Bioshock Demo...

[Chopsticks]

My ultimate hope for the evening is that I have a blissful few hours in Rapture, then a slightly tipsy Mrs Turnip returns from the pub and is in the mood for mucky sex.

 

Lemme know where she's off too and I'll warm er up!

 

Gunna have to wait for the kids to get to bed too, from the demo, this was pretty clearly not a kiddy friendly game.

 

Well, no mucky sex, just a dishevelled Mrs Turnip wandering in at midnight, complete with bag of chips, (very classy), which she kind of managed to eat before tottering off upstairs and falling asleep.

 

HOWEVER - on the plus side, bugger me, Bioshock is properly fantastic.

 

I'm glad I got the 360 version in the end, because the pad controls are starting to feel far more natural, and sitting in the dark in front of a 40 inch LCD with a decent set of speakers + sub providing the sound is a hell of an experience. (Wish I had 5.1 surround but I fear the rear speakers wouldn't survive the attentions of Turnip Jnr for very long.....)

 

The opening level is identical to the demo, but that was nice in a way 'cause it provided a lovely familiar introduction to the game, and I already knew exactly where I was up to with the game mechanics, controls, combat, and so on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CAUTION - MILD SPOILERS FOR THE SECOND LEVEL (ONLY) FOLLOW - so if you've already played through the second level, there are no spoilers.

 

 

 

 

 

The second level (Medical Pavilion) is actually pretty expansive and takes quite a lot of exploring. In all fairness, it doesn't do anything overly revolutionary with the genre in some regards (replace "find a green key to open the green door" with "use the fire plasmid to melt the ice blocking the door" for example) - but it's the way the game absolutely oozes atmosphere and dread that sets it apart.

 

I think it's possibly the finest sounding game I've ever heard, with a perfect marriage of music, effects and sublime (and scary!) voice acting. Quite often in FPS games I'll turn the music off, but I can't imagine anyone turning the music off in this game. (When I encounter a new splicer that hasn't seen me, I hang back for a minute just to listen to what they're babbling on about, and it's often some pretty fucked-up shit!)

 

Graphically it's gorgeous, on a purely technical level it's like a really good PC game from perhaps two or three years ago, however, in terms of graphical design and style, it's as good as it gets, with loads of fantastic touches and a pretty clever physics engine too, (try fannying around with the telekinesis ability, it's certainly as good as Half Life 2 in the physics department, perhaps better).

 

I'm a bit of a sick puppy when it comes to doing horrible things to corpses, just to see how far the damage models go, and Bioshock is pretty bloody grisly. (The poor dead woman tied into the wheelchair took a terrible pummelling, (her head was reduced to a raw bleeding stump), and for a final act of indignity I picked her up with telekinesis and chucked her across the room, I don't do this sort of thing in real life, by the way.)

 

The final showdown of the second level is creepy, with Dr Steinman completely losing the plot with one of his (already dead) patients, screaming incoherently whilst hacking and slashing at her and plunging his hands into her guts, I glanced up above his operating table to see three previous "patients" chained to roof in some very "Silence of the Lambs-esque" states of mutilation.

 

Then the good doctor spots you, and lets loose with a machine gun....

 

Exploration wise it's fairly wide-ranging without having to wonder "what the fuck am I supposed to do next," the game offers a full and complete map of the current level at all times which is a friendly touch, and it's happy to offer up hints as well. "Atlas" - your guide for the game is soothing and Irish, and the little hacking mini-game is dead good fun as well.

 

Combat is visceral and brutal, I got hold of a shotgun which is a seriously hardcore weapon, but it only holds four shots and has a long reload time, so if you get jumped by four splicers and you're holding a shotgun, you'd better make every shot count.....

 

I haven't taken on a Big Daddy yet, or indeed interacted with a Little Sister, but I have seen a couple wandering around in places I can't get to. I'm not entirely looking forward to my first encounter with them, to be honest

 

Overall, absolutely recommended to the max. Unless you've got a PS3 of course

[ramsea]

crazy, £45 notes ( I traded in a 3 games and luckily had a bit of cash on my card so it ended up costing me nothing! )...

 

HMV doing 360 Elite + 2 games for £299

 

Game - Elite + 1 game £309

 

Only reason I use game is that I can trade in my old games and get newer ones for next to nothing

 

Come to Gamesmaster my friend , and I can help you with your trade ins , and no silly rip off trade in prices like some others I could mention.

 

Interesting that HMV are doing the Elite for £299 plus two games , of course we shall always be happy to match whatever deal they offer

Bear in mind that the 2 games you get with HMV are pretty crap.

