Bioshock - 2K Games/Steam - PC

[Yoru]

Thanks to the Steam sale, I picked up Bioshock among certain other titles this past week. Having recently upgraded my computer to be able to handle the densest silicon-melting shaderfuck this side of whatever's presently running in John Carmack's office, I was looking forward to Cyberjesus descending from the Pearly Gates to engage my member in a session of ludological fellatio, or so the hype earlier this year would've had me believe.

In a normal review I'd go on for a while about the good bits, like graphics and atmosphere, but this is BIIF and Bioshock is a reeking cow turd. As opposed to some sort of messianic hummer, this is just another $49.95 handjob from the whore out behind the local liquor den.

Want to know what really wrecks the game? Two words. Monster Closets. Some are particularly sophisticated monster closets, such as one instance where you pop into a room and are immediately blinded by a spotlight and encircled by a half-dozen hook-handed psychopaths, but in the end it's the same old trick of shocking the player by suddenly injecting "unexpected" chaos into an otherwise tranquil situation.

I'm about two hours in and the gameplay wore thin about 30 minutes ago. With better things on my plate, Bioshock is out of commission until I cease being sick of clubbing the same shrieking zombie over the head with the same wrench after hitting a switch to open some door halfway across the level over there, or find a working god mode code, as such a thing would let me skip through all the bad parts - that is, all the parts where Bioshock expects you to actually play the game.

--

Avoid it, unless you really like predictable monster-closet shooters.

[Ironwood]

 

[Sky]

I've yet to finish it. I think I'm close to the end, but...I'd rather craft in EQ2. I wish more people had bought the Freedom Force games, those rocked. I think Irrational or Borg2k or whatever made a pile of money from Bioshock, so we'll get dumbed down retardery from them from now on.

[Yoru]

Bioshock 2 is being made, but by a different 2K-branded team with only portions of the original staff. Not even in the same city, they moved it from Boston to Novato.

[Azazel]

I've yet to finish it. I think I'm close to the end, but...I'd rather craft in EQ2. I wish more people had bought the Freedom Force games, those rocked. I think Irrational or Borg2k or whatever made a pile of money from Bioshock, so we'll get dumbed down retardery from them from now on.

Freedom Force had Starforce. At least in my neck of the woods. That's an Insta-Fail.

[Rasix]

Second one did, I don't think the first FF did though. I don't think that brand of herpes was around yet.

Starforce is why I never played the second even though I loved the first.  Wish it was on Steam.

[KallDrexx]

Second one did, I don't think the first FF did though. I don't think that brand of herpes was around yet.

Starforce is why I never played the second even though I loved the first.  Wish it was on Steam.

Steam wouldn't matter.  Bioshock on steam uses Starforce (or whatever the crapp ycopy protection scheme retail has) as well

[schild]

lol starforce NO

It just uses a new version of safedisk or something. Innocuous, but requires an internet connection.

[MaceVanHoffen]

Bioshock is odd ... it elicits either extreme hatred or effulgent love.  I'm definitely in the love camp, but strangely enough I can see the flaws mentioned here.  Monster Closet sums it up nicely.  In fact, I was describing this game to a friend and he even said that it sounded like a game that I normally hate.

I have no idea why I liked this game so much.  Maybe the setting was more important to me than the gameplay.  I went through a phase where I dug Ayn Rand, coupled with many 70s Rush albums.  I do have a lot of nostalgia for the System Shock games.  And, injecting myself with random crap I find in vending machines probably appeals to me on some level.

[Samwise]

Bioshock on steam uses Starforce (or whatever the crapp ycopy protection scheme retail has) as well

Starforce's job as I understand it is to make sure that you have the original physical media in the drive while playing; the thing that people hate about it is the fact that it adds its own (buggy and destabilizing) drivers to accomplish that.   With Steam there is no physical media so that wouldn't make any sense.

[KallDrexx]

Starforce's job as I understand it is to make sure that you have the original physical media in the drive while playing; the thing that people hate about it is the fact that it adds its own (buggy and destabilizing) drivers to accomplish that.   With Steam there is no physical media so that wouldn't make any sense.

No the copy protection Bioshock uses also prevents people from installing it more than X amount of times (used to be 2, I think it's now 5) through the use of drivers. Still doesn't make much sense for steam but regardless it is still incorporated in it.  Hell iirc the copy protection is even in the demo for some dumb reason.

[Der Helm]

No the copy protection Bioshock uses also prevents people from installing it more than X amount of times ...

You got to be kidding me.

[schild]

Like the game has replayability anyway.

[Big Gulp]

I wish more people had bought the Freedom Force games, those rocked.

Funny that you mentioned that, I just started replaying FFVT3R this weekend.  I'd intended to replay the original, but apparently it and x64 Vista have issues.

[UnSub]

No the copy protection Bioshock uses also prevents people from installing it more than X amount of times ...

You got to be kidding me.

Uninstalling it allegedly refunds you a X+1. The amount of bitching about this feature was insane - who installs a game on five different machines for legitimate purposes?

As for the review - overly harsh I think, but I found that Bioshock never exceeded its awesome introductory level for either gameplay or atmosphere. It started with its peak.

[Azazel]

Except it didn't give you that install back, at least initially. Not sure how it is now.

I have no interest in installing it on 5 different machines at once.
I do have an interest in (having the ability to play) playing it whenever I fucking well like for the rest of eternity no matter how many times I upgrade my machine.

I'll wait till it hits budgetware, perhaps. FFS, the Steam thing was ridiculous, given the nature of Steam.

[UnSub]

Allegedly the number of installs thing will be rolled back at some point. Allegedly.

[Bunk]

Allegedly the number of installs thing will be rolled back at some point. Allegedly.

Yea, don't care. I stopped playing when the game randomly decided to eat its own executable, couldn't be bothered to reinstall it. It's a beautiful game, with a really cool look and feel, that just ends up feeling totally hollow after killing your 200th zombie guy with claw hands.

Had they taken this game and, oh I dunno, maybe gave just one fucking level where I could walk around and enjoy the atmosphere, maybe talk to an NPC or two... Nope. Every single fucking think I ever met in the game was a homicidal loonie. This is a game that should be an action RPG, but isn't. It's a pure on the rails shooter, with built in god mod ressurectotrons. Which is too bad, because the setting could have made an amazing RPG.