BioShock

Moby ID: 29886
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

In the year 1960, a plane crashes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with a man named Jack as the only survivor. He has the apparent luck of resurfacing in front of what looks like a door to an underwater complex. Without hesitating, Jack enters the door and is greeted by slogans that praise the city of Rapture, a paradise of free will built in the 1940s by a business magnate named Andrew Ryan. However, even before he assimilates all this new information, the descent to this supposed paradise ends and he can only see ruins and chaos. Learning about the destiny of Rapture will be now Jack's main motivation while he tries to survive the horrors that free will can create.

BioShock is a first-person shooter with gameplay elements and storytelling technique reminiscent of System Shock games. Rapture, the once-proud social experiment inspired by the real-world objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand, has been nearly destroyed, its inhabitants either dead or fallen victims to bizarre scientific experiments. The retro-futuristic setting incorporates elements of sci-fi with art deco and steampunk influences, featuring interior design and propaganda posters reminiscent of 1950s.

The game's plot is largely revealed through recorded messages left by Rapture's inhabitants before they were killed or mutated. Much of the plot development is therefore dedicated to reconstructing the events of the past, similarly to System Shock games. Limited usage of stealth, the possibility to hack security cameras and other devices, and character customization are the gameplay elements that further tie BioShock to its spiritual predecessors.

At its core, however, the game is more action-oriented, restricting the role-playing mechanics of System Shock 2 to abilities and upgrades that can be acquired and equipped by the main character. Most of the enemies in the game are Splicers, the deformed and insane citizens of Rapture. The protagonist has an arsenal of firearms to combat them but is also able to use plasmids, which act similarly to magic and deplete a special energy called EVE. Various types of plasmids may directly hurt enemies, sabotage their movements, or enhance the player character's defense. Combat tactics often rely on successive usage of different types of weapons and plasmids. For example, encasing an enemy in ice with a plasmid makes it possible to shatter it to pieces with a single shot; protecting himself with an electric shield, the protagonist can electrocute enemies and strike them with melee weapons, etc.

The player can only equip a limited number of active and passive plasmids, and also has an inventory limit for every type of item. Restoring and enhancing items can be found by exploring the environment or purchased from vending machines. These can also be hacked, similar to turrets, cameras, safes, and other types of locks. Hacking is presented as a Pipe Mania-like mini-game.

Plasmids, on the other hand, are mostly purchased by spending certain amounts of a mutagen known as ADAM. This mutagen can be obtained from mysterious creatures called "Little Sisters" - little girls that can be seen in most of the game's locations, accompanied and protected by very strong, genetically enhanced humans grafted to armored diving suits and nicknamed "Big Daddies". In order to capture a Little Sister the player normally has to defeat her Big Daddy. Afterward, the player has the choice of killing the girl, harvesting large amounts of ADAM in the process, or sparing her life. Depending on the player's moral decisions concerning the Little Sisters, the game's story will be concluded with different endings.

The Playstation 3 version adds a harder difficulty level called "Survivor Mode" to the game.

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Credits (Windows version)

464 People (423 developers, 41 thanks) · View all

Story, Writing
Creative Direction
Director of Product Development
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PC Producer
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Lead Animator
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 94% (based on 193 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 409 ratings with 17 reviews)

not the review you've been waiting for.. so buy or rent Bioshock, I don't care

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!)

Xbox 360 · by lasttoblame (414) · 2009

Yes, it's another somewhat negative review of BioShock.

The Good
First off, I want to say this: BioShock is a solid game, a decent game. It didn't grab me by any part of my anatomy and make me fall in love with it, but it didn't make me want to spit blood, either. It's a... solid game... which is about the highest compliment I can pay it.

It can certainly be fun at times. My favorite thing has to be the telekinesis plasmid. Tossing explosive barrels around is fun. Tossing heavy bags of fertiliser at an enemy's head is fun. Less effective, but good for a sadistic chuckle: Throwing a dead cat at an enemy's head. And throwing a dead enemy at a live enemy is fun. I really like the telekinesis plasmid.

