Customer Reviews

BioShock

5 star:		(148)
4 star:		(64)
3 star:		(34)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(72)

 

 

Let's keep this sweet, organized and fair.

UNDISPUTED FACT:
BIOSHOCK will only install for a limited number of times (it was 3 but - after a deluge of eMails and bad reviews - it was upped to 5). So, if you install it you will be reluctant to uninstall once finished and will have to carry those 9GB on your HardDrive for a long time. On top of that, its resale value is down the drain the moment one pops the box open...
Even after the patch that removed the activation limit, uninstalling still leaves behind certain irremovable folders that will make sure it can be re-established in the future.
So one has to ask: even after paying $50 for it, WHO ACTUALLY OWNS MY COPY?

UNDISPUTED FACT:
The game utilizes an overzealous version of SecuROM 7+. They either activated all its available options or had a special version custom made. No other game company dared behaving in such heavy-handed way. This means that if your computer has more than one disc drive (or even one but non-DRM certified) it may block them, whereas the game may not even install if you are running virtual drives or have certain media-burning software installed (even NERO has been known to be considered ..."pirate-ware"!)

DISPUTED FACT :
It has been widely reported that BIOSHOCK installs a RootKit. Both MICROSOFT's ROOTKIT DETECTION TOOL and AVG ANTI-VIRUS detected either the RootKit or its actions. Recently, AVG was made to release a special update (just for BIOSHOCK) to ignore this alert.
In hacker lingo, to "take someone's Root" means to insert a procedure that "will allow the intruders to maintain root access (highest privilege) on the system without the system administrator even seeing them".
Official BIOSHOCK announcements (and their "unofficial" reviewers here at AMAZON) will try to persuade everyone who would listen that there is nothing there, so stop looking and don't even mention it.
Understandable reaction since, the existence of a RootKit would be a solid basis for class-action litigation.
Weight the facts and judge for yourself.

UNDISPUTED FACT:
BIOSHOCK effectively revokes our Administrator rights on our own computers. Here is what happens: even after completely uninstalling the game there is a mystery folder that canNOT be removed, no matter what!
On WinXP it is located here:
"C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\SecuRom"
As administrators, we could (unwisely) delete even Windows System folders - yet BIOSHOCK's mystery folder apparently claims a higher authority level? What this folder does and why should it get placed into OUR computers so that we cannot remove it even as Administrators, is beyond me. And I, for one, do NOT appreciate it one bit. (A quick internet search revealed a number of suggestions on how to get rid of it, ranging from clearly unsafe to catastrophic...)
True, almost every game leaves one or two folders behind after uninstalled - but this NEVER REVOKES OUR ADMINISTRATOR RIGHTS to delete them!

I do understand that there are production and publishing costs to get recovered as well as profit projections to be reached. Companies that wish to protect their investment will always try to fight piracy. This is only reasonable and expected.
However, with BIOSHOCK, as it is currently available by 2K GAMES, it gets WAY OUT OF HAND & WELL BEYOND RIDICULOUS!!

No one in the game-publishing industry seems to learn from past mistakes: every security system eventually gets cracked and every "OnLine activation requirement" eventually gets bypassed. So, utilizing an overly intrusive, inconvenient and possibly dangerous security kit only serves in penalizing the people who actually paid good money for their product - and manage to shoot their sales in the foot at the same time.
Look what happened with HALF-LIFE 2: legitimate buyers still have to put up with activating the game every time we want to play - and of course VALVE paid the price: unprotected HL1 had sold TWICE as many units as STEAM-"secured" HL2 ever did (8million and 4million respectively, Source: THE WASHINGHTON POST)

Since I would NEVER install a contraption such as BIOSHOCK onto my computer and wished to have hands-on experience before I reviewed the game, I asked around and a colleague of mine had already made the mistake of purchasing it and installing on his laptop.
THIS IS NOT A BAD GAME.
The environments are well designed and have a pleasant retro patina; the graphics are very nice, even though they do not meet the hype. They are comparble to older games such as HL2 (not to mention STALKER).
You see, dark is not always moody, and blurry cannot always be mistaken for dreamy.
I did love the music though! Both the collection of happy-go-lucky and Big-Band romantic 1940's songs (contrasting with the bleak environment) as well as their smart timing, added to the overall experience.

