Bioshock -- the "sequel in spirit" to System Shock 2

My copy just came. Busted Big Daddy figure, but I'll get a free printed copy of the pdf art book if I return it. It's all good, time to check this shit out.

I got a loaner 360 from a friend while mine is in the shop, so, playing.

Bioshock is the first game that lets me combine the power of fire & bees into flaming bees.
This is totally worth the price of admission on its own, especially when the application of said flaming bees makes the enemies scream "Fire AND Bees? That's just not FAIR!"

How do you do that? Set the bees on fire when they're in midair?

So who's killing the Little Sisters and who's not?

I havn't tried that yet - the splicer just happened to be covered in bees, and I added fire, for hilarity. The bees do have the unfortunate habit of attacking anything and everything nearby, so be careful around Big Daddies.

I have been saving the little sisters myself. The ADAM reward is substantially less in the short term but there have been some interesting unique rewards to make up for it.

I'm rescuing them myself. Figure I'll harvest them when I replay on hard mode, the extra Adam will come in handy then.

I'm doing the same. I'm on the last level now, (SPOILER ALERT) which is cool (END SPOILER) and I think I must be missing something in this game. How are you supposed to get the "all weapons upgraded" achievement when there are only like five upgrade stations in the game and after you use them once they're fuxored? Did I just breeze right past a bunch of upgrade stations or something?

yeah -- i think there's like 12 total

anyone following this whole ordeal surrounding the copy protection on the pc version?

http://xs218.xs.to/xs218/07345/sig_bioshock.jpg

2k seems to be backtracking pretty quickly though (5 activations now available), so i doubt it will be much of a problem in the long term. the soundtrack is now available for download, as well (as opposed to the pathetic 3 track cd of moby remixes that comes with the special edition):

http://downloads.2kgames.com/bioshock/BioShock_Score.zip

Cor, this game is good. Last night, whilst playing it I thought, "fuck, this game is boring. I feel like I've been playing it for hours". Turned it off and went to bed only to find it was 5:30am. I'd been playing it all night!

Of course, when I woke up I whacked the xbox back on and played another couple of hours. Now I'm late for work!

Oooh, I can hit the baddies now before they hit me! This isn't so hard after all :)

It'll hurt to lose all my upgrades and stuff when I finish this. Fortunately I'm pretty sure I'm miles off that, as I've spent way too much time walking about breaking things.

Funny how it turns out telekinesis is the best plasmid in the game. I didn't figure out how to use it offensively until about three-quarters through the game. Games where you can throw flaming dead cats at people = fun.

In conclusion - I do feel like this game was over-rated, but I do feel like it's a very solid game. I know when I'm playing a GREAT game I feel like playing it again as soon as I finish. I did not feel like that as I was beating Bioshock. Once was enough. It's a bit of a drag that the game has no replayablility / no multiplayer. It would have been great fun, say, if after beating the game solo, you could play a powered-up co-op campaign in the same world, just for laughs, or whatever. Anyhow - something more would have been nice. I also felt like, for me, there were just too much picking stuff up, too many hacking mini-games (when I got the achievement for beating fifty of those I felt sick), and too many hunt and fetch type parts to the game - one of those would have been enough - but three or four collecting missions - a bit blah. The story is also a bit sparse. But overall, it was failry addictive, and certainly a visually appealing world to stomp around in for five days.

Surely there's at least one replay in Bioshock-- isn't it a totally different game whether you harvest or free the Little Sisters? I'm sure the last level at least is completely different.

I can see myself replaying this game to death. It's my new Dead Rising!

Yeah, come on, how can setting people on fire and then shocking the water they're trying to put out the fire with ever get old?

p.s. I don't think I've ever had the feeling of wanting to restart a game as soon as I finished it except with Resident Evil 4. I'm loaning out my xbox to a buddy and I'm going to take it back when the rhythm games come out in October, and I feel like that kind of break will be a good amount of time before playing Bioshock again, however much I liked it.

Just finished. GOTY so far for me, easily.

rhythm games come out in October

Wow! Elaborate plz! Is The Idolm@ster getting a US release? If so, I assume there won't be any problem importing it to the UK (I hear lots of titles don't have any region protection)?

What others are there? Aside from Guitar Hero/Rock band etc, because I'm pretty much already buying them. Corrr, I'm a little bit excited now!

yeah, sorry, just meant GH and Rock Band. I don't think Idolmaster is coming out in UK/US at all.

