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BioShock Review
BioShock, the moody drama-driven FPS for the Xbox 360 and PC, was released last month to rave reviews from the major gaming news sites. Since then the internet has been ablaze with outcry about the game's high rating scores. It's hard to understand why. The work of Ken Levine and Irrational Games on the spiritual successor to System Shock 2 is sublime. It's incredibly atmospheric, the game's story is well written and compellingly told, and the first-person shooter gameplay is a respectable, tightly crafted experience. It's a really, really good game. I'll tell you now: it's a 5/5. So why all the angst? Why the backlash? Read on for my review of BioShock, and a few comments on the dangers of 'merely' being a good game.
The setting is gripping, but it's also the least of the player's worries. It can frighten, but the remaining citizens of Rapture - they can kill. And they'll kill cheerfully, too, all the while singing songs and muttering enthusiastically to themselves. These people are lumped together under the generic term 'Splicer', implying their extreme genetic modification. From low-powered thugs in masks through to fire-tossing, teleporting madmen, their strength when wielding a pipe is far outweighed by the impact they can leave on your nerves. Far more threatening than this group of variously-powered miscreants are the iconic monsters of the title: the Big Daddies. Acting as patrons for their ADAM-hording Little Sister companions, these creatures are just as tough as you've been lead to believe. While much of a given level involves stalking from room to room dealing with the slicer infestation, the most memorable moments you'll have probably come from one-on-one combat with the diving-suit clad behemoths. And they are completely memorable. Even taken out of context the Big Daddy is one of the creepiest enemies ever to grace a videogame. Everything, from their low groans, to their thudding footsteps, to their cries of rage when they attack, gets across to you that when you face down a Daddy it's 'for real.' Game on. I particularly like how, as they become more and more damaged, steam escapes the Daddy's suit. The implication seems to be that there's something deeply wrong under that helmet.
You're driven through the narrative by the whims of your mostly-unseen benefactor Atlas, who plays the part of the down-to-earth everyman paired with Ryan's soulless venture capitalist. He provides a great deal of information about Rapture's background ... but hints all throughout the game indicate Atlas may be more than he appears. The subtext of 'shades of grey' is laid on throughout the game. Though Ryan is clearly a madman you're given hints of his original intentions, which seem quite benign. Likewise (as has been highly publicized), the ghoulish Little Sisters can be either slain or saved as you desire. Nothing is as it initially appears in Rapture. This moral ambiguity never seems forced, but probably isn't everything the BioShock team hoped it could be. It's very enjoyable to have options, but you're not even making as dramatic a choice as the good and evil options in Knights of the Old Republic. Whether you're a sinner or a saint, you're going to end up at roughly the same place in the end. The great writing and characterization throughout the game stands up much better than any moral overtones.
That's extremely similar to System Shock 2, of course. In keeping with the spirit of that game, your ability to customize your avatar is expansive. There are actually four tracks of powerups to choose from: plasmids, physical tonics, engineering tonics, and combat tonics. While it might sound like you will be engineering a carefully constructed 'build', I found during the course of play that a particular style just emerged based on what I found most useful. Engineering tonics were the upgrades that most appealed to me, and so I made an effort to gain slots in that area. There are far more tonics than slots available, so even as you bump up your character's potential you'll never find yourself wanting for powers. Making use of these powers in the 'emergent gameplay' style is also equally effortless. While it sounds like work from the outside, when you're playing through the game encounters happen so quickly that you rarely have time to realize that you're doing cool stuff before it happens. That was another reason I particularly enjoyed engineering; emergent gameplay can even happen when you're not around. I regularly returned to an encampment I'd made out of hacked turrets to find that they'd been clearing the stage without me. All I had to do at that point was loot the corpses.
From a graphical and audio perspective, BioShock is a work of art. Rendered by the Xbox 360, the world of Rapture is awe-inspiring to behold. Everything looks so good, it's hard to point out any one thing in specific that stands above the rest. After playing the game, the best thing to do is try to pull out moments that stick with you: water as it slides over bare rock, the endless wood paneling of nicer spaces, disturbing altars lit only by an open flame, the obvious fury of a Big Daddy wreathed in flames. The sound design is the same way, with a combination of eerie vocal performances blending into a background of music that could really have come from the 40s. Every movement, every gesture in BioShock has an associated sound. From the 'clunk' of entering the hacking menu to the squeal of radio static when activating the Security Bullseye Plasmid, the sound experience in BioShock is equal to the task of rendering a world from the rich images on the screen.
All of these elements probably seem very familiar to veteran gamers, and they very well should. You've probably played a handful of games that had many elements similar to BioShock before. What sets this game apart and above other offerings, though, is the way the title brings it all together. There's almost nothing out of place here. There's no "but the story could have been better" or "the weapons didn't feel right", or "the enemies got boring" to mar the experience of playing this through for the first time. Is it the best game that will be released this year? Possibly. It's certainly the best FPS to be released since Valve's Episode One hit last year.
So where has all the hate come from? Why are there so many posts and protestations on message boards, all claiming that BioShock 'isn't all it was promised to be'? Even Zero Punctuation's analysis of the game (which you should really seriously check out because it's hilarious) takes some cheap shots at the game's purported low difficulty level. It's all for laughs, of course, but it shows up in the review because it's a common complaint among players. The issue is that the restoration capsules scattered throughout the game, which allow you to respawn right after your death, apparently remove the 'challenge' from the game. Others have said in response, "just don't play it that way, that's why there is a quicksave option." That also seems like a strange argument, because it's essentially telling someone they're 'playing wrong'. I don't really think anyone can play a game incorrectly.
Instead, look at it from the designer's point of view. What happens when you die in an FPS, normally? You reload from your last save. Why bother? Why not just respawn and get right back into the fight, ala the spirit world of Prey? Commenters then complain that it's easy because injured enemies on the level still have reduced health. By the same token, any resources you have expended in the fight up to that point (medkits, ammunition) are also still gone. To my mind, the vita-chambers are only there to make your play experience as seamless as possible, not to make it 'easy'. Ultimately, BioShock can be as hard as you want it to be. The variable difficulty rating along with several save options and the vita-chambers means that you can play through the game in a multitude of ways, with several 'steps' between simply easy, medium, and hard. BioShock is not a brief game, either, clocking in probably around 20-25 hours for most players. Anything that ensures you will move through the game as quickly as possible would (I think) be appreciated.
The real problem, I think, is that hype has made game players disappointed with games as they're actually delivered. When a game is unexpectedly good, we all marvel over the 'sleeper hit.' There comes a point in a game's marketing, though, when more hype is just too much. The result is that when the game is finally delivered, there's almost no way for the real product to match up with player expectations. After Halo 3 launches later this month, odds are there will be a lot of people in forums nitpicking the slightest flaw or perceived imperfection. The lesson, I think, is that as gamers we need to learn to manage our expectations. I'm really looking forward to Mass Effect, for example, but I don't think it's going to change my life. Really, what can we expect out of a game other than a few hours of enjoyment we might not otherwise have had? Just getting that much out of a game, I think, is a big win for the publisher, the developer, and (of course) the player.
- Title: BioShock
- Developer/Publisher: Irrational Games (2K Boston/2K Australia) / 2K
- System:360 (PC)
- Genre: RPG/ FPS Hybrid
- Score: 5/5 - This game is a classic title. It transcends genre, is certain to be a part of many serious gamers' collections, and is definitely worth purchasing.
