BioShock

The Good
+ great story - would you kindly get your foot outta my ass? + great visuals - water, that most intangible of elements, looks like water + atmosphere supports the story - immersive environment makes the 50's look hip again, no thanks to Marty McFly's dad + stuff blows up great - all underwater secret cities should have full tanks of flammable propane lying everywhere in case a video game gets made there

The Bad
- way too easy - Bioshock has an invincible "god" mode - it's called default - the movie will be better - could have had more varied enemy selection, like that gigantic walking spider-thing mech from DOOM, but that wouldn't have "served" the story - once again, the best weapon in the game - the crossbow - is also the most low-tech; development time spent on hells-yes plasmids may have been better spent on crowd favorite "2x4 with rusty nail hammered through it"

The Bottom Line
Analysis: Bioshock and Compromise

Sometimes, some things are just too good for their own good.

While that seems to be a contradictory statement simply on its own, it makes sense (but not too much sense) when you consider there are many things that haven't enjoyed any success when it is fully conceivable that they should. Critical success does not necessarily mean popular success; sometimes art is made that is so advanced that the current generation can not accept it (the term avant-garde comes to mind). The public can only handle so much.

This may seem to be critical of the average layman, who can't be faulted for being who he is, a man--a laying man, at that. In that case, to put it another way (other than saying the public can only accept so much), beauty is the beginning of fear. You know that new sports car? That fancy expensive one, the one you fantasize about? If you buy that, you're going to worry about it all the time; you're going to worry about it being stolen, scratched, towed, and even targeted by malicious flying birds and their gooey excrement. You know that hot, attractive girl? The one you fantasize about all the time? Once she becomes your girlfriend ("oh yes, she will be mine") you may find yourself constantly worried that someone may steal her from you. Again: beauty is the beginning of fear, and some things are just too good for their own good.

While these two points aren't necessarily the same, the same point can be made: the public can only handle so much. So, that's where Bioshock lands, firmly on its capable and talented feet and stooping low to bend to the lowest common denominator so that even the most lay of the layest of layman will "get" this game.

Bioshock is a beautiful game that takes place in the undersea city of Rapture. Based on the philosophies of Ayn Rand, Bioshock is an exploration of Objectivism gone catastrophically wrong. In the game, a charismatic leader named Andrew Ryan founds the city of Rapture as a capitalist haven safe against influence and pressure from outside political and religious powers. Literally shut off from the entire world at the bottom of the ocean, the Objectivist experiment of Rapture fails due to internal problems; this is suggested due in part to Objectivist dogma where the scientist, artist and capitalist aren't constrained by ethics or morality.

This is quite an interesting basis for a story; furthermore, Bioshock would continue down the "interesting path" some more and spin a tale of betrayal, deceit and domination. However, the fantastic research and writing that went into making this video game comes at a price: it's too good for its own good.

When applied to video games many gamers could only shake their heads in disbelief. "How can a game be too good?" they may say. I suppose this can be someone asking how vanilla ice cream can be too vanilla-y, or how someone can have sex too often and have too many orgasms. Well, I can't complain about vanilla ice cream nor about orgasms that are too good to have, but there is something to be said about Bioshock: its story and game play are terribly unbalanced with each other. Bioshock can't make up its mind whether it wants to tell a story or let you blow things up; stuck as a compromise, Bioshock delivers an interesting story in a way only video games can tell at the cost of overpowered game play that is too easy even for the average layman.

The story is too good for video games. I admit this sounds insulting to all video gamers and layman everywhere, lying down, but when the news broke that Bioshock is getting the Hollywood treatment with "name" director Gore Verbinski attached, who made alot of money and fame making movies about a ride at Disneyworld, I suspect the excitement was mostly over the fact that the great story in Bioshock would finally get told properly - in another medium that can tell stories well.

How can a story be too good for a game? Well, the high quality of a story in a video game can be detrimental when the developers emphasize the importance of the story over everything else; what this does effectively is subvert every other aspect including game play, difficulty, and enemy selection. You know (you laymen guys), everything that makes a video game a game.

