BioShock

The setup
Compassion is dead for the common man and woman. Apart from benign admonition by charity organisations and wealthy celebrities flaunting their cause or adoptee-of-the-month, most of us operate in a society where achievement is pre-eminent over philanthropy.

BioShock's city of Rapture - an urban, underwater Mount Olympus for society's higher minds - cultural leaders, scientific geniuses and committed achievers - seems a perfect 50's themed tribute to modern values. Rapture's brief from its creator Andrew Ryan - excellence untrammelled by petty morality.

But whether it's the Tower of Babel or Icarus, we've been conditioned to feel that to aim too high is to invoke the displeasure of the gods. And so it is in Rapture, an undersea world leaking at the seams both structurally and metaphysically, Rapture is falling apart. Genetic augmentation has run wild, leading a twisted population of genetically enhanced "splicers" running riot, seemingly at the whim of Ryan, whose grandiose vision has rotted from within.

Your introduction to the world comes in less celebrated circumstances. Your flight crashes down in the middle of the ocean, you the seeming only survivor. After seeing your plane slide majestically into the moonlit deeps, you scale a glistening wet stairway that seemingly rises out of nothing.

Tinkling cabaret strains of "Somewhere, Under the Sea" waft around a curious lobby area. A bust of Andrew Ryan looking distinctly Citizen Kane-esque dominates the view, along with the vaguely ominous "No gods or kings, only man".

Walking down the stairs towards the bathysphere that operates as your transport between levels, the detail is already apparent. The steps have an opalescent sheen - they also have ever so slightly jaggy pixellated edges as well.

Like Neo after he takes the red pill, your world view gets distorted as you plunge through the depths. An art deco 40's city, glittering with neon and detail slides into view. Sealed from the depths, you witness your first glimpse of a world not constrained by legislator or judiciary. And so begins your adventure, in a place as strange as Rapture.

The action begins in BioShock before your Bathysphere door slides open. You witness a murder, and make contact with someone you will discover to be of the few sane and untainted Rapture residents left alive, Atlas.

Atlas may have a heroic name, but his goals are much smaller scale than holding the globe on his shoulders. He needs you to help rescue his wife and child. In the opening hours of the game, as you grow accustomed to the interface, Atlas is the voice that pushes you onward, progressing you through the story, giving you detail on Rapture and Ryan, and guiding you to safety.

The story layers reveal that creator Ryan is at odds with a faction lead by rival Fontaine. A rebellion is underway against the genetically perverted citizens of Rapture, and grass roots chaps like Atlas know all about it. Your priorities quickly expand from survival and saving a couple of innocents to redeeming the tragic errors wrought by Ryan.

The design
Way back when we reported on the New York BioShock media event, we quickly figured out where the juice was on the BioShock team. Design lead Nate Wells has interpreted headman Ken Levine's vision in spectacular fashion. In BioShock he's been given free rein to create a bold, alternate world without limitation. It's Moulin Rogue meets Atlantis, fantastic 50's style. Whether it's the hoardings, posters and billboards that adorn Rapture, the elegant yet utterly credible map layouts, or the dramatic use of lighting to spotlight the action, you get the feeling you're on stage most of the time.

Driven by the current flavour of the month Unreal engine, the game looks staggering. Brass glints, steam puffs, and most of the time the fluid dynamics present are beyond reproach. There's the occasional half-arsed texture cropping up - but 99% of the time you're wandering around a city that looks eminently real. And better yet the mapping of the place makes sense. Cities are not designed to be mazes - so there are plenty of airy layouts, space and signposts to let you know where you are.

The amount of detail in this world is staggering and is absolutely pivotal to forming the backdrop to the game's plot arc. It's very easy to whip up a future world, believe it or not. It's another thing to create a viable alternate world from a time we can easily recall via photographs and the internet and make it gel with the game's story...while putting it underwater.

Character and player models are exceptional. While your trusty radio buddy Atlas airily explains away the splicer's use of masks as a function of the self loathing the mutated beings feel, we're guessing it's a lot easier to animate a mask than it is a face. Whatever the reason, splicers look exceptionally creepy in game. Think something like the masked guy out of Saw and you get the vibe. The cast members' faces you do see have a caricature look to them - not quite inhuman but unsettling nonetheless.

Of course, most of us have by now seen the Big Daddies in action - a monstrous, cumbersome figure in an old fashioned diving apparatus. The animation on these things is beyond reproach, and every engagement you have with them is one for the books. Elite versions of them come along in the game's later stages, and unlike most games you dread every time you hear their slow, heavy tread.

Getting things done
All this beauty would be useless if you couldn't do stuff, and here BioShock once again delivers. For a game that is so heavily focused on story, BioShock still manages to deliver on the carnage front... on two counts. First, there's your standard weaponry. A wrench serves as an initial club tool, and before long you're toting pistols, shotguns, grenade launchers and automatic rifles. An elegant system allows you to have multiple types of ammunition for many of these. Standard bullets aren't doing the job well enough? Switch to some anti-personnel rounds. Need some spark? Slip in some electro buckshot into your shotgun.

