We Have A Winner! I've been following this game for awhile now and after playing the demo on Monday, I am blown away. I can't wait for this game to come out! It comes out Tuesday!

I know! The reviews have been great (9.7 from IGN) but what I really like is where this game is pushing the industry and the first person shooter genre, away from the halo shite that has been copied for the last few years and towards more high quality and original games. I also like the philosophical and psychological aspects of the game, with all of the complex relationships and that pivotal one: big daddy and those little, innocent girls who really ain't so innocent. Even the art that I've seen has been so wonderfully original and those beautiful water effects. I really wonder if this game can help turn video games into a higher form of art versus just entertainment (which is probably a discussion by itself). Of course, the gameplay, according to the reviews, is pretty nice as well so I am really psyched about tuesday.

I hope to buy this one eventually, the demo was great and the whole game just sounds fantastic.

Bought it today, played about 2 hours worth. OMG. Totally immersive environment. Not as open ended as Oblivion, but incredibly detailed, and the art is gorgeous. Very spooky and creepy. I can see hours of enjoyment.

GOTY.

I'm going to pick it up tomorrow... I'm very excited.

Sinister and I are really enjoying it. We're in Arcadia now.

I picked it up earlier today... Right now, I'm at the Farmers Market. I can't find all of the items I need for that invention though.

What are you still missing?

We've gotten to the Hephaistion.

I need 5 more bottles of chlorophyll from the teleporting splicers. I've been searching corpse after corpse and I still can't find the rest.
Edit: I found all of them... What a fantastic game.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Everyoneanindividual,

A fantastic game. I have reached the Arcadia and am having a blast, so far. I am not a huge fan of the auto-revival booths but you know what, most people complain when a game has too few save points and this just goes the other way and creates a ton. I tend to re-load vs. re-spawn because I like to win it with the resources on hand with one attempt but I like that it gives you both options.

This is a game that really is trying to appeal to all markets. You don't HAVE to use the respawn booths. Save as if you would in a regular FPS and use that system only. Casual gamers that just want to have fun exploring this massive funhouse can do so without having to remembering to save and key points and so on. Perfect.

This is the gold standard for FPS games now and everyone will be playing catch up in 2008 and 2009 because of it (too late for current development...they are almost done). I think Gears and RS6 helped move the genre ahead in gameplay areas but Bioshock moved the entire genre into a powerful storytelling zone. FPS can do more than simply provide baddies to shoot at with little or no context or emotional investment.

I just finished Bioshock a few minutes ago and I have to say that I was blown away. It left me feeling triumphant and overjoyed. The Best Game on the 360 and the Best Game to Come Out this Year (so far).

well i played it for 2 hours. the fights, on hard mode at least, were really intense, some of the best i've ever played. art was spectacular. sound was amazing. water. best. ever.
can't wait to play it again.

but what i'm really wondering is the cultural impact of this game. the things you can do with the little sisters, taken out of context (which the media loves to do) can really cause mayhem.

which brings me to my question, has anyone taken advantage of the little sisters?

I agree with the comments made above. I'm very much a casual gamer. I like a little bit of challenge, but I also like to win. I've been playing on easy mode, and the game is still fantastic. Primarily because I think the story line is so compelling. I can only play "blast the mutants" for so long without getting bored. However, the twists in the plot and the beauty of the environments make you want to keep playing, to find out what comes next.

I've saved all of the little sisters, though I understand you get more Adam by exploiting them. I'm thinking about replaying the game on a harder setting next time, and destroying the little sisters. I understand there is an alternate ending if you do this.

Holy balls. Ten hours of bliss for my first play through on medium. Hard is much more difficult, though much more enjoyable. At this point I only use ammunition on my large, drill-handed friends. The wrench has become my best friend against those little splicer bitches. Mm... BioShock.

i love the wrench. best. weapon. ever.
you can go through the whole game just using it.

I bought this game on release date, but I wanted to avoid this thread in case there was a spoiler or anything, but now I have beaten it and I've got the time to talk about this game. I don't know where to start really. I think that everyone can agree with me when I say this game has to be played, and you can not describe it through words. It's beautifully scary and it never gets old. Especially clubbin someone over the head with a wrench is soooooo satisfying. If you haven't played this game then get to it! It is Game Of The Year in my book, how do I know this? Well, it's hard to beat perfection.

We finished the game last night. I must say, I feel like it went so quickly, although we must have spent about 20 to 22 hours on it. The gameplay was really fun, but, the game "philosophy" aspects of the game are the most fascinating to me.

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*

The way the game messes with gamer psychology is the neatest element. After all, you follow the game's instructions from the beginning. You "have no choice." Some of that, of course, is recognition of game dynamics. When you play a FPS, you know you have to follow a specific trajectory, with very little freedom to step off the path. However, when the game reveals that you're doing that because your character has been created and conditioned to do it, that's just a masterstroke.

Did you pick up the diary of the stripper in Eve's Garden. That turns out to have been the character's mother! Andrew Ryan is your father, and the Dr talks her out of getting an abortion. The Dr then takes you, and conditions you. When does Andrew Ryan find out that you are his son, though? He obviously knows by the time you brain him with the golf club. And why does he essentially commit suicide at your hands? Is it simply because his utopian vision has gone so horribly awry? Is it because you, yourself, have become a splicer? After all, by then you are probably sporting 6 active and 6 passive plasmids. That's how all the other splicers have gone insane.

My favorite aspect of the game are the Ayn Rand references that are littered throughout. Clearly, the game makers have a real problem with Rand's objectivist philosophy. But it's not so simple. Andrew Ryan remains idealistic about his vision. Is his vision fatally flawed, or did Fontaine and Suchong simply pervert that vision? I think the game makers give us a big clue in the character and appearance of Fontaine. If you've ever seen the sculpture of Atlas in front of Rockefeller Plaza in NYC, you'll recognize Fontaine from it. "Atlas" indeed shrugs, and the result is carnage.

I saved all of the little sisters, and got the appropriate cut scene in the end. I wonder if people are saving some, all, or none of the little sisters? What happens in the end if you exploit them? And, did you ever feel guilty for killing them?
After all, although they have been made into monsters, they are still innocents. If you, like me, chose to save them, would you have acted differently if they weren't little children? I believe that I would have been only to happy to massacre them if they looked like the splicers. But that, too, raises some interesting questions. When you finally get the diary that explains that the reason they picked the little girls, was to make people (like you) less likely to kill them, it adds an additional layer of manipulation that I think is fascinating. They designed them to be hard for character and gamer alike to kill them.

Of course, you can just club, blast, burn, freeze and bee people, but it's the story and philosophic elements that make it Game of the Year. This is what beats the pants off of a Gears of War. I hope this game changes the standards of what FPS and RPGs can be. I hope it makes gamers demand more from their games!

thank you doc for blacking everything out b/c i still haven't beaten it. I don't have my 360 with me right now.

i saw this on digg and thought someone might like it.

my pleasure. That's got to be the funniest VG comics I've ever seen!

Of course, that might be the first VG that I actually got.