First, the game is entirely too easy. Of the three difficulty levels, the hardest level is about the same level as most other games' mild medium difficulty level; compared to a hardcore game like Ninja Gaiden, Bioshock's hardest difficulty level is on par with the former game's easiest difficulty level. Other elements add to this ease: the game pauses when selecting weapons or plasmids, basic enemies (splicers) are all the same and so similar strategies can be used against them throughout the game, weapons are upgradeable to over-powered status, after halfway through the game money becomes so easy to make that a 500$ maximum capacity is forced on the player (unlike my wallet in real life), a map and a directional arrow points to the objective so that getting lost in a level is an impossibility, and furthermore no penalty is ever exacted on the player for dying - the player is instantly resurrected at a Vita-chamber to redo a level until ultimately he succeeds.

Secondly, the game play is so unbalanced that not long after beginning you become a unstoppable powered tank. The average enemy soon doesn't have a chance against the player, and in fact by the game's end you are pretty much just as powerful as the end boss. It appears the makers spent a lot of time designing cool ways to blow things up real good that they forgot to give you a suitable opponent; while it may be argued that Big Daddies are tough mini-bosses, the truth is they don't appear often enough and once you learn the technique how to take down a Big Daddy quickly it actually becomes routine quite quickly. In fact, one of the biggest challenges in Bioshock is cycling through your weapons and plasmids regularly to use them all equally, whereas in most cases you'll stick with one familiar weapon and upgrade it to make short work of all splicers and Big Daddies.

The fact of the matter is that the game has been designed to be overly simple and easy for the simplest of laymen to ensure that absolutely anyone and everyone can make it to the end - to ensure that this story gets told, from beginning to end. In four (and a compound) words: great story, bad game play. This is the antithesis of most games that have a bad story but great game play. Video games have traditionally not had great stories because usually they have been about game play, the meat, and back bone of video games.

Consider all the audio diaries scattered through each of the levels. When put together they weave together the complicated social tapestry of Rapture, a blend of unbridled ambition and treachery and despair. An interesting part of the story... that isn't an integral part of the game. In fact, listening to these audio diaries will commonly displace you from the immersion of the game, and in fact distract you from attacking enemies. These side-stories are entirely skippable for those who wish to simply blow things up.

And that's a problem too: as a straight-forward first-person shooter, Bioshock is strangely unsatisfying for not having unbalanced game play. Bioshock looks beautiful, sounds realistic for sound effects and dramatic for voice acting and has period songs of the era, and is a high class offering that should be a great video game - but it isn't as much fun as DOOM to shoot monsters and blow stuff up.

This is where Bioshock deviates from the norm (watch out, lying-down people everywhere!). As a game, it isn't much fun or challenging, but as a story and as a work of original art, it is fascinating and nuanced and fresh. As a top tier well-hyped video game with enormous production values, it's clear that sacrifices were made to this game to make it enjoyable and accessible to everyone; to anyone who has studied art knows, art is something that is for anyone, but not everyone. Bioshock could have been something really special and extraordinary, but instead we have something that allows the basest fan boy to blow stuff up.

This isn't to say Bioshock doesn't understand its medium and the limitations thereof; on the contrary, the single most genius fact of the design of Bioshock is the use of linearity. Long a bane of video game design, Bioshock whole-heartedly embraces linearity as the basis of the shocking twist at the game's mid-section. Without explaining it completely to encourage people to play it for themselves, the linearity of the game and lack of choice is used to turn the entire convention of video game stories on its head. This same type of head-turning convention was last used to great effect in "Shadows of the Colossus" (2005), in which, without the use of speaking script, the player realizes in horrifying dismay that the colossus you are slaying aren't evil - the sad, melancholic music that plays upon killing a colossus is in stark contrast to the happy, heroic music that plays when you finally mount them.