 

I got mine from Woolies with Bioshock for £299 which seems reasonable. Should pass some time until PS3 release some more games.

[Chopsticks]

MUST. RESIST. TEMPTATION. TO. BUY. 360. ELITE......

 

I don't know why, but I really really want one.

 

Hnnnnggghhhhh!

 

Actually, I'd like one just for the HDMI alone, then I could get rid of the horrible mess of component cables and component switching box I have.

 

Oh bollocks, I've almost justified it to myself already.

 

I could even just completely lie about it to Mrs Turnip.

 

"Why is your XBox 360 black now?"

 

"Ummmm, I painted it. Cup of tea dear?"

[TerryMcCann]

Every time I switch my 360 on now I'm hoping for 3 red lights. If that's not the perfect excuse to splash the cash I don't know what is

[modey]

I could even just completely lie about it to Mrs Turnip.

 

"Why is your XBox 360 black now?"

 

"Ummmm, I painted it. Cup of tea dear?"

 

.. now there's an idea

[Chopsticks]

Every time I switch my 360 on now I'm hoping for 3 red lights. If that's not the perfect excuse to splash the cash I don't know what is

 

Get it going with a really hardcore game that makes it as hot as buggery anyway, (Bioshock should work well), then point a hairdryer at it - that should do the job

 

Hmmmm, I might just accidentally drop my 360 down the stairs.

[Slim]

Well, no mucky sex, just a dishevelled Mrs Turnip wandering in at midnight, complete with bag of chips, (very classy), which she kind of managed to eat before tottering off upstairs and falling asleep.

HOWEVER - on the plus side, bugger me, Bioshock is properly fantastic.

I'm glad I got the 360 version in the end, because the pad controls are starting to feel far more natural, and sitting in the dark in front of a 40 inch LCD with a decent set of speakers + sub providing the sound is a hell of an experience. (Wish I had 5.1 surround but I fear the rear speakers wouldn't survive the attentions of Turnip Jnr for very long.....)

 

I've not played it yet, Mr's slims 'been on her feet all day and wants to watch some telly' which translated into hours of tedious crap while I read the instruction manual over and over and played with my Big Daddy (fnar). Out tonight for a curry too, so I'll not read the rest of your post till Monday!

 

So I wish I'd bought the PC version. Well until I saw what me mates are getting up to with it:

 

http://www.electricdeath.com/blog/1174

 

Leaving the Forza disk in for a few hours seems a good way of inducing three reds!

[Chopsticks]

Well, no mucky sex, just a dishevelled Mrs Turnip wandering in at midnight, complete with bag of chips, (very classy), which she kind of managed to eat before tottering off upstairs and falling asleep.

HOWEVER - on the plus side, bugger me, Bioshock is properly fantastic.

I'm glad I got the 360 version in the end, because the pad controls are starting to feel far more natural, and sitting in the dark in front of a 40 inch LCD with a decent set of speakers + sub providing the sound is a hell of an experience. (Wish I had 5.1 surround but I fear the rear speakers wouldn't survive the attentions of Turnip Jnr for very long.....)

 

I've not played it yet, Mr's slims 'been on her feet all day and wants to watch some telly' which translated into hours of tedious crap while I read the instruction manual over and over and played with my Big Daddy (fnar). Out tonight for a curry too, so I'll not read the rest of your post till Monday!

 

So I wish I'd bought the PC version. Well until I saw what me mates are getting up to with it:

 

http://www.electricdeath.com/blog/1174

 

Leaving the Forza disk in for a few hours seems a good way of inducing three reds!

 

Holy shit, they're having a hell of a time with the PC version

 

Compare and contrast with the 360 version.

 

1) Turn 360 on.

 

2) Put in disc.

 

3) Play game.

 

PC version:

 

1) Spend five days downloading game.

 

2) Download patch for another five hours.

 

3) Fail to contact authentication server. For six hours.

 

4) Finally start game and get it all set up how you want.

 

5) Game crashes and you lose all your settings and preferences, save games are corrupted.

 

6) On restart, bioshock.exe reports an error.

 

7) Official fix is to download the whole lot all over again and start over.

 

 

PC FOR TEH WIN!

 

And all for what? To stop it getting cracked and torrented or put on usenet for a week or so.

 

Well done 2K!

[Chopsticks]

Oh for fuck's fucking sake - even the fucking PC demo installs the SecuROM service.

 

Utter twats.

