Bioshock is a tangled mess of pure awesome and mediocrity.
Starting with the graphics... well, they're breathtaking. Ain't no denying it. This is water the developers worked with; do you have any idea how hard that is? On the sad point, even today your computer had better have some ninja graphics cards up its backdoor. I don't feel like going into detail about it, but yeah, awesome graphics.
And the physics engine... yeah, that rocks too. They really worked on it.
The trouble is that while there's a million and one ways to kill people - water and oil help spread toys like Electro-Bolt and Fireball, Telekinesis, Hypnotise - the novelty kind of wears off because it's expensive. It's shamefully true that you do indeed fall back to zap and tap, or using basic telekinesis to throw people around.
Morality is a load of bull. The choice has a minimal effect on the game. As usual, the game is blatantly easier if you take the good guy route - you don't get an instant payoff but you get more in the long run - and it doesn't take long for this 'long run' to sink in.
And the story? Well, it certainly feels like there's a lot of effort that's gone into it. The world feels huge. It is a huge twist - relying on you not knowing the twist; the game's been out a long time. But in the end, when you've played it through, and learned the twist, you don't really feel the urge to play it through again a different way because there's only one way to play it through. There's a couple of hours of the game right in the middle that are obscenely monotonous. Yes, it says things about morality and tape recorders and stuff, and they add something, but it's hard to tell how much. It's a good game and I enjoyed my playthrough... but I'm in no hurry to play it through twice.
A marvellous pile of... What?
Bioshock is a tangled mess of pure awesome and mediocrity.
Starting with the graphics... well, they're breathtaking. Ain't no denying it. This is water the developers worked with; do you have any idea how hard that is? On the sad point, even today your computer had better have some ninja graphics cards up its backdoor. I don't feel like going into detail about it, but yeah, awesome graphics.
And the physics engine... yeah, that rocks too. They really worked on it.
The trouble is that while there's a million and one ways to kill people - water and oil help spread toys like Electro-Bolt and Fireball, Telekinesis, Hypnotise - the novelty kind of wears off because it's expensive. It's shamefully true that you do indeed fall back to zap and tap, or using basic telekinesis to throw people around.
Morality is a load of bull. The choice has a minimal effect on the game. As usual, the game is blatantly easier if you take the good guy route - you don't get an instant payoff but you get more in the long run - and it doesn't take long for this 'long run' to sink in.
And the story? Well, it certainly feels like there's a lot of effort that's gone into it. The world feels huge. It is a huge twist - relying on you not knowing the twist; the game's been out a long time. But in the end, when you've played it through, and learned the twist, you don't really feel the urge to play it through again a different way because there's only one way to play it through. There's a couple of hours of the game right in the middle that are obscenely monotonous. Yes, it says things about morality and tape recorders and stuff, and they add something, but it's hard to tell how much. It's a good game and I enjoyed my playthrough... but I'm in no hurry to play it through twice.