It was the gameplay I was the least impressed.
Totally linear - as it is has come to be expected from any FPS today I am afraid. To be fair, I cannot imagine a Single Player holding a storyline without being more or less linear (even "free"-roaming FAR CRY did not escape this curse) - but then again, that is why I am not a game designer. And unless the publishers release their creative suffocation of the true game artists, there is no hope for a worthy successor to SYSTEM SHOCK 2.

The controls are not hard to get used to; if not, they are completely remapable; nevertheless, I would love to have an real inventory: cycling between which plasmid and which ammo for which gun can get pretty frustrating. Fast.
Not that hitting your enemies does any good. For a game that is based on an alternative reality scenario and counts in immersing you into that world, the damage dealt by the guns is pretty unrealistic. A double-barreled full blast with the (augmented!) shotgun in the head of a generic splicer will NOT take him down.
And what's with the scarce ammo!? I ended up using the 1-2 combo (electric plasmid shock followed by quick ...wrench hits) one picks up in the first 10 minutes of the game throughout because the ammo was either of the wrong type or too expensive or nowhere to be found. Only at the very end was there an abundance of both money and ammo but by then they were pretty useless: a fully charged electric plasma gun and some propelled grenades is all one needs.

And, finally: dying. Regeneration chambers turn the game into a check-point one - and I hate checkpoint-games. Most often than not, they are chosen in order to artificially augment the gameplay duration (having us replay the same segments over and over - instead of saving wherever we feel like it). Moreover, when progressing, you usually end up getting killed just before the next regeneration chamber (and having to repeat quite a distance from the previous one) whereas, when facing a Boss, regeneration takes away all the suspense. Keep respawning, you will eventually get him, his health does not increase if you do.

So, all in all, BIOSHOCK is a good game BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO BE WORTH ITS EXCESSIVE DRM TROUBLE.
It is only a slightly above-average game; and if 2K GAMES did not have the guts to publish it for PCs (and is hiding it within an intrusive security Kit) it should have stuck with Xbox.

Even BIOSHOCK designers acknowledge there is a serious issue with the security measures forced upon them by the publisher. These measures are hurting their game and, so, THERE IS AN UPDATED VERSION COMING IN THE NEAR FUTURE TO FIX THIS!
Don't take my word for it. Google for "Ken Levin-Interview" and "BIOSHOCK-Fixed-Version" and see for yourself. (I tried to add links but Amazon, apparently, does not allow them)

BIOSHOCK has it all: SecuROM 7, temperamental and Limited number of Installations, overzealous Drive-Blockers, possible cloaked RootKits, irremovable folders...NONE of which is Clearly marked on the product description!!

As it is, it will come NOWHERE NEAR MY SYSTEM!

I would advise waiting for 6 months, they will either clear it up or it will find its way to the clearance bins...Just last week I bought RISE & FALL: CIVILIZATIONS AT WAR for $2.99 (less than 8 months after its release) - and that nugget featured STARFORCE of all things!
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UPDATE:
By now there are over...130(!) Comments on this Review (pages 1-2 & 9-10 are especially...informative). Over these weeks, there have been numerous attempts to suppress my review with either negative votes (that appear overnight in bursts - over...140 in the last three days alone!) or overly insulting comments - with my replies to them "mysteriously" receiving enough negative feedback to get folded as "not helpful" within minutes. The same happened as well to supportive comments posted by other customers.
When this was not enough, a "shady character" (who constantly changes her nickname) managed to become enough of a nuisance to have AMAZON REMOVE this review...TWICE(!).
Amazon decided to split the baby in half: it restored but kept from the first page no matter the customers' feedback. Not until the introduction of the Amazon's New Rating system was this review fully restored.

