Variation-XBA
08-31-2007, 09:46 PM
Had to do this for work, so thought I might as well share the love with my hard work of labour.
BioShock For Xbox 360
Opening:
It’s not very often that a game comes along that almost everyone can agree is a required play experience for any gamer that brings together all game elements so perfectly. Bioshock is more than a very attractive FPS, it also has a blend of RPG elements where you can customize your character and weapons to anything you choose.
With a very engrossing story, amazing visuals, incredible sound and enough scary moments that you care to admit, the plot has a much more emotional impact than an explosive one.
Story:
Bioshock’s primary focus is the engrossing story, and it’s done extremely well with intertwining story lines conveyed through radio messages and old audio logs that you find while searching around the city.
Its 1960, your plane crashes in the ocean, you are the lone survivor and the game begins with you swimming along your plane wreckage as you see a lighthouse off in the distance. It actually took a few moments to realize you are playing, and not watching a CG intro movie
Rapture; masterminded by Andrew Ryan, is a city set under the Atlantic Ocean, and as to progress, you discover why the idea of the city as failed and is trashed, and why there are Splicers out to kill you. You are kept on track to Bioshock’s plot with always letting you know where to go with onscreen arrows and a top down map that shows where you have and haven’t been. Audio diaries are scattered everywhere and explain Rapture’s back-story, its citizens and their personal tales. Instead of having a convoluted story with details from many citizens, it focuses more on in-depth stories from just a few, that also seem to intertwine and unfold the cities history and what went so wrong. Hearing all these stories unfold makes the city seem much more alive, which is ironic being that the majority of everyone is dead. While you are not forced to listen to all these audio diaries, doing so will unravel all the main characters back story and more details about the main plot.
Genetic tinkering is possible with a substance called ADAM which can give the user incredible powers called plasmids. This invaluable resource is only able to be harvested by Little Sisters who use an exaggerated sized needle into dead victims. These Gatherers are then in turn protected by guardians called Big Daddy’s who will fight to the death to protect the little sisters. Big Daddy’s come in two flavors: Bouncers and Rosie’s. Bouncers have a drill on their arm, are very intimidating in size and sound, and will rush at you before you can even move out of the way should you make him mad or try and get too close to the Little Sisters. Rosie’s don’t seem as menacing from their look, but they have a very large gun that can make quick work of you if you don’t take them out quickly.
This is where the games moral dilemma comes into play. Do you harvest the Little Sisters for more ADAM, or save them for less and be their hero; thus making the game a bit more challenging. Both choices have benefits and consequences and with 3 different endings, these choices will play out to the story as well.
As the plot unravels and you find out what exactly has caused Rapture into its current state, you will be surprised with moments of shock and awe as plot twists keep you guessing and thinking of why events have happened in this fashion.
Gameplay:
You start off with limited slots to customize different key traits of your character, but this increased as the story progresses and you purchase more with your ADAM collection at specified locations in the game after dealing with the Guardians of Little Sisters.
Plasmids are active powers that you genetically enhance yourself with. Electricity will shock your enemies and stun them for a short duration as you proceed to fill them with your weapons’ ammo. Incinerate will engulf your enemy in flames, slowing draining their health, but can also be used to melt ice or set oil spills ablaze that they may be standing in. Telekinesis will allow you to pick up random items like chairs and boxes and whatever isn’t bolted to the ground and let you hurl them wherever you wish much like Half Life 2’s gravity gun. Security Bull’s-eye paints target on an enemy for security cameras and bots to attack them instead of you! With the enrage plasmid, you can make Splicers fight each other as well. Insect Swarm will send a large quantity of bees to annoy, distract and slightly damage your target, as you blast away. You even can use decoys and wind traps to ruse Splicers and lay traps for them. Even making a Big Daddy your ‘pet’ to attack anything that it sees for you, which in turn you will then kill when he is low on health to get his Little Sister’s ADAM is possible.
Tonics are essentially skill slots for weapons, plasmids and skills, but give passive effects such as speed boosts to running, attacking speed, and many other skills that will greatly enhance your character in any way you desire. Should use choose, you can make your wrench attacks more powerful, or you can choose to get increased health and EVE everytime you use a med kit or hack something. Static Field is also a great skill to use, which will generate an area effect zap to anyone in range when you are struck, but beware; should you get struck with a Big Daddy pet in range, he will turn on you very quickly! With more than 50 different tonics, you will have a robust character exactly how you wish.