The setting is gripping, but it's also the least of the player's worries. It can frighten, but the remaining citizens of Rapture - they can kill. And they'll kill cheerfully, too, all the while singing songs and muttering enthusiastically to themselves. These people are lumped together under the generic term 'Splicer', implying their extreme genetic modification. From low-powered thugs in masks through to fire-tossing, teleporting madmen, their strength when wielding a pipe is far outweighed by the impact they can leave on your nerves. Far more threatening than this group of variously-powered miscreants are the iconic monsters of the title: the Big Daddies. Acting as patrons for their ADAM-hording Little Sister companions, these creatures are just as tough as you've been lead to believe. While much of a given level involves stalking from room to room dealing with the slicer infestation, the most memorable moments you'll have probably come from one-on-one combat with the diving-suit clad behemoths. And they are completely memorable. Even taken out of context the Big Daddy is one of the creepiest enemies ever to grace a videogame. Everything, from their low groans, to their thudding footsteps, to their cries of rage when they attack, gets across to you that when you face down a Daddy it's 'for real.' Game on. I particularly like how, as they become more and more damaged, steam escapes the Daddy's suit. The implication seems to be that there's something deeply wrong under that helmet.
You're driven through the narrative by the whims of your mostly-unseen benefactor Atlas, who plays the part of the down-to-earth everyman paired with Ryan's soulless venture capitalist. He provides a great deal of information about Rapture's background ... but hints all throughout the game indicate Atlas may be more than he appears. The subtext of 'shades of grey' is laid on throughout the game. Though Ryan is clearly a madman you're given hints of his original intentions, which seem quite benign. Likewise (as has been highly publicized), the ghoulish Little Sisters can be either slain or saved as you desire. Nothing is as it initially appears in Rapture. This moral ambiguity never seems forced, but probably isn't everything the BioShock team hoped it could be. It's very enjoyable to have options, but you're not even making as dramatic a choice as the good and evil options in Knights of the Old Republic. Whether you're a sinner or a saint, you're going to end up at roughly the same place in the end. The great writing and characterization throughout the game stands up much better than any moral overtones.
That's extremely similar to System Shock 2, of course. In keeping with the spirit of that game, your ability to customize your avatar is expansive. There are actually four tracks of powerups to choose from: plasmids, physical tonics, engineering tonics, and combat tonics. While it might sound like you will be engineering a carefully constructed 'build', I found during the course of play that a particular style just emerged based on what I found most useful. Engineering tonics were the upgrades that most appealed to me, and so I made an effort to gain slots in that area. There are far more tonics than slots available, so even as you bump up your character's potential you'll never find yourself wanting for powers. Making use of these powers in the 'emergent gameplay' style is also equally effortless. While it sounds like work from the outside, when you're playing through the game encounters happen so quickly that you rarely have time to realize that you're doing cool stuff before it happens. That was another reason I particularly enjoyed engineering; emergent gameplay can even happen when you're not around. I regularly returned to an encampment I'd made out of hacked turrets to find that they'd been clearing the stage without me. All I had to do at that point was loot the corpses.
From a graphical and audio perspective, BioShock is a work of art. Rendered by the Xbox 360, the world of Rapture is awe-inspiring to behold. Everything looks so good, it's hard to point out any one thing in specific that stands above the rest. After playing the game, the best thing to do is try to pull out moments that stick with you: water as it slides over bare rock, the endless wood paneling of nicer spaces, disturbing altars lit only by an open flame, the obvious fury of a Big Daddy wreathed in flames. The sound design is the same way, with a combination of eerie vocal performances blending into a background of music that could really have come from the 40s. Every movement, every gesture in BioShock has an associated sound. From the 'clunk' of entering the hacking menu to the squeal of radio static when activating the Security Bullseye Plasmid, the sound experience in BioShock is equal to the task of rendering a world from the rich images on the screen.
All of these elements probably seem very familiar to veteran gamers, and they very well should. You've probably played a handful of games that had many elements similar to BioShock before. What sets this game apart and above other offerings, though, is the way the title brings it all together. There's almost nothing out of place here. There's no "but the story could have been better" or "the weapons didn't feel right", or "the enemies got boring" to mar the experience of playing this through for the first time. Is it the best game that will be released this year? Possibly. It's certainly the best FPS to be released since Valve's Episode One hit last year.
So where has all the hate come from? Why are there so many posts and protestations on message boards, all claiming that BioShock 'isn't all it was promised to be'? Even Zero Punctuation's analysis of the game (which you should really seriously check out because it's hilarious) takes some cheap shots at the game's purported low difficulty level. It's all for laughs, of course, but it shows up in the review because it's a common complaint among players. The issue is that the restoration capsules scattered throughout the game, which allow you to respawn right after your death, apparently remove the 'challenge' from the game. Others have said in response, "just don't play it that way, that's why there is a quicksave option." That also seems like a strange argument, because it's essentially telling someone they're 'playing wrong'. I don't really think anyone can play a game incorrectly.
Instead, look at it from the designer's point of view. What happens when you die in an FPS, normally? You reload from your last save. Why bother? Why not just respawn and get right back into the fight, ala the spirit world of Prey? Commenters then complain that it's easy because injured enemies on the level still have reduced health. By the same token, any resources you have expended in the fight up to that point (medkits, ammunition) are also still gone. To my mind, the vita-chambers are only there to make your play experience as seamless as possible, not to make it 'easy'. Ultimately, BioShock can be as hard as you want it to be. The variable difficulty rating along with several save options and the vita-chambers means that you can play through the game in a multitude of ways, with several 'steps' between simply easy, medium, and hard. BioShock is not a brief game, either, clocking in probably around 20-25 hours for most players. Anything that ensures you will move through the game as quickly as possible would (I think) be appreciated.
The real problem, I think, is that hype has made game players disappointed with games as they're actually delivered. When a game is unexpectedly good, we all marvel over the 'sleeper hit.' There comes a point in a game's marketing, though, when more hype is just too much. The result is that when the game is finally delivered, there's almost no way for the real product to match up with player expectations. After Halo 3 launches later this month, odds are there will be a lot of people in forums nitpicking the slightest flaw or perceived imperfection. The lesson, I think, is that as gamers we need to learn to manage our expectations. I'm really looking forward to Mass Effect, for example, but I don't think it's going to change my life. Really, what can we expect out of a game other than a few hours of enjoyment we might not otherwise have had? Just getting that much out of a game, I think, is a big win for the publisher, the developer, and (of course) the player.
My brother has the PC version and it's very buggy. Just saving and loading your game is a gamble for a BSOD. It's a shame since it's such a great game. I was hoping they would release a patch, but so far nothing.
Until they release a Mac version. In the meantime I have a 10GB abandonware archive that mostly runs fine under DosBox to amuse myself.
Why no mention of the copy protection or the limited number of times it can be installed?
PC version is horribly unstable even after installing the NVidia drivers that where Hot Fixed for the game.
I believe the issues folks are having with Bio-Shock has nothing to do with the gameplay or it's
:)
environment at all. Rather, the SecuRom DRM, the online activation and restrictive number of times
it can be loaded on a PC.
The console variants do not suffer from any of this, thus those folks would not have been exposed to it.
I've long been of the mindset that if the console folks would wake up and give me a keyboard and / or a
mouse / trackball interface, I would switch to consoles for all my gaming needs tomorrow.
Just absolutely hate the controllers the consoles come with today
I have it on the 360. Not a bad game but they should really have called it "System Shock 3: Underwater Metropolis". There's a terrible sense of "been there, done that" with this game. Yeah, it's a successor to SS2 but there's no shortage of ammo, things are easy to hack, it's not creepy like SS2 was... In short, I'll be replaying SS2 before replaying Bioshock.
Trolling is a art,
... would you kindly STFU?
aside from a few VERY minor bugs, the game is rock solid on my machine.
