With all the hype regarding high production quality and good intentions to revolutionize the fps genre, it has been assumed that Bioshock would rise to greatness. i don't understand, then, why there's such a huge sigh of dissapointment coming from some whose insatiable appetite for bigger better fps wasn't satisfied. We can all agree that Bioshock is one of the better games to come around in the early Fall season. It's also a given that in spite of its virtues it has also got some quirks that'll annoy the nitpicky. We know the MAIN issues are the short length of the game, the existence of vita chambers, or the lack of enemy variety. I think the negative reaction is relative to what you want. If you think gameplay should be as sophisticated as its storyline and setting, then you are sorely mistaken. Bioshock, in spite of all its philosophy or phenomenology, is nothing more than one extremely fun game. It's fun because you're offered your choice to experiment with how you want to "interact with the world" which is nothing more than how you fight, and fighting is the only thing you should be doing. In spite of what we have assumed from Ken Levine's description of Bioshock's gameplay, interaction with the 'world' remains a violent one. There's no pretensions to building some community while on your quest in Rapture. In fact, I think a feature of a expandable world would have been as frivolous as trying to include multiplayer to an inherently single player game. This isn't a "straightfoward fps" if you choose not to. Even if they are violent, the battles in Bioshock are far from realistic. In fact they are *over the top* and it's what Maxim magazine described as a "blast happy" experience. This is not a bad thing. It is not kitsch. I think the drama, maybe the melodrama, of Bioshock's battles serve mostly to keep you on edge most of the time that you're playing, as would SS2. It's fun because for the most part there's incessant noise coming from crazed splicers, big daddys, the moan of Rapture under the pressure of the ocean. It kinda makes sense that because you get to use plasmids, your enemies have their own ARTILERY bombs, drills, hooks. The setting in Bioshock might have misled some to think it would have been an "open world adventure" but its more like one hugh labyrinth. this again is nothing bad. There's much influence from ss2 in the way the setting has been treated. Its very claustrophobic and there's an intense focus on spot lighting and huge areas of pitch black dark, adding much to a feeling of paranoia. A bad "habit" would have been the constant reliance on "generic" characters to push the story's progression. This mostly seemed minor. The npcs and corpses were very well rendered that they still were convinving inhabitants of rapture even though it only seemed like certain archetypes were the only surviving members. There are only two types of Big Daddies but i ve no idea what other big daddies would have looked like or what they would have done to make them look any scarier than they are. Graphically, Bioshock moves very smoothly in spite of the minor visual setbacks. Textures are low are minor in comparison to the latter smooth framerate. Sound is a major component to the game as a constant ambiance. Visually the game is monochromatic but only because there's lots of artificial lighting and the prevalence of blue. Bioshock is a fun game, period. Not because it's brainless fps, and not only because you can blow people up with telekinesis. you're enjoyment is only limited by your imagination while playing.
Have you ever dreamed of a place where morality and religion don’t exist? A place where the sole limit of science and industry is man’s imagination? Dream no more, friend; welcome to Rapture. BioShock is the much-hype... Read Full Review
In a time where there are literally thousands of first person shooters out there, BioShock proves that there still is something for the genre that has not yet been done. It combines atmosphere, story, and gameplay like n... Read Full Review