This is sort of a minor quibble, but I hate the smooth camera moves that are typical of first-person shooters. In a game like Gears of War you get the sense of the up-and-down movement of walking (and the difference of terrain) that you don't get in Bioshock and Halo and other games, and that always takes me out of the game a little bit.

yeah, sorry, just meant GH and Rock Band. I don't think Idolmaster is coming out in UK/US at all.

Aw buggerit. I'm still excited nonetheless!

Idolmaster has gamer pix on live marketplace, which is the only good sign I've seen. I blew some leftover points on them of course, in the vain hope that my sole purchase would help the game get a release over here. I don't think it works that way though.

Back to Bioshock - there's little more satisfying than blasting a splicer in the face, with a downed Big Daddy, via telekinesis!

Whoa, I need to try that! Replaying on hard now.

Hahaha, you're right, I got a one hit kill doing that. I also tried throwing a splicer at a Big Daddy, though I think it just made him angry.

Weirdly I think throwing a body is the most powerful attack in the game by far. Even the super-strong splicers, if you hit them in the head with a body they go down. Plus you get a nice shield while you're lining up your shot!

frame rate was fine in demo, full game I get past the demo bit and now my VC is crying.

I like Lowtax's review of the game.

Just over halfway through (I think), and I'm starting to feel a bit bored. Not getting new plasmids now, I'm just getting upgrades to the old ones. Think I've seen all the standard weapons too (I got the crossbow about an hour ago). And I don't expect to see many more new baddies either. Hope there are some fun new environments coming up, or I might not make it to the end (to be fair, I'm in Fort whatever it's called at the moment, and I've been doing quite a bit of back-and-forthing. So perhaps I'll get inspired again once I'm out of here, which should be soon).

I'll just say that you're very close to getting somewhere story wise...

Finished this last night. Will be starting again tomorrow :D

the demo doesn't work properly for me so can't realistically put the money down for the full version until they bring a patch out :( :( :(

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2007/20070829.jpg

Not bad game at all. Bit easy.

Do you mean to tell me that Bioshock is a pretty good game?!?!?!?!?!?!?

It is a bit easy.

True enough.

Isn't there a hard mode or something.

thats what she said

:(

Haha.

My friends who don't even own game systems are all "dude, Bioshock looks awesome", apparently it is a Thing?

my buddy who hasn't owned a game system since... oh, i was gonna say sega genesis but he had a ps2... anyway, doesn't play many games, was all "you got a 360? do you have bioshock?"

i am renting it tomorrow and we gonna play through it like it ain't no thang.

I think I'm about 20 minutes from the end now, and I haven't been wowed by anything in the last 6 hours. The big storyline event in the middle was great, and it felt like it was going to change the nature of the whole game. So when it didn't, and things just carried on as before, it was a huge disappointment. And the level design (which is probably the best thing this game had going for it overall) gets less and less inspired the further in you go.

No game of the year, this.

I guess it's hard to get the proper immersion level if you're playing for one hour a week or whatever.

Huh? Apart from the fact that that's bollocks, I've not been playing an hour a week anyway. I had a chunk of time off halfway through because I was out of town, but when I play I tend towards fairly long sessions.

"You can only appreciate this game if you clock it in four days, like I did" is the weakest defence of a title I've heard in a long time.

Hey, it's cool. BioShock sucks. There are a finite amount of weapons and plasmids. The entire nature of the game didn't change halfway through. What a piece of shit.

did you make the game or something??

I'm just fucking around. There have already been a couple of games out since I said "GOTY so far for me, easily," that I like better than this. There really wasn't all that much good this year before that. To anyone who think the last part of BioShock was weak (and the final boss admittedly is), wait until you play the last couple missions of Halo 3.

What is the thing tht happens halfway through the game?

mild spoiler

the golf club action and reveal?

end spoiler

that's right near the end of the game!

Oh sorry, there was supposed to be more space there. It wasn't much of a spoiler, but mods, could you either make it less obvious or take it out?

OK, so I have almost made it halfway through the game on medium and I was wondering whether I should start over and play on hard or beat the game with ease by playing medium? It's a really fun game.

Hard is too hard and medium is too easy, unfortunately. I say press on and then replay on Hard doing whatever with the Little Sisters that you're not doing this time.

good idea