Bioshock (Xbox 360)

Hello gamers,
Today’s post is a review for Bioshock, which is for the Xbox 360.

When you’re sick of how life works and want to escape from everything, you usually complain to your parents, move, or even live in your room the rest for your life. However, that’s not what Andrew Ryan did. He decided to make a city that’s 20 miles under the sea with crazy people and large scuba divers called “Big Daddy”. If you’ve wanted to do what Andrew Ryan did, then Bioshock is for you!

What I’ve just told you is the setting for Bioshock. The time is 1960, and you’re on a business meeting. Unfortunately, the plane you’re on crashes and you’ve got to find land. As you swim around looking for dry land, you find a tower (much like a Light Tower). As you enter the tower, you are greeted with a banner that reads, “No Gods or Kings. Only Man.” When you enter further into the tower, you find a small sub. When you board the sub, you get a little movie that tells you about this wonderful place where you don’t get pushed around, or have to listen to God. A nice little place called “Rapture”. Rapture was built in the 40’s in order for Man to be the only thing important. Andrew Ryan designed the place so Scientists and artist and very important people could help him make Rapture something never before seen. They design these “self-evolution” liquids called “Plasmids” (which I will explain later). As you enter the nice little city under water, you see that it’s been basically in runes. Trash is everywhere, the floor is destroyed, walls are leaking in with water and crazy people walk in the halls. This is where your adventure begins. You are assisted with a man by the name of “Atlas”, who basically helps you through out the entire game. As you begin, your adjective is to help Atlas get his family back, destroy Rapture and kill Andrew Ryan for making everyone become crazy. Though out the game, you will confront these giant scuba divers called “Big Daddy” which protect “Little Sisters” so they can loot those who are dead. Now, the game doesn’t really give you an explanation for why the Big Daddies do this, but the Little Sisters are attracted to them. Now, Big Sisters are really these little girls who have been basically possessed by Andrew Ryan. You will encounter these Little Sisters with the Big Daddies. The Big Daddies will try to kill you if you attack them or get too close to the Little Sisters. If you defeat one of them, you will confront the Little Sisters. The person who took care of the girls before they turned evil gives you an option. You can ether Harvest the Little Girls for ADAM (which I will also explain later), or you can Rescue the little girls. If you choose to rescue the girls, you will be given a small amount of ADAM and later in the game, receive something that will really help you. What you do with the Little Sisters decides with the ending of the game, so choose wisely. Now, on to the Plasmids and ADAM. Plasmids are the things that let you “self-evolve”. When you come across a Plasmid, you unlock power. Plasmids are designed to genetically change you so you can have these “super powers”. So of these powers can be a flame that you shoot out of your hand to a cyclone that you can make your enemies fly with. My favorite Plasmid is the Telekinesis. Telekinesis is what lets you pick up trash cans, bodies, trash, chairs, guns, ammo, anything you can think of to strike your enemy down. Now, you do have a limit to how much you can use. It all depends on how much EVE you have. EVE lets you replenish you Plasmid power so you can continue to use it. This is where ADAM comes in. ADAM lets you purchase new powers and many other things. Don’t worry though; you’re not going to just use Plasmid to take out enemies. You get guns to wipe them out. Since the time the place was built was in the 1940’s, you get older guns like the Thompson, revolver, shotgun and many more. Some enemies will carry the guns so you can pick up more ammo. However, you can also choose to upgrade your gun. Add some kick to a shotgun shell, or give it a little shocker with a electric buck. If you run out of ammo, you can also rely on the good old plumbing tools to take care of business. Now, onto graphics. Although the game has an awesome looking city, great detail with the guns and interior of the city; it still lacks the power it could have. Not saying it’s bad, but it’s not going to impress you as much as Forza 2 or Halo 3.

Altogether, the game is pretty sweet, but beside single player has nothing else to offer. The story is great but sometimes doesn’t make sense at all. I would suggest renting the game before buying to make sure you don’t buy a game that will get old after one time though. I must say however, it’s one of the strangest games I have ever played (with an even stranger ending). I give Bioshock a 8.7 out of 10.

Ups: Good story and writing, awesome powers and the ability to modify any weapon you want.
Downs: Replay value is horrible, needs a better tune up on the graphics.

Well, that’s all for now,
HANG TIGHT GAMERS!!