Probably means "It's NOT hard to understand why. "
-Styopa
It takes some getting used to (and i've been an FPS'er since the very first one)
Items can be hard to find sometimes... Set the difficulty to medium... I would have no idea how it would be possible to beat it on expert... the big guys that protect the little girls would be impossible.
It is a bit overwhelming at first, as there is a lot at your command all at once, and there is a small lack of in game tutorial, which you will understand with experience playing, so no big loss there.
With that being said... its a game I might buy... But since quake wars just came out.... uhh dunno!
Bioshock was definitely overhyped in my opinion. The atmosphere and art direction were good, no doubt. But gameplay was nothing new from other first person shooters. In fact, I'd say it was even more limited than System Shock 2 or Thief. Stealth as an option? Not really. You pretty much had to fight your way through the game. There were no conversations with decisions to make (ala Fallout). Just recorded conversations you could pick up through the game much like the goofy notes found in No One Lives Forever. There was very little interaction in the game other than combat. No vehicles. Not much in the way of object interaction, either.
Also a much hyped feature was the ability to create your own items like ammo. Well... not really. It was just a collect-the-crap thing that allowed you to sort of unlock extra ammo. It wasn't on the level of, say, the spellbuilder in the Elder Scrolls series.
Finally, there were a lot of plot discrepancies and things that pulled me out of the storyline. Like if I were a plane crash survivor, discovering this underwater city, why would I just inject myself with a syringe I found on a table? There are a lot of things like that which caused the game to simply fall back into the vanilla FPS genre. I find it comparable to Heretic / Hexen, with modern graphics.
The work they did was definitely polished but it's disappointing because there is SO MUCH MORE they could've done with the storyline and gameplay.
It is a good game, not sure it's a 5 out of 5 though. AI is pretty stupid. An upgraded shot gun + wrench = easy victory in most cases. Even when they where like 5 or 6 enemies at once they never did anything that surprised me.
In a way I wish you were at Rapture right when things went wrong so you could talk to other people, build the story more in-depth [as in be more a part of itvs. just listening to tapes), etc.
The one thing that I did like is when they had the chimes before a commercial/announcement over the PA systems, I thought that was an awesome environment effect. At lowes the other day and the same sound came on before a store wide annoucment and I instantly thought it was going to be about Rapture.
You're also focusing entirely on the PC delivery issues and glossing over the console version. There are no difficulties that I've found with running it on my 360. Reviews are content after all, and most of those bugs will be worked out I would imagine. Lots of great PC games have had buggy releases that get fixed with good patching.
"Life's short and hard, like a body building elf." -- The Bloodhound Gang
Shit, man! I've been living under a rock. Don't ruin major plot details like the fact that the game is filled with water! Aaaaargh.
/me goes to cry
That's not about the game, is it, that's about the copy protection, which is a whole other subject.
While it is annoying, it has to be said that copy protection only got so nasty because of the virtually unrestricted internet sharing of games. We've all done it at some point or other, so we're all to blame.
The argument 'but I just want to see what the games like' doesn't cut it either. I still know people who say that, but when it comes to my saying 'hey lets play a game online', I get an all too familiar, 'my copy won't work because I don't have a valid key', because their 'review' turned into them not actually buying the thing. It gets real tedious, especially in one particular case, when the game in question was only ten pounds in the local shop.
Hence the outstanding success and praise of games like Gears of War. Granted, GoW had its own following of hype before the release, but nothing like how Mass Effect and Halo 3 are at the moment.
With GoW, gamers all around expected it to be a good game, but never quite had that "OMG! I'LL DIE IF I DON'T GET THIS!" feeling until after it was released and everyone realized how well made it was.
Yet, with Halo 3, we have the popularity of the series plus the teaser of a multiplayer beta pumping steroids into every fanboy's wet dreams. You made a great point in predicting how critical people will be with the game, but that's to be expected. We're human, we live in our minds and hope for the absolute best.
BioShock is an amazing game, even if it is considered easy to most gamers.
Making the low difficulty level is purposely done to help entice new FPS users. Also, so you don't end up with a controller lodged in your television.
I use sudo in my everyday conversations so I can gain root access.
Your point about the hype is well made. This game was hyped to all hell with hyperbole like "revolutionise the genre" and such being bandied around. I suspect that rather a lot of slashdotters (myself included) tend to immediately raise the review bar when something is hyped as hard as BioShock was.
In terms of answering your question of why some folks have complained about overly superlative reviews:
There are invisible walls everywhere, many of them extremely obvious.
There are a a multitude of doors that are locked but mysteriously unlock at precisely the moment that the current radio-message-from-an-NPC that you're listening to actually finishes.
Regards much vaunted "moral choice" aspect - do I harvest or rescue the little sisters? I have to say that after being locked into a windowed box and forced to watch an exposition of exactly how extremely tough the "big daddies" are, right at the start of the game, then being told by some random radio voice whom I have no reason to trust that "you need to kill big daddy and this small child he's protecting in order to take her "Adam", (which appears to mean basically drinking her blood) my response was to just avoid them completely. This produces, just before you try to exit a level, a preposterous peice of fourth-wall-exploding nonsense - a dialog box pops up and tells you "you haven't either rescued or harvested any little sisters on this level - you should go back and do this otherwise the game will be very difficult later on". I mean - seriously - this is what counts for great writing these days? You give me a situation where I appear to have a free choice on how I react to the events you put infront of me and then when I come to what appears to me to be the completely reasonable conclusion that screwing with "big daddy" is a lot of trouble for no recognizable value you tell me "no, you're not playing it right!". Give me a break!
Now, I'm not saying there aren't some worthy things about BioShock. Graphics are obviously fairly awesome, there's a good variety of equipment and environmental toys to play with, but on the whole I don't think it lives up to the hype.
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
I hear a lot of bitching about instability, but I haven't seen any of it. My install went smooth, and the game never once crashed on me (on Vista). Ever think maybe its not the game that is unstable, but rather your computer?
...but after one playthrough I shelved it and I really doubt I'll every try it again.
As much as there are a few neat gimmicks (plasmids etc.) and one interesting plot twist, the experience was in my opinion ruined by a complete sense of claustrophobia in terms of player choices: I haven't played in so long a game where you are so railroaded in doing a, then b, then c with absolutely NO flexibility whatsoever (invisible walls and locked doors abound). That and the crappy AI of your opponents (honestly, the mobs were as intelligent as the ones in doom in my experience) makes for a very, very, very boring experience.
I started playing on normal difficulty, but about 1/3rd of the way through I switched to easy so I could just get over with it, since it was boring me to tears to have yet another errand to do (listen to this, do that, go there, etc.) before being allowed to go to the next level. I really wish I could have my $49 back.
Technically the game has run great for me (without upgrading the nvidia drivers, I have a 7900gto), no crashes, no bugs, just perfect, but it was not even 10% as good as the original system shock, which in my opinion was a masterpiece, and much more so than the blah-ish system shock 2 and, even worse, bioshock: the 95%+ review scores are way out of line, this game is maybe an 80%, heck, I had more fun playing Prey than bioshock, and pray had way worse reviews.
-- the cake is a lie
I found Zero Punctuation's review to be much funnier...
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1394-Zero-Punctuation-BioShock
This game is good on the 360, but I would rate it closer to a 4/5. The highest overall rating I would give a game is Half Life 2 at 4.5 out of 5.
I don't get nearly as immersed in bioshock as I did with half life 2.
I'm annoyed with reviews, because so many are giving Bio Shock a 10/10, a 5/5, etc. That implies its a perfect game, that they could find nothing wrong with it. I thought it was a great game, but I could name lots of things about it that annoyed me.
