Originally posted by Ushgarak
That's not a cardinal sin, really.
Yeah it is. You have these awesome looking bosses and yet you have this very simple way to defeat them. These boss battles were far too easy namely the last boss himself who was disappointing. I don't think I ever actually died from a boss battle in this game and yet I can't tell you how many times I died trying to beat Dark Link or Ganondorf in Wind Waker.
BIOSHOCK (PC)
First, a ‘quick’ history lesson for a swathe of gaming. I feel this context is important for the review that follows, but if you know it all already or cannot be bothered, skip on ahead. Btw, this whole review is full of spoilers.
PC gaming took a long time to take off. This was even more true in Europe, where home computers (Spectrum, Commodore, Amstrad, Amiga, Falcon etc.) filled the gap after the so called video gaming crash after the fall of Atari in early-mid 80s far more than had happened in the American market. I’m not sure why home computers didn’t take up as much in the States; they were there but never quite the same phenomenon. So when PCs started to establish themselves as game-capable, they were only up against Japanese consoles in the US, and PCs could do so much more. In Europe there was severe competition from the later generation Commodores and Atari STs that could do much the same but far cheaper.
At some point the balance shifted in favour of the PC. The defining moment for me was Wing Commander- playable on my beloved A1200 (which I had great memories of, but was my last machine before switching to PC), where it ran… well enough, but clearly not as well as the 386s were doing. But of course, the gaming moment that most historians point to as the breaking moment for the PC, was Doom. There was something about that smooth first person excellence that had a lasting effect on people.
Of course when looking at Doom it is only fair to note the build-up to it via way of Castle Wolfenstein. It’s pretty silly to ignore that direct lead in. Yet around the same time, there was a game that was also very successful, part of a huge brand by a major company, that also used smooth first person technology that wouldn’t work on any other platform, and that also combined the whole deal with an RP and inventory style seen in earlier games such as Dungeon Master or Bloodwych (Bloodwych, btw, being the first co-op RP ever. Fantastic!) This was an amazing fusion of styles that made for one of the greatest and most influential gaming experiences ever that, whilst not forgotten, gets surprisingly overlooked.
The company was Origin, which spent a long time making triple A games (Wing Commander being a particular love of mine), now another one of those sad casualties of gaming. The game… was Ultima Underworld.
A spin-off from the popular Ultima games rather than any form of continuation, this game had you free-form exploring a huge (especially for the time) underground dungeon in first person view, but with, as I say, RP elements and the use of inventory, changeable weapons and a magic system. Events were updated in text as you went along, you returned to previously visited levels as you unlocked new abilities and opened up new areas, there were many different paths to success, you could interact with objects on-screen using the mouse, and in being able to play several different classes there was good replay value. Now, to be fair, the FP perspective was much smaller than Doom- it only took up a portion of the screen, the rest being given to the user interface. But for the time, the technological achievement was amazing, and the critical reception matched it.
Oddly enough I got UU bundled with my first PC, but I didn’t play it until I also got given the sequel somewhat later. Ultima Underworld II was a bit different in that it WAS part of the main Ultima plotline, and was set in a series of different dungeons rather than one, though it was still an entirely indoors game. It was a sequel in the very traditional sense of the word; no revolution. Things were bigger, better, more to do, but nothing was fundamentally different- except that there were friendly people to interact with all around. That might sound bad but in fact no, it was awesome. It also introduced a neat concept for the time of the bad guy- the Guardian- taunting you as you went along, very occasionally.
Two in a row then, but you can only do sequels like that so often before you run out of any originality, as is often a complaint about sequels. Luckily, what they had planned next with this engine was something quite startling. The next game… was System Shock.
System Shock made the first person perspective full screen, with the UI being fitted around that as we would now expect in first person games. That was one advance. But the fundamental changes it made once more brought whole new perspectives to gaming at the time. Creating a whole new sci-fi setting, it pitted you as a hacker on a space station who finds himself the only person still alive, as an insane AI known as SHODAN has taken over the station. Somewhat unsure what you are doing there, you are forced to take on the killer robots and other such machines on the station whilst trying to get access to areas and finding records that would explain the situation to you. This began a tradition of which players of Bioshock will find familiar.