Even after the partial restoration of this Review, AMAZON's voting system is still getting abused in order to hide as "not helpful" comments posted by anyone else even remotely mentioning the serious issues of this game.
We can only guess what affiliation this individual has with the game publisher or SecuROM...

My special THANKS to: H.LE, BIBLE&SWORD & SEGA-SLAYER - and to ALL OF YOU ANONYMOUS FRIENDS who supported this review during the weeks the Dark side seemed to prevail (and managed to bury it in the last pages) - and continue to do so.

Do not hesitate to let them know what you think of their methods...

I purchased a used version of this game. I did play it and thought the game was ok. However, what I did not like is the Digital Rights Management (DRM) that they used for the game. After what has happened, I will not buy anymore 2K games. Information was kept hidden from (or simply not divulged to) consumers that would have effected my decision to purchase the game. You will need an Internet account to activate the game and be able to play it. You are allowed only 5 activations before you can no longer install the game anymore. If you do not uninstall the game, you will use up another activation. "You are not warned about this anywhere". If the game files become corrupt or you need to reformat your hard drive and you do not or cannot uninstall the game, you lose an activation. The Digital Rights Management (DRM) in this game is real draconian and bad enough that I will not by any more 2K Games. I think if they are going to implement this kind of DRM, it should say so on the box and fully explain your limitations. It does not. That information is kept from you. I feel like I got burned. No more 2K games for me.

Beware if you have an overclocked system. This game will blue screen. Game also has very weak support for Nvidia 7 series cards. In particular with High Detail Shaders which also causes the game to blue screen. I can't speak for everyone of course but I know that myself and many others have these issues still (10/29/07) and there is still no patch. These problems are highlighted on most tech forums including the 2k games forum.

Now for the game.

My first impression was WOW! Graphics were impressive albeit somewhat grainy as AA is not supported. Lots of very cool water and blur effects. The atmosphere is somewhat original. Has a 1940s/50s art deco thing going. Victrola playing in the background, Nazi scientists, surgical theaters... the whole shebang. That aspect of the game was very well done. The rest of it though, I can only sum it up as "sensory overload". Like many games of this sort (The Suffering 2 for instance), all the "psycho-physics" eventually start to numb your senses and the attempts at "shock" just become tiring. The swearing, screaming, brutality, and sexuality, it all just gets boring after a while.

When you couple all that with the really weird copy protection - this game is NOT worth the aggravation.

Originally released at the end of 2007, BioShock is a first-person shooter which borrows some minor elements from roleplaying games. Created by some of the same team-members behind the popular and successful System Shock 2, BioShock was marketed as a 'spiritual successor' to that game. It achieved some critical acclaim after release, garnering extremely high scores from games review magazines.

The game is set in 1960. A passenger aircraft crossing the Atlantic Ocean crashes in the sea 200 miles from Iceland. The sole survivor, a man named Jack, finds a lighthouse standing on an isolated island nearby. To his surprise, the lighthouse is the surface entry to a vast underwater city called Rapture. Built by wealthy industrialist Andrew Ryan a decade and a half earlier, Rapture was designed to be a city independent from any government or religion outside. After arriving in the city, Jack is contacted by a man named Atlas who tells him the city's society has fallen apart, and most of the inhabitants have gone mad and become genetically-mutated 'Splicers' who hunger only for 'ADAM', a material which can grant great powers to the wielders. Atlas convinces Jack to help him rescue his wife and daughter from captivity. Jack is also contacted by a woman named Tenenbaum, who explains that ADAM is produced by genetically-modified young girls named 'Little Sisters', and Jack can absorb ADAM from any Little Sisters he comes across. Tenenbaum urges Jack to spare the Little Sisters and set them free from the ADAM influence, whilst Atlas suggests that Jack kill them to gain a lot more and become more powerful. Jack's decision will determine the course of the rest of the game.

