BioShock Hands-On
After years of anticipation, we finally got to play the first two hours of Irrational's highly awaited action role-playing game, and we weren't disappointed.
BioShock creator Ken Levine talks about everything that went into making the game.
Ken Levine and the BioShock team at Irrational Games have pulled a fast one on Electronic Arts. The 800-pound publishing behemoth may own the rights to the System Shock name, which prevents Levine and company from directly following up their exemplary second installment in that famous sci-fi action-adventure series. But luckily, EA can't copyright the distinctive gameplay mechanics and uncanny sense of atmosphere that made System Shock 2 such a classic. Irrational has brought those elements fully to bear in its new game, which has already been called a spiritual successor to System Shock 2 almost ad nauseam since it was announced nearly three years ago. But it's an appropriate label: Gameplay-wise, this is System Shock 3 in all but name. And so what if they had to come up with an original storyline to make this game? A declining undersea art deco utopia sounds a lot more interesting than a boring old spaceship to us any day.
We know BioShock will tickle the fancies of System Shock 2 fans the world over because we were fortunate enough to sit down with an Xbox 360, the latest game build, and a pair of headphones to actually play the first two hours straight from the title screen. Taking a cue from the old "if it ain't broke..." adage, Irrational has simply mapped System Shock 2's core narrative and gameplay concepts onto a new storyline, as well as a fresh milieu. The list of similarities is long and striking. BioShock too will see you happen upon a nearly deserted environment ruined by a recent, disastrous sequence of events. Again, you'll piece together the story of what happened as you uncover the recorded audio logs of the poor souls who perished--or worse--in the catastrophe. And again, you'll be remotely guided through danger by a mysterious informant. This time, your informant is a man named Atlas, whose identity wasn't revealed during our brief time with the game, but whose wife and children we do know are imperiled somewhere within the underwater complex where the game takes place.
While System Shock 2 merely presented a serviceable sci-fi backdrop, BioShock's unique setting draws on mid-20th century influences in political ideologies, architectural design, pop culture, and music to create the ambitious, failed world of Rapture. The game doesn't bother with such details as your own identity; all you know at the outset is that it's 1960, and you're on an oceanic flight that's suddenly gone extremely wrong. After a brief opening cinematic depicting the crash, we found ourselves swimming in the mid-Atlantic amidst flaming airplane wreckage, bobbing luggage, and charred corpses. In the shadow of all this wreckage was a gigantic lighthouse rising inexplicably and ominously from beneath the waves. What else is there to do in such a bizarre situation but climb up the barnacled steps and go inside for a look?
As you descend beneath the sea in a retro-styled diving bell, you'll be treated to an old propaganda-film-style reel explaining what has just happened. It's all the work of Andrew Ryan, a strong-willed mad scientist type who tired of laboring for the benefit of others and set out to create his own society "where the great will not be constrained by the small," as he puts it. Ryan gathered only society's best and brightest; the finest scientists and artisans to populate his utopia. It was all made possible by Adam, the genetically mutable substance Ryan discovered, which has the power to imbue ordinary human beings with extraordinary powers. Want to achieve superhuman strength? Master the art of pyrokinesis for your next barbecue? Mix up an Adam cocktail, and it's all yours.
As you investigate Rapture's sprawling, doomed infrastructure, its crumbling art deco facades, and leaky corridors, you'll uncover the secrets of what went wrong. Stepping out of the diving bell, you'll see signs of a struggle: blood splattered across dropped picket signs condemning Ryan for apparently declaring martial law and confining residents to remain inside the city. As you'd expect (from what we saw so far), it all comes back to the Adam. We'd barely set foot onto the first platform of the city proper before running into a splicer, which is one of BioShock's common enemies and one of Rapture's former residents. As Atlas will quickly fill you in, it seems that overuse of Adam turns the subject into a crazed monster that fiends for--what else--more Adam. Imagine a crazed junkie dying to get his hands on a fix; only this junkie can throw fireballs out of thin air and move large objects with his mind. And those are just the basic enemies.
Luckily, the perils of Adam aren't enough to dissuade your own character from absorbing the occasional genetic superpower himself. In addition to the trusty wrench you'll immediately find, you'll soon discover a plasmid, which is BioShock's term for a genetic power-up. This gives you the electrobolt ability, which lets you throw an arc of electricity a few feet in front of you. Like all of the game's Adam-given abilities, electrobolt will come in equally handy in puzzle-solving and combat situations. For instance, you can use it to reenergize some controls for doorways or the many vending machines scattered throughout Rapture. But it's just as useful for stunning an enemy for a few seconds, during which one healthy whack from the wrench will put your enemy down for good (a combo that remains potent even after you start finding revolvers, shotguns, and Thompson submachine guns). Managing to sneak up on a couple of splicers wading through a pool of water and electrocuting them both in one move before they ever knew you were there can also provide a delightfully satisfying result.
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- GameSpot Score9.0Editors' Choice
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