 

That's it, game over for the PC as far as gaming is concerned from now on - 360 all the way.

 

http://www.gamingbob.com/2007/08/23/biosho...-including-demo

[Slim]

That is bang out of order, bunch of tossers!

[Chopsticks]

Anyone else finding Bioshock to be one of the bestest games ever then?

 

To my absolute delight I've now completely got the hang of using a gamepad to control an FPS game, which was the single reason I would have gone for the PC version over the 360 version. (The 360 version even loads levels in quicker, despite the PC version needing 8GB of free hard drive space and requiring, at a minimum, twice as much RAM as the 360 has.....)

 

Anyway, as for the game, total wonderment, there's nothing truly revolutionary in there in basic FPS genre advancement terms, but as a convincing and immersive game world, it's without equal.

 

My only fear is that at my current rate of putting in 3 to 4 hours per night, it's just not going to last long enough!

[joeyconcrete]

To my absolute delight I've now completely got the hang of using a gamepad to control an FPS game, which was the single reason I would have gone for the PC version over the 360 version.

 

Likewise - I played it for a few hours this evening and I'm getting the hang of the controller. I can also happily say I don't miss fannying round installing stuff, patching stuff and tweaking all sorts of crazy DX settings to get the game working. I've had a few consoles but they've never caught on, the 360 is slowly converting me.

 

Bioshock is pure quality though, and freaky with 5:1 sound - I was mightily impressed with a scene where some spooky woman was singing\kackling while I could see shadows up ahead. It's not one for kids though, so like you fellas, it's strictly when everyone is in bed - but means the next issue is the 5:1 sound.

[K.os Theory]

Just really to echo everyone's thoughts on this, an absolutely stunning game. I'm loving the fact that you never quite feel fully tooled up, always on the hunt for ammo ( gotta love those explosive shells for the shotgun )...

I'm just wondering have people been harvesting the little sisters or saving them? I've harvested all i've met bar one..

[feelslikeitshould]

Just really to echo everyone's thoughts on this, an absolutely stunning game. I'm loving the fact that you never quite feel fully tooled up, always on the hunt for ammo ( gotta love those explosive shells for the shotgun )...

I'm just wondering have people been harvesting the little sisters or saving them? I've harvested all i've met bar one..

 

I've done the same as you, harvested one and now I regret it slightly. This is the first xbox game I've played so when I started out I was totally clueless about the game points thing, after looking at the game goals I realise there are things I should've done differently along the way but I will try when I start a new game. I noticed it get quite a bit harder in the last few levels and the decisions you make leading to those levels have a bearig on how easily you progress. In the first levels, I wasn't that arsed about little sisters, not having a huge arsenal I didn't want to take on too many big daddies, I just wanted to get to the next set of splicers! Next time I'll try and get them all.

 

Over all the game is ace, very nicely put together and the voice acting is really, really good. There's an actual story too, which is involving and made me think "Ooh, you sneaky bastard" a few times. Very addictive too, can't resist the U-invent machines and hacking stuff! It' not too grisley to start with but there's a certain tasks that are a bit sick. Then the bit with the golf club.....ew.

 

Hopefully/regrettably I'll complete it tonight, which I'm a bit sad about. Probably go back to bio shock and do it 'properly' as soon as I've done!

 

Edit: I only discovered last night (doh!) that the menu screen when you pause it tells you how many little sisters there are on each level....They're like pokemon, gotta catch 'em all!

[Chopsticks]

Just really to echo everyone's thoughts on this, an absolutely stunning game. I'm loving the fact that you never quite feel fully tooled up, always on the hunt for ammo ( gotta love those explosive shells for the shotgun )...

I'm just wondering have people been harvesting the little sisters or saving them? I've harvested all i've met bar one..

 

For my current playthrough, I'm rescuing them all, although this does mean I tend to be short on ADAM.

 

For my next playthrough (if ever there was a game to be replayed, this is it), I'm going to harvest them all.

 

Apparently there are different endings depending on what you do, and there's definitely an extra achievement if you complete the game and don't harvest any little sisters.

 

Overall it's an amazing game, the first game in absolutely ages where I've thought to myself "I'll just see what the next area is like...." when I know I should be turning off the console and going to bed.

 

I did Fort Frolic and Hespheastus (sic?) last night, so I'm probably into the last third of the game now - I wish it didn't have to end!

 

The Big Daddies are awesome, I feel kind of sorry for them when bash on the little sister tubes, and one doesn't come out, and they let out that horrible mournful wail before clomping off to the next one.