Bioshock
is easily the one of the most-anticipated shooters of the year, and one of
the Xbox 360's flagship titles. The game is set in a dystopian underground
paradise ruled by a fascist leader. Your mission is to escape the city,
unravel its mysteries and try and save some of its inhabitants. Bioshock
offers players plenty of choices, ranging from which weapons and plasmids
to use, whether or not you want to play good or evil which is quite an
accomplishment. Bioshock's visuals are impressive, and its evocative
backstory will keep you engrossed throughout each level. There can be no
doubt that Bioshock lives up to the hype. Join us as we go off the deep
end and discover why this is one of the most impressive games on any
current generation system.
As your experience in Bioshock begins,
you find yourself as the lone survivor of a horrific plane crash, and swim
to what seems like a shelter in the form of a deserted island, only to
find it leads to something entirely different than what you'd expect from
an ordinary shooter. As you dive deeper into the world, you find that this
is no small place, but a complete and fully alive underwater city called
Rapture. This was an idealistic society built up by a leader named Andrew
Ryan where science and mankind were placed on a pedestal, while religion
and politics were shunned. In this shining city, artists and scientists
were respected and not shunned. There were also a number of scientific
breakthroughs created that brought mankind to a higher level. After being
submerged for two decades, the city began to decay rapidly and descended
into a war between different factions. However, something far more
sinister has gone horribly wrong and the citizens of the city have mutated
into what are called Splicers, somewhat human creatures who have gone into
a decaying zombified state. These poor souls wander around looking for the
genetic Adam that gives them their life force, killing anyone that gets in
their way. While you can see its horrible side-effects, you find that you
have to take this drug in order to survive in this world, which gives you
some really impressive genetic enhancements. When you upgrade your
character with these items, which are referred to as Plasmids, you are
given special powers such as the ability to shoot fire or ice from your
fingers, throw items or enemies around at will or hypnotize enemies to
kill each other. The plasmids can be used in a variety of interesting
ways. For example, when you have the power to shoot electric bolts out of
your hands, you can zap enemies standing in water and kill them much
faster, which is one of the more interesting things about Bioshock. These
plasmids are doled out via special vending machines, where you can
purchase the upgrades like candy. This itself is a clever comment on the
ease of things like designer babies and plastic surgery these days and is
just a taste of the sophisticated and fascinating world you find yourself
trapped inside.
As
you delve deeper into the game's plot, you find that this disaster has
been caused by the Adam, a special gene-enhancement drug that allows its
users to have super-human powers. However, the side-effects are quite
severe. In order to survive, you'll have to use some of the game's
weapons, such as machine guns, pistols and bombs to kill any splicers you
find. During the game players can purchase a variety of items, such as
weapons, additional health kits, atom injections and can also earn
upgrades to their character's weapon which include additional plasmid
slots, weapons upgrades, devices which auto-hack vending machines.
Addtionally, once you have killed a splicer, you can search them for
additional items, which gives you more chances to earn item upgrades. The
weapons and plasmids give players plenty of flexibility, but later on, you
can make and invent your own plasmids by combining objects in the
inventing pods, which gives Bioshock an even greater sense of sandbox or
open-ended gameplay. Using the standard shooting interface as a template,
gamers can use the onscreen menus to select which plasmid or weapon to
use. You can switch these on the fly and are only limited by the amount of
ammo or power you use. While the standard guns are fairly obvious, the
Plasmid system is a bit more complicated and requires you to inject
yourself in order to gain more power. You shoot the standard weapons with
the right trigger while the left unleashes your plasmids. It's a fairly
simple system once you get used to it and gives you a great deal of power
in the palm of your hands.
While the standard weapons are cool,
there's a lot more you can do. During the game, you can purchase upgrades,
additional weapons and items from the various vending machines you'll find
in Rapture. If you don't have enough money, you can hack these devices and
earn free items by playing a relatively simple mini-game involving slides.
This isn't as easy as it sounds, and it can be frustrating to do after
awhile. In addition to the splicers, players will have to be on the
lookout for other enemies, like the automatic bots which will attack you
if they spot you. The levels themselves are quite large with complicated
maps and multiple objectives for each mission, which makes things more
challenging. However, the good news is that the game offers frequent save
points, which are represented by Vita-Chambers. You don't need to do
anything, since the game autosaves at these points, which helps
progression move along much faster. It does makes things a little easier
than maybe it should, since enemies you've already damaged don't
regenerate their strength when you do, making them easier to kill once
you've respawned at these points. This lessens the game's difficulty
somewhat, but it doesn't really make things any easier. One of the more
interesting aspects of Bioshock lies in its sandbox gameplay, where you
are given many choices in how to approach things. Obviously, choosing
which of the Plasmid power-ups you use is one of the key factors in how
the game unfolds, and while this flexibility is apparent, it makes
Bioshock all the more immersive. Allowing players free-will ties into
Rapture's stated manifesto while also giving the game an incredible sense
of realism and intensity that many other shooters lack. The intelligence
and foresight that has gone into each gameplay element is impressive in
its own right and this doesn't even include the game's biggest draw.
As
you might have heard, the featured characters in Bioshock aren't the
splicers, but the massive, lumbering creatures called Big Daddies. These
are mutated things that have been enlisted by Andrew Ryan to protect the
smaller, seemingly vulnerable little sisters. These are genetically
enhanced little girls who are the source of Adam in the game. When you
encounter a Big Daddy, he's usually protecting a Little Sister. In order
to get the Adam she holds within her, you have to defeat the Big Daddies,
which isn't as easy as it sounds since they have plenty of firepower and
will attack you relentlessly if you threaten a little sister. One of the
more interesting things about the game comes when you defeat a Big Daddy
and capture his Little Sister. When she is in your arms, you can choose to
either harvest her outright, which will kill her instantly or show some
mercy and 'save' her. Rescuing the Little Sisters reduces the amount of
Adam you receive, and makes the game much harder to complete, since you
have fewer options in the genetic upgrade vending machines. However, there
are rewards later on that make it worthwhile. This presents an interesting
moral quandary, since the little girls are hard to kill - but you are
rewarded handsomely for doing so. This gives players yet another choice,
making much of the gameplay feel very open-ended. You can play through
Bioshock twice and have an almost completely different experience
depending on your choices. If you choose the good path, it has a positive
effect for the game later on and makes for an almost completely different
ending to the game.
> Go to Page 2
