Bioshock Review

Right, I know I said I would post every week, that didn't happen. Well I'm going to start posting up entries around twice a week, unless something comes up I want to share. Well here I am postin' away.

Lets get crackin'.

First I need to talk about Bioshock! I beat Bioshock about a week ago, sorry I didn't have time to tell you what I think, but here goes.

Bioshock-Review

Bioshock is one of this years most anticipated shooters by Irrational Games, now known as 2k Boston. And Bioshock does live up to the hype. More so probably, because Bioshock is one hell of a game!
Now I must warn you, this is not a 100% spoiler ridden review, I don't intend on giving away the ending or plot twists, but some things may be spoilers.

Meet Andrew Ryan, a man who wanted to create the perfect city, a place where scientists didn't have to deal with religion, where artists weren't effected by morality, "a place where the great were not constrained bye the small." Andrew Ryan wanted this. And for quite some time he did. Of course things went wrong. Andrew Ryan created the underwater city of Rapture, a far out 25 fathoms deep city right in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Andrew Ryan created Plasmid, a genetic enhancement to the human body, allowing him or her to do incredible things, such as shoot lightning from the palm of there hand or light a fire with the tip of their finger. Plasmids are great, huh? Wrong, Plasmids had quite unusual side effects, "splicing up" people, which basically means they got messed up! Splicers are the enemies you will be fighting throughout the game, there are different types, for example the Thuggish splicer tries to beat the hell out of you with a pipe, or the Leadhead splicer will try to shoot your brains out.

Game play wise Bioshock play like a charm. It plays extremely well, being one of the best games all year. It really does the shooter genre wonders. You get a good amount of guns to fire, such as shot guns, grenade launchers, and a chemical thrower (which is exactly what it sounds like). The guns are fun to fire and are effective against Splicers and other enemies. Each gun has 3 ammo types as well, which are very fun to play around with. Every gun has a standard fire, which is a balanced shot, but other ammo types are there to pierce armor and so forth, using the exploding buck shot ammo for the first time (and even after that) is a ton of fun. Of course while weapons are effective, you need to combine them with Plasmids in order to really take down your enemy. Using Plasmids works the same way shooting a gun works, and the plasmids are very fun to mess around with. Using them effectively is fun and deadly, for example freezing someone with the Winter Blast plasmid and then blowing them to chunks with your machine gun is a ton of fun. There are a good amount of Plasmids, all of them working for different situations and fun to play with. Using the combination of Plasmids and weapons is extremely useful against the one true other enemy. The "boss fights", the absolute toughest enemy in the game. The Big Daddy. The Big Daddies are huge, and tough dudes. The Big Daddies are not just there for show though, they have a reason for being in Rapture. To protect the little sisters. Little sisters play a huge role in rapture, they carry Adam. These deformed little girls, have the most important thing in Rapture. Adam is what keeps you alive, it allows you to upgrade your health, unlock more Plasmids, and other very important things. You need Adam, and thus you have to go through a Big Daddy to get it. From Telekinesis to Insect Swarm Plasmids are a ton of fun, as is the combat.

From a technical standpoint Bioshock looks awesome. Bioshock may be the best looking game to come out all year, and the sound is superb. Bioshock really looks like what a next-gen game should look like, it competes with heavy hitters like Gears of War and Oblivion when it comes down to awesome looking games. The graphics, look pretty funky, it looks realistic and also almost like a cartoon is some places. Its a unique blend that looks awesome on both PC and Xbox 360. The art style looks like the 50's considering 1959 was the last "sane" year of Rapture. Everything looks really nice, from Splicers, to octopuses, to your grenade launcher everything looks excellent. Bioshock is also a excellent sounding game, the sounds from Machine gun, to the sound of your Electro-Bolt Plasmid to the clashing and clanging of Rapture falling apart, Bioshock's sound effects are superb. The musical score is also excellent, and fitting for Bioshock, with a lot of traditional sounds mixed with some cool modern touches. And the voice acting in Bioshock, is phenomenal. Every single word of dialog is incredible, each character's script sounds incredible, the voice acting is the best I've heard all year.


Sadly, Bioshock does have a few problems. First of all if your bought the PC version of the game, you can only install it twice, which is a little crazy. Also on both platforms, Bioshock has a good amount of bugs, such as hiccups, and locking up. Bioshock also has a few frame rate problems, which can actually fixed through the options menu to make Bioshock run a little smoother, but the game will suffer graphically. These problems are only minor, but it really does stink for a game like this to even have these problems.


All in all, Bioshock is a must have for Xbox 360 or PC, one of the best games to come out all year, this is a game you really owe to yourself to take a look at. Bioshock is incredible, it's a masterpiece.


Score: 9.8/10