BioShock (360)
Release Date: 24th August 2007
Developed By Irrational Games
Publisher: 2K Games
Read Our Preview
Preview: BioShock (360)
A land down under
The fiercest genre on Xbox 360 is without question the first person shooter, where only the strong can hope to survive. BioShock comes fully armed to the teeth with a series of awards throughout its development. Pleasingly, these cover a wide range of aspects including artistic design, best sound, best of show and so on, meaning that this is a different beast from what we're used to seeing here at Gamestyle, and therefore its release is eagerly anticipated.
Developed by Irrational Games (part of the 2K group), BioShock aims to break away from the staple FPS diet of moving through corridors and take the genre in a new direction - just like Half-Life did all those years ago. And that's not just promotional spin talking, as they have dubbed BioShock "Shooter 2.0" in the press releases, which takes bravado to make such a claim. Remember 'Tron 2.0 Killer App' on the original Xbox? No we didn't think you would, which makes the "killer app" proclamation all the more hilarious.
So Irrational Games is bold and confident, but what is BioShock? Well it's a strange beast to say the least, more a sum of its parts rather than something that can be dissected individually. A game that is a role-playing first person shooter with high octane action and adventure, injected with a sinister undercurrent and sprinkled with psychological treats, isn't something that rolls off the tongue or forms a coherent picture in the mind of a gamer. So Gamestyle is pleased to offer you the opportunity to see the game in action...
Video Mirror (torrent, more info)
The opening moments in any videogame are key to its success and quite often the best examples commence with a dramatic event, plunging the player into a startling new environment putting you on the edge of survival. BioShock starts off like a futuristic Jules Verne tale, as your plane is forced to crash land into icy unexplored waters. This prompts a chance encounter with a relic from a bygone age (a bathysphere), as it offers shelter and respite from the conditions you enter, and then a descent beneath the waves.
The sphere descends to the city of Rapture which was originally envisaged as a unique scentific opportunity - to create a perfect society. Its inhabitants were selected from the best the world could offer (scientists, industrialists, artists, musicians and so on) to create a hidden nirvana beneath the waves; safe from the interference by the flawed society from which it sourced its citizens.
The experiment has gone badly wrong; few survivors remain and the majority of those that exist will not take kindly to your presence. Yet this has gone beyond mere humanity, with corpses littering the facility and genetically mutated citizens roaming free. You have to survive, and to do that you have to evolve, as the wide range of upgradeable weapons and machines to be harnessed will not be enough (although the latter can be hacked to open up new avenues). Fond memories of the Deus Ex series persist as your body also becomes part of the enhancement equation. By using plasmid stations you can develop unique abilities (sometimes horrific) to put you on a level footing with anything that you should encounter.
BioShock will push the Xbox 360 one step beyond with its strong design and next generation graphics. Thankfully a strong ecological artificial intelligence will also be present, not only providing challenging skirmishes but also the opportunity to interact with survivors and investigate what happened. Every moral decision and choice you make will count and could have knock-on effects elsewhere. Can you remain human against all odds or will you become a monster?
Geoms which made there first appearance in Galaxies are back.
Chrono Trigger is, quite simply, a masterpiece.
So with all these improvements you would expect me to conclude that Unreal Tournament is the better game?
The overriding mood Burst Limit exudes is one of workmanlike averageness.
Although the interaction between yourself and other people within the game alis, is minor.
With so much plot to defrag a good quarter of MGS4 feels as much an epilogue to the saga than part of the game in its own right, retooling the relationships of even the most banal bit-characters to add some unneeded extra gravitas.
