Number 25 - Volume 3/Issue 1 - Defunct Games
Number 25 - Volume 3/Issue 1 - Defunct Games
Number 25 - Volume 3/Issue 1 - Defunct Games
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PubliSher: 2K <strong>Games</strong><br />
DeveloPer: irrational<br />
releASe DATe: 8/21/2007<br />
Genre: FPS<br />
On November 5th, 1946, Andrew Ryan<br />
founded Rapture, an underwater<br />
city where “the great will not be<br />
restrained by the small.” He built<br />
Rapture as the ultimate capitalist<br />
dream, where both commerce and<br />
science could grow without limits.<br />
Fourteen years later, after surviving a<br />
plane crash, you accidentally find your<br />
way into Rapture. In the intervening<br />
time, Ryan’s dream has gone rancid.<br />
CATeGory: undersea Conspiracy<br />
# of Players: 1<br />
The entry terminal is heavily damaged<br />
and littered with picket signs (“Ryan<br />
Doesn’t Own Us”), and the only people<br />
you see have gone mad. Your only friend<br />
in Rapture is a voice over a radio who<br />
calls himself Atlas, who’s trying to give<br />
you the information you need to stay<br />
alive, but he’s not all that sane himself.<br />
Rapture’s scientists, freed from the<br />
burden of morality, have created<br />
plasmids: injectable genetic cocktails<br />
that give the user superhuman powers.<br />
Overuse of those powers, however,<br />
drives the user homicidally insane.<br />
That’s exactly what’s happened<br />
to most of the people, you see.<br />
To survive, you must use plasmid<br />
powers yourself. The question that<br />
no one’s asking is whether what<br />
you’re doing constitutes “overuse.”<br />
By Wanderer<br />
All Sides Against The Middle<br />
BioShock is, in a quiet way, a game about<br />
choices. None of them are right and, unless the<br />
aftermath leaves you dead on the floor, none<br />
of them are wrong. No one is a hero, no one is<br />
a villain, and no one has the absolute truth.<br />
Every obstacle you encounter has multiple<br />
solutions, but once you get past a few<br />
introductory scenarios, nothing is highlighted;<br />
BioShock refuses to hold your hand and<br />
show you the path of least resistance. Your<br />
environment is your greatest tool, but to use<br />
it, you’ll need a little imagination. You can<br />
hack turrets and security droids, use your<br />
newfound genetically-activated powers in<br />
several different ways, turn enemies against<br />
each other and more, but it’s up to you to figure<br />
out how best to proceed. The unobservant or<br />
ignorant are going to get their faces caved in.<br />
The ultimate expression of BioShock’s choicebased<br />
gameplay comes from the Big Daddies<br />
34_PREVIEW_BIOSHOCK HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 3_ISSUE 1_CHICCITAWICCITA<br />
HARDCORE GAMER MAGAZINE_VOLUME 3_ISSUE 1_CHICCITAWICCITA<br />
and Little Sisters, the bizarre duos which<br />
stalk through Rapture’s hallways. Little<br />
Sisters process genetic material from dead<br />
humans into a substance called Adam, which<br />
can be used to purchase new plasmids.<br />
You essentially need Adam to improve your<br />
capabilities and survive the game.<br />
To get to the Little Sisters, though, you need to<br />
defeat the Big Daddies, which are easily the most<br />
dangerous enemies in the game. They’re too<br />
heavily armored for you to defeat them through<br />
the typical shooter tactics. You need to find<br />
another way to defeat them, whether it’s hacking<br />
turrets, turning other enemies against them,<br />
luring them into ambushes, or whatever else the<br />
environment allows.<br />
Once you’ve managed to<br />
get to the Little Sisters,<br />
you have another choice<br />
to make. If you kill<br />
them, you’ll get twice as<br />
much Adam, but you’ve<br />
just murdered what looks like a little girl, and<br />
infuriated Tanenbaum, one of the surviving<br />
scientists. If you let them live, you can cure<br />
them using one of Tanenbaum’s plasmids and<br />
get some Adam in the process, but Atlas insists<br />
they’re inhuman monsters. What if he’s right?<br />
BioShock can be a very complicated game<br />
that way, or it can be remarkably simple.<br />
It has very few systems that govern its<br />
customizability and complexity, but both are<br />
still implicit in every action you take in-game.<br />
This is easily one of the most fascinating titles<br />
I’ve ever played, in more ways than one.<br />
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