So it still had all the RP elements, the inventory system, funky powers, changeable weapons and all that jazz. But now instead of a static dungeon crawl, you were interacting with an unfolding story,. But the story had already happened before play started, so you were finding out what had already happened, via records found in desks, crates and dead bodies found all around Citadel station. These records- found out of chronological order- allowed you to put together how the station’s main computer, SHODABN, had gone mad at the behest of the equally insane station Captain, and had then set itself up as a machine God, and gone around killing the human inhabitants, turning some of them into deadly cyborgs that would then resurrect themselves if killed unless you shut down their resurrection centre. Different parts of the station had different looks- an entire section set in the biodomes, where SHODAN was creating weird genetic life forms, was an example of the use of an entirely different look in different parts of the game.
Other gameplay elements included security cameras that needed to be removed, a cyberspace element as you took over various systems, a hacking minigame that allowed you to take control of things like defence turrets.. and most memorably of all, in an extension of what was done with the Guardian in UUII, the brilliant realisation of SHODAN as an awesome bad guy (bad girl, in fact) as she continually mocked and derided you throughout the game- and in the CD version, this was in full voice. Presentationally, there was nothing else like it at the time.
There was a twist, of course, as it turned out that YOU had created SHODAN, as you as a Hacker had removed its ethical constraints. Oops.
Still, you won out in the end, and SHODAN was stopped. And following this, all went rather quiet for a while.
Rather a long time later, the (also now sadly defunct) company Looking Glass Games were looking into creating a new type of FPS game, a swordfighting simulator. Fantasy FPS games- most notably Heretic and Hexen- had been done before, but whilst rather good really were just Doom with magic instead of guns. Looking Glass were looking to make something more fundamentally different, based around the swordfighting. This objective failed, but they implemented the principles of the engine they had developed into something else instead. The engine was called the Dark engine, and the games was ‘Thief’. It still had swords in, in a minor way, but the main essence of the game was the stealth system, of enemies searching you out (with their characteristic voice cues you would hear if they had seen nothing, or had seen something but lost it, or had seen you, or were chasing you, or were annoyed at something…). Thief spawned its own sequels, of course; I played through the original but wasn’t quite inspired enough to buy the rest.
But then in a move that surprised nearly everyone, Looking Glass then adapted the Dark Engine to create the game which many had thought would never be made- a sequel to System Shock! SS was a pretty old game by then and was assumed to be a relic of the past. But in an awesome effort, LG resurrected the whole concept, and allied it with modern approaches to gaming. (In fact, their early versions were a little too well converted from Thief, as they found their monkey bad guys blocking crowbar attacks with invisible swords, so closely was the code aligned to the guards in Thief).
System Shock was brought into the world of 3D (the original was still done in the Doom-style sprite days), and BOY, did that effort pay off! It had everything the original had- the return of SHODAN to mock you as you went along, the discovery of records on dead bodies as you- once again a mysterious lone survivor, this time on an experimental spaceship- tried to work out what the hell had happened to everything. It had the RP elements, the xp system, the inventory system, the minigames for hacking the security cameras etc. Coming in from Thief was the sneaking, and the routines used by bad guys to search with you, along with the audio cues from them loudly announcing their behaviour. Also some new elements, such as customisable weapons. Joining the robotic bad guys was a bunch of bio-organic ones, a legacy of the biopod plotline from the original plotline, creating a humanoid but genetically altered form of enemy called ‘annelids’. Meanwhile, research could be conducted, that allowed you to exploit enemy weaknesses or gain new abilities. There were hazards like high radiation areas, and meanwhile an entirely new psionic powers system. Three different character classes- Psionic, Naval Technician or Combat Marine- gave further extension to gameplay. There were vending machines from which ammo or other useful items could be purchased with a cash system. Meanwhile, once activated, resurrection chambers around the ship allowed you to return (for a cost) once killed.
But the thing that really made SSII a classic was how, like those before it had then for their time, it hugely pushed the bounds of presentation. Sound quality had increased enormously from the old SS days, and the use of sound- both music and sudden noises- was amazing. So was the use of light and darkness, and its use of ghosts to explain various points; System Shock II could scare the living crap out of anyone playing it. Everyone was voiced this time, not just SHODAN, and hearing how everyone died was particularly emotional. SHODAN herself was awesome, as were some of the other antagonists you were in communication with, like the malfunctioning computer Xerxes and the overlapped voice of ‘The Many’, the source of the biological bad guys.
