Bioshock's Final Destination

I felt dirty making this image.

Last October, the fantastic first-person-shooter Bioshock finally worked its way to the PlayStation 3, completing the trifecta of gaming platforms: PS3, 360 and PC. "But wait!" I hear you cry. "What about Mac?" "Sorry, did you say Mac was a gaming platform?" I cry back. A muffled sound almost like a reluctant sigh of acceptance can be heard from your general direction. I really don't know where I'm going with this imagery.

Back on topic, Bioshock is in fact coming to Mac this year. So if you have a gaming-capable Mac (a Mac Pro or MacBook Pro basically) you will be able to enjoy this wonderful extravaganza of awesomeness sometime towards the end of this year, with the folks at Feral Interactive to thank. So about when Bioshock 2 comes out for the rest of us then. Ouch.

Let's just hope they don't make a mobile version, eh?

Would You Kindly?

Yes, it is an inevitable title, but to someone who has not long completed Bioshock for the very first time, who has avoided gameplay footage, story details and spoilers for over a year to fully experience the game, unspoiled, himself when it finally arrived on PS3, it is by far the most relevant.

And it’s not platform loyalty that has stopped me getting the game thus far, more a lack of appropriate playing machine, and Bioshock was in fact one of the couple of games I would’ve bought a 360 for. The truth is though, that the game was easily worth the wait.
Bioshock is an absolutely fantastic game. There is no denying that. Wherever you play it (PS3, 360 or PC), you are getting possibly one of the best gaming experiences ever. From the compulsive storyline, via the spectacular graphics, to the perfect gameplay and tight controls, it is obvious that Bioshock has been a labour of love for its developers. But let’s not waste any more time with vague overviews, time to get on with the actual, y’know, reviewing. One last thing though, this will be as spoiler-free as possible, as there are still a whole lotta people who haven’t played the game (Fryingpan included).

So lets start with the best bit about the game: the story. Bioshock (quite controversially beating Metal Gear Solid 4 and GTAIV) won our Best Story award for last year, and that is for very fair reason. From the moment your plane goes down right at the beginning of the game and the fantastically scary introduction and sorta-tutorial, through to the brilliant (if maybe a tad obvious) conclusion, with tons of twists and turns along the way. All the time, you are guided through the twisted underwater world of Rapture by the slightly-sinister Atlas over a radio you pick up at the start. As you travel through the city, you meet a number of bizarre main characters including the crazy Doctor Steinman, the self-obsessed Sander Cohen, and the original mastermind behind Rapture, Andrew Ryan, along with a whole bunch of 'Splicers': residents of Rapture who are now so drugged up on Plasmids that they've completely lost it. Brilliantly, a lot of these Splicers also have their own little stories to tell, should you be out of sight.

Bioshock is a shooter at heart, that is not even up for debate, but it is the previously mentioned Plasmids that add variety to the game that you can't find in Resistance or Call of Duty. Plasmids are collectible throughout the game and are effective special attacks that operate independently to your main weapons (meaning that should you run out of ammo, or not have time to reload, you could use Plasmids to survive). The basics are Electro Bolt and Incinerate which do exactly as they sound, but some of the later more exotic ones incude Insect Swarm (with hilarious effects), Telekenisis, the incredibly useful Target Dummy that draws attacks away from you, and Hypnotize Big Daddy, which when used in a room full of enemies in conjuction with Enrage (which makes enemies attack each other) creates a pretty impressive spectacle. The ability to mix up gameplay between weapons and Plasmids makes every enemy encounter an oppertunity to try something new, and is a feature that has been lovingly ripped-off ever since it was first shown off (*cough*Legendary*cough*).

Besides the story and perfect gameplay, there is one other quality that really makes Bioshock a unique game, and that is the art style. The game is based on Unreal Engine 3, which is pretty much everywhere nowadays, but the character in Bioshock comes from its setting and graphical design, which is most definitely not the futuristic gun-ho style found in shitloads of other UE3 games. Instead Bioshock is based in the underwater city of Rapture, designed as a place of retreat for intellectual individuals who want to escape the corruption of the world on the surface. The genius lies in the timing though - Rapture was built in the early 30s, leading to a beautiful art deco style that runs throughout the entire game. The musical accompaniment (where it appears) reflects this, with piano flourishes everwhere, and even the beeps and whirrs of the numerous vending machines and Gatherer's Gardens (where you buy and upgrade Plasmids) seem to fit in.

