Bioshock (Xbox 360)
One of my obvious biases is my disdain for first person shooters. I don't have the twitchy reflexes of a 13-year-old hopped up on Mountain Dew Code Red, and I don't like to play games online yelling about how I pwned you while questioning your sexual orientation. Bioshock is a welcome relief from the usual fare, injecting a decent storyline and impressive design elements while keeping gameplay to a level where someone such as myself can succeed.
If you aren't familiar with the plot, just put a copy each of Atlas Shrugged, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Usual Suspects in a blender and frappe until they're about the same consistency and you'll have a pretty good approximation. It's nothing brilliant, but it's a lot more literary than the usual video game plot of "these guys are bad, go beat them up". I won't go into details, except to point out that one of the main characters is superbly voiced by Star Trek/Buffy alumnus Armin Shimerman. He brings just the right amount of hubris and pomposity to the role to really nail it.
I also really loved the design of the game. It takes place in a steampunk underwater city that was built in 1947. Everything, from storefronts to vending machines to advertising, is designed in the art deco style, which is a welcome change from the usual futuristic/alien or industrial/grungy stylings of most shooters. (As an aside, my architecture geek boyfriend points out that by 1947, they would have been out of art deco and into modernism, but we'll just pretend that they were the last holdouts.)
As far as the actual gameplay is concerned, it's a shooter. I played it on "easy" and didn't die once throughout the whole game, so it was pretty merciful to me. What keeps the game from achieving greatness is the pacing: the middle third of the game is bogged down by a series of fetch quests, and after the shocking plot twist is revealed, the last third of the game seems more like an afterthought than anything. Still, blasting mutants with a shotgun never goes out of style, and the "Plasmid" system that gives you superpowers is great fun. Some people like shooting bees out of their hand, but I like the old standby: incinerate. Setting enemies on fire is ridiculously useful in the later stages of the game. And fun. Fire is always fun.
4 out of 5
One of my obvious biases is my disdain for first person shooters. I don't have the twitchy reflexes of a 13-year-old hopped up on Mountain Dew Code Red, and I don't like to play games online yelling about how I pwned you while questioning your sexual orientation. Bioshock is a welcome relief from the usual fare, injecting a decent storyline and impressive design elements while keeping gameplay to a level where someone such as myself can succeed.
If you aren't familiar with the plot, just put a copy each of Atlas Shrugged, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Usual Suspects in a blender and frappe until they're about the same consistency and you'll have a pretty good approximation. It's nothing brilliant, but it's a lot more literary than the usual video game plot of "these guys are bad, go beat them up". I won't go into details, except to point out that one of the main characters is superbly voiced by Star Trek/Buffy alumnus Armin Shimerman. He brings just the right amount of hubris and pomposity to the role to really nail it.
I also really loved the design of the game. It takes place in a steampunk underwater city that was built in 1947. Everything, from storefronts to vending machines to advertising, is designed in the art deco style, which is a welcome change from the usual futuristic/alien or industrial/grungy stylings of most shooters. (As an aside, my architecture geek boyfriend points out that by 1947, they would have been out of art deco and into modernism, but we'll just pretend that they were the last holdouts.)
As far as the actual gameplay is concerned, it's a shooter. I played it on "easy" and didn't die once throughout the whole game, so it was pretty merciful to me. What keeps the game from achieving greatness is the pacing: the middle third of the game is bogged down by a series of fetch quests, and after the shocking plot twist is revealed, the last third of the game seems more like an afterthought than anything. Still, blasting mutants with a shotgun never goes out of style, and the "Plasmid" system that gives you superpowers is great fun. Some people like shooting bees out of their hand, but I like the old standby: incinerate. Setting enemies on fire is ridiculously useful in the later stages of the game. And fun. Fire is always fun.
4 out of 5
posted by Cole at
8:16 AM
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