BioShock (PC)
Manufacturer: Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Part number: 21962
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- Specifications
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Gamespot editors' review
BioShock (PC) price range: $17.61
- Reviewed by: Jeff Gerstmann
- Reviewed on: 08/22/2007
- Released on: 08/21/2007
While on the surface it might look like little more than a very pretty first-person shooter, BioShock is much, much more than that. Sure, the action is fine, but its primary focus is its story, a sci-fi mystery that manages to feel retro and futuristic at the same time, and its characters, who convey most of the story via radio transmissions and audio logs that you're constantly stumbling upon as you wander around. All of it blends together to form a rich, interesting world that sucks you in right away and won't let go until you've figured out what, exactly, is going on in the undersea city of Rapture.
Rapture is an amazing city that sits at the bottom of the ocean, but something's gone horribly wrong down there.
BioShock opens with a bang, but the overall plot focuses more on making an emotional impact than an explosive one. The year is 1960, and you're flying over the Atlantic Ocean. One mysterious plane crash later, you're floating in the water, apparently the lone survivor, surrounded by the flaming wreckage of the aircraft. But there's a lighthouse on a tiny island just at the edge of your view. Who in their right mind would put a lighthouse this far out? You swim closer and discover a small submersible called a bathysphere waiting to take you underwater. After catching a breathtaking view of what's below, you're sent into the secret underwater city of Rapture. Masterminded by a somewhat megalomaniacal businessman named Andrew Ryan, this city is driven by its own idea of total freedom, with capitalism completely unhindered by governmental meddling and science unhinged from the pesky morals of organized religion. Sounds like the perfect society, right? Well, even before you step out of your bathysphere and into the city, it becomes obvious that everything has gone horribly wrong down here. The city is trashed, and genetic freaks called splicers roam around, attacking anything that gets in front of them. At the heart of the matter is a powerful, corrupting substance called ADAM, which makes all this genetic tinkering possible and allows you to get your first plasmid power, the ability to shoot lightning out of your fingertips.
Character customization is a key trait in BioShock. You have a limited but increasable number of spaces in various customization categories, and you can totally reconfigure all of your different plasmids and tonics at will, at no charge, at specific locations in-game. Plasmids are the active, weaponlike genetic enhancement. Many of these are very straightforward. Incinerate lets you burn things and melt ice. Telekinesis lets you use your left hand as if it were Half-Life 2's gravity gun. But others are a little more subversive. Security bullseye is a little ball you can toss at enemies, causing any nearby security cameras, turrets, or sentry bots to point in his direction. Enrage can cause enemies to fight one another. Insect swarm causes your arm to shoot bees at your enemies, which unfortunately is far less cool-looking than it sounds. You can also place decoys, plant swirling wind traps for enemies, and so on. While it's fun to mess around with a lot of the indirect attacks, facing your enemies head-on with the more direct plasmids feels a bit more effective.
Tonics are skills that are slotted just like plasmids, but they have passive effects, like sportboost, which increases your movement and melee attack speed, or natural camouflage, which makes you turn invisible if you stand still for a few seconds. So if you want to make your swinging wrench attacks more powerful, you can slot up things like wrench jockey and wrench lurker, which increase your wrench damage on all attacks and when catching opponents off-guard, respectively. Add bloodlust, which gives you some health back every time you club someone with your wrench, and you're a melee master with health and plasmid energy (called EVE) to spare. You can also slot some defensive stuff, like static field, which zaps anyone who touches you with a electric radius effect, and armored shell, which reduces the damage you take from physical attacks. There are more than 50 tonics to collect, giving you plenty of options to play around with.
ADAM and EVE combine to let you shoot fire, lightning, ice, wind, bees, and more out of your fingertips.
Most of those plasmids and tonics will have to be purchased using the raw ADAM that you collect from harvesting vessels called little sisters. They're little girls with a big needle that they use to collect the sought-after stuff from dead bodies, and they're protected by the baddest enemies in the entire game, hulking armored monsters called big daddies. This is where the game makes you decide to be selfless or selfish. If you harvest the girls, they die, but you get 160 ADAM from them. If you free them and return them to normal, you get only 80 ADAM. There are a limited number of girls to deal with in the entire game, making it very possible that you won't be able to collect every single purchasable plasmid and tonic, so choose wisely. Either route has benefits and consequences, and there are story considerations as well.
