Bioshocked
Every so often a special game comes out. Something that shakes the jaded out of their complacency. I pre-ordered Bioshock (a rare thing) and sat down with it late last night. I did this despite getting games sent to me for free. Despite having a review backlog that threatens to topple and bury my dog. But I did it based solely on reputation and experience. I mean, could the makers of System Shock, System Shock 2, Freedom Force, and Freedom Force vs. The 3rd Reich steer me wrong?
Short answer – no. Long answer – hell no.
Ken Levine is (the company formerly known as) Irrational’s “story guy”. He gets it. While the industry wonders why games like Halo and Half-Life are remembered so fondly by gamers, Ken knowns why. It’s about place. A firm grasp of where you are and what you’re doing. How the world fits together. Halo offered a fully realized and very simple space opera. Half-Life merged paranoia with a fairly standard but well-thought out alien invasion – and the sequel gave us a real-feeling distopian “1984” style world. Both are places we’ve been before and were remarkable because it was the old made new.
What makes Bioshock so amazing is that the place it envelopes you with – in loving, disturbing, detail – is a place you’ve never even thought to go.
In fact, I expect to some gamers, it’s off-putting. It’s a future/past pastiche. The industrial gothic look of the early silent film Metropolis meets Tim Burton’s vision of Gotham City, only put underwater. It’s Jules Verne meets HG Wells by way of Michael Crichton and Philip K. Dick. An underwater attempt at Utopia where gene splicing has run rampant, truly squeamish medical ethics violations subvert vanity and create monstrosity – and it’s a place where, in order to succeed, you’ve got to kill or be kind to horrifying little girls in order to steal their slugs.
It’s not about tactics (though the combat in the game is brutal, thrilling, and tactics do matter). It’s not about graphics (though these are state of the art and stunning). Bioshock is that rare video game that has a true sense of place. Everything fits in. Everything creates an atmosphere that’s palpable, unique, and real.
I’d never imagine I’d ever visit a place like Rapture (Bioshock’s setting). Now I wonder why we let video game developers consistently sell us so much less than that. Bioshock’s mix of 1930’s architecture, future technology, strange horror, and Jules Verne sci-fi is a place I never thought I’d go… now I just don’t want to leave.
(Not for kids, a GamerDad review is coming soon)
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:51 am
The atmosphere, environment and unfolding tale are all wonderfully done. Perhaps my fave moment so far – in a corridor after a fairly large battle, the dust was still settling and smoke clearing, but above the din I could now hear ‘It had to be you’ on a violin that could have been a classic Stephan Grapelli recording … it is these little moments of juxtaposition that are making it a unique experience for me.
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:57 am
The sound is incredible. For the reason you mention – the music is just eerie and makes it feel like a futuristic shooter trapped in an old fashioned ghost story. I can’t get the voice acting for the Doctor out of my head. It’s like they ripped him from an old radio drama. Don’t want to spoil it, but the climax of the medical section is heartstopping just because of the audio alone!
And do yourself a favor, don’t skip an audio diary. It just shows how brilliant, yet at the same time botched, the same idea was in Doom 3.
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:36 am
So is it worth playing for anyone who hasn’t played System Shock / SS2? I know it’s not a real sequel, but..
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:38 am
It has nothing to do with System Shock 1&2. Except in that Francis Ford Coppolla made Apocaypse Now and The Godfather kind of way.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:38 am
Yeah I will say the environment and the production values are top notch like you describe.
But I think the gameplay is fairly standard stuff. Very Fearish and Doom3ish. IT’s really like a Doom3 sequel.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:49 am
I’ll give the demo a spin. It’s really not the sort of game I buy, though – so while I’d prefer to play it on the PC, if I do end up playing it it’ll be on a console, rented from GameFly
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:37 am
I personally find that games that take an solid footing in their settings almost always turn out to be the better games. Demon’s Crest, La-Mulana, Cave Story, Fallout 2, Butcher’s Bay…atmosphere tended to meld with the dynamics of gameplay. That said, those who haven’t played System Shock should find Bioshock to be an good game. Simply put, the System Shock series simply has many relations to Bioshock to those in the know.
Ken Levine and Irrational (now 2KBoston) created the original System Shock, which was sometime around when Doom came to prominence. It had a type of mouse look, in-game inventory, audio logs (which are voice on the CD version), and was all about the fall of an spacestation to an AI menace unleashed by an unwitting protagonist. In System Shock’s setting, corporations were more powerful than government, but shareholders and CEOs held power over companies to an point. Diego, hired the player to remove SHODAN’s AI constraints so that he could remove incriminating information. SHODAN’s sentience and desire to research were unchecked, thus humans on the station eventually were conquered by her.
In the System Shock series, the weaknesses of humans gave rise to great danger through corruption – which inevitably collapses the local power structure when the protagonist enters. The series made itself different from other shooters by developing ideas and concepts that were different from others at their times. System Shock 2 had an RPG-like statistic and trait system, stealth through sound and light, still had audio logs, and upgradeable weapons, psionic powers, and researching objects.
Bioshock isn’t directly related to System Shock, but is rather a spiritual successor in most regards. While it won’t push the envelope in new ideas, it is more like an refinement. It may be well founded to do so, because it seems like Bioshock tries to do what System Shock 2 did, but better with modern technology at it’s side. Which is why many people who had played the older titles look forward to Bioshock – but newcomers would probably enjoy the experience just as much.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:47 am
@ Freakhead –
While I don’t focus on it here.
