Bioshock
Graphics: technically 9/10, effectively 6-10/10
I guess most people have seen those brilliant promo screenshots - on best settings,
the game really looks like that, totally awesome and all those fancy shaders and whatnot. There´s distortion when walking through water, alls those funky HDR & Co tricks, reflections, blurs, specular effects [*rattles off an endless list*], in short, year 2007 CG at it´s best. Then, there are visible polygons of the relative size of several meters, cloth (both on characters and props) that looks like carved wood, particles from which one could fucking copy the base texture with a screenshot (especially fire particles are far from looking good) and other blunder that throws you back to pre-millennium gaming. However, only on rare occasion are these eye-catching, most of the time the game looks almost flawless.
Design: 9/10
Design, architecture and presentation are top notch! Even though bound to the "underwater city" theme, there´s several dozen different styles ranging from harbors to laboratories, 60´s styled streets (complete with that nice street battle atmosphere
![:)](http://forum.falloutstudios.org/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png)
) to almost steam-punkish industrial facilities. Every scenery is filled with details and seems quite believable (if you care to accept the game´s somewhat twisted style, that is). There´s some nice lighting through the whole game that is usually only found in stealth games like Thief III or splinter cell.
Gameplay: effectively 7/10
- Fighting: 7/10
Basically a mixture of straight-forward shooter and sandbox mode. The game offers a wide variety of weapons, each having 3 different ammo types with different effects and 2 upgrades, and a whole bunch of active and passive "Plasmids", best described as a sci-fi sorcery and RPG mixture. The players arsenal includes crowbar, pistol, MP and shotgun as well as grenade launcher, flame-/chemical-/elektro-thrower and crossbow - however, the only reason for me to use other weapons than the crowbar (which can get some nice side-effects) and pistol (has a deadly mix of damage, accuracy and RoF) was lacking ammo for the later and pure boredom for the first. Also, some of the enemies are, at least for my liking, way too fast in order to use conventional weaponry against them. Which leads me to the plasmids - as said, they are like sorcery, making you throw fireballs, freeze enemies, zap machines with lightning bolts or giving you telekinetic abilities. Like the ordinary weapons, they suffer from having many redundant abilities and some being overly complicated (why distracting enemies in order to set up some booby traps when you can just fry them with the snip of your finger?). This is often the problem in Bioshock: there´s a dozen fabulous ways of defeating your enemies, but it´s so much easier and life-preserving to just storm the place guns blazing. However, when there really is a situation to successfully use a combination of your skills, it feels sooooooooo good.
![:lol:](http://forum.falloutstudios.org/public/style_emoticons/default/lol.gif)
Also, the so called "vita chambers" make the game almost too easy if you rely on them - as they basically revive you just some meters away from where you´ve died. Just take your crowbar, go slash-slash-slash on a big daddy and when he kills you, just do it AGAIN as while you are revived, all the enemies stay damaged.
- Character Development (aka lamePG): 5/10
When there was the point of having redundant powers on the offensive choices, believe me that this is nothing to what there is on the passive possibilities. The RPG system that many expected from a spiritual successor of System Shock and partly Deus Ex is nothing but a crippled shade. Instead of having character values or traits, there are the so called Tonika, passive Plasmids that make you hit harder, hack better, run faster and the like. However, there isn´t much of a choice on how to develop your character as at least 3/4 of the available slots will be filled with must-haves which gets even worse after you get LVL2 tonika that work together with lower versions of the same ability - basically taking two slots for one trait (there are 18 slots on 3 different categories (offense, defense, engineering). Usually you just choose between being two or three builds and let the others rest in the shelf.
Not to be misunderstood, the toniks DO allow inidvidualizing your character as they give you e.g. a defensive electroattack when you are attacked (zapping everything in a radius of about 3 meters around you), limited invisibility, more efficiency when using medkits. However, in the end you will probably end up taking the uber-ownage stealth ability, two slots of defensive electro attacks (they will
outright kill every minor melee foe and severely damage even advanced enemies) and some speed enhancements and bam, all your passive defense slots are filled.
"Gaming freedom": 4/10
Decided to give this one a specific category. Remember all this hype about all that hype about roaming and exploring the sunken city? Moral decisions varying the story? Forget about them, they´re bullshit. Level layout usually has one fixed way from start to end of the level and exploring is limited to go visiting a small dead-end for some goodies. The city itself also won´t allow you much possibilities for exploring as the storyline will have you visit all quarters and they also only get unlocked when the story needs them. In addition, if you are even a semi-skilled players, you won´t have much trouble finding all the relevant goodies (plasmids, little sisters) in the first go and will thus never ever go visit a part of the city again unless the story forces you to (IIRC this happened only once
![:lol:](http://forum.falloutstudios.org/public/style_emoticons/default/tounge.gif)
). Moral decisions are counted ONLY against one specific type of inhabitants of Rapture and all it changes is the ending cut-scene (depending if you were really good, really bad or neutral chaotic) plus some of the goodies you get.
Story: 7/10
First of, Bioshock isn´t actually a story-driven game but more of a survival type. There is story and background, much of it, but you are taking part in only a small part of it. Most of the story will be told to you via comlink and voice diaries. I wouldn´t really judge this on good or bad, it simply comes down to your personal preference for storytelling.
The background story really is brilliant in BioShock. It paints the picture of a "model society" braking down when it has to face reality and is weakened by idealism. There are several "main characters" of whom you will find many many messages throughout the game that really give you insight into their characters, lifes, hopes and especially misery. The only thing bugging me about this a bit was that you get these snippets served almost chronologically while the game is actually short enough to support a non-chronological order (think of Memento [movie]) but it´s not that much of an issue.
The actual game-story is a tad dull though. While it starts out brilliantly and has a nice climax at about 2/3 of the game, it leaves many questions unanswered and finally concludes with a "not ANOTHER end like this"-ending (also having more than just strong similarities to System Shock). Especially the main character Jack, though technically deeply tied into both story and backstory, is a disappointment - while having some lines in the intro (rather well localized I may add), he
remains completely silent throughout the entire game! In a game like this, that´s just utter bullshit. Also, with having only a couple of characters that you encounter in persona, it would have been nice to have at least Jack as some kind of ever present personality.
Overall, Bioshock is NOT the game it was and still is hyped to be (whoever wrote those 100/100 Reviews should be committed to an institution, seriously). However, in comparison to other modern games, it really shines.
This "review" put it IMO very nicely.
Edited by Golan, 09 September 2007 - 21:39.