The beauty of Bioshock lies in how perfectly all three of these elements (story, gameplay and art) work together to weave the most intricate game world possibly ever seen. If you've never had the oppertunity to play the game before, here's your chance, because you sure as hell wont want to miss it.

95/100

TWP Awards 08: Best Story

It is becoming more and more apparent to game developers that people actually enjoy their games more if you give the players a reason for them shooting people in the face. And 2008 has had some pretty good stories, but one stood out above them all - miles above.

Winner: Bioshock (PS3)
If you haven't played Bioshock yet, irrelevant of platform, then you really are missing out. And its a testament to those who made the game that I don't even want to talk about the plot of the game that much - it has such great twists and turns that I'd prefer everyone to discover it for themselves. I managed to avoid spoilers all the way up to playing the game myself, and it paid off: the atmosphere and narrative created in the world of Rapture really are spectacular.

Runner Up: Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)
Whilst MGS4 has been hailed elsewhere for its supposedly incredible story, we found that in fact, the convoluted story-lines and ridiculously long cutscenes made us just lose track of - and interest in - what was going on.

Runner Up: Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3)
I'll admit that this GTA does storytelling better than before, but the dingy setting tied with the monotonous plot proves that you need an interesting environment (such as Rapture or Vice City) to be able to tell an intriguing story in a game.

Runner Up: Resistance 2 (PS3)
Resistance 2's place as runner up here is a little unfair as we have yet to play the majority of the game, but in the transition from R1's narrated storytelling and silent hero to R2's overdramatic cutscenes and talkative main character (and also separately the move from quirky Britain to America), the Resistance series has unfortunately lost some of its charm.

Weekend Roundup #9

It's been another pretty uneventful week in gaming - bar one thing: Home. The Wanderer has already spoken a bit about his first impressions, and as we go into the first full week of the massively expanded beta, expect to see improvements and enhancements across the board. But it's easy to see why Sony is so excited about Home (and difficult to see why what is currently available took so long...).

Likely you'll be seeing a lot more on the topic of Home soon, but this week has also been pretty bare. But there's one very good reason for this, probably the best possible reason in fact, and that is that we've all been playing very good new games. Fryingpan has been digging into Call of Duty World at War, as well as defending himself against increasingly more deadly zombies in Left 4 Dead. Aquatic has been engaging with mutants and hacking into supermarket intercoms in Fallout 3, and working through the second half of Dead Space so I can steal it. I myself have been playing FarCry 2, which makes you think quite differently to the normal first-person shooter in order to succeed. Oh and a package arrived for me this morning:

It's short roundup this week, partly due to the lack of anything interesting to talk about, and partly because I have Little Sisters to go rescue/harvest. Toodles!

Vaguely Associated (Or 'The Forgetfulness of an Octopus')

I warn you now: this post is entirely disjointed. Basically, whenever cool gaming news comes out or I get a new game, I tend to add it to this ever-lengthening list of things to blog about. Except there's always one or two things I forget to mention when I stick a post up, so certain things get rolled over until later. Or I forget completely. And so I end up with a list of items still to write about. So here goes...

Quite a while ago, I mentioned that I had brought myself the loveable PSP game Patapon. A number of guys who worked on LocoRoco also worked on this and I quite liked the look of it, so post-demo playing, I indulged myself. And it really is a great game. The graphical style is something new, the gameplay is a great concept (you move/attack/defend by inputting the correct 'beat' on the PSP face buttons) and the characterisation of the little Patapon is fantastic. However (yes, that is a however. And in italics too), it is very repetitive. Playing through levels that are very similar, defeating the same enemies with no real difference between attacks, gets very annoying. And that's before I get to the boss battles: you basically fight a big bad guy the same way about five times in a level, but there's no way to tell how well you're doing, he will just randomly die at some point. Oh and the cutesy music? Does you head in after a while. I assume all the unlockable's add a lot of replayability to the game, but I wouldn't know, because I just gave up through boredom. Great game, well executed, very repetitive. Due to not reviewing games I haven't completed, I wont give Patapon a score, but I will recommend it just for a hire.