This perspective as a gamer progressing through levels to satisfy an objective only to realize, after the fact, the real ramification of what you have done can only lie within the realm of objective-reaching video games that feature a challenge/reward system that films, TV and books can't compete. However, films - the film adaptation of Bioshock, for example - aren't limited by the conventions and devices of video games and so aren't constrained in storytelling: films don't have power-ups, crates to smash and tutorials telling you how to cycle through your weapons. Unlike a video game, films have a set, finite duration of time and will finish whether or not you can kill the end boss who has cheap-ass attacks. Movies tell stories; video games are stories unto themselves that depend upon your mad video game skillz, layman or otherwise.

It is with this sad fact that the Bioshock movie, if it ever gets made, will be much better than the original video game and become the best video game adaptation ever made. This is not so surprising since Bioshock isn't as much a video game as it is a delightful story set awkwardly as a period piece masquerading as a first-person shooter. While it’s confusing that this story wound up being told first as a video game, it shouldn't be surprising that this video game was made as a first-person shooter - it's these fps games that get bought. Getting bought means money. And money is an end in itself that ensures compromise over integrity.

While we may never know to what end Bioshock was compromised, it's clear that the result is an unbalanced game that has a better story than its gameplay. For being innovative and challenging as a work of art in the field of video games is noteworthy, but laymen should now understand why I enjoy playing Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad more than this game. Chicks in bikinis using samurai swords to slice up zombies - now that makes a fun game; the movie... (Oneechanbara: The Movie (2008)) not so much.

There's hope for you yet, Bioshock.

(If you've made it this far, I'll divulge the fact that I already did a review for Bioshock for PC - after only having played it for a few hours. If you look it up here on Mobygames, you'll see - quite gratifying to me - that I wasn't that far off the mark from the mark. Once again, thank you Mobygames for making my reviews arguably the most read/voted unhelpful!)

The Good
Areas are nicely designed and especially looking out of a window is cool.

Enemies have very fascinating dialogue lines.

Able to hack machines.

The Bad
Confusing inventory and interface.

Visuals get really messy.

Controls are awkward.

Standing still to listen to taped messages is kind of lame.

You have very little health.

The Bottom Line
Story

Bioshock reminds me a lot of Half-Life in some ways: both games heavily emphasize a story told as you play, some gameplay elements are also similar and both titles start off with gameplay instead of cut-scene. After hitting “New game” you witness your airliner crashing into the ocean and are then forced to swim to a lighthouse. As you look for shelter, you come upon a pod that, once entered, sinks into the deep and brings you to the remains of an underwater utopia called “Rapture”. I would go into a bit more detail about what happens after, but that’s where our first problem arises: I simply can’t follow it. This might have been letdown, but it seems like climbing up the lighthouse and lighting it or maybe just staying put would have been a better choice, as a rescue team would probably be very interested in the huge fire in the middle of the ocean. I suppose you could say the goal is to save Rapture, but we have no personal connection with the location or the characters within it, so why should we care?

The game seeks to flesh out the story some more through ways that Half-Life also used, but things tend to get a little too busy. There are environmental hints, but at the same time there are characters speaking to you directly, enemies taunting you, people ordering you around through the radio, commercials been played through the intercom and if you aren’t getting enough of a headache already, then you can also find recorded tapes. I like to see games that don’t throw you to death with cut-scenes, but this is still obnoxious in a different way and even harder to follow. I gave up on it pretty soon and just played through the game in a trance instead. The recorded messages are especially annoying because everything just keeps going while you are trying to listen, that includes enemies and other characters talking.

Gameplay

Bioshock has some very obvious tells that reveal that this is a new IP, but it also has some capable people working on it. The game mixes RPG elements with a first-person shooter, this means you can upgrade your weapons and also choose between a number of upgrades to change the way you play. It sounds good on paper, but in practice the menu used for picking these upgrades is very clunky and confusing. I ran into a number of improvements as I played, but every time I found and installed one, the previous options I picked were gone. Eventually I found out the game has sub-categories for these things, but that still didn’t make it any more clear. You can also use Plasmids, which are special augmentations that you can inject into yourself and use as some sort of spell. There is a great deal of these and they certainly make for more diverse tactics, but switching between shooting stance and plasmid stance is annoying as all hell and some don’t even seem to work (such as enrage which should make enemies fight each other).