SSII also had the idea of a guide- someone you couldn’t see but was in communication with you all the way, making sure you knew what to do next. This gave the game some very useful focus and drive. On a very fundamental level, you were still doing the same thing you were in Ultima Underworld- exploring a huge area that was non-linear with increasingly useful equipment until you could solve the whole deal. But the presentation is what made it- as well as the multiple approaches; there were normally always two and possibly more ways to solve any obstacle, normally from a combination of combat, psionics, hacking or sneaking.
As for the twist… well, that was the icing on the cake. It turns out this time that you are actually one of SHODAN’s cyborgs- which is why you are capable of being resurrected, a reversal of you trying to shut down the cyborg chambers of the first game. The voice that has been guiding you in the game is a lie, it was in fact SHODAN herself in the guise of an already dead crewmember (whose logs you had been finding around the game, giving credence to the lie). Being the hero you were, of course, eventually you overcome this slight problem of your personal identity and defeat Xerxes, the Many and finally SHODAN herself, the final section being a neat virtual recreation of parts of Citadel station from the original.
In case you hadn’t guessed, I adored SSII, easily a 9/10 game for me. The character design system- by which you mapped out what your character had been doing for the three years before the mission the game is concerned with- allowed a lot of customisation to try and different tack for a replay, and even more awesome a multiplayer option allowed you to take a team into the situation, each with a different role. You could have one hardcore fighter, one techy hacker type, and one super psionic. It wasn’t even too easy, because there were no more resources available to be split amongst the group than all went to one player in single player, and in a panicked situation- very common in the game- you were more likely to start shooting each other than anything else. Meanwhile, having one player desperately fleeing security systems or holding off bad guys as a second player rushes like crazy to shut it all down in the hacking minigame brought a sort of fantastic co-op tension that I am unsure I have seen in any other game. Despite SSII being designed as a solo experience, it worked extremely well multiplayer in a way you would not expect, though the final sections didn’t work out as well.
And that was that. Frankly, people this time expected- nay, demanded- a System Shock III. But it didn’t seem to happen and Looking Glass went out of business. But the programmers were not done, and they wanted to make a new game. They didn’t have the System Sock license any more, but they had all the concepts and ideas. So they built a new setting- with a name that had an obvious nod to all that had come before. And so was born Bioshock.
It took them bloody ages, but finally Bioshock did indeed come out. Interestingly, as Ultima Underworld came out at the time where PC gaming was putting itself on the map, Bioshock comes at a time where many speculate it is dying, and Bioshock’s triumphant release on the 360 is a possible testament to that. I was playing it on the PC, to be clear- and you needed an expensive rig to play it properly.
For the 0.001% of people that don’t know, let’s get the setting out the way. They had done fantasy, they had done sci-fi, so this time they went for an entirely original early 20th century style setting (though the game plays out in the 50s), an art deco style of great towering brass and gold, set in an attempt at an underwater utopia gone sour. The lone survivor of an air crash in the ocean, you find yourself entering this abandoned paradise- known as Rapture- and fairly sure find yourself in a pitched battle for survival against the complete messed up inhabitants, guided by the leader of the resistance known as ‘Atlas’. Rapture is the creation of the fairly nutty Andrew Ryan, who has very straightforward ideas about ownership of property and how economies should be run, all supposedly based on the ideas of Ayn Rand, though frankly I was not convinced by the political subtext. Once more on your ownsome, you find your way through the complex, gaining weird genetic powers from an alteration process known as ‘splicing’, made possible by the wondrous properties of the substance known as ‘Adam’, which became the centre of power in Rapture and the basis of its economic system. As a side plot, you find how the fight for the ownership of Adam led to Rapture’s eventual downfall, as Ryan’s ideas of economy and ownership contrasted with the views of those in various parts of the production chain, most notably a Frank Fontaine who becomes Ryan’s nemesis. As a result, virtually everyone is- once again- rather dead, or if not dead then turned into mad genetic aberrations called Splicers. You have to get to grip with your situation, survive the lethal environments, get hold of enough Adam to improve yourself, and finally work out what the heck has been going on, running into the now-inevitable twist.