Plasmids are great, and very handy, but this is a FPS game at heart, and you are eventually armed with a wrench and a pistol gun all the way to a Dart Gun and Chemical Thrower with other various types in between. To make things even more in depth, each weapon can also acquire three different types of ammo which all have different effects on different enemies. Due to the era the game is set in, even the weapons look vintage and not very high tech at all (until you upgrade them). During the course of the game, you will find one time use weapon upgraders where you can choose to change your guns’ performance from bigger clips, faster reloads, damage increases, and greater accuracy. Doing so also changes the visual look of your weapon, so it always seems fresh even though it’s really the same weapon, just modified to your liking.
As the game progresses, enemies who used to die in one shot to the head will now take 2 or more. The scaling is somewhat constant, and eventually you are introduced to the camera feature in Bioshock. The purpose of this camera is to research the Splicers and other enemies to learn more about them by photographing them. As you become more knowledgeable by taking more and more photos, you learn weaknesses and even will gain damage bonuses versus certain enemies. Using the camera as much as possible is definitely recommended and will make your life much easier; but it is not a necessity to completion of the game. It’s a subtle way to add more intensity to the mood of the game, where you COULD have your gun ready for an enemy charging at you with a fireball, but take a picture of the same enemy in an action shot close up for huge picture bonuses instead, at the risk of getting hurt.
Splicers come in a few varieties from thugs that try and beat you with any blunt weapon they have in hand, Leadheads that will shoot at you, Houdini’s that can teleport anywhere and shoot fireballs at you, Nitro’s who toss Molotov ****tails at you, and Spider Splicers who can crawl on any wall or ceiling throwing hooks at you and are generally hard to see as they tend to stay in the dark and obscure corners
While there aren’t really many level “bosses”, there are characters that are involved in the main plot that you do battle against, but they really are just more powerful and resilient than normal Splicers.
Setting up traps will make your life much easier and will save you much ammo when you can get an enemy to simply run into a proxy grenade or a bolt trap trip-wire instead of pumping a clip or two into them. These tactics are almost needed for fighting Big Daddy’s later on where at first they will seem almost unbeatable, though once you learn their weaknesses (and research them for bonuses!) and how they react, setting a room with proxies and bolt traps will make quick work of the meanest Bouncer or Rosie in moments.
With security cameras everywhere, flying bots that keep guard, and turrets that can mow you down in seconds, Hacking these items will become a necessity to not only help preserve precious ammo, but once hacked, will fight on your side for you against any Splicers that come into sight. If you have ever played Pipe Dream for the NES or any variant thereof, you will understand how to hack and most likely be pretty efficient with it from the get go. For those that don’t know what this game was, hacking is completed by playing a 30 second minigame where you need to connect a start and end pipe with ooze quickly flowing from the start before time is up or you fail to connect the pipes in a line. While it has its charm at first, the challenge does get pretty difficult towards the end of the game with many unusable slots for pipes and the timer going even faster. Keep in mind that there are Tonics that can help with hacking as well. It gets very tedious, and for those with not much patience or skill, you are able to simply buy-out the hack or use an auto-hack tool to avoid playing the minigame and possibly failing. To fail a hack will either send out drones to hunt you down, or it will short out which damages you in the process. Vending Machines and other helping dispensers for health and other goodies can also be hacked to give you extra items not normally purchasable and also at a reduced fee. Again, it’s not forced to be done, but will make your adventure in Bioshock much easier and saves you money in the end.
Death in Bioshock isn’t so much a consequence as it is more of a slight setback. You are reincarnated at the closest vita-chamber with your entire inventory and most of your health. The perk with this system is that any damage you have done to enemies will stay as you run back to finish them off. So as you die while bringing a Big Daddy down to half health, when you run back to finish him off, he will still be at half health. This lack of death penalty keeps things fun and moving. No boring reloads of games saves, but also too easy when you get lazy when you don’t care if you die later on. The only downside to this system I found was that skillful gameplay was not rewarded, as anyone can kill anything with enough “tries” at it, though on the bright side, it gives you many chances to experiment with different options to kill people. Even playing on hard mode, the flaw in this system becomes apparent. Sure, Splicers will have more health and take less damage and even use heath stations, but it really doesn’t require you to play anymore skillfully.