1. No Multiplayer. I realize the plot doesn't allow for it, but give us some death match.
2. Constantly searching for items. The scenerey is amazing, but I find I'm always ignoring it, to find another health pack, ammo, etc.
3. Some Plasmids are mostly useless, or quickly obsolete.
4. Constantly have to listen to recordings for plot. It gets a little old.
You get the point. Most of these things aren't that big of a deal, but in any game, there's always room for improvement. Its a great game, and I completely recommend it, but I wouldn't give a perfect 10.
As I have mentioned above it appears that the "buggy" aspect is not a general problem but a specific hardware setup issue. Meaning that the game itself plays fine on a large range of machines without extra patching. It was not shipped "broken" so that no one could play it. In the realm of PC gaming, with it's multitudes of hardware configurations such problems things are not unheard of, but rarely do they effect everyone or the majority. I, among many, have had no problems installing and playing the game. I have had one crash, and could not replicate it in 15+ hours of play. I would not by any means call it "buggy".
"Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!"
I found the best way to handle the big daddies is to pile up a bunch of explosive barrels and lure them towards you. Either use a target dummy or shock them when they're close. Shoot the barrels and you can drop them with a few shots of armor piercing rounds.
Like if I were a plane crash survivor, discovering this underwater city, why would I just inject myself with a syringe I found on a table?
Didn't finish the game, did you? If you did, you'd know why.
Hint: the plane crash was not an accident.
Was the ability to use the Winter Blast plasmid (freeze) then use the Incinerate (fire) to melt splicers into a puddle of goo. I would've understood if you say... needed both powers maxed out to do it, but sadly, no.
Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3, will have mouse/kb support in order to keep its old hardcore fanbase happy and hopefully the trend will continue. For what its worth though, they took the copy protection right out of the last PC UT game so I doubt that the PC port is going to exactly redefine evil.
My PS3 is the first console I've had since my childhood SNES, and being a PC gamer I've also had a little bit of trouble getting used to the Playstation's FPS controls. With Sony's dual analogue control schema (left thumb moves/strafes, right thumb aims. essentially congruent to mouse in right palm, wsad under ring, middle and index fingers of left), things have improved much since the last console FPS I played which was Goldeneye in 1997 (left thumb moves/turns but aims when a button is held). It's still not quite as good as the PC controls, but once you get used to it and you realise that the controls are all part of the game, consoles FPSs become almost as fun.
Bioshock isn't exactly the twitchiest game out there anyway, we're not exactly talking about hitting an adversary midair with the railgun or anything in this game. Guns tend to be inaccurate like shotguns, chemical throwers, grenade launchers and sub machine guns. Plasmids (the kinda psychic powers in this game) tend to fudge the aim a little to hit the target. The only weapon that could benefit much from the mouse's precision is the crossbow, which never has enough steel bolts for a direct attack anyway. I've only played this on PC, but I'd wager if either one of us were to buy a 360 and learn its controls we'd be every bit as happy with this game on console and even more happy because one can lie on the lounge when one does not need a mousing surface.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Good point about the moral choice thing. There are many other games that have offered morality choices with bigger consequences than "should I kill or rescue a little girl."
I still can't forget the effort it took -- in game and in my own mind -- to willfully corrupt my party members in Knights of the Old Republic to the Dark Side. Or the things you can do in Planescape: Torment to change your alignment and the effect it has on your party members. Even Arcanum offered a wide variety of moral choices and their effects.
This isn't new ground for FPS games, either. Granted, the choices are a little bit more limited, but there were a few moments in the Splinter Cell games which challenged the player to make a choice. Playing on the hardest difficulty level, to get 100 per cent, you cannot kill anyone, which is pretty difficult in some levels. I can't think of any others off the top of my head but I know Bioshock isn't the first, or best example of adding moral choice to a game.
SPOILER DON'T READ IF NOT PLAYED TO THE END
SPOILER DON'T READ IF NOT PLAYED TO THE END
YOU WERE WARNED !!!!!!
Finally, there were a lot of plot discrepancies and things that pulled me out of the storyline. Like if I were a plane crash survivor, discovering this underwater city, why would I just inject myself with a syringe I found on a table? There are a lot of things like that which caused the game to simply fall back into the vanilla FPS genre. I find it comparable to Heretic / Hexen, with modern graphics.
This is well explained at the end or nearly. "Would you kindly..." (or some phrase like that), you are genetically programmed to do any command with this bidding. So this is why you were on the plane , and it was most probably intentionally crashed. But bottom line is that the alpha/fontaine guy just forced you to do everything with those keyword. Including injecting yourself with anything found on a table. This is also how he try to make you suicide yourself.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I'm not a big gamer, but have been completely swept up by the hype of this game. Is it worth buying a 360 over?
This decision has been rambling around in my head for weeks. Some people seem to give an enthusiastic "yes" but I dunno. Reviews like this makes me think otherwise.
Frankly it wasn't over-hyped to me. I mean, yeah, there was a lot of hype, but for me the game was sold as soon as it was announced. I was a huge fan of System Shock when it was first released and while I had issues with System Shock 2 initially it was a really great game as well. Deus Ex just continued the winning streak for this loose group of games. Bioshock, though, is where they dropped the ball.
First off is the fact that it all feels dumbed down for a console audience looking for fast, simple gameplay with a few nods to complexity and story thrown in. There's no inventory so everything is just thrown up on your screen like any other shooter. No stats, because everything is handled through the plasmids. In fact, just about everything that would normally be mapped to a sub-screen is now handled in a very limited fashion by wall-mounted consoles (e.g. gun upgrades, plasmids, invention, etc.).
The game is far more linear and yes, the Vita-Chambers do make it too easy. From a console/FPS point of view getting back in the action might be desired, but this isn't a deathmatch here. Dying should feel like it has some consequence. SS and SS2 both had regen machines, but they never felt cheap or easy because there was only one per level and you had to go out and find it and activate it first. As a result dying was a concern. Until you activated the regen there was real tension and once you did, it meant that you weren't totally out of it and back to your last save, but you'd still have to trek across the entire level through hordes of enemies and with very little ammunition. Not just pop out of the chamber and go back to shooting the same enemy.
It's not a terrible game. The graphics are pretty (albeit, on a PC running at Maximum settings, not that much better than what we've gotten used to in recent years) and the setting and theme are novel and interesting even though the art direction seems to have stolen a page from Fallout more often than not. It's just that it was heavily hyped and arrived to glowing reviews when really it's more of a 7/10 sort of game. It's a low point for the series where they tried to transition into a simpler console audience and treated the PC version as the port rather than the other way around. I guess if this is the first game in the series you've ever played it might seem great, but if you've been along since the start then you'll know that it's just no match for it's deeper forebears.
so far on the 360. I've played through twice. Once on medium and the other time on easy (got to score those achievements). I think I have 910/1000 achievements and I'll have the last few tape recorders the next time I fire it up. The technology behind the game and the art direction combine to create one of the most atmospheric and engrossing environments of any game I've played. Rapture is as real to me as Black Mesa and City 17 ever were. The gameplay is fantastic with great combat and several ingenious gimmicks such as hacking and tonic finding. I highly recommend this game...its a treat for the senses and is fun to play. Certainly lived up to the hype for myself.
That was last week, now we're talking about the actual gameplay, get with the program.
"Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!"
A game can't have any combination of hype, good reviews, and positive buzz without the droves of internet hardcore gamers getting sand in their collective vaginas about it and going off about how it's "overhyped".
Overhyped, underhyped - it's the same game when you're playing it.
If a game like Bioshock - and its subsequent success - doesn't make you glad to be a gamer, then nothing will. Whether or not you even enjoy the game, it's easy to see how most would - and it's exactly the kind of original, thought-provoking game that doesn't get made these days.
