BioShock Review 439
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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.
The issues with Bio-Shock (Score:4, Interesting)
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
It's OK (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's OK (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why no mention? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'd only recommend the 360 version (Score:1, Interesting)
I would give the game 9 out of 10. It would have been a 10 if it were not for the SecuRom crap.
I really wanted to like bioshock... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:I'd only recommend the 360 version (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I'd only recommend the 360 version (Score:2, Interesting)
P4 2.66 Ghz
1 Gb ram
Radeon X1950 512Mb AGP
Re:fun yes; groundbreaking no (Score:5, Interesting)
If you mean stealth as in sneaking through levels without killing anything, then yes, that's not really an option. If however you meant being able to sneak around a take people out without being seen, then that is most definitely an option, and the way I've found myself playing. Ever since I got the camo tonic and a couple of the wrench power ups, I use stealth kills and the wrench almost exclusively. Nothing quite like sneaking up on a splicer and one shotting them with a wrench, or even better, sneaking up on a security camera and hacking it.
As for the ammo creation, yeah, that was kind of lame, but all in all, kind of understandable. If this had been an MMO, then conceivably they could have allowed you to randomly toss components together and see if it makes something useful (destroying the components in the process), but being a FPS with a somewhat limited playtime and therefore component count, it would have been just wasteful and frustrating to players to take that route. Players would just take the easy way ultimately and download a crafting guide telling them exactly what combinations made what which would potentially unbalance the game by allowing the crafting of very powerful items early in the game.
What I think they did a brilliant job of was setting up the atmosphere and providing enough interesting interactions between items to allow players different styles of play. I was quite surprised recently to discover for instance that the trap bolts can be used to take out security bots. A friend of mine also shared his approach to taking down big daddies (apparently tossing a barrel at them can take about half their health in one shot), which was something I hadn't even thought of.
There is a lot of depth to this game, but you need to know where to look. Enjoy it for what they did good on, and not necessarily what the hype lead you to believe it was going to deliver. Having not read any of the hype (well, I read some of what PA said about it) before I bought it, I'm thoroughly enjoying the game. I've also found the PC version to be fairly stable, even though I have had it lock up on me once (no blue screen, it just froze, think it may be a overall stability problem though as I had a problem in another game as well).
Re:Hyped too far? (Score:5, Interesting)
Come on -- while it's true that the "you haven't rescued/harvested all the Little Sisters" dialog box is fourth-wall shattering and could've been done better, the game is essentially trying to remind you "hey, there's more XP to be earned on this level that you might have missed" (since the Big Daddy/Little Sister encounters are more or less random save for those first few). Now perhaps they could've done it with a radio announcement from Atlas, and perhaps they could've given you an option to shut off reminders, but I saw the popup as a helpful reminder when I hadn't hit START to check if I'd rescued all the Little Sisters.
If things that niggling jar you out of suspension of disbelief, I'd imagine you'd rather keep track of your remaining health in your head, or have to physically open your weapon to examine how much ammo is remaining, because having meters up there on the screen "break the fourth wall" too much.
Moral choice (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Worth buying the 360 Over? (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Why no mention? (Score:4, Interesting)
8 years, 3 machines+, 10+ operating systems install (at least, remember this game started back in the days of windows 98, reinstalling that once a month was not unheard of) and removing steam to clear up space for other games.
Re:Hyped too far? (Score:1, Interesting)
Both are clearly in the mold of their predecessors. Both rely on found information to tell the backstory (MP3 lore scans and Bioshock notes). Both have great art direction. Bioshock is very technically advanced visually while MP3 has very nice controls. Bioshock has a wide variety of ways to kill an extremely limited variety of enemies and gives players a choice between a being a powerful child eating monster and being a slightly less powerful saint. Metroid Prime 3 has less variety of weaponry but has a lot of tactical nuance with enemies that have to be grappled at close range, the choice between using missile which lock on but are weak or your beam cannon which you have to aim manually, and the constant question of "can I kill these guys without losing an entire energy tank or do I need to use hypermode?". Both dropped the ball in some ways compared to their successors. Bioshock is ridiculously easy due to the Vita Chambers and the RPG elements have been dumbed down to the point of retardation. MP3 contravenes some of the tenets established by the previous games and lacks the variety of weaponry its predecessors had.