Visuals:
Because the visuals are so appealing and have so much personality to them, you are almost compelled to search places that aren’t even required to. With Rapture being an underwater city, you will find water everywhere on the floor and even leaks in the walls and ceilings which always give you a reminder of surroundings and how trapped you really are in Ryan’s envisioned city. Because most citizens have been murdered, you will see blood and ‘experiments’ on corpses in many places that has seemed to go horribly wrong. Though not as constantly gory as Doom 3, some rooms look like something out of a great horror movie with extreme detail to even blood smears.
Apparently on some systems, this visual prowess will cause some slight hitching when picking up items or while saving. Personally, my system never ran into this common issue, though watching a friend play on a different system, I have seen it take up to 5 seconds sometimes to continue on after picking up a tonic for example. It’s not a very big problem, but in a compelling story so engrossing, it’s a shame you realize you are playing a game because of these small glitches and being taken out of the immersiveness of Rapture’s tale.
Surprisingly, the only CG movie in Bioshock is the ending. Every cut scene is done in engine and keeps things flowing without having to stop and load every time. While this is common practice now, I was just surprised to see no CG when the commercials ads on TV are stunning to watch, yet nothing like that is in-game.
Sound:
The atmosphere of Rapture is always around you with eerie music that helps set the mood and uneasiness with very tense moments. Jukebox’s play music as you walk by them and is properly set to Bioshock’s era. Even vending machines will talk to you as you walk by much like carnies at an amusement park, to taunt you into using them.
The bigger weapons sound mean and appropriate while firing. Even Big Daddy footsteps as they walk by seem to thud deeply and just make you tense as they saunter by as the screen shakes to further sell them to the player.
A stunning voice cast really sells the story of Rapture and its demise and doesn’t seem like it has a weak link from any one person. Enough praise can not be given to these actors and sounds uniquely genuine from every cast member with much brilliance in their lines. The audio diaries keep the plot and back story ongoing and sound very authentic with that scratchy recording feel to it. The actors do such a good job, that you will find yourself taking sides with certain characters and starting to despise others, just from what you have been told and hear. This is all from only voices which is quite a feat and really give you that emotional impact that is very rare in today’s games that simply try to wow gamers with the biggest and best graphics.
Splicers can be heard moaning, talking to themselves, and even scavenging around. Hearing the small creaks in the floor and walls really sells that Rapture is definitely under the ocean. Not only does the water look perfectly real, the sound to flowing water and dripping is also intact.
Closing:
Quality and depth is what sets Bioshock apart from not only the flooded FPS genre, but in the whole industry as a whole.
A lot can be done with the indirect fighting methods and really makes it not feel like every other FPS on the market. Setting up intricate traps for Big Daddy’s then luring them into them feels so rewarding and will guarantee to put a smug grin on your face, as you really feel you outsmarted them. This says something for Bioshock’s AI as normally this much satisfaction is only attainable from other human players.
Bioshock is easily a contender for game of the year, which is no feat for what has and will be coming out by years end. Absolutely do not let this title pass you by just because it may look like just another shooter; it has much more under the hood and begs to be played and discovered in everyone’s personal way. Now, “would you kindly” go play Bioshock, as this is an essential gaming experience and a must for any gamer’s collection.
9.8/10
Pros:
-Amazing visuals and sound that HAVE to be experienced due to its uniqueness.
-A compelling plot that has twists and makes you want to continue playing just that little bit further.
- Defeating Big Daddy’s feels completely rewarding, as it’s very difficult to combat them head-on and succeed.
-Voice acting sells all the characters perfectly all the way from the lowly Splicers to the main story people.
-Up to 20 hours of gameplay on a single play through which is more than double the average FPS title.
Cons:
- The death system as first seems like a blessing, but trivializes any fights and doesn’t reward skillful play.
- Minor graphical hiccups on some systems that is just enough to be interrupting.
- Final boss fight came too quick and wasn’t very challenging in any way.
- The only (ending) CG movie is very short and though you feel satisfied for beating Bioshock, it also leaves the “That’s it?” feeling lingering making you want more.
