Review- Bioshock

If someone asks me the pinnacle of quality of video games, my answer, without hesitation, is Half life 2. It was a game playing which was experience of a lifetime, something that should be treasured.
After watching many promos, after reading many previews and finally after reading those pre release reviews, I was very much hoping the same kind of experience from Bioshock. So, did it deliver that kind of experience, is it all I was hoping for? We shall find out.




First of all, let this be clear that Bioshock is a great game. The only question is, how great it is?

It starts fantastically. Those people who played only demo initially and didnt have the whole game, would surely understand this. After plane crash, you find your way on strange light house in between the sea, Seeing no way out, you go inside and descend. And then Rapture, the under water city, is unveiled. This sequence is almost breathtaking. I call it 'almost' because of aliasing. This game dosent support aliasing, as most of the UE3 based games. You can force though, but that comes with a big performance drop.
After the great sequence, the game begins. You follow orders of a man named called Atlas. He is your guide who takes you into the depths of Rapture and shows you the path. I dont want to spoil any part of the story so play it yourself to know what happens.

First of all those things where Bioshock hits the chords perfectly. Foremost is Art direction. For those who thought it is impossible to combine art and game, this is the perfect example to prove what can be achieved. From 'My daddy is smarter than Einstein' girl to perfect differentiation between man and slave to grand theme of Rapture, there is art. If you get immersed, you will do nothing but marvel on how much attention was given to the setting and environment.

The second is sound. Every sound in the game is perfect. From the grunts of Big daddy to 'angel' of little sister to 'daemon' of splicers, there is no flaw to be found. Music adds another aspect in the whole setting. Many times you will listen 60s songs playing on tape recorders as you enter a new room. The perfect example of this is the room where you encounter your first Big daddy. Even vending machines are perfectly voiced (yes they have their own dialogues).




For me, perfection ends here.
As far as gameplay is concerned, it is just a bit different than Doom3. Yes, many of you wont agree. You will say Doom3 was a game where you couldnt get lost, even after trying, and Bioshock is not like that. But to be honest, I never got lost. I found everything linear, where there was nothing to do other than killing splicers most of the time. Almost all of the levels were like where some voice was asking you to do this, to do that. While comparing, in Half life 2, everything was much more intuitive and verbals orders were far (anyone remember reaching Black Mesa east?). Still, there are differences which Bioshock contains in terms of gameplay. The weapon system is unique and gives you at a load of different weapons than the traditional ones. The concept of plasmids is innovative.
The whole 'big daddy-little sister' thing adds some twists. As most of you would know, after killing big daddy, you must make choice of either harvesting the little sister (which she wont survive) and you will get adam, or to rescue her and you will get less adam. As for me, I harvested only once and still never had dearth of adam throughout the game.
No enemy in the whole game is much challenging, even the bosses and big daddies. And no, you can't kill little sisters.

When it comes to graphics, Bioshock, although not a letdown, isn't that great either. Water effects are good and lightning is nice, but thats about it. My biggest concern, as I already said, was the aliasing. No support of anti aliasing sucks. Other than that, I didnt like the blood.



I mean the color is fine, but how is it like a mesh?
Other than that, there was over use of particle effects. Rapture, despite being underwater, is shown so dusty that half of the time you would sneeze only. So much dust was distraction, not to mention it gave performance hits too.
On the brighter side, game is optimized very well. It is probably the smoothest Unreal Engine 3.0 experience.

Controls are fine. You cant complain about not finding particular plasmid or weapon some times cause there are so many of them that it would be hard to have perfect controls for them.
A.I. is good enough. No enemy is hard to beat, but they are smart enough to spot you and follow you. Bots are specially troublesome.

All in all, Bioshock is good game. More evolutionary than revolutionary and finally, I got to say it how harsh it may sound, not worthy of reviews as good as Half life 2.

Summing up-

Presentation- 10/10
Graphics- 8/10
Sound- 10/10
Gameplay- 7.5/10
Controls/A.I. etc- 8/10

Overall- 8.7/10