"There's nothing which will make you ever want to stop playing; you'll simply curse under your breath and get on with killing Splicers and hunting Little Sisters."
The hype has reached such ridiculous levels at this point that BioShock really needs no introduction. Know only that it is a truly massive game whose most overwhelming success is found in the thousands of small "holy crap" moments which crop up as you plug your way through the lengthy and involving story. This is emergent gameplay at its finest. Like when you first get your Telekinesis plasmid and learn that thrown corpses are as lethal as any bullet, be they vendor-purchased or hand-crafted. Or when you take down a Big Daddy not because you have a lot of ammo or health packs, but merely because you hack an RPG turret at the very moment one of the mysterious behemoths shambles into the room. BioShock is at base a game which rewards creativity. Note that if you've never read a word about BioShock before then you're probably going to want to start here (check out the FAQs). This review assumes that the reader already has a basic understanding of the game and its mechanics.
T
he Rapture of BioShock
BioShock's undersea city of Rapture is a character unto itself. The art-deco design is offset by freely burning fires, collapsed rooms and clear signs of struggle. Some bad mojo went down in Rapture, and it went down recently. If not for the occasional whale gliding past the city's view ports, it would be easy to take the city for a 1950s sci-fi vision of post-apocalyptic Earth. The lessons of Rapture founder Andrew Ryan's flawed Utopian ideals are on permanent display in the twisted dystopian ecology which has grown and continues to exist within the wreckage of his failed experiment. From the increasingly maniacal Splicers to the innocent malevolence of the Little Sisters' ADAM harvesting activities, Rapture owes much to trashy 50s science fiction film, the same sort you see being mocked on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Rapture is not to be taken lightly however. Splicers - your primary enemy - appear in great abundance and even re-spawn as you tread back over previously visited areas. They're smart too; if you happen to get killed, it's probably because they out-thought you (or because a Big Daddy ran through you with his gigantic drill). Since a good portion of the game involves freeing Little Sisters, there's always a balance to be struck when clearing Splicers out of a new area. The crafty player will even leave pockets of them alone, quietly creeping by with the intention of later returning with an angry Big Daddy in tow. On the other hand, wiping them all out and using the open space they once occupied as an arena to face off in single combat against the Big Daddy is also an option. That's the beauty of BioShock's mechanics. Between the much-touted "A.I. ecology" and the sheer variety of abilities accessible through the game's Plasmids, you're able to do pretty much anything you can think of.
Unleashing the Awesome Power of BioShock
How about those Plasmids? From what we've seen in demos - Enrage, Incinerate!, Winter Blast - to what we haven't (no spoilers here), the array of abilities you come to manipulate the world with over the course of the game is staggering. Basic concepts such as fooling the enemy into fighting for you play out on every level, from the smallest flying sentry bots to the largest of the large, the Big Daddies themselves. Even the first combo added to your repertoire - the one-two punch of an Electro Bolt stun attack followed by a wrench to the head (a move we've lovingly come to refer to as the "Shock-Smack") - remains an effective means of combat into the mid- and late-game. Especially when your melee skills are amped up with a Gene Tonic or two.
Gene Tonics are split across three categories: Combat, Engineering and Physical. Like Plasmids, you start with only two open slots for assigning Tonics to, but you can purchase additional ones from special Gatherer's Garden vending machines. Equipped Gene Tonics bestow passive abilities, many of which operate behind the scenes. Wrench Jockey, for example, is a Combat Gene Tonic which ups the damage of your physical attacks. Scrounger, on the other hand, is a Physical Gene Tonic which lets you re-randomize one time the contents of any container you search. Though they don't have the weaponized appeal of Plasmid abilities, Gene Tonics become indispensable in the later parts of the game and you'll want to buy additional slots to house them when you have the opportunity.
Weapon and ammo upgrades are also available, though they won't be much of a concern until you reach the third or fourth area of the game. Once you pass a certain checkpoint, random items such as gasoline and rubber tubing start to pop up in your container searches. These are used at U-Invent stations to create new kinds of ammo (there's one type for each weapon that can ONLY be invented), auto-hacking tools and even upgraded Gene Tonics. Best of all, BioShock's total lack of an inventory system means that you'll only have to worry about your stocks of certain items when you visit an associated vending machine.
There's been very little mention in the press leading up to BioShock's release of the camera you receive early on in the game. There are no spoilers here, unless you count game mechanics described in the manual as a spoiler. Once you obtain it, the camera is used to snap photos of the varying creatures and creations you come across in your trek through Rapture. The more photos - and the better photos - that you take of a given being, the more research you accrue on it. As you gather research a meter fills; top out the meter and improved abilities are unlocked. The camera provides yet another level of character customization to a game which is already rife with it.
The Highs and Lows of BioShock
There's quite a lot to like about BioShock. The FPS controls are smooth, environments pop with glowing objects (which marks an item as worthy of your notice) and the simplification of basic mechanics such as Plasmid/Tonic slot shuffling and item acquisition to vending machines simultaneously makes the interface easy to manage while adding an additional level of strategizing to the game. You really need to plan ahead when you're first heading out into a new territory. Certain Plasmids, such as Electro Bolt, are absolutely indispensable in those situations. BioShock also features an encyclopedic help screen. While it doesn't contain a description for everything, there's still more than an adequate amount of information. Add to that the always-welcome "save anywhere" feature and you're left with a very user-friendly presentation.
There are a few negatives to report. Searched containers - as far as we can tell anyway - are all-or-nothing propositions. If you search a trash can and find three items, two of which you actually want, you're still stuck taking all three. This wouldn't be so terrible if it weren't for the mixed effects of consumable food. Items such as wine, coffee and potato chips are used immediately and have a mixed set of effects on your remaining health and EVE (BioShock's "magic points"). Some raise both while others raise one and lower the other. It's usually an insignificant change, but that's besides the point. In a game that lets you do pretty much anything you can think of, the fact that you can't take selected items out of a container is a bit mind-boggling.
Also, as welcome as the simplified presentation is, it's safe to say that most hard-core gamers would have been happy with a few additional menus. For instance, there's no way to check which Gene Tonics you have equipped and which you have in your private stash without visiting a Gene Bank. Not only that, but the otherwise helpful encyclopedia doesn't offer any descriptions of found Plasmids and Tonics; once again, you'll have to find a Gene Bank for answers. And while the lack of an inventory screen has its upsides, the most hardcore of the hardcore will likely want for one in the late-game as they try to invent every object and Tonic that Rapture has to offer.
These minor complaints mean very little in the end. There's nothing which will make you ever want to stop playing; you'll simply curse under your breath and get on with killing Splicers and hunting Little Sisters. There's also a core story which this review hasn't even touched on, and with good cause. 2K Games has remained notoriously tight-lipped on plot details and we'll do the same. But just what do those ghosts and surreal images which keep popping up mean? And what are those odd, chain-shaped tattoos on our protagonist's wrists? Could there be some deeper connection between the main character and Rapture than we are first led to believe? You'll have to discover these answers for yourself as you make your way through the murky depths and face the untold horrors of Rapture's darkest corners.
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