Levels are also designed in a way that I don’t like. The progression is linear, but there are branched paths that result in neat goodies. I do like that the game points out the way you need to go with an arrow on the HUD, but it’s still irritating to have to comb a dozen random rooms every time you get somewhere new. Levels mostly consist of dynamic goals that change as you accumulate information or get your path blocked, which I do actually like, but as stated before it was hard to figure out why stuff happens in this game. Most of the time you will be harassed by the former residents of Rapture and defense systems as you try to make it through the level, admittedly there is a lot of freedom and you can make it past enemies in many different ways. However, the actions fails to engage because the story is too hard to follow, making the gameplay a very dull affair overall.

Presentation

During that opening sequence in which we see the whole of Rapture while been transported in a pod I became really excited to see more of the city. However, when gameplay finally took over it was rather shallow and standard. I can imagine Rapture used to have a lot of color to it, but they went with such dark lighting and so much of it is destroyed that little is left of it. This results in a very inconsistent presentation where some parts look really scary, but are accompanied by cheerful music or advertisements on the intercom. To make the situation work either the area would have had to be intact or maybe they could have made the machines and speaker distorted, so that they would sound disturbing. As it stands now these areas just feel very mediocre: the design is too dark to be fun, but the sound is too cheerful to be scary.

Trying to get this game to run was also very difficult, something that I feel should not be the case for a game from 2009. On Windows 7 the game simply wouldn’t run, not at all in fact. If I launched the game in Steam it crashed instantly. It took me a while to figure out that I had to run the game in compatibility mode, because I assumed it had something to do with my drivers and I ran some updates instead. There’s our first problem: Windows 7 was launched in 2009 as well, so there is no excuse to not support it. Even if the game came first, there should have been an update to make it compatible long ago. It gets better though! The game would run in Windows Vista, but with NO SOUND. To get the sound working I had to run it in Windows XP (service pack 2). Let me get this straight… To get this game from 3 years ago working, you have to run it with an Operating System from 8 years ago? FUCK LOGIC.

Replay value and extras

Normally I would handle these two aspects separately, but for the first time I can group them together, just because there is not much to say. The game can hardly be considered very good for another playthrough, simply because it’s already a drag on the first run. Normally the fast-paced nature of linear first-person shooters is enough to keep it at least entertaining, but Bioshock dabbles in so much backtracking and other slow elements that it loses this advantage. You also tend to fall into a routine, which renders the option to try out different plasmids and tactics worthless, especially when you keep in mind that buying new plasmids and upgrades costs valuable Adam.

On the subject of Adam, that is also the main thing you’ll be going after. The game has a running moral-choice system in which you occasionally run into creatures known as “Little Sisters”. The idea is that you have to fight their guardian, a hulking machine known as a “Big Daddy”, and then either kill or cure the child. Killing them grants you a lot of Adam, which you can use to buy (passive) upgrades or new plasmid powers, and curing them grants you random presents and a lot less Adam. This choice also changes the ending you get. It works to a certain extent, but fighting the Big Daddies becomes, just like the rest of the game, a chore. The things are so powerful that they seem to me like a way to balance for the stupid amounts of money and ammo the game gives you every chance it gets. Besides that you can also gather the various upgrades and recorded messages if you really want a 100%, but frankly I don’t see the appeal and some levels won’t let you backtrack (by means of shut doors).

Verdict

The main problem I have with this game is the story, which may sound odd for an FPS, but hear me out. Even Call of Duty has a little story that adds context to what you are doing, without that little B-movie plot about Russians invading, the game would just be four hours of psychotic violence. Without the context there is no meaning to what you do and this will almost always result in the game failing to engage you. Bioshock however has so much plot that the player can’t keep up with it, there might be a context, but the player won’t experience it that way, thus giving the same result as having none at all. This affects every aspect of the game: the gameplay is boring because we don’t know what we’re doing, the presentation is dull because it always seems inconsistent in tone and there is no reason to replay it because who wants to go for a second round of random murdering?

