Bioshock

I've been playing several of the newer First Person Shooters lately, so I guess it would be proper if I actually gave my stance towards one of the ones I played. Bioshock was last weekend's adventure, and I have some mixed feelings about it. The story is about a man who is fighting his way through an underwater city created by scientists who shunned all authority. That means that morality and restrictions were nonexistent when research was going on. This all takes place in 1960, so it's a bit odd having advanced technology all around you, but I suppose all those morals and government restrictions were the only thing holding back our inventing genetic enhancements and robotics after WWII.

You get mostly your standard arsenal of weapons: pistol, machine gun, grenade launcher, etc...but you also get a crossbow and chemical thrower, so there is originality in the weapons. Also, each weapon has 3 types of ammunition (generally an antipersonnel round, anti-machine round, and the normal rounds). Where Bioshock sets itself apart from most other FPS is the Plasmids. These are genetic mutations for humans that give them superhuman abilities such as throwing lightning, pyrokinesis, telekinesis, and summoning swarms of bees. Since I'm a bit slow to change, I found myself using the Plasmids only for the puzzle attributes of the game. Sure, I set a guy or two on fire every now and then, but I really just used the guns for any real fighting. Speaking of fighting, I hope you have a very nice computer to run this game on. I was annoyed when I had to turn the visuals on medium settings because the lag from 5 enemies in the room with me stopped me from aiming well. Bah! The enemies are the most mobile of any standard foes I've ever faced in a FPS before, so aiming isn't easy anyways. The graphics really aren't the high point of this game (although it is pretty looking), so it really isn't much of a sacrifice.

The best part of the entire game is the "Little Sisters" and the "Big Daddies." The Little Sisters are young girls who go around with giant hypodermic needles and suck out everyone's life force when they die. To protect the girls, giant genetic monsters in diving suits walk around with either large drills or rivet guns for weapons. What makes these the best part of the game is the interaction between the two. The Little Sisters call their escorts "Mr. Bubbles." I'm not sure if it's the diving suits or what...but seeing a giant creature that can tear me up instantly referred to as "Mr. Bubbles" by a little girl made me laugh every time I heard it. Also, when you defeat the Big Daddy that guards the girl, you have a choice to make...you get to either save the little girl, or suck the life out of her. Whether you kill or save all the little girls determines which ending sequence you acquire. If you value playing more, suck the gals clean. However, if you want to take the higher path and see a different 30 second ending movie, keep them alive. I was surprised when I decided to save them all, but I guess the "Mr. Bubbles" thing kept me more amused than seeing a lifeless little girl tossed away like a banana peel.

However, the game did have its faults. Unfortunately, the farther along the game progresses, the worse the combat gets. The creators could never keep a balance between the storyline and the game play, so you get all the good game play in the first half and the deep story in the second half. Your enemies respawn when you exit the rooms, yet your ammo does not. Because of this fact, I found that it's actually better to just run through all the rooms. The enemies you fight only get slightly more challenging as the game goes on, and the upgrades to your weapons keep them at about the same effectiveness because of the improved enemies. There is only one real boss fight in the entire game (the others were just normal enemies with slightly more health and were just annoying-not difficult). I found that the Big Daddies were actually more of a challenge than any of those boss fights. The final boss was rather pointless: just use Incinerate 3 on him over and over (Roy Mustang vs. Lust anyone?). I actually felt a considerable amount of similarity to Dementium: The Ward towards the second half of the game with the avoiding enemies while running, little creepy girls, pointless final boss, infinite enemy respawn with no ammo, the worthless and disappointing ending movie, and the single weekend it takes to beat it (seeing some patterns?). If you liked Dementium, then this will probably be your favorite game ever. If you didn't...it's still a good game. It just loses its novelty halfway through. I guess 2007 really didn't have that many good game releases in the FPS category, because this won all kinds of amazing awards from several different gaming magazines and tech companies. Personally...I think it was really fun, but I wouldn't really like to play through it again for a while. (Rainbow 6: Vegas review coming next).

Rating: B