Bioshock is an important game for me. it immediately stuck me as a highly polished first person shooter (a favourite genre of mine) with an important difference: The plot was finely crafted, so the story behind the game became an important feature of it. This feature fuelled the addictive nature of the game, in wanting to make me play it through to the end.
The attention paid to the premise, script, acting and storyline of games is hugely important to me. As the differnences in being entertained by films and interacting with games diminish, it lessens the gap between watching a film and interacting with it. Bioshock gave me a stong feeling that I was involved in what was going on.
Set in a distopian underwater civilisation where religion and government and moral ethics had been abandoned for the furtherment of human creation, the player is thrust into the depths of a wierd art-deco style underwater environment with chemically enhanced and suitably deranged foes attacking from all sides. Huge diving suit wearing "big daddies" also roam the levels while guarding "little sisters", who collect valuable "adam"; a substance that can increase your own abilities.
The game has moral dilemmas where you have a choice as to whether to "harvest" a little sister (if you manage to catch her), or free her. The moral outcomes affect the difficulty of the game, as the benevolent player ends up with fewer upgrades. There are always several characters around to advise you, but should you listen to them?
It took me about 20 hours to play though the game. There are some 13 levels in Rapture (the seting for Bioshock) and each one has at least one "big daddy"roaming around in it. Oddly, if they don't get bothered, they won't bother you back. If, they do get attacked though, they are fierce and un-relenting in responding and very hard to kill.
If you die in Rapture, there is always a vita chamber (or re-spawn point) nearby. One re=spawned, the enemies you were fighting retain all the damage done to them and you retain all your upgrades, so death is not really so bad. Some say this makes the game too easy, but due to the nature and placemen of the enemies in levels, random or unexpected death can happen.
Bad points:
There was a sag in the middle of the game. Some mid-game missions felt tacked on. But the game's final sections are very good and there are a few twists in there for those coming to the game fresh.
The variety of enemies is a bit limited. Sometimes the action is too frenetic - with multiple enenies attacking en-masse. The careful planning of clearing an area with booby-traps, considered use of "tonics" (special abilities that can change enemy behaviour) can only be done after several play-thoughs of a level, which defeats the surprise element a bit.
Pipe-minigame quickly became tiresome.
High points:
The plot progression was mostly excellent and the voice acting and script were great. The twist got me thinking.
Fighting was quite bloody and visceral and the environment was beautiful: detailed, polished and stylised really well. The game is quite a looker.
The upgrades were well thought out and inventive. Freezing opponenents then hitting then smashed them into little pieces. Or setting an enemy on fire, so they would dash into water, then firing an electro-bolt at the water to electrocute them infer many other clever ways to dispatch your foes in this game.
