Hurry up Mr. B
I realize that Bioshock is a slightly older game these days but reviewing games I beat for the first time is sort of becoming habit at this point. That said Bioshock was a game that at launch didn’t pull me in. I tried to get into it multiple times since release but it just didn’t do it for me… until now. I finally decided to go through Bioshock whether or not I enjoyed it or not. Surprisingly after giving Bioshock a little more time the game sunk its hooks in.
The game play in Bioshock isn’t amazing or revolutionary but it is functional and with limited frustrations, which is a large plus. We are given the typical range of fire arms from pistols, shotguns, machine guns etc. But with an interesting feature that allows us to physically and visually upgrade our weapons each with a couple upgrades per weapon. On top of our typical fair of hand cannons we get plasmids which are essentially magic spells that use a pool of mana which is not actually called mana. In the story it works well enough and it does offer a cool feature to the game play. You get plasmids that can control enemy machines all the way to burn said enemies to crisps. The handling in the FPS shooting could be a little bit better but you won’t be getting a ton of stray shots either though. The only issues I had in the game was the frustrating map layout and some of quests got slightly tedious but those are small complaints.
The story is really what shines here. Bioshock without the story wouldn’t be near the game it is today. We are taken on a wonderfully creepy journey through the retro stylings and sounds of the 1950’s in a city deep under the ocean. The city called Rapture was supposed to be a utopia but has fallen to evil forces and ruined the people that once inhabited the great city. We are met with plenty of medically insane whack jobs who are more than willing to spill your guts as well as some cool choice game play decisions that will affect your end result along with some nice plot twists. The story from start to finish is well connected and ends up leaving you with the feeling of accomplishment, a hard feat in a video game.
The engine in Bioshock is solid, the frame rate only chugs a few times during heavy action and the world looks beautiful. Character animations are smooth and the graphics have a great retro look to them. All in all the tech didn’t blow my mind but it was better than average and I was especially pleased with the water dynamics and how they managed to translate the art not to mention the great use of sound and voice work in this game.
If a retro styled first person shooter set in the 1950’s with a taste of horror sounds intriguing then Bioshock is for you. Couple that with the fact the story is solid and the weapon mechanics are interesting and you get more than what is advertised here especially at today’s prices.