BioShock For Xbox 360
Opening:
It’s not very often that a game comes along that almost everyone can agree is a required play experience for any gamer that brings together all game elements so perfectly. Bioshock is more than a very attractive FPS, it also has a blend of RPG elements where you can customize your character and weapons to anything you choose.
With a very engrossing story, amazing visuals, incredible sound and enough scary moments that you care to admit, the plot has a much more emotional impact than an explosive one.
Story:
Bioshock’s primary focus is the engrossing story, and it’s done extremely well with intertwining story lines conveyed through radio messages and old audio logs that you find while searching around the city.
Its 1960, your plane crashes in the ocean, you are the lone survivor and the game begins with you swimming along your plane wreckage as you see a lighthouse off in the distance. It actually took a few moments to realize you are playing, and not watching a CG intro movie
Rapture; masterminded by Andrew Ryan, is a city set under the Atlantic Ocean, and as to progress, you discover why the idea of the city as failed and is trashed, and why there are Splicers out to kill you. You are kept on track to Bioshock’s plot with always letting you know where to go with onscreen arrows and a top down map that shows where you have and haven’t been. Audio diaries are scattered everywhere and explain Rapture’s back-story, its citizens and their personal tales. Instead of having a convoluted story with details from many citizens, it focuses more on in-depth stories from just a few, that also seem to intertwine and unfold the cities history and what went so wrong. Hearing all these stories unfold makes the city seem much more alive, which is ironic being that the majority of everyone is dead. While you are not forced to listen to all these audio diaries, doing so will unravel all the main characters back story and more details about the main plot.
Genetic tinkering is possible with a substance called ADAM which can give the user incredible powers called plasmids. This invaluable resource is only able to be harvested by Little Sisters who use an exaggerated sized needle into dead victims. These Gatherers are then in turn protected by guardians called Big Daddy’s who will fight to the death to protect the little sisters. Big Daddy’s come in two flavors: Bouncers and Rosie’s. Bouncers have a drill on their arm, are very intimidating in size and sound, and will rush at you before you can even move out of the way should you make him mad or try and get too close to the Little Sisters. Rosie’s don’t seem as menacing from their look, but they have a very large gun that can make quick work of you if you don’t take them out quickly.
This is where the games moral dilemma comes into play. Do you harvest the Little Sisters for more ADAM, or save them for less and be their hero; thus making the game a bit more challenging. Both choices have benefits and consequences and with 3 different endings, these choices will play out to the story as well.
As the plot unravels and you find out what exactly has caused Rapture into its current state, you will be surprised with moments of shock and awe as plot twists keep you guessing and thinking of why events have happened in this fashion.
Gameplay:
You start off with limited slots to customize different key traits of your character, but this increased as the story progresses and you purchase more with your ADAM collection at specified locations in the game after dealing with the Guardians of Little Sisters.
Plasmids are active powers that you genetically enhance yourself with. Electricity will shock your enemies and stun them for a short duration as you proceed to fill them with your weapons’ ammo. Incinerate will engulf your enemy in flames, slowing draining their health, but can also be used to melt ice or set oil spills ablaze that they may be standing in. Telekinesis will allow you to pick up random items like chairs and boxes and whatever isn’t bolted to the ground and let you hurl them wherever you wish much like Half Life 2’s gravity gun. Security Bull’s-eye paints target on an enemy for security cameras and bots to attack them instead of you! With the enrage plasmid, you can make Splicers fight each other as well. Insect Swarm will send a large quantity of bees to annoy, distract and slightly damage your target, as you blast away. You even can use decoys and wind traps to ruse Splicers and lay traps for them. Even making a Big Daddy your ‘pet’ to attack anything that it sees for you, which in turn you will then kill when he is low on health to get his Little Sister’s ADAM is possible.
Tonics are essentially skill slots for weapons, plasmids and skills, but give passive effects such as speed boosts to running, attacking speed, and many other skills that will greatly enhance your character in any way you desire. Should use choose, you can make your wrench attacks more powerful, or you can choose to get increased health and EVE everytime you use a med kit or hack something. Static Field is also a great skill to use, which will generate an area effect zap to anyone in range when you are struck, but beware; should you get struck with a Big Daddy pet in range, he will turn on you very quickly! With more than 50 different tonics, you will have a robust character exactly how you wish.