Before you start thinking this is some kind of role-playing game or something, let's stop right here and say that in addition to all the toys that plasmids and tonics for you to play around with, you're also going to be carrying around some more conventional firepower. Your melee weapon is a wrench, and you quickly collect a pistol and machine gun. Being that this is 1960 filtered through the isolation of an undersea world that has the art deco style of the first half of the century, the weapons aren't nearly as high-tech as the genetic code in your body. The machine gun is your basic tommy gun, and the grenade launcher appears to have been cobbled together from coffee cans and other spare parts. You'll also get a shotgun, a crossbow, and so on. You can also collect different types of ammunition, such as exploding buckshot for your shotgun or missiles for your grenade launcher, and upgrades that increase damage, speed up reloads, and so on. The weapons are functional and the upgrades are pretty good, but the firing action isn't nearly as exciting as a combat-focused first-person shooter would be. The weapons are loud but don't feel especially right, and seeing shotgun blasts not even do 50 percent damage to an unarmored human target (on the default difficulty setting) just feels wrong. But that might also say something about the general lack of enemy variety.
User reviews
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WHERE'S THE SOUND?
by USAFVet1 on August 17, 2009
Pros: Great graphics, story, action.
Cons: Once you're plane crashes, it's like playing in a silent movie...but there should be sound!
Summary: I really like this game, it compares well with my PS3 version of Bioshock. The only difference is you really miss a lot not being able to hear any game ...
Summary: I really like this game, it compares well with my PS3 version of Bioshock. The only difference is you really miss a lot not being able to hear any game sounds. Ths seems to be a Vista problem on some machines, and I have a very new HP Pavilion Elite with a NVidia 9500GS (New quiet fan version), but it doesn't seem to help the sound problem.
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Where can I get a cup of coffee and some no-doze?
by JDintheOC on December 17, 2008
Pros: It has a really creepy atmosphere.
Cons: Too much hand holding going on.
Summary: . I've been playing PC and video games for more than twenty years and there are specific things that kill a gaming environment for me and Bioshock does most of ...
Summary: . I've been playing PC and video games for more than twenty years and there are specific things that kill a gaming environment for me and Bioshock does most of them.
After playing the game for a few hours I got the feeling that I was in a totally manufactured environment with a carrot dangling in front of my face every step of the way. In real life when I go to the store, there isn't a floating arrow hovering above my head indicating which direction I should take. When walking by a Bus Stop, there isn't a popup stating [Homeless Person, click X to search]. If I get hit by a car, I can't expect to arise from the dead nor can I expect criminals to respawn after being executed. This is the problem that Bioshock holds for me. How can I be afraid of something if I never feel as though anything I'm experiencing is real? If something kills me, so-what, I'll just be reincarnated. If I get lost, so-what, I'll just follow a floating arrow or a disembodied voice to my destination. If i don't have enough money, so-what, I'll just hack a vending machine and get it cheaper. Being led around by the nose and getting hints every step of the way just doesn't give me any excitement or satisfaction to what I'm doing. Imagine going on an exciting deep sea fishing trip and once you get there, the fish just jump into the boat waiting to be picked up. What would be the point of going and how soon would you get bored with the whole idea of fishing? Bioshock does that in a way that prevents me from the true experience of adventure. It's all done for you...why bother? -
who wants to a BIG DADDY? I DO!
by cnet man on July 13, 2008
Pros: really sucks you in
Cons: a little short in the first shooter realm
Summary: Great game, and my pc ran it fine. Needs a little higher end computer. But you don't need a CRAY computer to run it.
Summary: Great game, and my pc ran it fine. Needs a little higher end computer. But you don't need a CRAY computer to run it.
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geneticaly inhanced
by williamhuds on February 3, 2008
Pros: deep story, great gameplay and best of all, EXPLOSIONS!
Cons: fairly taxing to a graphics card
Summary: this is a great game, espicially for a new pc, i ran this game useing the bottomline 8400 Geforce from Nvidia, and still this game ran smooth with amazing visuals, ...
