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Afternoon on a 360: Bioshock
Posted 7th September 2007 at 9:35pm by M1ke, tagged as Games, Xbox 360 | Commenting Closed

I've read a lot about Bioshock, the spiritual successor to the great RP/Scary Game System Shock 2 by developers Irrational Software. I'll give them that it's certainly atmospheric - from the moment it begins the graphics shine out, firstly rendering flames over the best water I've ever seen in a game, then rendering an under water city as you are taken through it in some sort of capsule. The game is set in the 1960s, and brings you to the underwater city of Rapture, a place built on a man's dreams of freedom from tyranny and opression, and a place that's gone totally insane.

During the first hours of playing I'd smacked dozens of angry humanoids known as splicers (some still wearing party masks from before whatever kicked off the whole freakshow) with a conveniently located wrench, chucked myself off a balcony after injecting something called a plasmid into my veins (I personally wouldn't do that if I found a syringe lying around), shot lighting and fire from my hands, picked up a gas canister telekenetically and thrown it at a made plastic surgeon with a machine gun, pulled a slug like creature out of a small girl and had my ass handed to me by a giant... thing with a drill for an arm. It's fairly intense, wondefully artistic, clever, scary and more than a bit confusing.

It's the aformentioned confusion that has to be pointed out as the bad point (with it also being pointed out that this isn't a review and I've not played that far in - I shall save that for when I get the PC version). You cleverly end up with a guide talking through a radio. His name is Atlas and he tells you how to go about various tasks as the game progresses, including the early bits where you're learning. The thing is at times he seems fairly absent,and it's at those times when you're clueless as to what to do. When trying to find the aformentioned plastic surgeon I was clueless as to where to go, and despite randomly finding a fire plasmid allowing me to melt some random ice which led to a telekinesis plasmid I was none the wiser. When I did locate the door it was an unmarked (albeit large) one in the room I'd started and the first obstacle through it required the telekinesis plasmid to get past. All well and good for use of abilities but quite lacking in any subtle hints for the first time player.

The fight with the surgeon was confusing for another reason - up to that point to kill an enemy I zapped them with electricity then whacked them in the head with my wrench. However after performing the same trick with the doctor he just kept running around shooting me, so I had to do it again. Then again about five more times. Then I ran out of EVE (the substance which lets you use plasmids) so I threw a canister at him with telekinesis. Once again, it was unexpected for him to be so tough, his movements made no sense and it was hard to work out what I could throw to damage him. I can understand this later in the game, but not so early on.

When fighting the first Big Daddy later on I was utterly clueless as to how to proceed, seeing as emptying all my ammo and electricity into it only damaged it to about half its health, then it proceeded to tear me a new one. Another avenue of confusion opened up here as I was reincarnated handily at a nearby machine. So I went in and shot it with some more ammo I found along the way. I died again, came back and just started beating it with a wrench. After another death it died, but by this time I'd lost all ammo, health packs, EVE syringes and the Little Sister (they give you plasmid upgrades once the Big Daddy is dead) that I was after in the first place. Confusion, both in how to fight the bugger, and in how you can basically just keep hitting things until they die, even if you die a few times in the process.

Playing further would doubtless have given me more to praise the game on, and apart from those few confusing moments I spent a good few hours loving Bioshock. Maybe it will be easier to cope when it's on my good PC, but at the end of the day I wouldn't let some teething troubles spoil what seems like the best game of the year.

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