Garbage cans! They're good to throw.

Forgetting telekinesis for a moment, I also enjoyed watching the fights between Big Daddies and splicers. You know the splicers are going to lose, which just makes the whole thing more entertaining.

Though it became repetitive, I did enjoy hacking gun turrets and security bots, then sitting back and watching them do their job.

Other good points:
* Good graphics (though I personally found them rather hard to look at after a while, with their overly high contrast and slew of filters).
* Pretty decent voice acting (except for a major character who pops up later in the game... no spoilers... if you've played it, you should know who I'm referring to).
* High attention to detail, with plenty of nice touches. Something I thought was really cool was the weapon upgrades, which actually change the look of your steampunkish guns by adding extra cogs and tubes, etc.
* An interesting, different setting.
* The story is decent enough (though very similar to System Shock 1 & 2).
* Good ragdolls (except for the incessant jitter problems).

The Bad
The main problem is how repetitive this game is. There are only a few different types of enemies, and they are all 'splicers' (super-fast homicidal maniacs). Most blast you with pistols or tommy-guns. Others leap wildly and try to slash your face off. A third, rarer type crawl along the ceiling and throw spinning blades at you. Later on, you encounter a couple who are a bit more interesting (the guy who phases in and out of corporeal form and shoots fireballs) but by the half-way point of the game, you will have seen every one of the five(?) enemy variations... over and over again. You will have also heard all their dialog to the point of boredom. I have read many reviews, comments and pieces of hyperbole about how these are 'tragic characters' you can 'empathise with.' Well... no... they're fast, repetitive zombies. Just because they're dressed to go to the ball and have a few lines of speech about their dead spouse or moulting scalp does not make me feel sorry for them, particularly when repetition reinforces the fact that they are all clones of each other and they are all 'crazy' in exactly the same way (i.e. they see you and instantly want to murder your ass).

The two other denizens of Rapture who you will meet regularly are the famous Big Daddy and Little Sister. Sadly, repeated dialogue and behavior also make them seem very artificial, despite the interplay between the two. Unlike the splicers, the Big Daddies don't attack you unless provoked. However, you have to kill them to get to the Little Sisters, to get the 'Adam,' which is the local currency and will allow you to 'buy' additional plasmids and power-ups. Therefore, it's up to you to choose when you want to fight a Big Daddy. Unfortunately, this makes the Big Daddy fights feel like more of a chore than anything. It's sort of like, "Well, I'm going to be leaving the level soon. Guess I'd better kill a couple of Big Daddies before I go sigh." At least, that was how I was feeling after a few fights. These 'boss battles' really lose all their tension because, although the Big Daddies are tough, it absolutely doesn't matter if you die, as you will just get sent to a nearby respawn chamber, then you can come back and continue fighting with only a few seconds' delay. If the Big Daddies could, say, go plug themselves into an unhackable wall socket and recover their energy while you were temporarily dead, this might even the odds. Then you'd have to kill 'em in one go, which would definitely bring the tension back. But no.
Anyway, I like the Big Daddies. They are pretty cute, and can be fun to fight, sometimes. Maybe the first few times. But like everything else in BioShock, they become dull.

The game throws a constant stream of splicers at you, from start to finish. They respawn like mad. Clear an area and approximately a minute later (or less), another splicer will spawn. Combat becomes very boring, especially as (on normal difficulty), it takes a lot of shots from most weapons to take down even a single attacker.

The idea of the game is to make each encounter different by giving the player a wide range of plasmids (or, as another reviewer called them; 'spells') and guns (with plenty of different ammo types). Unfortunately, as with the enemies, by the half-way point of the game, you will have collected all the available guns and all the plasmid types (the only remaining thing will be more powerful versions of existing plasmids). Also, by this point, I had fought so many splicers that I'd become thoroughly bored with the battles.

