Under da seeeeaaaaa, my review of Bioshock.

I’m going to label this game under “a pleasant surprise.” 

I have to admit, I thought this game was going to suck.  A FPS corridor shooter?  Yawn.  No multiplayer?  MEGA-yawn.  I mean, how good could a game like this be?  There are 8 million First Person Shooters out there, and MOST of them at least have some kind of online multiplayer option.  How good could this game possibly be?  I mean, yeah the trailers show that it has good graphics, but at this point everything has been done with FPS, there’s nothing this game could do that’s going to be anything that can compare to other FPS games.

Well, as I said, “pleasantly surprised.”  Another way to put it is “I put my foot in my mouth.” 

This game is great.  It’s really original, and it’s very well executed.  Now, where to begin?  I guess I’ll start with the game’s strongest suite, its story and cinematics.  The entire game is a cinematic experience.  As you move through the levels, things explode, water floods, new pathways open up, new experiences happen.  The level of cinematic appeal this game is able to reach is also because of the great level design, and the great acting of the characters.  The game really delves you into the experience of walking around a giant underground city.  Which brings me to the other part of the strength of this game which is the story.  In order to have a great cinematic experience in a game, you need to have a great story, and this game packs it.  I won’t ruin it for anyone, but it’s fun, it’s original, it’s really scary, and it’s very well executed. 

The gameplay is a lot of fun to.  In the game there are basically two kinds of attacks.  One attacks are almost magical/genetic based attacks which allow you to do all kinds of things from electrocuting enemies, freezing them, lighting them on fire, and the list goes on and on.  The other aspect of the gameplay is your typical bread and butter FPS guns and ammo.  The great thing about the gameplay though is the ability to quickly switch back and forth between these to fighting styles and make combos out of them.  Shock a guy and then while he’s stunned club him upside the head with a wrench.  The gameplay is also underlined by a great interactive environment and enemy AI.  For instance, you can light a guy on fire, and then he runs and jumps in a puddle of water to put out the flames, and then you can electrocute the water their in to finish them off.

The graphics and audio are both great.  All of the sounds sound great and scary and loud, and all of the graphics are detailed and intricate. 

One big complaint though, is the lack of multiplayer.  2K went on record as saying that they didn’t do multiplayer because the single player game was to involving and they felt that a multiplayer would take away form the single player experience.  I have to admit I don’t really buy this explanation, I just think they probably ran out of time and/or money in order to do a multiplayer.

But oh well, it doesn’t matter, because Bioshock, as it is, is a great great game.  I highly recommend it! 

-Awesome McCrunchFist

Here’s some footage of Bioshock as posted on YouTube:

Comments (1)

	1. 30-08-2007 04:45
	Honestly, great review. I would have to take the side of 2K though. I don't think that the developers should put multi player in the game unless they put time into it. Some examples that I can think of are Doom 3 and Prey. Pretty decent single player stuff, but the multi player was clearly an after thought. 2K seems to be the first developing company to understand that (which is something I've been thinking about for a while now). Plus... I'm not spending fifty/sixty dollars so I can play death match for the fiftieth fucking time. I'm a fucking genius. Report

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