And what do I really find weird? That there was one game everyone slated upon release for being too repetitive: Assassin's Creed. And I bought it weekend before last. And it's not as repetitive as Patapon. Maybe it's due to the lack of little critters screeching samey tunes through your headphones, or maybe that there is actually a story in AC. Whatever it is, the 'Creed is the less repetitive game. Ironically, I'm pretty sure I just repeated myself there. Anyways, I've had a little while to get my teeth into the genetically-modified medieval-em-up, and to be honest, I'm impressed. It's reeeeaaallly fun to be leaping around the roof tops (socially acceptable walking be damned), grabbing onto whatever you can find, and it feels like a developed version of the fantastic movement in Shadow of the Colossus. Adding to that comparison, the animation engine is probably the shining star of Assassin's Creed. It basically connects all the different actions together with individual animations, so there is no judderyness at all when changing direction or attacking or whatnot. Also, I'm only up to my third assassination, so the investigation-and-assassination fatigue hasn't set in yet, but if reviews are correct, it should do soon. We'll see I guess, but Assassin's Creed is definitely a great game so far.

How am I getting so many games lately even though I should be completely skint, earning no money like I do? Well that would be down to Aquatic and I's recent discovery: game trade-ins. Basically, we can finish games, then hand them back for monies. Then buy more games with those monies. It's genius! So over the past few weeks I've traded in my PS2, all of my PS2 games that aren't scratched to within an inch of their lives, and my old PSP phatface, and I didn't do badly out of it either; those trade-ins have financed the purchase of Resistance, MotorStorm, Assassin's Creed and the two most recent additions to my game library: Burnout Paradise and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I haven't put much time into either as I've been busy revising for this week's shagloads of exams as well as edging closer and closer to the end of Resistance: Fall of Man when I find some spare moments, however I will make some very brief notes. Burnout is great fun, particularly the seamless online. Uncharted is a next-gen Tomb Raider with a green coat of paint, clothes that dynamically dry off, and more shooting, but that's no bad thing. Expect more from me on both of them soon.

PlayStation Home. How I long for thee. Okay, actually that's a lie: I still don't have my PS3 hooked up to the internet. Well not my internet. My neighbours at the moment. Bad connection. Dodgy gaming. Short sentences. Anyways, Home has always seemed pretty cool in concept, and I'm now waiting to get my hands on it. In the meantime however, Sony seems to be quite content with just adding more and more stuff to the closed beta and just taunting the rest of us with it. Bitches. The most recent addition was that of the 'Home Events and Media Space' (from here on that's the 'Event Space', kay?). Basically, the Event Space is where virtual recreations of gaming (and other) events can take place, likely simultaneously with the event in real life. The debut of the Event Space was with the PlayStation Day the other week, and the Space was all decked out in media from the event, with a live video feed from the keynote, screenshots in a literal gallery, along with gameplay footage and trailers on screens. I believe something similar was also set up for UbiDays last week. The concept is a fantastic addition to Home, as it means that come E3, rather than reading liveblogs on the web, you could be seated in a virtual arena set up in the Event Space watching the presentation live, then wandering around Home taking in all the news and games. And it makes me just a little hopeful that Home could really be something impressive and individual.

Other news that caught my eye recently: Bioshock is finally coming to PS3 in October (wahey!), which makes me happy because my poor laptop is not ideal for gaming and I own not a 360; PS3 firmware 2.40 is rumoured for an imminent release adding Trophies to the XMB as well as in-game messaging amongst other things; and Cloverfield is out (in the US) and reviewed on Blu-Ray, so expect me to grab it as soon as it arrives in my fair nation. Juno's out June 9th though, I shall be purchasing that indeed.

Speak soon, lots of gratuitous love, FO.