Right, Let’s get this out the way. The Bioshock setting is original. Absolutely nothing else about it is at all- not one tiny iota. It is, absolutely, a sequel to System Shock II repackaged in a different setting. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it does need to be noted. Splicers are identical to annelids. The powers you get from Splicing are akin to SSIIs psionics. Andrew Ryan gloats at you as you go along much as SHODAN did in the last two games. The guns are akin to SSII, can be modified likewise. The vending machines are identical to SSII. The way bad guys look for you and give audio cues is the same as it was in Thief. The hacking minigame is still here- now as a form of Pipemania- as it was in both System Shock games- and in fact it is worse. It takes too long to do and absurdly the game pauses whilst you do it, meaning you can re-programme a live turret whilst being shot, which you manifestly could not do in System Shock where it was all real time. The camera system is from System Shock. The use of ghosts is from System Shock II. The resurrection chambers- now free to use, bringing question marks about difficulty that I don’t feel like going over here- are from SSII. The discovery of taped records explaining the plot is from System Shock, the lone explorer of an unknown setting is from System Shock and has its roots in Ultima Underworld, the combat is pretty much the same as SSII, the use of Adam is identical to cybermodules in SSII… and the big plot twist is almost entirely identical to SSII, so much so that it stunned me. Turns out you are a deliberately created tool of the main bad guy who has been impersonating your guide Atlas all the way. Effectively identical to SSII, the only difference being that Atlas is entirely fictional whereas Doctor Polito of SSII was merely already dead, which is pretty trivial. That was sadly weak, despite the intelligent placement of the trigger phrase that controlled you, and some other pretty smart placement of messages throughout the game that can easily slip you by on a first run through.
In terms of gameplay, Bioshock actually sees the least development compared to the previous title of any of the games I have mentioned. It goes backwards in some areas- no character classes, no inventory system, no stats, no skills. I wasn’t convinced by that. It’s also far more linear than any of these games since Ultima Underworld… in fact, even more linear than that. On the other side, the cumbersome research system of SSII is replaced by a ‘research camera’ in Bioshock that makes no sense at all but, game-wise, works much better. But on the whole, it seems they were adjusting the concept to a much more casual generation of gamers.
It also fails to go forwards in a way I really expected it would. Of all the gamnes I have listed above, only Ultima Underworld II had a meaningful system of character interaction. All other games have you as the only character around, all others being bad guy or dead/dying by the time you get to them. Bioshock does have one brief sequence when you are with others, but they are really just mobile bits of scenery, not meaningful people. The limitaiton before was technological, I suspect. Now it seems more like they are just sticking with the way things were before. But they cannot just keep on having you as the lone runner in the plot line- that's Doom mentality. Doom gave way tp Half-Life 2, where having others around is the norm. UUII already had a system via which you could even influence the plotline via interaction with others, with a branched conversation system like the later Baldur's Gate/KOTOR games. If I had guessed one thing that would go into SSII's squel, I would have said some form of social interaction. Its absence surprises me. And don't think for one moment that you could not keep the tension with others around.
These arguments about Bioshock have all been seen before. I think it is very important to look at Bioshock in its historical context and understand just how similar it is to its predecessor. I very much side with the camp that makes a big deal of it merely being a re-packaged SSII. But now I have done that, lets’ make sure you also appreciate how good that re-packaging is.
First of all, Bioshock looks GORGEOUS. That is important as only the original Ultima Underworld looked good for its time. The original System Shock looked bigger but that was about it, and Thief and System Shock II looked adequate but no more. Bioshock, on the other hand, pushes boundaries. The prettiest bit of all is actually the first few minutes-, from you escaping the plane wreck (possibly the most visually pleasing game sequence I have ever played) to the well ‘directed’ unveiling of your arrival at Rapture. It never hits these peaks again but throughout the game still looks sumptuous- and in an approach to gaming that is dependant on its presentation to engage, involve and, frankly, scare the shit out of the player, this is a very very big plus indeed. The use of sound is equally awesome- not actually technically superior to SSII in its implementation, but the 30s/40/50s theme brings it a certain brilliant something.