BioShock plays pretty much as a standard first-person shooter. Jack can wield a large number of weapons, many of them with different types of ammunition for different circumstances. He can also use EVE (a weaponized form of ADAM) to power 'plasmids', which give him certain powers, such as the ability to hurl fireballs, shoot lightning out of his hand or levitate objects with his mind. Combat can be greatly enhanced by switching between plasmids and traditional weapons for different circumstances. The game dips its tools in the RPG category by giving out different quests and adopting a 'mission hub' structure for its levels, but without an active inventory system and an inability to talk to people (not to mention that every single person you randomly encounter in the game wants to kill you, with important NPCs only appearing behind bullet-proof windows or screens) this is not pursued much.

BioShock has an interesting storyline and a philosophical streak to it, which asks questions about free will and determination. Whilst intriguing, it's explored in a considerably less compelling fashion than Planescape: Torment, and to anyone who's played that older game BioShock feels a bit lightweight (not to mention predictable: some plot twists are very close to those of that older game and some others as well). Of course, most modern gamers haven't, so kudos to 2K Games for trying something a bit more interesting than just the standard run 'n' gun action. Unfortunately, that action is somewhat lacking. Your character feels very 'heavy' for lack of a better word, and combat is sluggish and unresponsive as a result. For most opponents it isn't a problem, but for the Big Daddies (whom you have to kill to get to the Little Sisters) it can turn into a total nightmare as they can kill you with maybe three hits. It isn't until very late in the game that you get weapons powerful enough to make the task less frustrating. Also, and this is utterly enraging at the start of the game, if you die you have to wait whilst a brief unskippable sequence plays (where your character is revived at a re-lifing chamber, often located inconveniently distant from the place where you died) before you can hit re-load.

BioShock has an offbeat and unusual story, and the art design of the game is different and often gorgeous, channelling the 'Americanapunk' vibe of the earlier Fallout games (and the more recent Fallout 3). The graphics are impressive throughout, with particularly good water and lighting effects. The more colourful palette of the game is also nice change from a lot of other modern 'gritty' FPS, and it's certainly admirable to encounter a game which actually has a purpose or theme to its plot beyond mindless violence. However, the game is nowhere near as revolutionary as it seems to think it is, combat is leaden and somewhat unsatisfying, the save/load system is frustratingly slow, the end-game boss is preposterously easy to defeat and the 'good' ending is corny.

BioShock (***) is an entertaining game that passes the time, but all the magazine writers that gave it 95% were clearly smoking some very strong substances indeed. A sequel, BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams, will follow at the end of this year or the start of next.

What a shame. This game started out with so much potential. I'm a huge fan of System Shock 2, so when this game was billed as it's spiritual successor by the people who created it, I was definitely interested. Let me get this out of the way first, because it seems to be the first defense fans of the game jump to... no, I did NOT have too high expectations. In fact, I did my best to stay away from information on the game so I could experience it as "fresh" as possible. What did I conclude? It was a waste of $50 and my time.

The gameplay is uninteresting and repetitive, the characters are outlandish and completely overdone, the environments do nothing to sell the idea that being in an underwater city is effectively any different than being anywhere else, and there's no internal consistency within the gameworld, which makes for a lot of loose ends that never really add up (why again are there vending machines handing out ammo and illicit items in a supposedly utopian society EVERYWHERE? Why don't the enemies actually USE the supernatural abilities the game has claimed they gained? etc.)

...and say what you will about the "deep" story and "amazing" narrative style, but I thought BioShock's story seemed completely tacked on, told in very unnatural comic-style exposition ("haha, these fools will never know my REAL identity!!!")and the "philosophy" was completely cookbook and completely failed to captivate me in any way. Any claims of "moral ambiguity" or morality must have ignored the fact that there is NOTHING AMBIGUOUS about the game. The one actual choice in the game is presented as "Rescue" or "Harvest". Gee, I can't seem to figure out if the option to "rescue" someone would inherently be good or not.

