One of the best games of the new breed (Bioshock (PC))

Member Name: illogicology

Product:	Bioshock (PC)
Date:	12/01/09 (24 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Immersive, Beautiful, well paced, clever, original

Disadvantages: Violent and potentially frightening for some, misguided DRM

Bioshock could be the most immersive game ever made, it's certaintly one of the best written. I have very little bad to say about this title but I will aim to provide a comprehensive review.

Bioshock is a first person shooter set in the underwater, art deco city of Rapture. Starting with very little background, you begin as the sole survivor of a plane crash. Fortuitously you have crashed upon a small, man made island in the middle of the ocean. After a minute of exploring you discover a bathysphere and descend into Rapture.

From here you are dropped into a dark city inspired by various 50s styles and trends and other works of fiction such as Ayn Rand's novels and Relativist philosophy. There is beauty and intellect in bioshock for those who will appreciate it.
For the rest there is also a significant deal of action and horror placed within this setting that keeps the game paced while managing to avoid seeming gratuitous.
The game plays well, controls are the usual FPS fare but there are also innovative features such as a currency system to buy things from vending machines and a hacking tool in which you can fiddle with machines by playing a quick game of pipedream.

Visually speaking, Bioshock is absolutely beautiful. The visual syle would probably be lost if it weren't supported by a tight graphics engine with beautiful water effects. The designs are the stars though, 50s art-deco architecture merhed with a real underwater feel. The rooms surrounded by halogen bulb adverts and posters for the latest genetic upgrade. For a fantast, Bioshock manages to feel strangely authentic. The drawback is that you will need a modestly capable machine to run it but the requirements aren't astronomical. On a dual core system with 2gbs of RAM and an nVidia 9400gt (nVidia's current low end card) I could play the game at full settings but it did occasionally slow or become jerky.

Bioshock belongs to a new breed of game, that which gives priority to the story. Like a novel, most aspects of the game are configured to draw the player into a very real situation with characters that exist beyond the usual two dimensional variety. On top of this they have placed a very well designed first person interface that allows you to fully experience Rapture. If you can run it and you enjoy games with an absorbing storyline then I can fully recommend Bioshock.

There is one thing that needs mentioning however, Bioshock has been at the centre of the ever more ludicrous DRM issue on the PC. Bioshock does not come complete on the disk, in order to play you must have an internet connection and activate you copy where you are given access to the files needed to finish the installation. Initially Bioshock was given limited activations meaning if you changed you computer significantly or tried to install on another machine more than a few times the game would not activate. The solution to this was to phone the publisher (in the states, no local number) and attempt to convince them you were not a thief or pirate.
The limited activations have been removed now though the activation is still necessary. As such it is important to not that the game is not playable without an internet connection and activation can take quite some time.

Intrusive DRM such as this is a growing issue within the software industy and limits user's rights. It has also been proven to be ineffective against piracy and seems more likely it is a movement to end second hand sales of games.

The attitude of people in the industry and even some consumers is that these restrictions are unfair and in some cases illegal, as such I think it is important that prospective buyers be aware of DRM issues.

Summary: Great game, very original. Poor DRM