I'd say their strengths and deficiencies more or less match each other point for point. I'd say that they both deserve a score in the low to mid 90s. But Bioshock was praised as groundbreaking despite being essentially a dumbed down version of System Shock in a different setting and MP3 was criticized for not expanding on its franchise despite the fact that it added a great deal of depth to the fights with common enemies.
Re:Worth buying the 360 Over? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:It's OK (Score:2, Interesting)
However, as things have grown easier, the pacing has (in my estimation) grown better-- I hated the literal hunt for (easter) eggs in SS2, as an example. Bioshock, narratively, is a superior game in this regard if you remove from the equation the SS games' main 'cool' bit-- SHODAN.
Re: the replay value, I agree there to a point...It's interesting, though, in that some of the elements of hacking/etc seem to work better in this game. Letting the environment do my work for me is much more interesting. I imagine that somebody who played it through like a normal shooter might play through again hacking etc...It's not a common mechanic in other shooters /other/ than those coming from The Artists Formerly Known as Looking Glass. Most shooters are mindlessly repetative death fests, so this is refreshing when compared against /them/ even if one can look back at other works by the same people and say 'oh, yeah, that was more surprising at the time'. Most people missed System Shock 2, and like 5 people played the voice-inclusive CDR version of System Shock the first go-around.
Re:Bull. Controllers are good enough. (Score:5, Interesting)
Because after having played a refined Wii/Nunchuck system, you'll NEVER want to go back. I was so incredibly skeptical of the control scheme before I played, that I actually started writing out my own control setup, in hopes to send it out to developers. After having played MP3, though, I've completely abandoned it. It's litterally better than a keyboard/mouse... I didn't think I'd ever say that. I'm really reluctant to buy any FPSs for systems other than the Wii, now.
Re:Yes, its a great game (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you serious? The Big Daddies were a joke. Sure they had lots of hit points, but their fighting technique was easy to figure out and exploit. Once you get the freezing plasmid, you can keep Big Daddies frozen indefinitely while you shoot at them or hack away at them with your wrench.
Even though the game was easy, like walk in the park easy, it was still really fun and I'm glad I bought the PC version. The story is awesome and it's one of the best first person shooters I've played in years. I never played the original System Shock series, but from what I've read, Bioshock is basically a clone of System Shock 2.
I recently finished the game and I'm glad I bought it. Even though there are numerous flaws, the art direction, theme, etc.. was very well done.
I loved how when you light guys on fire and there was water nearby, they'd sometimes jump in it to douse the flames. As soon as they jumped in the water, I'd pull out the electric plasmid and electrocute them, fun times...
Re:I really wanted to like bioshock... (Score:2, Interesting)
A computer game is a game. If there are obvious rules that are consistent then the game is fun.
The problem with Bioshock is that you have to keep thinking about the restrictions of the game engine.
Some things burn, others, for no obvious reason, don't burn.
Sometimes you can go off the path and explore, other time there is for no obvious reason a glass wall in the way.
Some things are destroyed by the rocket launcher, others mysteriously survive.
Some things can be thrown by telekinesis, other smaller objects for some reason cannot.
I found I had to keep thinking about the game engine and it's restrictions all the time. I couldn't just wade into the battle and have fun because I never knew quite what I was capable of, and what the game engine could not handle. In a way it's because of the realism and complexity of the engine that there are so many rules and corner cases where things don't quite work predictably.
When a game has simple cartoon physics, like Mario Bros etc, it has a certain consistency where the mechanics are obvious and you can have fun within their confines. Some games like 'outcast' had no real physics at all, but the world felt solid and convincing.
I would have preferred less realistic but more consistent physics in bioshock, and more visual cues to let me know which objects were 'real' and which 'scenery'. They are treated entirely differently by the game engine, so perhaps letting the player know this is not a bad idea. Stylized and iconic graphics communicate more to the player about the game's world than photo realistic graphics.