You get the requisite amazing lighting, rag-doll effects, great shadows, bump-mapping, smooth and exquisitely grotesque character models and a overall well done art style and environment design. It looks professionally done and it looks like something functional while at the same time retaining the campy early 1900s America feel. The characters feel in place as well, from the paranoid Peach Wilkins who is certain his oppressive ex-employers are still after him, from the regretful Dr. Tenembaum who attempts to find redemption for her past-misdeeds. While you rarely actually see another normal human character aside from the occasionally far away speaker or Little Sister you managed to rescue you’ll constantly find well written audio logs that detail the shenanigans that occurred before your arrival. What’s cool is that much like System Shock 2 you will constantly find audio logs from the same people, who while not always imperative to the storyline, show a great progression of events from Rapture’s beginning to its horrid decline. You’ll find logs of inhabitants who admired the great city, then later on you’ll find logs from the same people who just saw their daughter turned into a Little Sister, logs from the same people after who are desperately trying to get out, logs from people as they consider desperate actions to free themselves and others from Rapture. It’s great, it’s not as great as System Shock 1 or 2 per-se (the comparison is REQUIRED) but it’s still very effective, and the logs are always emotional and exact, although not to the point where they lose all vagueness and just become little blocks of text.
Bioshock has some of the best writing I’ve seen in awhile. While Andrew Ryan’s egotistical and dramatic audio logs may seem cheesy and just the result of the writers being unable to create a layered character, it soon turns out that someone is definitely delusional, and he has changed a lot since the events that created Rapture.
I don’t have to go on any further to say it’s great stuff. The rest of the sound is wonderful as well, Splicers yell out disturbing taunts and pleas, the Big Daddies moan and stomp around with powerful thuds, Little Sisters sing, laugh and emote through innocent yet bizarre little quips that work remarkably well.
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My name is ANDREW RYAN. I place UNNESECARY emphasis on completely RANDOM words. My voice seems to CHANGE over the course of the GAME but somehow it still sounds the SAME. What the UNEXPECTED COMMENT.
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But there are problems with the presentation, and most of this lies in the usual stuff you’d expect from shooters. The list includes rampant clipping (the rag dolls are especially prone to this), exaggerated physics, texture pop-ups, animation hang-ups and last but not least the horrible bug that causes combat music to repeat endlessly.
It’s not too bad, and it doesn’t really effect the game much, but it still takes you out of the game to see a Splicer’s head popping through a baby carriage spasming wildly. Oh, that’s another problem. Rag doll spasms. They happen ALL the time. You’ll have rag dolls waving their hands at you as they lay on the ground, or rag dolls with their feet warped in strange directions making little semi-circles, it’s weird unintentionally hilarious stuff.
To wrap it up, I would say that Bioshock is a GREAT game on the surface, as long as you just don’t think about the layers underneath that make the game, you’ll have no problem. In fact, that shouldn’t be a hang-up for most people, if you’re a casual gamer or just haven’t looked much into the regular problems of games or the development process, you won’t really notice the things about Bioshock that are inherently stupid. But these problems exist, and they become all too evident in multiple play throughs, and for many will become irritating before they even finish the game for the first time. And the fact is, that while Bioshock has great concepts and has them implemented extremely well, it’s just too easy of a game with not enough restrictions or consequences to make it truly unique. In the end, it’s just another shooter with a memorable presentation that falls down when it tries to be too lenient while providing multiple solutions to common problems.
Therefore I give Bioshock an 7.4 out of 10. Sorry folks, I just couldn’t handle how ambiguously retarded the gameplay was. But I will, and don’t doubt me on this at all, remember this game, fantastic presentation, writing, story, and atmosphere.
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Gameplay - 7
Graphics - 9
Sound - 10
Polish - 6
Overall - 7.4
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Game Stats
40 Hours Played Total
3 Playthroughs
%100 Achievements
Beat Easy
Beat Normal
Beat Hard
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NOTE - Because these boards eat my brain, you might have to click on the Community Reviews forums THEN on the topic, as all the other posts are cut off so that it goes straight to the last one.