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Bioshock or Biocrock?

It’s already become renowned for its seamless blend of an edgy, jumpy horror and inventive and unique first person shooting experience. Regardless of your taste in games, chances are you’ve been within earshot of someone singing the praises of Bioshock, and maybe they’re preaching some real gospel.

2K’s latest creation is a Frankenstein of a game. On the surface, you’re presented with another brilliant – yet increasingly generic – representation of the 360’s power. The usual water effects and glossy textures of metals, paint and of course blood do little to force today’s gamer to double take in awe. Before one jumps in to criticise, remember that this is simply one limb of this colossal monster of a game.

It’s New Year’s Eve, 1959. The player’s character is shown relaxing with a cigarette in the seat of a luxury aeroplane. After a brief gaze at a wrapped gift from his parents, the scene blackens. For reasons unknown, your plane crashes into the ocean exploding into screams and fire. Luckily you survive, pulling yourself into a mysterious tower and descending in a brass bathysphere to what you believe to be safety…Welcome to Rapture, a city without the petty restraints of Washington, the Vatican or Moscow, where freedom is truly expressed by allowing science and art to blossom together… Here begins the wow factor.

As you’re moved to the entrance of Rapture, the player is treated to a truly original take on a utopian cityscape which resembles an underwater New York skyline. The buildings, basked in a soft oceanic light, are dotted with neon signs and typical 50’s billboards with clever plays on the iconic era of nostalgic rosy commercialism. However, the products they advertise aren’t for housewife’s favourite washing powder, it’s for gene-altering tonics which have driven its engorging population to insanity and outright anarchy. This is the product of an idealised, perfect society.

Perfection is something this game tried to emulate, but it doesn’t follow through with the plan entirely. Technically speaking, the game has massive pros, such as the splendid devotion to the era the game takes place. Unfortunately, the game is let down with a pathetic four plastic-looking enemy designs with are only differentiated to one another by hair and clothing colour change. The same goes for the voice acting. As fantastic the crazed rants of the junkies are, there is, again, the issue of repetition and variety.

This problem seems unforgivable when you pick up the 100th audio diary lying around. Ironically, the sheer amount of tapes you need to pick could be considered too much depth.

It appears that Bioshock suffers through an imbalance of plot depth with the little details you’d expect such a highly acclaimed game to smack on the head the moment they drew up their shopping list.

The game picks itself up a bit with the new element of ‘genetic weapons’: it’s a real pleasure to zap ‘n’ whack a Rapturion when the game kicks off. These skills are steadily upgradable throughout the game as the enemies (sorry, I mean clones) become more frequent and begin to use the same powers against you. Use telekinesis to throw objects into enemies. Turn your hand into a flamethrower – literally - by lobbing balls of fire into leaked puddles of fuel and toast your attackers. There are enough types of gene splicing options to give you your own style of game play, which is a real breath of fresh air.

If you run out of juice, you big junkie, then relax in the knowledge that you’ll also be tooled up to the teeth with period styled weaponry – my personal favourite being a Tommy gun! Dn-dn-dn-dn-dn-dn! Ahem…

Weapons are also upgradable, but again, we fall into the issue of balance. As you’re popping the final bullets in the later levels, you’ll only have picked up six guns, one of which is pretty much useless anyway.

Although there are a few annoyances with this game, there can be no complaints about the hugely immersive storyline. Borrowing heavily from the era, the game oozes character. Drawing influences from the wake of WWII, the uprising of the Soviet Union and the commercialism of international trade and greed are the backbone of the complex, surprising and often macabre plot twists that you have the power to change.

Bioshock has been hailed by many critics as Orwell’s ‘1984’ of the gaming world, and that is essentially the angle 2K wanted. The game remains sensitive to the moral and intricate account of Rapture’s demise while you’re still free to enjoy the action packed feel of your run of the mill shoot ‘em up experience. Yet with all this praising on the street, you’d be easily led that such a detailed game should have given you a bigger range of characters to zap, shoot or cook. A great game has been diluted to the above average by poorly prioritising the gamers experience.

6/10

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