Plasmids are great, and very handy, but this is a FPS game at heart, and you are eventually armed with a wrench and a pistol gun all the way to a Dart Gun and Chemical Thrower with other various types in between. To make things even more in depth, each weapon can also acquire three different types of ammo which all have different effects on different enemies. Due to the era the game is set in, even the weapons look vintage and not very high tech at all (until you upgrade them). During the course of the game, you will find one time use weapon upgraders where you can choose to change your guns’ performance from bigger clips, faster reloads, damage increases, and greater accuracy. Doing so also changes the visual look of your weapon, so it always seems fresh even though it’s really the same weapon, just modified to your liking.
As the game progresses, enemies who used to die in one shot to the head will now take 2 or more. The scaling is somewhat constant, and eventually you are introduced to the camera feature in Bioshock. The purpose of this camera is to research the Splicers and other enemies to learn more about them by photographing them. As you become more knowledgeable by taking more and more photos, you learn weaknesses and even will gain damage bonuses versus certain enemies. Using the camera as much as possible is definitely recommended and will make your life much easier; but it is not a necessity to completion of the game. It’s a subtle way to add more intensity to the mood of the game, where you COULD have your gun ready for an enemy charging at you with a fireball, but take a picture of the same enemy in an action shot close up for huge picture bonuses instead, at the risk of getting hurt.
Splicers come in a few varieties from thugs that try and beat you with any blunt weapon they have in hand, Leadheads that will shoot at you, Houdini’s that can teleport anywhere and shoot fireballs at you, Nitro’s who toss Molotov ****tails at you, and Spider Splicers who can crawl on any wall or ceiling throwing hooks at you and are generally hard to see as they tend to stay in the dark and obscure corners
While there aren’t really many level “bosses”, there are characters that are involved in the main plot that you do battle against, but they really are just more powerful and resilient than normal Splicers.
Setting up traps will make your life much easier and will save you much ammo when you can get an enemy to simply run into a proxy grenade or a bolt trap trip-wire instead of pumping a clip or two into them. These tactics are almost needed for fighting Big Daddy’s later on where at first they will seem almost unbeatable, though once you learn their weaknesses (and research them for bonuses!) and how they react, setting a room with proxies and bolt traps will make quick work of the meanest Bouncer or Rosie in moments.
With security cameras everywhere, flying bots that keep guard, and turrets that can mow you down in seconds, Hacking these items will become a necessity to not only help preserve precious ammo, but once hacked, will fight on your side for you against any Splicers that come into sight. If you have ever played Pipe Dream for the NES or any variant thereof, you will understand how to hack and most likely be pretty efficient with it from the get go. For those that don’t know what this game was, hacking is completed by playing a 30 second minigame where you need to connect a start and end pipe with ooze quickly flowing from the start before time is up or you fail to connect the pipes in a line. While it has its charm at first, the challenge does get pretty difficult towards the end of the game with many unusable slots for pipes and the timer going even faster. Keep in mind that there are Tonics that can help with hacking as well. It gets very tedious, and for those with not much patience or skill, you are able to simply buy-out the hack or use an auto-hack tool to avoid playing the minigame and possibly failing. To fail a hack will either send out drones to hunt you down, or it will short out which damages you in the process. Vending Machines and other helping dispensers for health and other goodies can also be hacked to give you extra items not normally purchasable and also at a reduced fee. Again, it’s not forced to be done, but will make your adventure in Bioshock much easier and saves you money in the end.
Death in Bioshock isn’t so much a consequence as it is more of a slight setback. You are reincarnated at the closest vita-chamber with your entire inventory and most of your health. The perk with this system is that any damage you have done to enemies will stay as you run back to finish them off. So as you die while bringing a Big Daddy down to half health, when you run back to finish him off, he will still be at half health. This lack of death penalty keeps things fun and moving. No boring reloads of games saves, but also too easy when you get lazy when you don’t care if you die later on. The only downside to this system I found was that skillful gameplay was not rewarded, as anyone can kill anything with enough “tries” at it, though on the bright side, it gives you many chances to experiment with different options to kill people. Even playing on hard mode, the flaw in this system becomes apparent. Sure, Splicers will have more health and take less damage and even use heath stations, but it really doesn’t require you to play anymore skillfully.
