her pre-Adam state. The choices you make with these Little Sisters will actually affect the course of the game, and each choice has its pros and cons, so it really makes you think.

Moving back to gameplay, BioShock plays extremely well. It's usually a fluid experience, but it does occasionally drop in frame rate, and the physics engine seems to create the odd graphical hiccup. But the sheer amount of ways you can play this game more than makes up for its shortcomings. You can use just weapons, or you could decide to stick to plasmids. Most players will find themselves using a healthy combination of the two. The games primary adversaries, splicers, come in many forms, and have some impressive A.I. They'll run and hide when they're hurt, take cover behind pillars, jump in the water when they're on fire, and make a break for the health station when they're about to die. Throughout all this, they'll be screaming comments at you that are usually relevant to what's happening around you. And I rarely heard them repeating lines.

Zap.

Big Daddies are even more fun to deal with. They won't harm you until you've harmed them or their Little Sister, so you can move around them, setting up traps, like trip wires and proximity mines, until they run into one and get uber pissed. You can even use a plasmid to make a Big Daddy your friend; he'll follow you around the level, beating down all your enemies.

The game isn't perfect, mind you. As you progress through the levels, the splicers you face gain health and do more damage, so instead facing off against new enemies, you basically fight steroid enhanced versions of the same guys you've been killing the entire game. Near the end of the game, the amount of health they have is ridiculous. For instance, a point blank shotgun blast should kill instantly, but no, somehow these guys manage to withstand 2 or 3, making the experience lose some of its realistic feel.

The hacking mini game. Not so much fun...

Some might be put off by the strange death/spawn system as well, in which you are spawned in a large tube-like apparatus called a "Vita-Chamber" when you die. This seems kind of unnecessary, seeing as how you can save at any point, and when you are re-spawned, you have most of you life, and the enemies you were fighting do not regain theirs. This makes the whole adventure a little easier than some might like, virtually allowing you to wander around Rapture with almost no fear of death.

Moving back to the good parts (of which there are many) the atmosphere and genuine feel of this game are incredible. The eerie halls of Rapture are so immersive, you'd think you were actually in an under-sea city back in the '60s. The wide range of authentic '50s music, and scary, yet thrilling noises that you'll hear throughout the city are equally impressive. Add some engrossingly detailed graphics and art to the mix and you've got yourself quite a pretty package.

Harvest, or rescue?

When it comes down to it, BioShock is simply an amazing game worthy of any Xbox owner's hard earned cash. The variety of gameplay, extent of exploration, and beautiful artistic design make an experience so incredible that you could wander around Rapture for hours on end and still find wonderful new places to explore. The plot is one of the best I've seen in any game, movie or book, and brilliant voice-acting coupled with dozens of unique, audio diaries that tell the story of Rapture really make the experience believable. It is so believable, in fact, that I would hardly be surprised if I went down to the bottom of the real Atlantic Ocean and saw the ruined city with my own eyes.

Presentation: 10/10
One of the best stories in video game history, along with fluid navigation through a logical menu system, combined to make an overall impressive package. The audio diaries are genius!

Visuals: 9/10
While its no Gears of War, BioShock's graphical style and beautiful artistry really add to the atmosphere of the whole experience.

Audio: 9.5/10
Brilliant voice acting, period music, and eerie sound effects make an already great game even better. Certain voices and sounds randomly cut out once or twice while I was playing, leaving some confusion, however.

Gameplay: 9/10
BioShock's gaming mechanics make a atmospheric and immersive game, where two fights truly never play out quite the same way, but a sketchy death system, unrealistic enemy health and little enemy variety do leave the game feeling a little...lazy, at times.



Overall: 9.5 out of 10 (not an average)

Well, I hope you enjoyed my review. I'll see y'all next week. 'Till then--

-Funkin' Out