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BioShock

Published: Sat 5 Dec, 2009 | On:

Bioshock on the Xbox 360 has to be one of the most amazing games I have ever played. From the aspects of the games interesting characters and enemies to the games story, this game is almost flawless. It really was the game of 2007 that showed that a shooter can be original and not something that we have all seen and done before.

I am going to start off with comments on the story of Bioshock. In a quick summary, You are a man who has so far made very little of his life. It is the late 1950’s and your plane has crashed in the middle of the ocean. When you character rises to the surface he sees a lighthouse in the middle of the water through all of the flames. Once he enters the lighthouse, your character will be navigated through many different stairs and elevators until you find yourself having a comfortable and welcoming visit from the folks at Rapture (sarcasm). A man over an intercom will help you to get on your feet and come to grips with this under-sea hell. In exchange, you will help him to save his family (you will not meet this man for a while). I will not go into detail because if I was to go into more detail, I would be giving one of the most amazing plot twists I have ever seen in a game away. I am not going to give any details away but the twist in this story is up to standards with some of the best movies that are coming out in modern days. The story is also something that is interesting. You get the feeling that you want to meet this friendly man over the intercom and you want to see the look on his face when you save his family. It can push you through the game for not only the fun of the game-play but for the desire to know what will progress and develop from this story. It really is something that you very rarely or even never see from stories in games that have ever come out.

Onto the game play elements now. This game has been made to feel like a survival horror game while also keeping the roots of a shooter. You will start off with a wrench to fight your way through enemies. It is quite effective, but if you are playing on harder difficulties then the wrench will take a while for killing your enemies. When you collect ammo, you are not getting a lot. You may collect about 25 bullets which would be enough to get through to the next 25 enemies. Because of this, you will at some point most likely end up using your wrench to fight through enemies just because you have no choice. It is an interesting mix that works quite well and can make the city of rapture feel like the place you really do not want to be. As well as guns and the wrench, you will soon be equipped with plasmids. These plasmids are like magic powers that allow for the player to incinerate and shock your enemies. I will not say anymore of them because some of them are pretty awesome to find out. The plasmids work great in this game because of the first person perspective. When you use these powers you will push you hand towards the enemy to release the flames or whatever tonic you are using. To fuel up the plasmids (like you would reload a gun) you have to inject a large needle into your characters arm. It can look quite gruesome and it works well to show the horror of this place just from how realistic it can be from the first person perspective. The first person perspective can help the player to feel like they are part of Rapture and is if they are seeing it through their own eyes. This game would simply not work as well in a third person perspective.

Onto the graphical content now, this game is made in 2007 so it should be noted that many games that come out today will look a lot better. But that does not stop this game from looking amazing. When you first enter Rapture, you will get a large view of the city from your elevator as you are flown over the buildings of rapture. This is the point where I realised how much of a masterpiece this game really is. The undersea setting is freighting, it is not some place where everyone lives in piece. Instead, the place is in chaos and the place is just falling apart. The enemies have been made to look freighting and just plain creepy. They wear strange masks and say some quotes that can make you laugh and at other times just creep you out (such as a mother crying over her baby wrench). You will also get many flashes across the screen of random images or flashbacks. They can be something so simple but they can give you a fright when you are just walking down a hall way with nothing disturbing you. I should also point out that this game is not scary as in Silent Hill scary but it is rather the factor of being scared from the creepiness factor of the enemies and the occasional flash of pictures. The creepiness factor may not work on some people because they are just not getting into the game enough or they just are not paying attention.

In conclusion, this game is simple amazing. It easily deserves all of the reviews that it has been receiving and has no doubt been more than I wanted. The only thing I can criticize is the fact that the absence of multiplayer makes for poor replay value. Multiplayer is going to be in Bioshock 2 so we can expect some replay from there. If it was not for the lack of multiplayer, this game would almost be flawless. It simply innovates in both the category of first person shooters and horror survival games at once. No doubt the biggest innovator of 2007.