Wouldn't be a shocker if she was a gamer, but I'm the gamer. My wife's gaming activities are usually ones like the frog that spits colored balls.
She watched me play the demo and she wanted me to get it FOR HER! Unfortunately I have trouble getting her off the 360 when I want to play or watch TV. In fact she will probably beat it before I will at this rate.
with your life... that's why I manually masturbate caged animals. ( clerks )
Story? What story? The story is that I'm a random nameless plane crash victim thrust into a makes-no-sense cliche-ridden art-deco horror story, without much horror, to be honest. Science fiction? There's no science here, the protagonist has magical powers. If he had a flowing grey beard and pointy hat, it would be more immersive. Still cliche-ridden, but more immersive. I just can't get past the silly notion that gene therapy can make you shoot flames out of your hand. It's fun so far, but the story is just preposterous and unbelievable, and the setting is ridiculous. An underwater city with no architectural accomodations for being sited underwater? It looks like a flooded land-based city, not something purpose-built for the bottom of the sea. And is there a setting to turn off the wave distortion when you look out a window? You wouldn't see anything like that looking out the window of an actual underwater city unless there were severe temperature gradients flowing past the window. The view of the ocean outside should be steady, not wavy. It's very distracting.
And yeah, the enemies are already boring. I haven't finished the game, but fighting so far is mostly tedious. It's fun to kill a Slicer by throwing a body at him, or whatever is handy, but only for the first few times. Then it's a bore. The Big Daddies are just a slog fest. Maybe I haven't yet discovered the finishing blow you can use on them to end it right now. If there isn't one, I'll be annoyed.
And the Little Sisters? There was no dilemma. I get more ADAM, you say? Fuck 'em. They're harvested. The graphics are still on the canny side of Uncanny Valley so there wasn't any charge to seeing them cower. And the harvesting animation is getting tedious every time I do it. Come on.
And whose bright idea was it to stick a stupid puzzle game in the middle of a shooter? If I wanted that, I'd have bought Tetris 2007 or whatever. The hacking game is STUPID STUPID STUPID. Thankfully you can avoid it, which I do at every opportunity. So why put something in the game ever player but your Mom is gonna skip as soon as possible?
This game makes no sense on so many levels. The result for me, so far, is that the whole is less than the sum of its many inventive and also pointless and annoying parts. It would be improved if, like DOOM, there was no back story, no diaries, no Atlas, no Ryan. Just shoot the baddies and get on with it.
I was more frightened and involved by Prince of Persia.
Edith Keeler Must Die
I think gaming is finally starting to suffer from the same thing. To the typical new gamer Bioshock may seem like a wonderful, revolutionary game, but to be honest other than the graphics there is nothing in the game that I haven't in a dozen games over the last 15 years I've been playing then on the PC. It's not a bad game, but it's no 10 out of 10, at least not from where I'm sitting.
P
We've all seen a million reviews like this, and those of us that don't trust them, because of the buzz on the Internet and Usenet, some of which is nonsense, but most of which is based on facts about the game, are not going to suddenly trust yours, because you're Zonk.
Just what are you trying to add to the debate? A testimonial? Are you giving free testimonials for 2k now?
Because that's what your review really adds up to. You should ask for compensation from their advertising department.
--
Toro
I really don't know what all the fuss was/is about. Having played this game on both PC and 360, I wasn't impressed in the slightest. Sorry!
Things I'd Change:
Splicers:
In 'Easy' mode, no changes.
In 'Medium' mode, splicers that have a free loot slot of their "top three", can pick up loot from the game world.
In 'Hard' mode, splicers can also pick up and change out weapons, except for the Spider Splicers.
Vita Chambers:
In 'Easy' mode, leave them as-is.
In 'Medium' mode, you drop all your loot, except for your Adam, and all your plasmids go back into the Gene Bank.
Heath is 100%, Eve is 20%
You need to either get new stuff, or go back to your dead body and scavenge.
In 'Hard' mode, in addition to the above, require a 'lock on to only you' hack before they're usable.
Until then, all Splicers will get Vita Chambered.
(I mean, story wise, why don't all the splicers get Vita Chambered when you kill them?)
Also, consistent with 'Smart Splicers' behavior above, Splicers still on the level are free to grab your loot.
Quests:
No changes.
Little Sisters:
In 'Hard' mode only, Little Sisters can be killed easily while they are harvesting Adam from a corpse - makes surprise attacks on Big Daddies much harder if they are close to a Sister!
The main reason that people are so irritated with the game, in my opinion, is spite for casual gamers. Casual gamers want games to be more like movies. What I mean by that is that they want constant forward motion, and they don't want to have to think too much. A lot of these people consider any sort of challenge work. If this game were made of the PC only, for serious gamers, there wouldn't be all these concessions. It's sad to see potential lost because companies want to make more money off lowest common denominator consumers. Same reason why most movies and all other popular art is bad. It's made to appeal to people with 8th grade educations, seriously. If thing weren't so simplistic all the idiots of the world would label things boring and they wouldn't sell. Something that people don't talk about is that people with a 100 IQ, which is what the average is, are pretty god damn dumb, then think about the other huge segment below 100. And we wonder why democracy doesn't work better.
When the installation will not even complete because it has to download a patch, that it refuses to install correctly thus making you go through the entire installation multiple times - then it has bearing. I was not able to play the first day I bought it because I spent the entire time debugging the installation issue and downloading DLL's (which it turned out in the end I did not need - the true problem was that doing a custom install where you choose you own section in the start menu to place the game).
And of course general bugginess means the several crashes I've encountered lost an hour or two of play. That too has bearing.
Gaming on Windows? Never again. This was the first time I had tried to return to that realm in years, and found I was not welcome there by the very software I bought for my own use.
I loved the game, but it was only just marginally worthwhile to use it on Windows. I would not advise people to buy it unless it's on a console they already own.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'd like to here some people's opinions on this... i've played the game myself, and frankly, characters behave exactly as i would expect them to in the game.
i've heard opinions ranging from "dumbest/worst AI ever" to "by far the most challenging and complex AI system ever"
one opinion i will give for myself: the pathing system this game uses for quests (and seemingly, the AI using the same pathing) is freakin amazing.
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
I see the game as a 4/5 it is not perfect or particularly pushing any boundaries.
AI
Non existent the see you they chase you, you are behind them or over a certain distance they have no idea you are there.
Plasmids
At this time there is no reason to really ever use anything other then the electrical plasmid and sometimes the telekinesis plasmid. This system should have been genre changing see level and monster design for more info. The telekinesis plasmid should be as great and as effective as the physics gun in HL II but ends up being a poor imitation. If I pick up a table or a metal object why is it not an effective bullet shield?
Level Design
You would think that the level design would force and encourage the use of other plasmids some levels the ice or fire would be more effective, then just using the electrical one. This would have been a great way to encourage the use of other plasmids. Physics puzzles for bonuses anyone? HLII used physics puzzles effectively, and so far no one has done it. Bioshock has the mechanic to do it but strangely did not.
Monster Design
For the most part there are 5 monster types in the game that just gain more power or a few abilities to make them more difficult. This would have been the easiest way to make the plasmid system way more effective some monsters have different resists. Why are there only 2 variants of Big Daddies? There is no technique or skill needed to kill them they are just damage tanks, put enough damage into them and they die. Why do they not have different weaknesses on different levels? Why does level design not encourage anything more then a run and gun to kill them?
What was done right
Great looking game, with a great story arch. The game feels very non-linear (while it is.) Sound and VO is excellent. The over all art direction is unparalleled in FPS's. Oh and a blast to play! Which is the most important. Do not get me wrong Bioshock is a great game, but they set out to change the way FPS's are done with the plasmid system and just did not fully realize the implications of this feature set.
