Release Date:	August 21, 2007
	Platform:	Xbox 360
	Genre:	First-Person Shooter
	Developer:	2K Boston
	Publisher:	2K Games
	MSRB Rating:	M (Mature 17+)
	Price:	$60.00

Bioshock met with huge success when it released. Not only did it get phenomenal scores from many publications but it sold equally as well. After having played the game for myself I came to a realization: the gaming community is an asshole. I’ve always had my suspicions but this makes it official. Bioshock is a perfect example of how far shitty game design and boring story telling can go as long as the game is on the right console. Developing a first person shooter for the 360 is like developing pizza for a human; it’s undeniable and it’s delicious. Only this time it wasn’t so much pizza as it was ass.

Bioshock has the biggest ego of any game I’ve played to date. It can’t get enough of itself. I GET it; it’s an underwater city, great. Sure it’s an original concept for a game but it’s not even that cool. In my experience most things are more enjoyable when NOT submerged in water (example: Xbox 360). Then there’s the time period in which this elaborate, fully functional underwater utopia is somehow able to exist. There’s a reason it’s not the 50’s anymore. The 50’s were an awful time when people ate dinner with their families and danced by shaking their fingers in the air. Nobody wants to revisit a time when women dressed appropriately, the term “ham radio” was a common term and it wasn’t cool to be depressed.

Which brings me to my next point: How depressing can one game possibly be? It’s one dark, damp and dirty room after the next. It never lets up. Toss me a fucking rainbow every once and a while. I’d take a few smiley stickers on the wall. Anything to keep me from going to bed more suicidal then I usually am. This feeling is amplified by the fact that the game is constantly trying to scare you. “Horror” isn’t short for horrible, it means have some shit pop out of the wall from time to time and let that be the end of it. The cheapest scare tactic they use for this game is flipping the lights off. Not only is it not frightening but it’s just lazy. If I wanted my TV screen to display nothing but blackness, I wouldn’t have turned it on.

I want to tell you about the story, but I can’t remember it because I was too busy being gang raped by enemies. You see, 2K decided it was a good idea to place audio recordings around the game which give you plot details and background information for the major characters involved. That alone is something I could deal with but they had to make it impossible to properly interact with these devices. Whenever you attempt to listen to a recording the game triggers a massive enemy barrage. Assuming there had to be a reason for this choice I decided to experiment. I waited until a friend of mine started listening to his favorite podcast and then I ran into his room with a mask on and bashed his head in with a lead pipe. Later that day I asked him if he could recall anything the podcast had mentioned; sorry 2K, no response.

These guys really did a number on the combat for Bioshock. In addition to the standard weapons you’d find in a lot of typical shooters you earn different magical abilities called plasmids. They have built a TON of these powers into the game and I am extremely impressed at how useless 95% of them turn out to be. The first power you get is the ability to shoot lightning from your hands and it’s the last power you’ll ever need. Lighting solves every puzzle and destroys every enemy in the game. All you have to do is blast their ass with a bolt then take a wrench upside their head. The only enemy that doesn’t follow this formula is the sorry excuse for a boss, the “Big Daddy”. Big Daddies are giant ugly pedophiles wearing giant ugly scuba gear. They convince children to follow them back to their “holes” with promises of candy and rape. In reality all these guys are is normal enemies that due 5 times the amount of damage and have 3 million times the HP. There is no unique or satisfying way to deal with one of these guys like you’d find with a Zelda boss; you just have to keep exchanging lighting and shotgun shells with each other’s faces until one of you dies.

Early on in the game you earn a “hacking” ability you can use to open safes, control enemy robots and…lower the price on vending machine items? What kind of hacker wouldn’t just make them free? Anyway, you hack things by playing a short puzzle style mini-game. Some kind of liquid flows through a series of tubes and it’s up to you to place the appropriate type of tube in the correct location so that the liquid can make it from point A to point B without spilling. Now, I’m not a professional hacker, but I can sure as shit tell you that this is EXACLY how hacking is done in the real world. The liquid, the tubes; all of it. In fact, just the other day I was looking under the kitchen sink for something to drink and guess what? Yea, TUBES. I figured someone was trying to hack into my cleaning products so I quickly poured them all down the sink; better gone then in the clutches of some tube-monger.

To top it all off 2K includes one of the most played out, last gen game design concepts: moral decisions. In most games the choices you’re forced to make require some amount of personal reflection or consideration. Not the case here…at least, I really hope not. You have the choice between murdering little girls or saving their lives. What the hell? If they didn’t already have enough trauma with the big daddies on the prowl here you come eager to curb stomp them into oblivion. Even if you are fucked up enough to do it, one look at a guide or FAQ will deviate you from the idea entirely. Not only will you get fewer plasmid powers but if you kill even one girl you are sentenced to the “bad ending” which by the way, doesn’t come with achievement points. So in reality it’s less like a moral decision and more like a multiple choice test where the answer is always “b) I think I’ve wrenched enough people for one day”.

Verdict: 14$ trade in value

Xbox 360 is home to many first-person shooter and action games alike. Some of them are good and some of them are Bioshock. If you haven’t already bought the game then don’t. I couldn’t possibly begin to understand why this game is so well liked by everyone. Some huge assholes even went as far as to crown it Game of the Year 2007. That’s right, in the same year Super Mario Galaxy came out; go fucking figure. Anyway, ditch Bioshock and pick up Halo 3, The Orange Box or Call of Duty 4.