Like at least half of the rest of the gaming universe, I picked up Bioshock this week. Most of the industry appears ready to pronouce it to be the orgasmic second coming of gaming nirvana. This may or may not be the case, I don’t know. What I can say for sure is that the game knows how to begin with a bang.
You might recall that earlier this year I ruminated about how not to start a game. To summarize: don’t make me look at boring exposition taking place in a generic environment for a full 20 minutes without giving me anything to do but shoot a rat. Whatever else you might think about Bioshock, you can say it does not waste your time. You are literally thrown into the game and instantly given tasks to perform, scenery to look at and a reason to move forward and find out what comes next. In other words, you are given a reason to care about the game.
What is sad is how few games do this right. You’d think people would have learned by now that if I have no immediate reason to care about the game, I have no reason to play the game.
I can only hope that the rest of the game manages to maintain the standard set by the start. This might finally be a shooter that can stand against Resident Evil 4 in my conciousness.
So far my only complaint is, as usual, that Medium might be too hard again. I never learn.
Dude, it’s a game where you get to kill aquatic Objectivists. What else do you need?
You do? How did I not know this? I’m in.
I’m finding the medium difficulty just right so far; dying is completely painless and you’re really not penalized in any way. I guess I’ve been learning from my mistakes, too, because I haven’t died in the past few hours.
So far I think the pacing has kept up, too, and I’ve never felt bored or like I’m just doing the same thing over an over. It already beats Resident Evil 4 in my mind, especially since I theoretically can save and quit at any time. Unfortunately, it’s just so addicting that putting down the controller is the hardest part…
Medium difficulty is working out for me alright, although I’m only about a half hour into the game overall. I am, however, hooked.
You playing it on the computer or on the console?
Mmm, yes; rumintation is good.
I’m hoping to pick this one up tomorrow, and that it lives up to the breathless reviews.
I’m playing on the 360. I don’t actually own a windows PC at home (only Macs).
Trivial nit-picking here…
Ignoring the Windows version for now, which will sell fewer than the 360 version, there are about 12 million 360s. If every 360 owner bought Bioshock that would still be less than a quarter of the gaming market! And in fact, Bioshock can’t have sold more than a quarter of a million units worldwide at this point (if that) because of the size of the retail channel.
So rather than “at least half of the rest of the gaming universe”, it’s closer to about half a percent of the gaming universe.
But of course, I’m being picky, and if by “gaming universe” you mean the gamer hobbyists, we’re only talking about about 5 million people anyway, so that’s about 5% of the gaming uinverse. Still, a lot lower than half.
I really don’t have a point here… I’m just reluctant to go to work.
Have fun killing those damned objectivists! Never did like ‘em.
Half of my gamer buddies bought it. That’s all that counts.
> What else do you need?
A boss battle where you shoot Ayn Rand in the face with a rocket launcher?
How about two rocket launchers?
Ah, I never considered that “gaming universe” might be just your universe.
Sounds like you’re on the side of the Objectivists. 
Have fun killing them!