Devolfamily

Don’t buy into the hype; this game isn’t that good.

They didn’t spend as much time on the story as they’d like you to believe. It plays out like d-grade film noir, with the requisite twists are seen coming from miles on. Worst of all, they attempt to sell the game as a big open area to explore. No. It’s all rail levels, there is only one single path through the game. Once you’ve been in a room, there’s no point coming back even though you could move freely from level to level there’s absolutely no need to. Unfortunately, the environment which seems rich and compelling at first, quickly becomes monotonous because there’s not enough diversity between levels.

Then they tried to mask that it was a substandard shooter by giving you mini games (hacking) character level up (splicing) and weapon level up. But it doesn’t make up for the poor mechanics. They give you a couple of different objectives instead of just shooting things, which is good because the opponents are boring after the first few encounters. Enemy taunts repeat quickly and become annoying fast. Plus there’s nothing new in the way of fed-ex quests (they even have the “escort” mission, but at least they left out the dreaded “timed” mission). There’s no compelling reason to replay this game.

You have the choice to either harvest the ‘little sisters’ to gain power for yourself, or save them. The problem is they did a poor job of balancing between the choices. They still give you plenty of adam [bioshock's version of experience points] if you choose to save the little sisters in the form of a back-end bonus once you save three. You’re still able to max out your powers regardless, so it’s pointless in the end. Which brings you to the replay factor. And it’s lame.

If you save all the little sisters, you get one ending after beating the final boss. If you don’t you get another. Wow, color me impressed.

Bioshock succeeds because there’s nothing else around right now for competition. Same reason Crackdown would’ve done well regardless of the Halo3 beta; it didn’t have any competition and 360 players are desperate for content. Once Halo3 hits, nobody will remember Bioshock. Hell, once anything else gets released that’s worth playing, nobody will remember Bioshock.