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Bioshock (Xbox360) Review by Homicidal Cherry53 |
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Written by Homicidal Cherry53
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Sunday, 08 June 2008 |
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Search for Bioshock (Xbox360) at the Game Addicts Store (Click Here).
You are alone, and stranded within the walls of a chaotic underwater city. Behind you, you hear footsteps. You turn to see a hulking monstrosity facing you, and frenetically switch to your grenade launcher and fire off a few shots before you are charged and slammed against the wall. You attempt to scramble to your feet, as a barrage of shotgun blasts are fired at you. Quickly realizing you're outmatched, you run away, to the next room, and shoot a security bullseye at it. Alarms flare, as this creature is lured in front of a security camera. Flying drones soon attack it as you hide in the shadows, and pepper it with armor piercing machine gun fire. The lumbering beast finally manages to crush the final security drone and redirects its attention at you. You pull out your shotgun, and make a final charge at this contemporary titan, and with one last explosive buckshot, the monster falls. This is an example of but a single intense, complex firefight that awaits you in Irrational's newest survival shooter, Bioshock
The few of you who have played Irrational's previous offering, System Shock 2 will feel right at home in Bioshock, as it is the spiritual successor to this cult classic. In spite of being released amid huge critical acclaim, System Shock 2 only sold a paltry 500,000 copies. Thankfully, Bioshock is not only every bit as good as its predecessor, but is also getting the attention and sales System Shock 2 was oh so worthy of.
Bioshock is set in the broken underwater city of Rapture. Once a bustling metropolis of learning and culture, Rapture has fallen into disarray, due to the drug-like substance, Adam. Adam is a material discovered at the bottom of the ocean which possesses the ability to rewrite our genetic code, opening up the possibilities to such incredible abilities as telekinesis, however, Adam has a far more sinister side. Overuse of Adam turns the user into a "splicer". Splicers bare little resemblance to their former self. They no longer care for anything but finding more Adam, to the point where they have almost lost their sanity, and will use whatever means necessary to get it. When you enter the city of Rapture, you find the ravaged ruins of a once great city, its remaining denizens, transformed into splicers, and its crazed ruler, leaving the city in chaos, in a fanatical pursuit of his ideology, that man must earn everything he gets.
This underwater dystopia provides the ideal backdrop for an incredibly deep, multi-layered story, that is arguably the best to ever grace a video game. It is filled with intriguing characters, plot twists, and decisions that will cause your moral compass to go haywire. What really separates the story from others, however, is the underlying themes Bioshock is brimming that gives the story impact on multiple levels. Perhaps the most evident of these is the writer's obvious disdain for the philosophical views of Ayn Rand, however, it also tackles everything from capitalism, to the impact of the drug trade on society. The story is presented, for the most part, through the gameplay in Bioshock. Much of it is based upon a series of audio tapes scattered throughout Rapture. As such, story is presented sometimes quite literally in the midst of a chaotic shootout. This results in the perfect union of both gameplay, and story, in which they are not separate entities, but one in the same. Gameplay is far more than simply a vessel for delivering the awesome story of Bioshock. In fact, one could very easily argue that carefully planning out, and executing ambushes (mostly to take out Big Daddies), and desperately fending off attacks from multiple splicers actually exceeds the story.
Bioshock is, at its core, a first person shooter. You are given a large array of weapons, genetic upgrades, and special powers, given to you through plasmids, to take down your often menacing foes. Given the short supply of ammo in the game, smart use of your powers is a must, especially on the higher difficulties, if you want to survive in this new world. Most of the enemies you face will be splicers, the insane residents of Rapture, with the only difference between the various splicers being the weapons they carry, but occasionally, you will come across a Big Daddy. Big Daddy's are huge, imposing creatures, wearing what look like dive suits, that are fanatically devoted to the protection of the Little Sister's, small girls, who were long ago transformed into harvesters of Adam. The Big Daddies will not attack you provided you don't touch the Little Sisters, but if you want the Adam necessary to upgrade during the game (and trust me, you'll need it), you will have to take on the Big Daddies, and get Adam by either killing, or saving the Little Sisters (killing grants you more Adam than saving). Fighting the Big Daddies is an intense, pulse-pounding experience, that is unparalleled almost anywhere in gaming. Taking down a Big Daddy requires thought and strategy (especially if you're low on health and ammo), that is so refreshing in these days of mindless, run 'n gun shooters.
While graphics and sound are typically unimportant in video games, they provide Bioshock with its all-important atmosphere (especially the latter). The hulking footsteps of a Big Daddy. The crazed screams of a splicer. These simple noises are not only done perfectly, but put a sense of fear and dread in the minds of the player. And each and every sound is done with care, and precision, from the fantastic voice acting to the cocking of your shotgun, as you prepare to blow apart some splicers. The graphics in Bioshock are not quite as impressive as the sound, but their style only adds to the already bone-chilling atmosphere of Rapture.
The atmosphere is perhaps the most important, yet hardest to define aspects of Bioshock. No single element of the game can be credited with the chill that runs up your spine, as you explore Rapture's ruins. Rather, it is a culmination of many superbly executed areas of the game which result in an undeniably powerful experience. The unique art style and character models would be average, if not for the incredible voice acting and sound design backing it up. The cutscenes would be worthless if not for the fact that you experience them from the eyes of your character (ala Half Life). Killing a Big Daddy would lose its effect, if not for the Little Sister, crying over the remains of its protector. It is this ambiguous term, atmosphere that truly makes Bioshock note-worthy. No one element stands above the rest as the reason to play this game. Instead, they are all expertly fused together, story, gameplay, graphics, and sound into an immersive, powerful, haunting game with virtually no shortcomings.
In spite of how great this game is, however, there are a few minor problems that must be pointed out. When you die, you are resurrected in a Vita-Chamber, and all the damage you have dealt to your enemies remains. This is a somewhat cheap system (however, you can simply reload your last save whenever you die, as I did, to avoid this) that makes the player virtually invincible. The enemies you face also aren't really all that smart. The AI in Bioshock isn't necessarily bad, but don't expect splicers to  WOW you with their knowledge of military tactics. Beyond these two minor issues, I can lobby no other complaints against this game. Everything else in the game is absolutely top-notch. For years, Bioshock will stand as a revolutionary, artistic achievement in game design, and should rank as one of the best games ever made.
9.7/10 |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 June 2008 )
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