Most of the people who seem to like this game are former fans of the “System Shock” franchise, so if you are part of that group and still haven’t tried it, then go ahead. If you’re dying for a new IP in the shooter market then Bioshock is again a pretty good choice. Veterans of the genre however will find Bioshock to be too slow and too story-heavy to entertain, so for everybody else I recommend skipping out on this game.

The Good
Bioshock was one of the most eagerly awaited games in a long time. It was conceived as a new concept for a exploited genre that needed a breath of fresh air, we had many good FPS games like Half Life 2 or Prey, but Bioshock is something different. System Shock 2 was a great game, and Bioshock is the confirmation that a new sub-genre of FPS has been created. A new sub-genre that doesn't need just the action to be a good game, what's more, the action isn't the best thing of the game, not even one of the good things remarkable.

In this game, you can customize your character with plasmids, you can configure your genes to acquire special attack powers like flames or electricity, or just acquire some plasmids to avoid alarms, easy hacking or be invisible if you're not moving. You can also customize your weapons upgrading them, and there are many weapons with many kinds of ammo to use. Every enemy has their weakness, and you'll need to know which is the best weapon/ammo for every situation.

The story is the main attraction of the game, the main concept is so good that everything's good because of that. The attractive beginning is a good proof of this, and the rest of the game is as good as it should. Some stages are really good, and the characters, the residents of Rapture, are strident and insane people, corrupted by money, freedom... and plasmids.

Game's really long and three different endings are available depending on what you've done during the game. The game is not easy. You can't die, but you'll be sent to the vita-chamber many times.

As on System Shock 2, you can search everything, dead bodies, desks, bags or anything that could be searched. You can find ammo, some drinks, cigarettes or food. Everything has an effect on you, so, be careful what you take. You can buy things with your money, inventing some items with some things that you take in the game or buy new plasmids with the Adam taken from the Little Sisters.

Places are big, with many details. It's really easy to get lost because everything's ruined, it's a totally mess. There are many particles in the air, you can see the dampness, the water effect, broken objects everywhere, furniture lying crosswise... And this is not one of those games with many details during the first levels and nothing more, here you have details during all the game. Stages are filled with so many things that sometimes it's uncomfortable to play, but this is how it should be (if you want a more realistic experience, of course).

The Bad
The range view is small. It's like you were zooming all the time, and as I said there are many details and places are big. Aiming is difficult because of that, and because enemies run fast (and without any sense, they just run). Action is not the best thing of the game, it could be much better, but it's not a big problem anyway.

The volume for logs is low, you can't listen some messages and you will stop doing what you're doing when a message is coming because you won't here nothing unless you stop. If you're in the middle of a fight it's impossible to know what messages are saying to you. Sound's good, music is good, but the volume for the logs are really bad.

The weapons aren't as effective as they should. Most of them need a lot of time to be reloaded, and you'll be changing your weapons all the time because some of them have just a few shots 'til they need to be reloaded. Plasmids aren't spectacular, maybe just the first time that you use them, and many of them has the same effects as some weapons that you have, so, they're a bit stupid.

The game was conceived to be a non-linear game but it is. The only difference between other FPS games and this one is the fact that you can customize some things like plasmids, but nothing really important, the genre is still the same. If we have System Shock 2 as a reference nothing has changed so much, just better graphics and some minor new things. Maybe a sub-genre, but not a new genre of games.

Maps could help you during your game, but they're imprecise and they'll confuse you many times. You don't have a map for each floor, you'll have the entire map at your help for every location of Rapture. If you enter a building with many floors you'll need some time to know where you are in the map.

The use of water is attractive at the beginning, but when you're progressing it becomes more secondary. Maybe a pair of floods more would be much better for the game.

The Bottom Line
"It wasn't impossible to build Rapture at the bottom of the ocean. It was impossible to build it anywhere else."