Not to mention that the interface is very flawed and cumbersome, the shooting feels rigid and unresponsive, there are sound issues, install issues, and the game lacks certain basic movement functions that are pretty bog standard with any shooter these days. I also thought the graphics looked cartoony and terrible, but that's just me.

Essentially, I was hoping for a great game made by the same people that made one of my favorites, I was expecting a more mainstream product that probably made some compromises for marketing purposes, and I got a game completely dumbed down to cater to the lowest common denominator. It may be your thing, if you enjoy dispatching the same enemies over and over again (maybe using different methods only to spice things up) while occasionally hearing something truly profound like "a man is what he chooses"...

For anyone expecting a more thoughtful and immersive experience, I strongly suggest something else. This is without a doubt one of the worst games I've played, and certainly the worst that I've completed.

The PC version of Bioshock is the most DRM'd game ever released, no joke. It runs a new version of the Sony Rootkit known as "SecuROM" and will refuse to run if you have any kind of software installed like virtual drive software, AVG virus scan and who knows what else. It even refuses to run if you have Process Explorer running on your PC. That's right, the MICROSOFT product Process Explorer is some kind of evil big bad program that makes Bioshock refuse to run.

On top of that you are only allowed TWO installs total. 2K claims that if you uninstall the game it will allow you to reinstall somewhere else, but the system is currently bugged. After you install two times the game will refuse to register and you have to take pics of your CD and manual and mail them in.

I'm sure Bioshock is a great game, but DRM is making the PC release a disaster. Even the editors at PC Gamer are having a hard time getting the game working with all the restrictions. If you want to play Bioshock for PC you have to jump through all kinds of hoops and are severly limited as to what you can do with the game you purchased. Therefore I am giving Bioshock a one star rating.

I'd have to say, one of the best games in a long time. Great story, great features, weapons, enemies...yada yada yada. The game itself is amazing. UNFORTUNATELY, the game is written so poorly or was rushed or whatever, but it crashes like you wouldn't believe. You can have a fully loaded system, and it still finds a way to crash. I have Windows Vista Ultimate (no, that's not the problem), 2GB of DDR2-6400 RAM, Nvidia 7900GT, Tons of SATA Drives, onboard HD sound...etc. All the latest in DirectX and RealTek audio drivers, and still no luck. It's probably crashed 30 times in the first week of playing the game. Yes, there are people out there who are lucky, but it's rare. Just check out the 2k forums and other blogs/websites, and you'll see pages of complaints. Some people recommend lowering the resolution, some say the sound... nothing works. Imagine having to lower the graphics quality down lower, and the detail lower, to play a PC game in 2007 with PCs that are well-equipped for the current software? Joke and a half. They'd better come out with a patch or fix soon. Very disappointing!

Bioshock's game play is excellent though the game is not that hard overall. What annoyed me was that you need an online connection to activate the game. This is one of the most annoying problems with modern games. Not everyone has access to an internet connection. Namely those of use currently in Iraq. Due to this I will not be buying anymore games from this company just as I won't purchase anymore of the Half Life series.

I don't blame people who love this game. The detailed graphics, decent storytelling, and original concept make Rapture one of the most unique and stylised worlds I've seen in a 3D computer game (let alone a shooter). The awesome-looking Big Daddies are cool, too. Killing them is difficult but lucrative, yet they never attack unless provoked. Therefore, fighting them is always your choice, and usually feels like a high-stakes gamble.