Most encounters will involve you switching back and forth between your plasmids and guns, as the guns on their own are usually too weak. In fact, all the weapons feel too weak, even when upgraded (the crossbow being the one exception). Switching between plasmids and guns is technically simple but in practice, it feels over-fiddly. The problem is that this game, despite its pretensions of being something greater, is just a shooter; but it's a shooter that's over-complicated and lacks one of the most basic requirements of the genre; the simple, satisfying fun factor. You cannot just blow enemies away in BioShock, although it will probably get to a point where you will long to. Each encounter is a drawn-out battle where you will switch between plasmids and guns as you first distract, then slightly maim, then confuse, then finally kill your opponent. What is intended as an innovative approach to combat becomes stale through repetition. Sure, there are some really interesting plasmids (turn people against each other; make them targets for security bots; make them attack a fake version of yourself) but some are better than others, some prove to be near useless and there are a few basic strategies you will find yourself using time and time again.

There are other problems, too. Throughout the game, you are swamped with items to pick up and vending machines to buy items from. As if there wasn't enough ammo lying around already, and enough money to buy ammo, you can also pick up seemingly useless items such as 'brass tubes' and screws. Then, you throw all these pieces of junk into another wall-mounted machine, which will magically turn them into... more ammo. Why is this a problem? Because there is simply too much. It is yet another aspect of the game that becomes repetitive; endlessly picking up things, endlessly using vending machines. And when a vending machine is never less than a couple of rooms away, it removes much of the challenge and excitement of being low on ammo and having to survive. In fact, when I was about 3/4 of the way through the game, I decided to make things more interesting by imposing a rule on myself: I would stop using vending machines and 'invent-o-matics' - From now on, I would only take what I could find lying around. It came as no surprise that this instantly made the game more fun, and took away some of the repetitiveness as I no longer had to hack those damn vending machines.

Hacking...
Hacking is something that sounds like it should be exciting and carry some level of difficulty. But it's not. Every time you hack a vending machine, bot, camera, gun turret or lock you do the exact same thing: Play a game of Pipe Dream. Now, I quite like Pipe Dream but you'll play it a few hundred times in BioShock. And as if it wasn't easy enough already, you have the option of using all kinds of 'gene tonics' (aka. power-ups) to boost your hacking skills and make the game ridiculously easy. It sort of boggles the mind that Rapture is full of security devices that can all be easily overcome by sticking a few bits of pipe together.

The big problem with this game, apart from its crashing lack of variety is that its design is fearful. What do I mean? Well, there is a sort of schizophrenic battle going on here between trying to make the game complex and flexible and advanced... and then the flipside of the coin: trying desperately hard to make it accessible, and not too difficult or daunting for novices, and making sure that absolutely no-one is going to be the slightest bit confused by anything. Yes, it's the 'dumbing down' that this game has inflicted on itself.

The most obvious example of this is what I'm going to call 'the golden arrow of idiocy.' You know a game is treating you like an idiot when you are given an objective, which is then not only written in your diary (with optional extra hints) and marked on your map but also pointed out by a giant golden arrow which hangs in the air and which you can follow along mindlessly like an obedient puppy dog. The doors you have to open are even marked in gold! At least, that's what I'm told. I turned off the arrow as soon as I saw it. Thankfully, there was an option to do so, though maybe there won't be in BioShock 2. Honestly, I can't believe that the designers were so worried about people getting lost that they put a giant golden arrow in this game! It works for GTA, sure, but it has no place here.

Oh yeah, and the respawn chambers. On the one hand, I can actually see the point of them, as the load times are so horrendous that reloading every time you died would be a real hassle. But come on! Where is the tension in a game that has basically no penalty for dying? Death doesn't cost anything, doesn't lose you anything... You re-appear with a decent chunk of health and psi-power ('Eve') in a chamber which is usually about 20 seconds' walk from the spot where you died. In fact, dying can often be a benefit! Low on health? Only got one medi-kit left? Well, you may as well save it for later. It'd be more efficient to quickly die, because then you'll get some free health! It does honestly come down to that mental process sometimes. "Oh, I'm about to die. No point in wasting a medi-kit. ZAP! There we go... respawn chamber."