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
My love for this game stems from this post... the fact that, the parent's post is an option, one of many to deal with these enemies, is awesome. I fight big daddies all the time just for fun, then reload of course because it take a billion rounds of ammo.
My favorite so far was in the second level, I believe, when I snuck underneath these grates you could walk on. I proceeded to kill Splicers and a big daddy by shooting them through the grates. The AI was pretty smart though and would shoot back through the same holes I was shooting them.
Best. Review. Ever.
I've been playing it for a couple of hours, and it seems ok, even though the linearity pissed me off at the beginning. Only gripe I have is that it seems very similar to SS2, from all the ghosts banging doors, vendor machines, self modifying, hacking and down to even the recordings left around by the denizens. It seems so SS2:ish, that I wouldn't even be surprised if the guy sending me messages and helping me along turns out to be Andrew Ryan (which was the plot in SS2)!
Sure, it's supposed to be the spiritual successor to SS2, but changing the formula even a little bit wouldn't hurt. This isn't EA Sports after all...
I tried this same strategy and a big daddy dropped a proximity mine behind me while I was backing away.
Those proximity mines always get me, I fight a big daddy, kill him, then bam, run into one of these things. I curse at the damn tv for 15 minutes while running back to where I was.
This thing is WAY over-hyped. The best thing it has going for it is the scenery and overall atmosphere, which are simply awesome. Beyond that, it's just a first person slog-fest. Despite claims to the contrary, there is no choice in the game. There is a fixed path you have to follow, invisible walls, locked doors, the whole cliched bit. You can't even choose to not interact with the little sisters - you're FORCED to make a choice between letting them go and harvesting them. Creating your own ammo and gadgets from parts found in the game? - boring and only semi-useful. Hacking? - Let's just say I'll never do this again if I ever replay it. Way, way repetitive. Auto-hack tool FTW. Hell, you only need aiming skill until you get telekinesis - then you're pretty much set. You hardly even need ammo after this point - just toss bodies around (which is admittedly, fun to do.) There is little replay value, the big boss fight is laughably easy, the "ending" painful to watch, and everything from beginning to end so damn predictable and trivial to master it .... well, it's fucking pathetic, let's leave it at that.
il they release a Mac version. In the meantime I have a 10GB abandonware archive that mostly runs fine under DosBox to amuse myself.
I'm sure that the developers are itching to port a modern FPS over to the Mac to pick up all those gamers who are satisfied by 10 year old abandonware.
I mean, good Lord, that's just a market that's itching for a modern FPS -- a market that demands rich graphics and is willing to pay to get it!
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Ok so we all know this is a great game, but for me it's 4/5 or 9/10, close but not perfect. I think my biggest disappointment was the Big Daddies and little sisters, I'm a nice guy, I like bunnies and hate mean things, the idea of being a hero and rescuing a bunch of kids seems ok to me, but how much cooler would it have been if each big daddy/little sister had been unique? They could have really gone to town on making the little sisters twisted by the Adam in all sorts of ways, with their big daddy guardians specially tailored for their particular mutation. A little sister who can survive underwater, one who can use stealth, one who can walk through fire, etc etc. Of course when you saved them they would go from being creepy to cute, perhaps they could even have told you a bit about how they lived before all the weird stuff happened, thus making them more like proper characters. As it stands the first couple of big daddies you fight are really exciting, but after getting a certain plasmid they become extremely easy. Also because the little sisters use the same character model you never really feel like your helping liberate a bunch of exploited kids more just a bunch of carbon-copy videogame characters, also not helped really by the terrible lip-sync.
I'd like to see another quality System Shock game with this engine. System Shock series is good and not so linear. Plus, it was scary and being taunted by SHODAN is so cool. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
1. You can't lose
:).
I'm all for having savepoints in a game, both automatic (when you finish a level, or complete a goal in a level), and user initiated. I hate however Bioshock's Vita Chambers. No matter how bad you play, if you get killed you get revived in one of those chambers with some health and Eve and, what really ruins gameplay, your enemy will have as much (or little) health as when it killed you. This means that you can play really badly, and still win by being resuscitated many times.
2. I felt like a hobo
I spent more time looking inside trash cans, crates, and whatnot than fighting bad guys. In this respect, Bioshock reminded me of The Darkness, where you actually end up spending more time killing all the ligths than fighting. In a First Person Shooter, I expect shooting being the principal activity
3. There are no real bosses
Title says all. There are are splicers and there are Big Daddies, neither of which can be considered bosses (because they are not uniques). Except for the final one, all other "bosses" (Dr. Steinman, for example) are not much harder to kill than the average splicer.
4. The AI is poor
Although you can come with new, creative ways to kill enemies as the game progresses and you collect new plasmids/weapons, why bother? The enemies don't adapt to your killing techniques, so, once you find one (or a set) that works, you have no incentive to try something new.
In conclusion, I see Bioshock as the iPhone of videogames: it's not that is bad (it's actually good), it's that the praises (including the ones in the review above) are not proportionate at what the game really is. It plays like a clone of Half-Life 2 (up to the weapons: telekinesys plasmid vs. gravity gun, wrench vs. crowbar, enrage plasmid vs Antlion pherormone, hackable gun turrets vs... well, hackable gun turrets, etc), with poorer monster AI, ridiculously-easy-to-beat bosses, and no vehicles (they could have added some battles to do using the submarine!). I give it 4/5, and I'm being generous here.
It's a very solid FPS, but that's all it is. It's gorgeous, and the seamless storytelling is all excellent (like it was with Half-Life), but it's basically it's a zombie shooter. That, to me, is what is disappointing about it because the hype surrounding the game made it seem like it would be more.
For me, a game like Jade Empire does a better job of introducing something new. For example, there's a moment in that game where you have to pose as an actor and say certain lines in a certain order to get the palace guards to understand what's going on. It's different, funny, and just really entertaining in a way that BioShock never is. BioShock, for all of its underweater beauty and flawless execution, is a standard FPS.
SPOILERS BELOW:
The Vita Chamber was just being prototyped and introduced when Fontaine crashed the New Year's Eve party. As such it was not for public use and was keyed to Ryan's personal genetic signature, which you learn works for you, since you're his son.
What you need to do is get used to it. You will see that todays games are more than fluid enough, intuitive enough, and easy enough to control with the gamepads of today.
very pretty, though i couldnt run it in pretty mode on my laptop at reasonable speeds.
other than that, game on rails where somehow I don't seem to be able to skip crappy cutscenes.
After playing the demo I re-installed Deus Ex and played a real game. Funnily enough i found a small secret area that I don't think I had seen before. Still although there is going to be a DX3 it will probably be dumbed down for the console crowd
And when he says "definately worth purchasing" do you think Zonk bought it or got a free copy?
Lots of people who picked up the game when it came out, and ran out of activations because of problems with the game and/or the activation server, would disagree with you that it has "no bearing on the quality of the actual gameplay". Being unable to play at all is quite a stroke against the quality of the gameplay, in my mind.