I disagree. Sure, it is like FEAR, Doom3 – and almost any other shooter you’d like to mention – but similar in the way a standard fantasy novel is similar to Lord of the Rings. Bioshock is done with a lot more care and planning – and it goes to 11.
But not JUST in terms of atmosphere and creativity (and cohesion) – tactically it’s a lot more interesting because I have more choices. I can use the environment better than most shooters. The weapons are far more diverse. Hacking and plasmids give a lot more options than usual.
So, while it’s a shooter like Doom 3, it could never be mistaken for Doom 3 – in terms of gameplay too.
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Any opinions on AspectRatioGate?
I think it’s a bit of a cop-out, to be honest.
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:56 pm
“I think it’s a bit of a cop-out, to be honest.”
I think the issue is way overblown, to be honest.
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:04 pm
I’m honestly much more concerned about the whole activation scheme thing. But even that seems like it is overblown. I’ve not noticed any issues on my 1900 x 1200 screen.
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Oh, I think it’s overblown too – as does the author of the article I linked to, given his wry tone – but then again I’m not one of those people affected by FOV issues.
Then again again, I haven’t played it yet. Time to install that demo 😀
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:15 pm
I have snapped some screens and 1024 x 768 (i.e. non-WS) *DOES* show the most area compared to 1280 x 720 WS or 1900 x 1200WS
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Yeah stories just can’t drive games for me. That’s because I can’t play a game I’ve played before for 20 hours just to get a 2 hour story that I maybe haven’t quite seen before. Never mind that most vidgame stories are meh. I think movies and books will always have an advantage in telling stories. Vid games are about interaction with the screen.
I definitely find myself having a waning interest in sp shooters because of the repetiveness of it all. New and improved graphics help me get through a few hours, but then without some new mechanics it just gets old.
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:14 pm
I have no comment on “widescreen ratiogate” (though that sounds like a blog post of its own). But I do think the main character is a dwarf. There are um.. those stick-a-quarter-in-them-binoculars thingies at the Grand Canyon, in the Arkadia level and, judging from your perspective on them, they’re made for people 8′ tall.
And Freakhead, it’s about a lot more than story but yeah… if mechanics are the main reason you play games, this won’t excite you like it will some of us.
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Well I played the pc demo and my enjoyment went up alot. 🙂 It’s still a fairly standard shooter, but it’s alot faster paced when I played it on the pc.
I’m too much a whiz with the mouse/keyboard and too terrible at the thumbsticks to enjoy the 360 version. Everytime I want to check a corpse it takes 10 seconds on the 360. ON the mouse it’s a 1/5 of that. I strafe to aim on the 360 and just shoot in the air hoping to get lucky. It’s just more slower.
It looks worse on my iMac, but plays better. … I may have to build that gaming pc afterall. I’ve tried to let go of k/m, but I can’t. Not for these games.
Now if the wiimote worked with the 360 version. That would be sweet.
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Freakhead just guaranteed I won’t get a console in this generation 😀
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:57 pm
To clarify too I Like shooters like HL2 that are more than just shooting. So far in Bio it’s like all shooting things. Gets old for me.
Antoher thing HL2 too had is characters to identify with and care about. I haven’t got any of that in the opening few hours of Bio. IT’s left me not caring too much about the world right now. IT’s got alot of nice symbols of a steampunk world, but so far lacks some human element for me. Just my first impressions again.
August 23rd, 2007 at 4:14 am
“It just shows how brilliant, yet at the same time botched, the same idea was in Doom 3.”
Compared with where THEY ripped it from – the original System Shock.
August 23rd, 2007 at 5:43 pm
I supposed it was only a matter of time until the issue of the ‘little sisters. came up, as it did in the Boston Patriot Ledger (trivia – this was the only local paper I *didn’t* have a paper route delivering at one time of my youth). Link – http://www.patriotledger.com/articles/2007/08/22/news/news01.txt
I didn’t play the demo, don’t know what is there, but if you want to remain pristinely spoiler-free, don’t click.
The article has a major issue in that it talks of something as an action element that in reality isn’t.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:26 am
On the widescreen thing, I actually captured the same view using three resolutions and posted it here.
August 24th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
INteresting screen views. I guess the twist is that the 4:3 owners see more instead of the widescreen viewers.
Would widescreen owners who complained about this be happier if it was letterboxed on 4:3 screens so no one saw more than them? Is that what it’s about? 🙂
August 24th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Honestly, while the “I get to see less!” crowd is vocal, the biggest complaint is that the game’s already small FOV is made even smaller in widescreen because they just crop. And if you weren’t aware, small FOVs can prevent some people from even playing certain games because they feel physically ill. I think that’s a legitimate complaint.
August 24th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
The FOV is not smaller (on WS) though. They designed for widescreen according to the developers and merely added to the top and bottom for 4:3.
August 24th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
The renderer’s technical FOV is not changed, but that itself makes the perceived FOV smaller in the cropped widescreen view.
I did get round to trying the demo (didn’t get too far – my 6600 GT doesn’t cut it) and it definitely feels *artificially* cramped to me. It’s fine if they wanted a claustrophobic feel, but restricting the FOV to achieve that goal is as lame as using fog to hide limited draw distance was on the Playstation.
August 25th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Yeah but according to 2k the widescreen view ain’t cropped. 🙂
Maybe it’s just BS they are feeding folks to calm them down.
FOV is sort of a different beast. Every game has a slightly different FOV don’t they? Widescreen or no. I know in HL2 I had to adjust it because I’d get a bit sick.
anyway they are going to patch the pc version for adjustable FOV and perhaps do something with the 360 version. I suspect it will be harder there because hardware is fixed and so are most of the settings.