BioShock

THE BAD:
Game too dark. Too much water and special effects slows down game-play significantly game-play
too fast without enough light to see what you're doing. False advertising regarding specs. This game requires much, much more than the recommended specs to play and enjoy. Am tire of lies and deceipt. I bought this TRUSTING I was being told the truth but as in Oblivion the specs are just a lie.

SUMMARY:
I've played Bioshock for a few hours now and just can't get into the rhythm or find anything enjoyable or to like about it. I loved Half Life 2. I loved Dark Messiah and many other games but this Bioshock is such a huge disappointment that so far I can't find anything, not even a single thing that I like about the game from the sound to the graphics. Playability rates at 0/10.

Graphics - Dark, uninviting and very unimpressive. Also I have a fairly high end machine but frame rate is not smooth and that spoils a lot. Turning down the detail doesn't help and playing the game is a bad experience. I have a 2.4 Core 2 Duo, 2gb Corsair ram, 7800 gs 512mb GLH GPU with settings on medium but still the game-play has a bad feel to it not like in HL2 where game-play was smooth as hell. 0/10

Audio - Just a lot of shouting and screaming nothing impressive or great. Not nearly as good as audio in most other games I've played. Not impressed with sound and often it just seems very poorly laid out and all over the place. Again 0/10

Storyline - There seems to be a bit of a story which is gradually unfolding and may be the only thing that scores some points from me.

What spoils the entire game is that the water/special effects are a strain on my PC and significantly reduces the proper frame-rate for the game. I think they went overboard on the special effects to 'sell' the game but that this significantly destroys the playability of the game even on high end machines.

Sure it's cool to have special effects but that can be done in moderation without compromising the entire enjoyability of the game which it did for me.

My settings were automatically set at 'high' but even lowering the settings got the same result.

Bioshock is a game that was released to be sold, to rake in the money but I warn people thinking about buying this game to download the demo first because that was my mistake - I didn't try the demo and automatically assumed it would work fine until I began playing it. Bioshock really needs a super duper PC to really play and enjoy it and everything else will not give you as much enjoyment or none as in my case. Will a patch fix things? If there is a memory leak then maybe the game will work much better after a patch but for now I'm extremely disappointed and find that the only real 'shock' in Bioshock is that I expected it to run fine on the 'recommended' settings but it still struggles a lot even on my high end PC on lower settings so I'm quite unhappy about that and feel let down because my specs are well above what is required.

All the eggs have been put in the 'special effects' basket leaving very little memory and PC power for the frame-rate needed to play the game properly. I'm not getting stalls or a slide-show but the game just doesn't 'feel right' as do other games when you play them and I know that feel as when the machine is having trouble rendering everything as well as trying to play the game.

Once again we are being mislead by the recommended specs by a game manufacturer in order to sell their merchandise. When will there be a body that holds these contemptible people accountable for false advertising to boost sales leaving us stuck with goods that don't do as they say on the box??? We need someone to regulate the game software industry as this is getting out of hand.

THE BAD:
Nothing, come on who wouldn't want to run around a destroyed underwater city bashing freaky locals heads in with a wrench?

Not confirmed or denied that an editor will be released for modding abilities or if DLC will be available

SUMMARY:
A game worthy enough of the 5.0 rating and not a biased one. No Bioshock is a game that derserves every point of the 5.0. I am a guy who loves horror but yawns and gets bored of the recent horror movies...why? Because they are easy to predict and it is all recycled garbage. The same is happening to games and finally a company have given a new direction to the FPS genre.

How did they do this? I hear you cry, well they introduced a system known as plasmids. These plasmids affect your left arm in many ways such as allowing you to throw fire or electricity. Use telekinesis or even allow you to make security cameras and bots turn on the locals. These use EVE as energy which you can find looting places or buy them from vending machines

The locals are known as splicers and used to be human but as you progress through the game you can learn about certain splicers and who they were before they turned. The game does this by bringing in "diaries" on tape recorders, these you can collect along your journey and listen too. Some even give you clues to certain things.

So what's with the diving suit guys and tin heads? Well these are the "big daddies" these guys are what you would call mini-bosses and protect the "little sisters" who are little girls possessed by slugs. These slugs are your source to ADAM which is what the "little sisters" harvest from dead splicers. So already you know you have a challenge to take down the big daddy to get to the little sister. ADAM is how you gain new plasmids/tonics or even "slots" to allow you to use more. At the start of the game you have 2 slots open. As the game progresses you will pick up more and find yourself deciding which ones to take.

However the makers have made the game so you need to use them all at some point. For example: Incinerate allows you to throw fire from your hand. At some point doors will become blocked with ice and if you have electro-bolt and telekinesis with no slot for incinerate then you will have to trek back to a "gene bank" to fetch the plasmid

To the actual game. Well the game plays like a FPS but not a true FPS. You can run head first with guns blazing but you will soon find out that it isn't a good idea, this is because at the start you are learning the features and so you are stuck with electro-bolt and wrench. A great combination but if you are at a distance from an enemy then electro-bolt will simply wear off and they will come running at you. You will also find that some ammo doesn't affect enemies and it is best to save ammo although sometimes you do find yourself tripping over the stuff.

The game introduces a camera feature as well. This allows you to research enemies in order to gain damage bonuses against them and what they are weak against. If you research an enemy fully then you are given an reward tonic that will help you along the way. Among this you have puzzles which one is the hacking feature. This uses the "pipes game" which you must get a working set of pipes to allow the flow of water from one end to get to the other end with no obstacles or problems. Many will know this if they play those kind of games online

Overall this isn't a true RPG or FPS...it is neither and just fuses the basics of the two together to produce an entirely different game genre completely. However I must admit it is the most fun I've had from a singleplayer FPS and the game isn't "scary" but it is creepy and can make you jump at times. It is a must get