Sep. 11 - A real second opinion about BioShock
BioShock is not that good. Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, but it's not THAT good. You can read plenty of reviews extolling the game's virtues. The virtues of great art direction, engrossing environment design, engaging story, and all-around fantastic production values are accurately reported and I agree heartily that they denote a top-notch game. The game is also of an enjoyable length and even though some of the story extensions are a bit contrived they are still entertaining and provide more depth to a history that you never get tired of exploring. Probably because it really feels like you are exploring. It is a wonderfully constructed world. My highest praise of the game is this: in my opinion BioShock has the best opening of any game I have played. I'm not going to define "best" but after I experience my introduction to Rapture, city of free men, I knew it was the best. So, maybe it's like porn. The intro to BioShock is like porn.
However, like porn, with its bawdy and clever titles and enticing women adorning the cover, your expectations are inevitably crushed and you just end up feeling a little empty inside. OK, maybe that's some commentary best saved for another time, but, anyway, the gameplay in BioShock is disappointing. But it's an RPG and a shooter, right? Shouldn't that be awesome? Well, the RPG elements are diluted by crappy character upgrades that don't really develop your character. A lot of the upgrades revolve around hacking. Hacking is accomplished through a mini-game where you have to control the flow of conductor fluid through a circuit by arranging pipe pieces. Personally, it got tedious after a while. But just because I didn't want to go through the procedure of hacking didn't mean that I had to give up its benefits. Auto-hack tools are easy to create (you can even use an auto-hack tool on the machine that makes auto-hack tools to make them cheaper). This is a symptom of the larger problem that you can't create a unique character. You don't have to sacrifice one thing to gain another. Every character can use every weapon and every genetic superpower. To me, this is a detractor. Let's say, very hypothetically, that I like to set people on fire. The power "Ignite" would be right up my alley. BioShock neither rewards nor punishes me for liking this power. It neither opens nor closes any doors for character development and the only thing I need to do in order to upgrade to Ignite II is to find the machine that sells it. Sure you have to decide what to spend your upgrade points on, but the dearth of good new abilities makes character development rather linear. I found the most exciting upgrade was increasing my health. Lame!
Well, it's still a shooter, right? What about that? The shooter part is ruined because you cannot die. Every area has Vita-Chambers sprinkled about (rather generously) that respawn you whenever you die. You never run out of respawns and you don't even have to activate the chambers before you can use them. Occasionally I died and was transported forward in the level because the nearest Vita-Chamber was actually in front of me. It's also sometimes advantageous to die when you have low health because you respawn partially healed. This takes the urgency right out of combat. Should I use a health pack? Who cares? I can just die and come back for free. Weapon upgrade stations are also free (though you can only use them once) and after the first few you don't really care what you upgrade.
Big Daddies are scary until you realize that death is only a minor inconvenience.
To me, this boils down to BioShock being a one-shot game. After I played it and experienced it once I have yet to have the desire to play it anymore. Yes, I concentrated on the bad things in this review, but only because they're the things no one else is saying and I think they're worth saying. The good things about BioShock make it a good game, and a game worth experiencing. The bad things about BioShock keep it from being a great game. Instead of these 9/10 or 10/10 reviews it is getting, I think it deserves an 8 or a 7. Wait until the price comes down ten or twenty dollars and then pick it up.
It's a great ride and a good experience, there's not much to make you want to get on again.
Another reason why I wrote this review is because I hate GameInformer magazine. Its reviews are worthless pieces of industry-promoting trash. I get it for free with my GameStop discount card and I still think it's crap. Most reviews have a "second opinion" mini-review that rarely differs by more than a half a point from the original review score. They gave BioShock two tens. There is no way for them to rate a game higher than that. No game will be rated higher than BioShock. Ever. If I could somehow buy a publication that takes money away from them, I would. I cannot trust published console gaming magazines. It's too easy for them to be infiltrated or blinded or both.
Posted by Nathan