My Windows PC (which is only turned on for gaming) needed an upgrade from 1GB -> 2GB to run Bioshock smoothly. The box claims it'll run with 1GB but that is simply not true - it jerks and judders all over the place, and the lack or RAM will wreck it for you. Maybe I'm just behind the curve :)
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
I played and beat bioshock in about...6-8 hours...nowhere near the 20-25 the reviewer mentioned....I only harvested a single girl and now im evil..you have 3 endings, girl killer, girl harvester or saviour..come on i saved about 95% of them...and the ending i get blamed and the world goes to shits...talk about canned endings with no variability.....i also felt the control scheme was a bit lacking...it felt like it was definitely designed for console, from the mouse movement to the menu layouts...it felt like i was playing oblivion.. Also, while the storyline was great, the extreme lack of interesting things to do in the game and the extreme lack of enemies was irritating..the enemies just ran away all the time and by the end of the game i just ran through and finished it to get the plot points instead of visiting all the extra areas..frankly this game is overhyped...no multiplayer? i say rent this game once, play it, beat it, be done with it
You can shoot the proximity mines. No need to run into them :-)
I am sure everyone has worked out a way to kill Big Daddies with little to no effort,
even on the hardest difficulty.
For example, on the first level, you can make them chase you to the dentistry offices,
where they will get hammered by turrets they cannot easily reach. Then you can hide in
one of the maintenance passages, and hit them with short bursts of AP machine gun fire.
Being the minimaxer that I am, once I got the camera, I came back to this level, and in
less than twenty minutes, I had emptied the vending machines, researched every available
enemy, and stocked on everything, including cash.
Compared to the average PC shooter, Bioshock is rather easy. So? There are strategy
games on which I enjoy spending hours of getting things just right, like Dominions III.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/Dom3/1.htm
but shooters are for running through, blasting things and feeling tough. Bioshock does that very nicely.
No good deed goes unpunished...
My favourite strategy is to tag a Big Daddy with Security bullseye, and then purposely set off an alarm (such as hacking a device and running the flow into an alarm tile). The one minute's worth of attack by the flying security robots generally takes the BD down to very little health, with no ammo loss and next to no eve loss.
That said, the 360 has hundred of pretty awesome titles that DO make it worth buying. Your life will probably be consumed for the next year playing these games. Take a look over on Gamerankings and look at the top games, read some reviews and see if they interest you at all. The 360 has the widest selection out of the next gen systems right now, so no matter what your niche, the 360 has it available. Shooters, Horror, Racers, jRPGs, RPGs, Arcade, Retro, Puzzle, Boardgame, sRPG, blah blah blahhhhh.
I wrote a through plot review recently, but Slashdot doesn't accept anything written from an objectivist viewpoint... You might be interested if you cared about Levine's pre-game statements about the game being a statement on Objectivism.
Just in case I save anyone else from spending $50 on this, I can assure you that despite all the hype about the atmosphere, graphics, and storyline, this is the same old FPS game that you may be familiar with. The abilities should be familiar to anyone who has played any of the Star Wars FPS games -- here called plasmids. The power-ups are sold in vending machines which accept 'ADAM,' which is currency you obtain from beating particularly difficult enemies. In this reviewer's opinion, it is more of the same. Unless you finished the first-person game in Quake 4 with beated breath, hold off on this one.
Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong;
They are weak, but He is strong
*shudder*
Peace,
Bill
bamph
I downloaded it through Steam (from Valve) and it rocks! I played the whole game through with little sleep in two days, and started again yesterday. It is well put together and you just get chills when you hear "I'll wrap you in a sheet..." or "... Mr. Bubbles..."
And no, that was not enough to be called a spoiler.
This game sucks you in to a sleepless festival of gaming goodness. For those with crashes and good video cards I would recommend updating your drivers before playing this game. You can also turn down the resolution for better movement, it does not detract from your enjoyment at all. You can do so many different things with your "abilities" and there are several ways to complete the goals necessary in the game.
Enjoy! I did!
"Just a fox, a whisper."
I played the whole game and really I was disappointed and thought it was subpar compared to System Shock 2.
The game play was very simplified and moved pretty much completely on rails. No real deviation from the marked path, not a very smart AI (only a couple of tactics were needed to kill anything) and there was literially only 7 enemies, melee splicers, gun splicers, spider splicers, nitro splicers, big daddies with guns, melee big daddies and the teleporting splicers. The hacking thing was just a 30 second game of Pipe Dream.
There was also no real ability to play the game in a different manner, you could use all the guns, all the Plasmids and hack.
I never had a shortage of ammo, usually the opposite since I just hacked everything and let the automated defences kill most annoyances. And the voice recordings left behind didn't follow along very well, They seemed to go up to about halfway through the history and then stop, nothing to fully tie together the history with what you were seeing.
When you compare Bioshock to other games that are 4/5 or 5/5, Bioshock is definitely a 5/5. The problem is with the crappy rating system used for all games reviews. Nobody ever gives a game a 1/5 or 2/5, so essentially every game is a 3, 4, or 5. Not much to work with. I can't imagine a game that would actually get a 1/5 on this system; It would have to be a blank screen for 40 hours.
Oh, and BTW, Bioshock was too damn short! That's why I would give it a 4/5 if it weren't for the crappy rating system.
It is not a 5/5. It's more like a 9/10, just like Gears of War. What many of us think is ridiculous is that so many sites are putting it above even Oblivion, which is plainly ridiculous if you've played and mastered both games. It's definitely on the level of Gears, if not better, but that's about it. The biggest thing that ticked me off about it was that I was expecting what the hype said, which was completely new game play elements and things you've never seen before -- NOT! Absolutely nothing in BioShock presented a new experience, at all. It is a linear gameplay FPS with fantastic graphics and that's that. I wasn't even particularly creeped out by it. Doom3 is creepier IMHO. Prey has more innovative game play elements than BioShock, for an FPS, IMHO. Guitar Hero is a much more `new experience' IMHO. I've played 'em all, and BioShock can take its place near the front of the line, but it's no Oblivion.
Don't get me wrong, BioShock is truly one of the greatest games out there, but it isn't so good as to be called `the best'.
cracks are NOT equivalent to piracy. Especially not simple "no-cd" cracks. A person who buys a game is well within his/her right (morally, but perhaps not legally in the freaking USA) to apply any crack to their own purchased product. The developer & publisher have already been paid, so why should they care if the game disc happens to be in the drive while the game is played? Cracks give legal game owners the ability to free themselves from these pointless restrictions.
In the case of Bioshock, the 25-install-limit is most certainly a pointless and intrusive restriction. No one expects the installer for a single-player-only game to require an internet connection to "evaluate their license", nor should they have to put up with that crap. Who knows what kind of nasty things the securom "security" mechanism is doing to the system behind the scenes? We've all heard the horror stories about the Starforce drivers. As game copy protection schemes get worse, cracks will become more and more important to savvy, freedom-loving gamers.
These anti-piracy measures only cripple ligament users. Cracks crack EVERYTHING. The life of piracy protection on a piece of software measures its existence in hours. In the end, the pirates pirate what they will without being slowed down in the slightest by the copyright protection. In the end, consumers who actually pay for the product get the shit end of the stick. They either suffer massive system slows downs like in Morrowind, spyware and system vulnerabilities like with Sony's CD protections, or simply get an inert hunk of data should they end loosing their CD key... all the while, pirates play perfectly functional versions of what consumers bought. The only people who can't break the copy protection are the poor suckers who are least likely to violate it.
I blame the unreal 3 engine, the latest version of secure rom, and bad design decisions for most of the game problems in the last month or two. I've completed bioshock on PC, the install wasn't difficult for me, worked straight away but activating it took a day and a half. I'm using 2 x 8800GTX(756) in SLI, with a Intel Core 2 6600E cpu. It ran ok, but it did get some really bad fps dips occasionally.
I really hated the pipedream minigame you need to play in order to hack the security bots and cameras. Its so out of place compared with the rest of the game.
If I only get to play it once all the way thru it's worth $50.00.
umount /dev/work /home
cd
kill -9 splicer
kill -HUP bigBrother
restore -F littleSister
The Digital Sorceress
...and I'm here to ask you a question.
