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  BioShock
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Also available on:
XBOX360 GameplaySo, what is the game about then? Irrational has been pretty tight-lipped about BioShock so not much is known. The game is essentially a First Person Shooter with a fancy setting and back story. The presumption is, however, that there will be a reason for the player to start roaming the city and trying to interact with it other than the chance to use some new cool weapons on ugly monsters and try out all the different things that Adam can do for you. But leaving that gap in the story behind, let's cast an eye on these aspects of the game. The player can harvest Adam from the Little Sisters and other sources and use it to enhance his physique in various ways, called Plasmids. This system is reminiscent of the skill advancement system of Action RPGs like Deus Ex and the Plasmids, or upgrades, are grouped under 'tech-trees' that are divided into Weaponry, Engineering, Active, and Physical. These upgrades may include heat and air pressure resistance, healing, speed boost, telekinesis, teleportation and temporary invisibility. Some of the more complex upgrades include the ability to sound like a Gatherer, inducing the Protectors to protect you from the Aggressors. That sounds like a lot of abilities to give to one poor player, doesn't it? Well, there's the other side of the coin to consider: you can only have a set number of active Plasmids at one time and in order to switch between them, you will have to use one-use devices that are scattered around various points around the playing field. In addition to the abilities and weapons offered by the Plasmids, the player can play with more ordinary weaponry. Or, well, not ordinary in the sense of many other shooters, but ordinary in the sense that they are based on technology, not some mystical stem cells. Instead of having a finite number of different weapons, you will actually have a set number of weapon classes that can be upgraded. Using these add-ons you can turn a rifle into a sniper rifle or a pistol into something far more nasty. These upgrades are strangely generic, however, and you can use them either on your weapons or on the special camera that you carry around for taking pictures of your enemies. Unlike one might imagine, these pictures are not to be used for some ?get rich quick? scheme, but to find weaknesses in your enemies. AI and emergent gameplayIrrational Games has told us that the AI in BioShock will be more sophisticated than in anything they have created before. The world inside Rapture will live its own life and react to the player in unique ways, all depending on your own actions. The creatures will be driven by a set of different motivations and the strongest motivation decides what the creature will do. Because of the way these motivations arise and are programmed, no game will ever be the same as the game before. Every time you play the game, the inhabitants of Rapture will react differently to your actions. Final thoughtsTo tell the truth, I have mixed feelings about BioShock and I'm sure you have seen that in what I have written above. In short, I have never been a fan of the type of 'horror' imagery that BioShock seems to employ, aiming for nausea rather than actual scare effect. On top of that, I am still unclear on the player's motivation to enter the lighthouse and especially to go diving and not wait for the rescuers from the mainland and, more to the point, I need some pretty good reasons to believe in a character who starts plunging Adam needles into himself when he's seen what the stuff can do to you. But, if I choose to ignore this and look at BioShock as simply a First Person Shooter, it seems to promise an interesting setting with a story that is filled with surprising twists (nothing is as it seems at first). Furthermore, the game is not all about killing everything that comes your way ? you will actually have to think before you shoot or risk the wrath of an entire faction. Shooters that require the player to be intelligent about what he does are few and far between. For that alone, the game deserves ot be kept an eye on.   |
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| At a glance |
| BioShock will be different from any other FPS that you have ever played - the AI system and the setting alone will take care of that. However, only time will tell if it will actually change the genre. |