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Bioshock Disappointment
Have struggled with Bioshock for several weeks now. I am finally throwing in the towel. Amazing art work and scene sets cannot compensate for the frenetic, shadowy and fleeting fps combat situations, all taking place in a dark, poorly lit (albeit artistic) underwater civilization. Give me the light and air of Half Life 2, or Crysis, or FEAR. My sense is that this a game for gamers--especially younger gamers, who might have the endurance and inquisitiveness/inventiveness to traipse through an endless array of beautiful, but ulimately obscure rooms/locales. Bioshock is beautifully crafted, but dreary, uninteresting, and not nearly as engaging as an fps as reviews had led me to believe.

Won't Play
Avoid this game. Not worth the trouble.

I bought it and it installed alright. Played a bit and closed the game. Now the game is installed but my DVD drive won't read the disk. Went through weeks of tech support (2k and Securom) to no avail. Very mad about this one.

Good graphics, creative, but...
I got this among my last batch of games and put it off until last because I expected it would be the best of the lot. While the game has good graphics and sound as well as an interesting creative environment, I am apparently among the few who didn't care for it. It's probably just personal preference more than anything, but I thought the game was repetitive from start to finish. Not much change or variety. I found the some of the weapons interesting, but hated that they were constantly running out of ammo during a fight and having to switch from one ammo type to another. Add to that the further confusion of having plasmids as yet another selection of weapons and it was beyond complicated. Having to change from one weapon to another during a fight was just an exercise in frustration.

The vending machines were a nice touch, but the gene banks and Eve's Garden were over the top in terms of customizing your character's capabilities.

I did think the ending was good, so you do have that to look forward to, but I was glad when it was over. I have no doubt that more people will like this game than not, but I need more environmental variation to sustain my interest and less complexity in weapons. Usually I am in agreement with the ratings of a game, but I will not be getting the sequel to this game. If you like things simple, steer clear of Bioshock.

This Game Doesn't Hate You
Firstly, I should note that I'm the blasphemer who thought that "System Shock 2", "Bioshock's" spiritual predecessor, was vastly overrated. And I stand by that characterization. While possessing a terrific story and atmosphere, "SS2" forced the player to backtrack repeatedly through an infinite supply of monsters with a scarcity of rapidly diminishing resources (most significantly ammunition and weaponry, neither of which the endless enemy stream seemed to have any difficulty procuring, but would almost never pass on to you in their demise.) Ultimately, "SS2" punished the player for exploring and doing things their own way, and that was the one mistake I could not and do not forgive. The designers need for control should never supersede the player having an enjoyable experience. I said that I felt like the game hated you.

So now the former Irrational/Looking Glass Studios has become part of 2K Games, and released "Bioshock". And... This game doesn't hate you.

It's not a perfect game. But the overall experience is so much better that it allows the craftsmanship and polish to shine through, rather than be muted.

To get it out of the way, my main gripes are these: During at least two sequences where the player is given a short amount of time to search an area for items (after which time the area becomes hazardous to occupy and one must go do a different room to "reset" the safe interval), the game pours on an infinite stream of enemies to frustrate the search. Since the game doesn't have "SS2"'s tendency to have your attackers provide nothing that isn't broken or useless in their death, this isn't awful, but it does seem unnecessary, creating frustration rather than the intensity the designers surely envisioned.

A later portion of the game inflicts an effect on the player that causes one's "plasmid powers" (essentially, psychic abilities) to fluctuate wildly. I didn't mind this from the point of view of using the powers, but the fact that each fluctuation causes the new power to immediately be selected for use is aggravating. Three seconds where the machine gun you were using against multiple enemies closing in on you is abruptly wrenched out of your hands is three seconds too many. This fluctuation also once interrupted a "rescue a Little Sister" sequence at one point in the game, a cinematic which really seems as though it ought to be uninterruptable.

Death is now free- it brings the player back to a "restore point" with partial life returned. While I embrace that the game doesn't crush the player for inevitable death, it does raise mixed feelings when the player does indeed die: should I feel bad about this? Should I be wasting precious first aid kits every few seconds in my encounter with one of the Big Daddies when I could "die", cause my enemy to lose interest me, and resume my attacking on his big, lumbering, turned back?

And, while I feel silly saying so, the last couple of levels seem like an unnecessary extension, based around gimmicks which aren't particularly welcome. One of those gimmicks involves the player making some rather significant changes in their physical make-up, and it seems peculiar that those changes don't seem to warrant mention in the game's epilogue.

That out of the way... Wow.

Bioshock's graphics and sound are incredible. Portions of the game are so beautiful, so incredibly atmospheric, that you would swear they belong in one of the "Myst"-like pre-rendered adventure games, not a game where they allow you to view them from any distance and angle. Water ripples, metal gleams, fire spreads, electricity crackles malevolently, light shines around horrors and wonders and shadows conceal still more horrors and wonders. At times I truly wished to not be bothered by the game so I could simply explore the beauty of Rapture, the game's sub-aquatic world.

The game also offers the player a variety of ways to make their progress, and doesn't unduly make any of them harder than they need to be. Want to "hack" every machine you see, and be rewarded with life and power for each successful hack? Do-able. Don't want to bother, but simply blow away every hostile machine with lightning? Do-able. Want to lurk in the shadows, charge on your enemies from behind, and knock them senseless? Do-able. Fire rockets on your adversaries from point-blank range and walk away grinning? Do-able. The variety of powers the player can access, put into their slots, and change around freely, not only makes it possible to do all of these things, but to change one's tactics in mid-game if something doesn't seem to be working.

A more nebulous thing is that the game actually managed to evoke an emotional response from me. Aside (of course) from frustration or adrenalin-fueled excitement, that's extremely rare. The first time the player "rescues" a Little Sister, and the orchestral strings swell as the player frees her from her servitude, there is absolutely no question that the player has done something morally good. And the "ending" that comes with making such rescues one's goal brought tears to my eyes.

While there are moments in the storyline I must confess I saw coming, it's well crafted and very well acted throughout. Some moments in particular stand out as unique- a dangerous psychotic coming into the player's presence and fails to attack. A perceived nemesis who dies, unresisting, to reveal the truth and live up to a principle. The latter sequence, which I must not spoil, is as remarkable as it is horrifying in its context.

A game being the "spiritual successor" to "System Shock 2" doesn't buy a whole lot of slack in my book. But a game that's the successor to this worthy one... That, I will be looking forward to.

Great game!
I really enjoyed this game. Loaded easily and runs fine on my Windows XP system. Involved story line, but still lots of action. the graphics look good, although my system I had to lower the graphics details because the screen was really "jerky" during action sequences.
I have probably played the game for 20-24 hrs and I am still not to the end, so I feel I am getting my moneys worth.