Is a man not deserving of enjoying a good PC game without being thought a shallow tool?
No, says the gaming industry. Only the crap sells.
No, says Roger Ebert, no game can be art.
No, says half the posters in this thread, you're a lackey of SecuROM.
I rejected these answers. Instead, I came up with something different. I chose... HAPPINESS.
HAPPINESS. A state where we enjoy good games when they come along, which is rare. Where the gamer is not bound by an understandable but crippling nostalgia for old LGS games. Where great design is not belittled to death.
And with the sweat of your brow, HAPPINESS can become your state as well.
So for those still seeking out the gaming utopia you seem so fondly to desire, would you kindly go jump in the ocean, or better yet, make a better game.
ahhh so that's what they're working on in Duke Nukem Forever...
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
The atomosphere, storyline, city and graphics are all superb but as soon as you find yourself alternating between breaking open crates and popping off another enemy with exactly the same face, behaviour and voice as the previous 10 you feel in very familiar territory, i.e. every fps you've played in the last 10 years. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the game, Half-Life/2, Max Payne/2 and the others of this formula, I just wish it could have dared to do something a little different.
Every battle should be worth fighting, not just another identical body between you and the cutscenes.
[)amien
[)amien
I bought a 360 for it, I loved it, one of the best game experiences I've ever played. But I was expecting more. Judge it as a FPS and it's astounding, but I was hoping for more more storyline and decision making that goes beyond "Harvest or Save" and "What weapon do I want". The first time I encountered a little sister I thought about what to do for a while (Harvested) but after that, well I harvested every time, and that was it. I never felt morally challenged and even when I made that decision I didn't have any attachment to any particular group. System Shock was a far better RPG with a better (or maybe just more emotive for me) storyline. None of these games comes close to Deus Ex in my eyes, because that challenged you morally all the way through it, Even Invisible War (Deus Ex 2) did this.
I am a little disappointed, but it's still 5/5 IMHO.
I have played several recent games using the Unreal engine and every single time
the gaming experience is ruined by choppiness and stuttering as soon as anything
starts getting a little hectic on screen (more than one or two enemies on screen).
Totally unacceptable for an FPS, as it happens even with graphic settings turned down
on my medium-range PC (AMD 3200, 1 GB RAM, 6600 Nvidia).
This does not happen with other FPS's, such as COD2 or FEAR, which use other 3D engines.
I'd rather a smooth gaming flow where I can predict precisely where the enemy is at all times
rather than guess between two stuttering frames !
Unreal SUCKS !
Bioshock is pretty, but flawed by it's use of this engine.
I give it 12/20 because of this.
I don't even think I'm going to finish it, that's how bad it really is.
Online I can understand that syncing with others can produce these effects but
not when playing single player. Typical eye candy ripoff that can't keep up with proper
gameplay.
(ROT13ed for your enjoyment.)
Ab, Naqerj Elna vf Gur-Znal gb lbhe Fubqna.
Just shows how alike the games are.
Bioshock was amazing on PC, i was amazed at some of the early action sequences, like the one where your plane crashes through the underwater tunnel, i wish there was more stuff like that throughout the game. i was also amazed at my computers ability play it, i played it the whole way through with minimal slowdown with everything maxed. i only have a AMD XP 1.81, 1 gig of ram, and a Radeon x1300 with i cant remember how much memory... well actually now that i look at it..I'm not THAT far off the specs.
Bioshock is umm ok. For true gamers i reccomend Pretty Pony Island. Theres customized ponies and 4 colors to chose from. GO ponies!!!!!!1
The real problem, I think, is that hype has made game players disappointed with games as they're actually delivered. When a game is unexpectedly good, we all marvel over the 'sleeper hit.' There comes a point in a game's marketing, though, when more hype is just too much. The result is that when the game is finally delivered, there's almost no way for the real product to match up with player expectations. After Halo 3 launches later this month, odds are there will be a lot of people in forums nitpicking the slightest flaw or perceived imperfection. The lesson, I think, is that as gamers we need to learn to manage our expectations.
EXACTLY! Part of the downside with the internet is that it has a tendency to grossly over-hype popular games, sometimes as early as preliminary development. I think in a lot of ways the gaming industry shoots itself in the foot when they start talking up their projects too soon. I can think of several games, such as Lionhead's The Movies, that were highly anticipated but fell swiftly due to overexcited fans not receiving the product they'd imagined with such fervor. I think we would all do well to manage our expectations.
Unfortunately trying to save or load at any point after the second level reliably crashes the fucking thing. Not to mention the painfully random stuttering and crashes. If you haven't bought it, don't bother until they release some sort of patch. It's doubly suck-filled to really be interested in the story and not be able to play through. I guess i'm foolish to have pre-ordered thinking Take Two had done it's due diligence in testing before they shipped it. I'd rather more delays (a la orange box) before release than have something I can't play.
Amog the games I currently play ArmA and STALKER are buggy, not in ways that prevent them being enoyable though. Bioshock hardly is. It not only works fine but is also quite fluid at maximum settings and resolution (in 1920x1200) which is not all that common on my machine.
And I didn't even understand what the "I can't reinstall the game more than 25 times" bit was about. I got my copy through Valve, downloaded it and ran it. Maybe there are issues with the disk version but I somehow doubt it would have been that much more difficult to setup with a DVD...
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
I think a quote that is on topic is "A free man choses, a slave obeys".
So far I have had no problem with the protection system (compared to past systems that put me on the shitlist for owning a CD-R/W) letting me play the game.
I do have to deactivate Daemon tools (I use virtual drives for my virtual machines), a bother but not a problem.
I will be grabbing a No-CD patch once I have completed the game (I am going to play through again as a wrencher who harvests) until they come out with a patch that removes the install restrictions.
I could have priated it but I did not do so because I am responsable for my actions and have made a moral choice. I also enjoy rewarding good work and the game IMO is good work. The copyprotection not so much. I did make sure to let Take 2 know how I feel about it's choice of anti-copy software.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
I had legally purchased Stalker, It is protected by StarForce, so it is really raping by DVD-RW and installation disc every time i start the game to play.
My DVD-RW is Asus 1608P3S, unlocked to draw pictures on DVD-R blanks. So i'm worried with it's warranty and do not want to any program rape my drive as StarForce did. Nor do i want my installation disc be scraped during this endless insertions and re-launches of this frequent-crashing game, i don't want sailers look at my CD and telling i have no warranty because i acted carelessly to my purchased game. So of cause original disc is lying in safe place. Last, i do ot ant that couple of minutes of noice delaying the game actual start.
So, what it came to ? i just always played the cracked Stalker, after purchased a legal one.
Delay ? What delay ? every day there was new patch released, next evening it was ready on pirate sites stripped of the StarForce. I can live with one day of delay.
What can really concern me as a customer - is FUD about pirates supplying viri with their cracks of game. That may happen, afterall i saw a number of cracks, which consisted of about 5 EXE files, of which ine was crack and other 4 - viri. But even then it was pretey easy to select the proper EXE and delete others. However never saw this for a Stalker.
On the GSC's forum i stated couple of times that i do playing pirated Stalker, just because it is better software than my Stalker disc, lying on the shelf. They never argued this. They knew this well. They even managed to make an option of how uncracked Stalker could run w/o disc. Never triied this, why bother ? Why should i try to do it, when pirates already gave me better game, than original Stalker ? If this option was from beginning, i thnk i would never waste time searching for Stalker cracks. Now i would not want to waste time searching for uncracked one.
BTW, Stalker is on Steam now. I wonder if it is served well with Steam's copy-protection or does it like BioShow now has two DRM's - Steams and it's own after that ?