Summary: this is a great game, espicially for a new pc, i ran this game useing the bottomline 8400 Geforce from Nvidia, and still this game ran smooth with amazing visuals, i ask you to try the demo, this game is amazing
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Amazing Game
by BradPois on August 29, 2007
Pros: Great Graphics, Sweet new abilities, Amazing Story
Cons: No multiplayer, Minor graphics glitches
Summary: This is an amazing game that takes FPS games to another level. With great graphics, gameplay, and an awesome storyline, everyone should try this game.
It also runs amazingly on ...Summary: This is an amazing game that takes FPS games to another level. With great graphics, gameplay, and an awesome storyline, everyone should try this game.
It also runs amazingly on computers that arent high end.
My specs are: P4 2.66Ghz, 1.5Gb RAM, ATI Radeon X1600 Pro, Windows XP Home. I am playing this game on HIGH settings at 1024x768 and the graphics are amazing. Surprisingly I am playing at a decent FPS, my game never slows down, hangs, or starts chugging. It runs great! -
A NEW BREED OF GAMES FOR THE P.C
by brianthesnail123 on August 21, 2007
Pros: UNIQUE GRAPHICS,EXCELLENT IN GAME VIDEO
Cons: NEEDS A VERY GOOD P.C
Summary: Bioshock is a new breed if game that uses artificial intelligence to create a game that you can basically live in
for example,you drink too much alcohol and your ...Summary: Bioshock is a new breed if game that uses artificial intelligence to create a game that you can basically live in
for example,you drink too much alcohol and your vision becomes blurred,and with the new generation of direct x 10 graphics this is done with amazing realism
from the minute you enter raptor city your amazed by the amount of attention to detail the developers have put into this game,one of the best is the water,never has water looked so real,and also the fire(at the start),it actually looks like fire and as it burns on the water the reflection is very realistic
one problem for potential buyers of this game is hardware requirments,i have a pentium 4 3.2ghz(hyper threaded),1.5gb ram,256mb geforce 7600gt,...and i have to set the detail on low to get playable frame rates(40f.p.s),this game is really aimed at the core 2 duo platforms combined with 2gb of ddr2 ram and a geforce 8 series graphics card,however a recommended card is the 7950gx2
bioshock is a game which will make many users go out and either upgarde their current configuration or buy a new p.c with some top specs
the reason for this is bioshock is a "milestone",all games will be like this from now on,including a few upcoming titles such as crysis,hellgate london and lost planet
be warned,check your p.c,s specs out before you buy this,even some so called "top spec" machines may find they cant run this game,so dont be dissapointed
bioshock will go in the p.c history books as a game that changed the way we look at p.c games,and has proved that games consoles will never be as good as the p.c
great game -
Disappointing
by Gonadscratcher on September 19, 2007
Pros: Great Graphics
Cons: poor gameplay, replayability and no character development
Summary: The game is so linear in game play you could use it to rule a page up for school. There is absolutely no character development, no skills at all, not ...
Summary: The game is so linear in game play you could use it to rule a page up for school. There is absolutely no character development, no skills at all, not even an inventory!
I was hoping for System Shock 3, what we have is Doom 12. Same old, same old...
9/10 for graphics
1/10 for game play
0/10 for replayability
If you are after a mindless twitchfest and something to go "ooooh" at the graphics with then this is for you. If you want something a bit different from a 1st person shooter, something that can keep you interest, look elsewhere.
Been waiting for years and years for system shock 3 and this is all we get. Oh well back to playing Oblivion.0 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
- Part number: 21962
Product Basic Spec
- Platform PC
- ESRB rating Mature - Blood and Gore,Intense Violence,Sexual Themes,Drug Reference,Strong Language
- Genre Action
- Number of players 1 Player
- DirectX version v9.0c
- Operating system Windows XP/Vista
Game
- Developer 2K Boston
- ESRB Mature
- ESRB descriptors Blood and Gore,Intense Violence,Sexual Themes,Drug Reference,Strong Language
Manufacturer info
- Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. products on Shopper.com
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- Website: http://www.take2games.com/
- Address:
575 Broadway, New York, NY 10012
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