I am whining like a miserable baby here. The trouble is, there's just so much to complain about.

What else?

Well, what's so great about the story? It has strong similarities to System Shock 1 / 2 (Great story the first time around, but feeling a bit recycled now), and apart from that, there isn't much going on here. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that there are two goals in the game - "Save my kids" and then, a bit later, "Kill the bad guy." I kept thinking as I was wandering about: "WHY am I doing this? Why am I following these orders from some guy talking to me on the radio?" Now, those who have played the game will know that there's a twist in the story that answers this very question. Fans will say it's a great twist! Personally, I think it's an excuse, trying to explain away the standard following of objectives that goes on and the standard lack of player choice.

I'm going to wrap this up soon. Just a few more points:
* The game isn't scary at all, though I think it's trying to be. It copies so many elements from System Shock 2. However, SS2 was incredibly scary; one of the things that made it stand out. BioShock, once you get used to it after the first hour or so, and aside from a couple of isolated moments, totally fails on this count.
* Nearly everything from SS2 is back, whether it was good or bad. BioShock's 'research camera' is not very practical and only slightly less silly than ingesting(?) random chemicals in SS2.
* Patches may have fixed this by now, but I experienced a few random crashes. When this happens, it will delete your config file and replace it with a default one, meaning you lose all your settings, including your key mappings. This is very annoying. It also makes no real sense and seems to be a strange trend in recent games (Prey was the same). I know you can locate the 'default' file and edit that, but you shouldn't have to. You should at least be given the choice of starting the game with your settings after a crash.

The Bottom Line
Looking back at this review, I think it sounds as though I was deeply hurt by this game. That's not the case, although I did become quite bored by it, and I trudged on and completed it only for the sake of achieving that goal. But like I said at the start of the review, it's a solid game. It's alright. It's decent. It just could've used more variety (particularly in the enemy types) and some different design decisions.

If you haven't played any of the System Shock, Deus Ex or Thief games, then you may think BioShock is fantastic. If you have played those games, you may still think it's fantastic (because people have different opinions; which is great, by the way!). Or like me, you may feel it's a game that tries hard to continue the great tradition of those immersive, amazing action/RPGs... but falls short.

Windows · by xroox (3895) · 2009

This isn’t a game review; this is a review of game reviewing

The Good
As the world crested over Y2K, nerds everywhere rejoiced in man’s greatest invention to date: the world wide web. This marked the turn of a new age, the Age of Information, where the basis of world currency turned from gold to ones and zeros. The nerd caste, once the universal butt-end of derision and wet towel snappings, found their way to the highest echelons of society and even have one of their own cast as the world’s richest man, Bill Gates. Role-playing, once a dark secret that could derail a presidential candidate, now has gone mainstream and online with a subscription rate that grows exponentially every year. That guy in high school who never spoke or left the computer room is now your boss. The nerd is triumphant.

The popular notion would be to consider the age we live in, what with its information superhighway and Ausperger’s syndrome, to be the most intelligent period of all time. People now have instant access to a wealth of information that would have taken weeks to compile. However, one instead should ask, “Does being truly smart mean you know a great deal of information?”

No. In this day and age people don’t need to know more information, instead they need to be able to process this information. Even though the mother-load of human history and knowledge is available to any and all, people choose to spend their time spouting South Park catch-phrases or quoting whatever the Insane Clown Posse has to say about their imagined enemies. The world wide web is cluttered with completely pointless web sites about ninjas and robots and ninja robots as well as the required slash fiction for said genre. Wikipedia, a brilliant idea in theory in which encyclopedia submissions are edited by its users, offers information that is on the whole unconfirmed and inaccurate. As SomethingAwful.com puts it, and puts it well, “The internet makes you stupid.”

In that case, what is so good about the internet? How can man’s greatest invention be worthy of such praise if all it can do is show you some fat kid pretending to swing a light saber around? Three things: e-mail, porn, and finding opinions that support whatever it is that you are thinking.

