Bioshock [UPDATE #2]

To be truthful, I would not say I had been hotly anticipating the release of Bioshock. I would check out the various previews from time to time and just not really see the appeal. Sure, I had heard about all the talk of the sandbox gameplay, the big moral decisions, and how awesome System Shock apparently was, but the setting and enemies really did not light my fire, so to speak. It all looked very beautiful, but I didn't find the thought of shooting zombie flappers all that compelling. I played the demo, and that did to pique my interest more than I expected, but I was not convinced to run out and buy it.

So now, quite some time after its debut, I am finally giving it a try. I have to say that very shortly into the experience, I found myself enjoying it considerably!

...but I am afraid that the initial favorable glow has worn off. It's really a shame as well; Many aspects of the game truly are beautiful and intriguing. Heck, I dare say I was beginning to appreciate how the enemy design fit into the Bioshock universe. Unfortunately, much like COD4, what spoiled Bioshock for me was the difficulty.

For reference, a couple of words about myself:

• I do not have a lot of time to game these days.
• I like Achievement Points.

The first thing I did before popping in the disc was to head off to one of the various sites that list achievements and check out the point distribution for the title. When playing a game, I already know that chances are that I am not going to play through it more than once, so I try to maximize my Achievement Point gaining experience. Quickly scanning the list of Bioshock Achievements, I saw that there were at least two substantial rewards for beating the game on the higher difficulty: one for 40 points, once for 100 (!) Naturally, I went for the gusto.

Fellow Developers: Please attach Achievement Points to the difficulty setting you intend the majority of your audience to enjoy the game at. If I have to play on hardest to get the most points, then I have to I assume the game was tuned as such, and that's what you want me to play.*

Things seemed to be going pretty well up until the bit where I found the research camera. It was around that time that I seemed to notice what appear to be endlessly respawning enemies, triggered by entering or exiting certain zones. Now, I was a Dungeons and Dragons player as a kid, so I "get" the whole "Wandering Monster" concept, but it seems a bit out of place in a supposedly more cereberal game that encourages exploration and backtracking. By this point in the game I had aquired a number of weapons and special powers. Photographing an enemy and then cycling through two different inventories to fight was not only tedious, but hazardous to my character's health.

At this juncture, I am REALLY tired of dying. I am going to give it one more go, but I have a stockpile of unwrapped games sitting on my shelf I have to get through. I fear that Bioshock will remain unfinished for me.

[UPDATE #1]
So I continued playing, and realized that there were a couple of features hindering me. For one, I wasn't using the camera to research enemies. This made things incredibly difficult. Second, I was not aware of the radial selection wheel for weapons and plasmids. This helped tremendously as it pauses the game and allowed me to directly jump to the item of choice. My enjoyment of Bioshock shot up dramatically. I'm about 2/3 through, I'm guessing. I'm really liking the story, and I'm not typically one for story in my gaming. Score went from a 2, to a 3.

[UPDATE #2]
Just finished it, and I have to revise my score again. Any game featuring an escort mission is automatically deducted 2 points. So that would currently put Bioshock at a 1. The last boss battle was pretty disappointing. You go through the whole game, learning how to be clever with the tools they give you, and then they blow it by making the final battle all circle strafe. I dunno... maybe that's not too much of a crime. I was ready to be done with the game a few hours ago. Looking at the game as a whole, Taking the good with the bad, I will have to give it a +2 afterall.

Score: +2 [re-revised]

*As an aside, as flawed as Bulletwitch was, I liked what it did with Achievements. Take a look at how many points the player is awarded for clearing the most intense difficulty level, (Hell mode.) A very clever, and refreshing game design decision in my opinion.