The novelty of Rapture wears off though, and eventually the cluttered enclosures become claustrophobic and the golden art deco style just feels gaudy. Everything starts to feel as repetitive and visually overloaded as Rapture's populace. The citizens are portrayed as depraved, violent, blathering lunatics, and boss characters are sadistic and maniacal caricatures. The game tries to paint you as an outsider who's forced to observe the sad consequences of an unhinged society. In reality though, Bioshock revels in the depravity of its world, and little separates your character from the lunatics you kill. The gore, the splattered blood, the maniacal screams, your plasmid super-powers, it's all cartoonish and over-the-top.

Bioshock occasionally takes itself seriously and invites you to critique Rapture's foundational philosophies, but it's all so obvious and simplistic. It essentially asks you: What would happen if people built a Utopian society based on social Darwinism, run by an ego-maniacal tyrant, where science gave everyone access to godlike powers? The answer: everything would go sour and chaos would erupt....surprise, surprise. I've played games that gave me food for thought about politics and society (Deus Ex comes to mind) but Bioshock isn't one of them.

The mechanics could be better too. The many plasmids and upgrades you have feel like they came out of a slower RPG, and finding the right weapon or plasmid in the heat of the moment feels fiddly and stressful. A confusing map interface and respawning enemies don't make the experience more satisfying, either.

In the end, I found that I was trudging my way through these garish, stifling levels mainly to see how the story turned out. Eventually I gave up about halfway through and just read the synopsis on wikipedia. Maybe the feel of the game changed dramatically in the latter half, rendering this review inaccurate, but I doubt it.

I wanted to like Bioshock, but the cartoonish brutality and clumsy mechanics just weren't for me. I'm grateful for it because it's set some worthwhile benchmarks for the industry in terms of art direction and originality, but once the lustre wore off, I found much of the game to be frustrating, unpleasant and repetitive.

Here's a game for which I had high expectations. But overall, the experience was rather underwhelming.

There are some known problems with this game in Vista: no sound and no full-screen. Perhaps this is a joke on the part of the programers but the way I was able to fix it in-game is to actually turn sound off, turn fullscreen off!

You start by surviving a plane crash. The fire on the water looks very nice. Then you swim to a lighthouse and take an elevator down. Now you're taken to the underwater city of Rapture where a character convinces you to fight against the ruler of the city. The voice acting is absolutely superb. The story is overall good. I found that there are too many characters though. There are some twists in the story and surprises. There are also too many goals to accomplish: there's the main goal of the story, the minor goals of each "mission", and two additional overall goals of collecting souls and blood, so to speak. Then there are the tasks of upgrading weapons and yourself. One of the twists I found particularly touching and that is who you become toward the end. And that splits this game really into two as your character changes dramatically (and graphically for the worst). I'm surprised they didn't leave the second part for a sequel. This game is somewhat long.

I was not all that impressed with the graphics. Sure, there's some neat water effects but it's overdone. And I didn't find that the overall look was all that impressive. But I really disliked the style of this game. Some people like that sort of thing, I didn't: the art deco retro style. Then there's that aweful music from the 30s or so. The cartoonish aspects are kind neat and in that regard the game has a lot of personality. I also dislike the darkness of the settings. Ever since Doom I all action games have emphasized darkness and it's tiring.

But it's really the gameplay that is disappointing. As a shooter this game is just horrible. I'll grant that the movement of the enemies is neat; they jump and flip and crawl on the ceiling. But shooting at them is not at all fun. Neither is constantly picking up stuff and listening to long monologues. There's only so much fun in pressing the "E" button every other second. The mechanical weapons are boring, the biological ones more interesting. You'll mostly walk through hallways or corridors as opposed to large expanses, which is what one would expect of a recent game. I didn't like most of the scenes: wharf, rotten garden, which does become nice once you save it; theaters, lots of rooms, hospital rooms, etc.- quite a bit of variety. But they are all dark and dull-looking which nullifies all the variety. Gameplay itself and graphics don't make it very immersive.

I rate it high in personality and audio but poor in graphics, entertainment value, and replayability.

Then there's of course all the annoying "security features" that companies make us pay for and that limits what we can do with the game for which we paid.