That’s right: the internet is not for learning. Or at any rate, nobody ever seems learns from it. If you are some dumb racist misogynist with a hate on, but can’t find anyone who sympathizes with you because they are all well-adjusted humans who don’t have an issue with their penis size, well, you’ll find all the small-penised friends you’ll ever need on the internet. If there is some opinion that proves you wrong, well, you don’t want to hear it.

And that brings us to video gamers, who are already an opinionated set of people without even mentioning “fan boys”. One common way of broadcasting one’s opinion is to write reviews; however, all these reviews posted on the internet serve to do is buttress the experience they had with the game and the justification of the game’s cost. These ordinary reviews will tell how someone feels (for example, “This game rocks!” translates better into “This great game gives me the rocking feeling!” rather than “This is a good game,”) but not any original thought beyond “Too bad you couldn’t carjack anything.” Folks, that isn’t a review: that’s an affirmation of your experience (or the opposite of affirmation if it happens to be Big Rig Racing). Video game reviews on the internet have as little to do with discussion and original thought as Britney Spears’ horrific snatch has to do with underwear when entering or leaving a motor vehicle.

The internet is littered with these testimonials that are all virtually the same: you get a synopsis of the game’s story, a run down on the graphics and sound and gameplay with scores out of ten, a consensus of “rocks” or “sucks”, a comparison to GTA San Andreas, and then the words of either “must-buy”, “rent” or “your time would be better spent masturbating”. This would be fine and all if it was a cuisinart or Astroglide or any other product you purchase, but some gamers go further and insultingly call video games “art”. Games are many things: a hobby, entertainment, a great way to tell a story and waste 100 hours of your life. But not art.

That isn’t to say there haven’t been games that have been so good that they have been “artful” or even “masterpieces”. However, gamers appear to have a limited vocabulary in reviewing games; if something is good but inexplicable falls out of the “rock” range, gamers can not comprehend and thus this becomes a critically acclaimed hit that doesn’t somehow sell many copies.

So, I was over at JazzOleg’s place, the one that has the stuffed grizzly bear that he killed himself with his own bare hands ; he had just bought his brand new computer, one that is made out of gold-pressed platinum and is faster than “Old World” immigrants at an open buffet. (it’s amazing: on top there’s an opening to which you can offer your living sacrifices to appease the angry video card god within) Like a proud poppa, he first popped in “The Witcher” and then “Bioshock”. I was so impressed with “Bioshock” that I had to get my own copy, to which I then found out doesn’t work on my YEAR-old computer. Seeing that I’m not going to get an Xbox 360 anytime soon and the ‘Corn is smart enough not to let me in his home without him, it seems I’ll never finish this game.

So this is not a review. Somebody else will gladly spout off about Ann Rand-whatsherface and quote something from wikipedia, cool. However, playing it through a short while made me think of the discussion above when I made a realization about this game.

Games are not art and gamers don’t have the ability to appreciate art in games. This is apparent in “Bioshock”, because this game succeeds in spite of itself. To be an artist in this modern age is to hide that fact that you are an artist at all.

Absolutely, “Bioshock” is a game that “rocks”, but the reason why it “rocks” is crammed far deep inside the game to save it from being a commercial failure. Daddy Systemshock whatshisface knows full well of this: you give the people only what they want; that which they need you must hide it from them or else they cannot accept. Therefore, “Bioshock” “rocks” because it has cool graphics, cool ragdoll physics, cool game play. People like the Big Daddy (well, like killing him, anyways) but may not know why. People know it’s a good story, but they don’t have to sit through verbose and pedantic exposition (the “talky” parts) before they can start killing.

The opposite of this are games that are genius, but are too good for their own good. Planescape: Torment looked like a novel because it was a novel, and disguised so poorly it flopped like a twenty-pancake belly flop. ICO is a transcendently original platform-puzzler that made a believer out of everyone who played it, but gamers instead held fast to Italian plumbers and their goombas. I’m sure the same could be said of Psychonauts, but I haven’t played it and never will because I’m waiting for the sequel, which is going to be an MMO or FPS. Whichever, it’s not that there’s any difference between the two because they both sh*t green money.

