Friday, March 7, 2014

Bioshock - 1 gamer's trek (Part 1, Bioshock)


System Shock, Deus Ex, Fallout and the Elder scrolls and of course Bioshock.  All Story game franchises  and all require a commitment that just doesn't do it for your average run and gun FPS player.

I'm pretty picky about games that demand my undivided attention for hours on end.  A good one will make hours seem like minutes.  A bad one, well I'd think it was pretty obvious at which point my only consolation would be that I got it on sale.

That's how I ended up with all 3 Bioshock games...

During the 2013 Steam Holiday sale Bioshock, Bioshock 2 and Bioshock Infinite went on sale as a bundle for $15. 

I only had a passing interest in them but for $15 it was kind of a no-brainer to take the plunge.  My previous experience with games that focused on a strong narrative was fairly limited.  I'd played a few Elder Scrolls games including SkyRim as well as Fallout 3. 

I still don't know what genre games like this officially fall into.  They're not really RPG's, not FPS's and they're definitely not MMO's since you never play against anything but code.  They tend to crossover depending on what you're expected to do. 

It's all about the story and the game pulls you along giving you just enough bait to keep you going.  That's what any good story does.  They're immersive, intimate and often thought provoking.

Bioshock fits the "thought provoking" label pretty well.  It's kind of Sci-Fi but really is more of a "what-if" experience with just enough reality thrown in to make it seem plausible.

I decided that i'd play all three games in order.  Truth be told I was tempted to rush right into Bioshock Infinite but I resisted the urge to skip ahead.  I'm glad I did too.


BIOSHOCK

I started with Bioshock which came out in 2007.  By now everyone know the story so I won't saddle you with yet another boring rehash of it.  There's plenty of YouTube videos out there to clue you in if you don't already know it.

What struck me was the intelligence of the game.  It was creepy, engrossing and I couldn't resist the urge to look at everything.  That's a good thing too because clues as to what was really going on were sprinkled liberally everywhere.  From map design to lighting effects  and even furnishings everything in the environment worked to keep you on edge.

I haven't been so creeped out since Doom 3.  The best way to describe it was like be locked up in some creepy old underwater insane asylum and all the inmates had guns.   It was brilliant and I was hooked.  Yes, hours passed like minutes and I was both frightened and thrilled through most of the game.

Till it got stupid...

About halfway through things were getting a little tougher on me than my patience could stand.  This is the same flaw I saw with Skyrim and now just as I did then I went scurrying off to find the hacks that would let me continue my adventure relatively unscathed.



Mostly because there was a lot of "Scathing" going on....

Which sucked...

I'm all for a challenge but when it turns into a grind it ruins it for me.  Not that every opponent should just fall over at the sight of me.  It's simply that these types of games tend to put you at a disadvantage from the onset.  The first few hours you do alright with whatever you can scavenge but soon you find yourself woefully outmatched.  Your only hope of survival being a lucky break.

I don't want to be lucky, I just want to get to the next chapter in your story.

Where games like this start to fall apart is when they get too complicated for their own good.  Give me the opportunity to find what I need but don't make me spend 8 hours of my life dying in the same spot to do it.  That's the very definition of a grind and it's a cheap tactic used far too often.

Instead of concentrating on the story we're forced to worry about things like inventory slots, combination attacks and whether or not we're going to find a health pack somewhere.  It's tedious; it's stupid...
I honestly think developers do it to claim more hours of gameplay but to me it's a cheat. 

You know how I keep gushing about Borderlands?  That's the reason right there.  It's about the environment and there's always a way to succeed that doesn't involve being forced into a grind. 

All the Bioshock games made this mistake but to their credit they did throw you a bone.  Death was only temporary costing only some time and a few coins.  Your enemies were still smarting from your assault as well although they did recover somewhat.  That was eminently fair in my book.  What wasn't was when I would reemerge from my demise only to be instantly struck down again because of bad AI programming.
Block the way but at least let me grab a power bar for god sake!

Ok, so enough bitching about game mechanics, the story is still paramount in Bioshock and it's a good one. 
Andrew Ryan, ambitious, industrialist, visionary and ultimately megalomaniac.   The largesse of his character is reflected in his sunken kingdom, Rapture. 

But obviously something went wrong in his world.  A world built on satiating the self was bound to spring a leak (pun intended) at some point.  His promise was classic Ayn Rand, enrichment of the self above all else and to hell with the consequences.

It was fun to explore this cultural mix of objectivism turned fascism.  Where else could such a story go?  Bioshock made me want to find out even if I had to cheat to do it.  Which ironically is in line with the philosophical backdrop of the game.


Bioshock made me stop and think just as much as The Matrix or Inception.  Well done....

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