BioShock: Xbox 360 Review

A quick review of BioShock for the Xbox 360 is forthcoming. It'll contain a few spoilers; but nothing you won't read in other reviews online. I'm not a professional reviewer, just a casual fan of some games who hates FPS in general, so take that into consideration as you read.

I purchased BioShock for Xbox 360 and going into it I hated FPS (first person shooter) games - but this seemed like an event game, so I took a shot on it. Usually, they are too dark, unlimited enemies that come out of nowhere and you can't tell where you are being shot at from. I much prefer slower paced RPGs where you build a character, buy stuff, put it on him and generally improve as the game progresses. Most FPS games, you are what you are. Your weapons get bigger, but you have no chance of being any better at the end (besides strategy) than at the beginning. The enemies are just ramped up to add to the challenge.

Then we come to BioShock, which is probably the best mix between an FPS and RPG that I've seen. Yes, you see everything from that incredibly sucky tunnel vision FPS point of view. It still amazes me, that in the 21st century, we cannot make a game that somehow simulates a 180 degrees field of view. But, over the course of the game you'll get missions and you'll get the chance to upgrade your character how you see fit - do you want to use more plasmids (magic, in essence - lightning, fireballs, etc) or do you want to use more guns and upgrade your character appropriately. The choice of plasmids are pretty varied - from electricity, to fire, to ice, to swarms of wasps, to telekenesis. Lots of fun to be had. Especially frying guys standing in water with electricity. Yep - it kills em. The effect is very nicely done too. And if you are standing in water when you shoot lightning, you'll take damage as well.

You don't start out the game with plasmids, though. You have to acquire them over the course of the game. The first one you acquire is electricity - and is probably the most effective, all around. How you get it is ridiculously silly, so I'll explain, with some very minor spoilers. At the beginning of the game you are in a plane that crashes. You land in the water and the only solid ground is a lighthouse nearby that you have to swim to. Once inside you take a bathosphere down into a city called Rapture; where you are immediately beset upon by some mutant or something - who knows. You grab a wrench real quick, climb some stairs - take a wrench to the mutant's face and ace him. You wander up some some stairs and come across a machine with a syringe in it that is glowing red. Now; in real life, you are in this situation - do you jab yourself with some big ass syringe you find in a strange place where some mutant just tried to kill you? I didn't think so. But you do, of course and awaken to find that you can now shoot electricity from your formally useless left hand. So as you explore through the game, you get more guns more plasmids and ways to upgrade yourself into a bad ass mutant killing machine.

The atmosphere in the game is absolutely fabulous. The architecture reminds you of Atlas Shrugged, if you've ever read the book. Since the city of Rapture is underwater, you'll get a lot of interesting scenery when you look out windows - whales swimming around, fish doing the same and sometimes Big Daddy's wandering the exterior of the structure. Very good stuff. The music is fabulous and sets a creepy tone as well. You can even play jukeboxes that have 1960's music on them, which adds a nice touch.

And as you wander around the bad guys talk to themselves, argue between each other and do all sorts of interesting things. They aren't just mindless zombies who are trying to kill you. If you light a bad guy on fire, he'll find the nearest water to get rid of the flames. If you injure one; he'll run to a vending machine to heal himself. If they are hurt really bad, sometimes they'll run away and come back later. It's a series of very nice touches that make the game enjoyable.

The problem arises though, as it does in all FPS games - who is shooting at me and where did it come from? Because you have tunnel vision, it's hard to tell who is shooting at you and from where. So you'll find yourself spinning around looking for the guy shooting you. The game does add some tracer effect to shots which helps, but in a smoky room, it doesn't help a whole lot. But, by far, the most annoying aspect of the game so far is the security robots. They are helicopter like robots that fly around shooting machine guns at you if you happen to set off an alarm - which will happen. They don't do a lot of damage, but if you kill one, another one comes after you - until the alarm is over (60 seconds). Very frustrating.

While you can hack the security cameras, turrets and security robots - they turn out to be ineffective allies all too often. The robots navigate poorly - which helps you in a fight against them - but in close quarters, as allies, this turns into a major issue. They will accidentally shoot you while defending you and generally make it hard to walk around. Hacking is an important part of the game and you'll find yourself doing it quite often. Vending machines are usually the easiest, along with security cameras. Safes seem to be the most difficult. Hacking involves a short minigame where you have to connect a series of tubes to help a liquid get from one end of a maze to the other. It's not difficult, unless you cannot locate the pieces you need to complete the tube - which happens a lot. Good news; is that there is an automatic hacking device to assist you or you can buy your way past the security system - both making your job a lot easier.

During the game, you'll be sent on missions to kill someone or find something or do something. Along the way you'll various various kinds of baddies but their variety is limited - perhaps 5 or 6 different kinds. You may also stumble along a creature known as the Big Daddy. They come in 2 flavors, one that has a huge drill and other that fires grenades at you. Both are tough opponents; but unless you kill them, you'll find you do not have the strength you'll need to progress, as they protect little girls named Eve, who have something you need to make you stronger and improve yourself even further. How you deal with the Eve's is up to you and your actions have consequences.

The game features a nice plot which voice overs taking the place of most cut scenes - these are handled through diary entries of various crew members. Piecing together what happened in Rapture is part of the mystery and the fun. Having a plot in an FPS, besides go here/kill makes this game very enjoyable. And unlike many FPS games, you can save your game at any point where ever you want and pick up right there later.

On a slight technical side, I've noticed that if you play the game for a few hours in a row, the game will hang for a second then move on like nothing happened. It's only happened to me twice so its not too serious, but certainly seems like it was fixable before release.

All-in-all, the game is very fun and has some depth to it that will probably attract RPG fans along with FPS fans. Is it the best game on Xbox 360 right now? Probably not; Oblivion still rules there, for me. But it's close.