So, I definitely love video games and I never have enough time for it as much as I would love to have.
While I play them slowly (very slowly, mind you) I try to give a go to both new and modern ones and also the older ones which I didn't get a chance to play back when they came out.
Bioforge was quite surprising, and therefore you can see me reviewing this little game on the year of 2017 when this game actually came out a little more than 20 years ago (!!).
Unfortunately Bioforge, although being fully playable with the assistance of emulators such as DosBox, would probably not be a game anyone would bother to complete ever again unless one has the nerves of steel, or perhaps already played it 20 years ago and just loves the nostalgia..
Bioforge is, as I wrote on the title, a masterpiece of storytelling. That's what made me give it 7 points out of 10. Not even 20 years can wipe away a story that is not only good, but also told sophisticatedly and is pretty much well crafted.
It is a very early attempt (as far as I know) trying to merge the action and the classic adventure elements into one game. The environment is a 3D environment and you'll navigate with your character around, and would sometimes have to fight your way through, and do some other action stuff. Yet, Bioforge is not at all fully combat or action driven, and there are plenty of puzzles to solve and reading to do. Yes, quite a lot of reading. The story is uncovered by both the ongoing events in the game and also various logs and writings left behind that you'd find.
Unfortunately, like many games of the 90's Bioforge is not one of those games which are still relevant so long after publish. You just can't get away with the fact that it's OLD, and it shows, with highly pixelated graphics, a very classic DOS-games-era soundtrack, and above all, gameplay mechanics which are horribly irritating and uncomfortable nowadays. Fighting especially can be a true hassle. Camera angles can be torturous at times, and the game itself is highly unforgiving, as you can easily miss things or perform actions which would leave you with no way to advance rather than loading a saved game.
Those things made this game very hard for me and I'd have to admit that halfway through I just quit playing and watched a walkthrough on Youtube instead.
What's beautiful about Bioforge is that it manages to create a capturing atmosphere despite being so technically inferior in these days. I haven't encountered many late games with such a quality story, especially such which still manage to remain an actual 'game' and not become an interactive movie and\or a walking sim.
Too bad, though, that even the story falls flat on its face at the very abrupt ending of the game, which is probably done this way because there were both a sequel and an addon planned for Bioforge, and sadly both were cancelled. As the original developers are long gone from the video game business, I guess it is highly unlikely we would ever see a sequel or even a remake (Which I absolutely would have loved to play, was there one in development), and Bioforge remains abandoned and irrelevant pretty much forevermore.