However Irrational didn't make this game with mindless blasting in mind. So ammo is hard to come by, and even on the easy setting (which I wussily played) there's no chance of you being able to scream through on full automatic. You spend a lot of time balancing your ammunition and arms out with the other impact feature - the plasmids.

Plasmids are genetic upgrades, allowing you superhuman powers. Unlike weapons, there's a tight rein on how many you can use at any one time, with extra slots purchasable in-game. You start off juggling two slots, so there's an element of choosing the right tool for the job. When wandering around semi-deep frozen areas around the docks precinct, the ability to throw fire via the Incinerate plasmid is invaluable. When you're faced with loads of combat, it's hard to go past unleashing a swarm of bees - even if the visible hand on screen unleashing them looks revoltingly blistered and stung. There's a load to choose from - plasmids that convince Big Daddy's to fight for you, plasmids that enable telekinesis - only the most boring gamer will have more fun running around emptying clips into things than torching people.


In addition to your (maximum six) plasmids, you also have physical, combat and engineering "tonics" at your disposal. Everything from automated safecracking through to cutting off alarms, more health as well as "Adam" - your plasmid's "health" and weapon upgrades are all available, providing you've got the dosh.

Of course, you're doing more than just killing things - you're moving around an unfamiliar city and luckily the control method is up to the task. Initially fiddly, you quickly get the hang of how to switch weapons (and ammo types) on the go with minimal fuss. The interface helps too - when you need to get from A to B a very intelligent directional arrow is there to literally point you in the right direction. A comprehensive mapping and log system is also included which proves invaluable. And when you're stuck and need a recap of what the hell you're meant to be doing at a given time, the game helps you there as well, allowing you to get everything from a detailed rundown of your current mission tree through to hints telling you what's needed to be done.

Looting bodies and the environment is equally easy, although occasionally getting the right "hotspot" can prove fiddly on smaller objects.

Inevitable quibbles

There's no denying BioShock is a strong game of the year contender. But there are a handful of issues that present themselves after extended play. For starters, despite the undeniable brilliance of the music scoring and dialogue, the game's sound bank of samples from splicers and the world in general aren't as expansive as we'd like. It's a hard, hard ask to make but hearing the same phrase uttered by the next splicer you encounter every ten or so minutes get a bit wearying. Not as wearying as being welcome "to the circus of value" every time you use a vending machine. Sometimes its better to have a musical jingle rather than speech.

The hacking subgame feels a little tacked on and gets decidedly unfun quickly - you'll pretty much spend cash to avoid it after the first few goes. And whilst there are no huge concerns with AI, there's a very gradual shift in splicer types as you move through the game. And Big Daddy's signature intimidation factor can pall after 10 hours of the same.

The final thing we'd like to draw attention to is the story flow. The storyline is meaty, stirring stuff. Truly a dramatic work of art, but all too often you're tantalised and then your goal moves further away. Many is the time in BioShock that you will set out on a mission to get from point A to point B, only to be diverted by the game on secondary pursuits. It's one thing for Zoltar to always get away in Battle of the Planets, or Dr Claw to escape Inspector Gadget, but when it happens in BioShock across a number of levels it can get frustrating. Not downing the superb plot at all - but if we need to get the whatsit in order to activate the thingummy that will unlock the door to where we want to go - say that from the outset, rather than the constant teasing.

Wot's it all mean?
Even with superior music and art direction and the industry's current favourite 3D engine, BioShock could have been an utter dud. There's no multiplayer and play is highly linear. Two big factors, these. Current publisher logic seems to revolve around three themes. You can have a great controller gimmick (Wii, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Singstar et al) and sell a load of games. You can have a compelling multiplayer experience, thereby obviating the need for a fleshed out single player mode. Or you can opt for a "sandbox" approach, and throw open the game world to exploration a-la Grand Theft Auto 3 onwards, and its army of often credible clones.


BioShock is none of the above. There's no cute plastic accessories (batteries not included) to play with here. There's no multiplayer. And while you run back and forth around Rapture, it's not a sandbox style game by any means.

Like our litany of minor quirks we've listed above, however, the detractions ultimately count for nought. Irrational Games (now 2K Boston and 2K Australia respectively) may have set out to make a video game, but they have come up with something more than that here. Unlike any game before it, BioShock stands on its own feet as a powerful work of interactive fiction. The swagger and braggadocio that typifies shooters is nowhere to be found here. Instead, you get possibly the richest game world ever seen, with a storyline that delves expertly into themes than other games have feared to tread.

Don't buy BioShock for the graphics, action or audio, exceptional as they are. Buy it as a vote for quality mature-age storytelling, brilliantly executed.