Visuals:
Because the visuals are so appealing and have so much personality to them, you are almost compelled to search places that aren’t even required to. With Rapture being an underwater city, you will find water everywhere on the floor and even leaks in the walls and ceilings which always give you a reminder of surroundings and how trapped you really are in Ryan’s envisioned city. Because most citizens have been murdered, you will see blood and ‘experiments’ on corpses in many places that has seemed to go horribly wrong. Though not as constantly gory as Doom 3, some rooms look like something out of a great horror movie with extreme detail to even blood smears.
Apparently on some systems, this visual prowess will cause some slight hitching when picking up items or while saving. Personally, my system never ran into this common issue, though watching a friend play on a different system, I have seen it take up to 5 seconds sometimes to continue on after picking up a tonic for example. It’s not a very big problem, but in a compelling story so engrossing, it’s a shame you realize you are playing a game because of these small glitches and being taken out of the immersiveness of Rapture’s tale.
Surprisingly, the only CG movie in Bioshock is the ending. Every cut scene is done in engine and keeps things flowing without having to stop and load every time. While this is common practice now, I was just surprised to see no CG when the commercials ads on TV are stunning to watch, yet nothing like that is in-game.
Sound:
The atmosphere of Rapture is always around you with eerie music that helps set the mood and uneasiness with very tense moments. Jukebox’s play music as you walk by them and is properly set to Bioshock’s era. Even vending machines will talk to you as you walk by much like carnies at an amusement park, to taunt you into using them.
The bigger weapons sound mean and appropriate while firing. Even Big Daddy footsteps as they walk by seem to thud deeply and just make you tense as they saunter by as the screen shakes to further sell them to the player.
A stunning voice cast really sells the story of Rapture and its demise and doesn’t seem like it has a weak link from any one person. Enough praise can not be given to these actors and sounds uniquely genuine from every cast member with much brilliance in their lines. The audio diaries keep the plot and back story ongoing and sound very authentic with that scratchy recording feel to it. The actors do such a good job, that you will find yourself taking sides with certain characters and starting to despise others, just from what you have been told and hear. This is all from only voices which is quite a feat and really give you that emotional impact that is very rare in today’s games that simply try to wow gamers with the biggest and best graphics.
Splicers can be heard moaning, talking to themselves, and even scavenging around. Hearing the small creaks in the floor and walls really sells that Rapture is definitely under the ocean. Not only does the water look perfectly real, the sound to flowing water and dripping is also intact.
Closing:
Quality and depth is what sets Bioshock apart from not only the flooded FPS genre, but in the whole industry as a whole.
A lot can be done with the indirect fighting methods and really makes it not feel like every other FPS on the market. Setting up intricate traps for Big Daddy’s then luring them into them feels so rewarding and will guarantee to put a smug grin on your face, as you really feel you outsmarted them. This says something for Bioshock’s AI as normally this much satisfaction is only attainable from other human players.
Bioshock is easily a contender for game of the year, which is no feat for what has and will be coming out by years end. Absolutely do not let this title pass you by just because it may look like just another shooter; it has much more under the hood and begs to be played and discovered in everyone’s personal way. Now, “would you kindly” go play Bioshock, as this is an essential gaming experience and a must for any gamer’s collection.
9.8/10
Pros:
-Amazing visuals and sound that HAVE to be experienced due to its uniqueness.
-A compelling plot that has twists and makes you want to continue playing just that little bit further.
- Defeating Big Daddy’s feels completely rewarding, as it’s very difficult to combat them head-on and succeed.
-Voice acting sells all the characters perfectly all the way from the lowly Splicers to the main story people.
-Up to 20 hours of gameplay on a single play through which is more than double the average FPS title.
Cons:
- The death system as first seems like a blessing, but trivializes any fights and doesn’t reward skillful play.
- Minor graphical hiccups on some systems that is just enough to be interrupting.
- Final boss fight came too quick and wasn’t very challenging in any way.
- The only (ending) CG movie is very short and though you feel satisfied for beating Bioshock, it also leaves the “That’s it?” feeling lingering making you want more.