Secondly, Bioshock is making an attempt at intelligent comment that whilst unconvincing (I really just wanted to ask Ryan “But don’t you find that property creates inequality?”) is nonetheless light years beyond what most games try. It succeeds in making a difficult setting very engaging indeed. Part and parcel of this was the much publicised system of ‘Big Daddies’ and their child charges- genetically altered kids are needed to refine Adam, and they are protected by huge and dangerous ‘Big Daddy’ bodyguards. Now… I don’t feel this system ever worked as well as they really wanted. You quickly learn how to easily kill Big Daddies and you can then either save or kill the children for their Adam as appropriate; you get given a device that allows you to extract Adam from saved children and you never see yourself killing one if you take that route, and both of these conspire to make all this harping on about moral choice feel almost irrelevant, other than to get different ending sequences which… aren’t that brilliant really. Certainly not a good reason for a second playthrough- just reload an old save instead.
Thirdly- Bioshock is just extremely fun to play. They hit the playability curve just right; faster paced than System Shock II and all the better for that, and surprisingly easy to play, which perhaps justifies the stripping away of inventory, though I still feel that a shame. So, no matter what I can say about originality and some areas that didn’t come out as planned, there’s no getting away from the fact that this is simply a very good game, a great mix of action, adventure, discovery and tactical choices, combined with near flawless presentation. It’s another one of those games that just makes you think “I wish more games were this polished.” It might not be a revolution, but it is the pinnacle (for now) of evolution of all the elements that have slowly been developing since Ultima Underworld was released all those years ago. Ultima Underworld was originally very distinct from Doom, the FPS. SSII was halfway there, Bioshock is now almost all of the way there- it has come full circle, and they have fused the concept with an FPS in a way that perhaps shows the away ahead for gaming. Or maybe it will just remain an entertaining niche. We’ll see how the rumoured prequel goes… and for that matter, they still talk of an SSIII sometimes. Regardless, I cannot really do anything else but recommend it. Still, my mark is not quite as high as it might because in the end I felt myself more having to concede it was good rather than continuously thinking it was endlessly brilliant. I did feel it was starting to drag near the end and, in a crucial difference to SSII, I really don’t feel that compelled to replay.
This relates to something else I want to mention. Before Bioshock’s release I was vocally annoyed at there being no multiplay, seeing as I had liked it so much in SSII. Many- including some of the designers- said it wouldn’t work because Bioshock was plot-focussed around one guy. Bollocks- that was also true of SSII and it worked great there. Another designer said it wasn’t worth the effort because not enough people used it. All too believable, for which I hate the gaming public. Having played, though… I now very much think multiplay would not work as well. My opinion on the above has not changed; my problem is that in Bioshock you do nearly everything. So long as you are reasonably efficient at collecting Adam in Bioshock you end up lethal with weapons (far TOO lethal with the basic crowbar in fact) and also deadly with weird powers. This combines with the fact that there is simply less to be good at in Bioshock compared to System Shock. Played multiplayer, you would just have several people who could do nearly everything. SSII forced more choices on you- which meant more replay value, and gave those vital niches for multiplay. A shame, then. If I was going to give any advice for the sequel/prequel, I would say to provide far more things you can possibly be than you can ever actually achieve.
(And if it IS a prequel- an idea opportunity to add in character interaction as I noted above!)
And so that’s that! I’d been waiting a long time for this game. It’s more derivative than I thought, and it’s a shame I don’t feel like playing again- but there’s no denying that it is a piece of brilliance.
Cardinal Sins- none that I recall, always a good sign
Rating: 8/10
Comments: A great game, brilliantly designed, that draws very well indeed on all that preceded it. But for me, doesn’t quite make the leap to timeless classic
I think one of the issues with the dragging is that once you get to the end... it's all still fairly much the same as it was earlier. When you were running around the domain of the nutty guy the background showed some variation but other than that much of Rapture looks the same and likewise the end bits.
SSII actually mixed it up a bit, putting you into inside the giant biological body of The Many and then finally into cyberspace/Citadel Station at the end, so althouugh the gameplay was the same, and most the surprises were gone, you still felt there was some mileage in it. In Bioshock I was playing it pretty much just to finish it by that point, which is a shame. It had fired off all its best bits already.
SSII also absolutely terrified me. Which of course you know already. ****ing ghosts and psychic monkeys...
(tip to anyone who decides to play SSII - if you pick a psionic character but don't bother actually training any weapons, you will NOT be able to kill cyborgs. Trust me on that one as I found out the hard way)
Aaaand I still need to finish Bioshock. Though I will very much agree that it is rather easy - even though I fairly well suck at shooters, I haven't had any worries about dying or anything. Though it is fun to hack myself a mini-army of security bots...