“Bioshock”, besides being a cool-ass linear FPS with a cool-ass story that you’d never ever heard of before, is masterful because it is a perfect blend of art, design and commerce. I haven’t finished it, but that much is clear from playing it for awhile and (hopefully) merits this discussion. It knows its place and being such a genius work, tricks us why we like it.

The Bad
Can't carjack any cars. Can't punch a dog into outer space. Crowds do not chant my name when I score a hat trick.

The Bottom Line
The real beauty of art is that a true masterpiece will garner our respect, especially if we don’t like it. Great art challenges us.

Meanwhile, videogames have adjustable difficulty levels.

Windows · by lasttoblame (414) · 2008

[ View all 17 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
initial Mac releases Cantillon (75064) Feb 7, 2022
Gameplay feature: New Game+ Cantillon (75064) Jun 22, 2021
German PEGI (uncut) Steelbook Cover Art Zerobrain (3053) Oct 15, 2010
Yikes. Indra was here (20768) May 16, 2009
They're doin' it for themselves Slug Camargo (583) Mar 21, 2009

Trivia

1001 Video Games

BioShock appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

German version

To ensure that the game wouldn't be put on the infamous list of BPjS/BPjM indexed games, 2k Games released a slightly modified version of the game and the Collector's Edition with only the German language on the disc in Germany. The changes include less blood, some changed cutscenes and no wounds on burned bodies. This version got rated "Not free for minors" by the German rating organisation USK.

Hacking

The hacking mini-game (which can be performed on a variety of devices including safes, security cameras, item dispensers, robots, etc.) is basically a slightly altered version of Pipe Dream.

Reception

According to Wall Street Journal Take Two's shares increased by nearly 20% after early favorable reviews of BioShock.

References

In Farmer's Market cantina, you can find a piece of cheese that resembles Pac-Man, even with the dots!

References to the game

BioShock was parodied in an episode of "Die Redaktion" (The Editorial Team), a monthly comedy video produced by the German gaming magazine GameStar. It was published on the DVD of issue 12/2007.

Soundtrack

On August 24, 2007 2K Games released a 12 track compilation with songs from the orchestral score composed by Garry Schyman. The compilation can be downloaded for free here: http://downloads.2kgames.com/bioshock/BioShock_Score.zip

One of the songs that were included on the Bonus EP in the Collector's Edition, was made by Moby. It's a remix of "Below the sea".

Water

2K Games had to hire a water programmer and a water artist to implement the pools and the pouring water around Rapture. This involved modifying the Unreal 3.0 engine to create realistic water effects.

Awards

  • Games for Windows Magazine
    • March 2008 - #4 Game of the Year 2007
  • GameSpy
    • 2007 – #2 Console Game of the Year
    • 2007 – #2 Xbox 360 Game of the Year
    • 2007 – #3 Game of the Year
    • 2007 – #3 PC Game of the Year
    • 2007 – Best Art Direction of the Year
    • 2007 – Best Sound of the Year
    • 2007 – Best Story of the Year
    • 2011 – #2 Top PC Game of the 2000s
    • 2012 – #2 Top PC Gaming Intro
  • Mac|Life
    • December 2009 - Editor's Choice Award

Information also contributed by Agent 5, Apogee IV, [bakkelun](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,70962/), [Emepol](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,12364/), [PCGamer77](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,1717/), [Scott Monster](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,35225/), [Sicarius](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,70866/) and [WildKard](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,16566/)

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by MichaelPalin.

OnLive added by firefang9212. iPhone, iPad, PlayStation 3 added by Sciere. Macintosh added by Zeppin.

Additional contributors: Sciere, Maw, Zeppin, Jason Strautman, Patrick Bregger, Starbuck the Third, FatherJack, firefang9212.

Game added August 23, 2007. Last modified March 23, 2024.