#0011 – Bioshock – 2007 – Multiplatform – Irrational Games – FPS

I don't know whether it's the game's fault for being different or my fault for forcing expectations on it, but Bioshock wasn't what I expected at all, even after playing the XBL demo back in the day.  As an avid FPS gamer, I've been told about a billion times I should have played Bioshock three years ago when it came out.  The underwater world of Rapture was advertised as exquisite, the plot was called subtly compelling, and everyone said the combat was liberating.  So I had high expectations from a GOTY winner and apparently revolutionary effort from Irrational.  I guess as with everything else there were things I liked and things that I didn't like - or maybe just didn't get.

On the positives list is the world of Rapture and the characters inside it.  I doubt you'll find anyone who doesn't really feel the same way.  The art-deco design, licensed oldies tunes, and whimsical retro kitsch combine to make an extremely unique environment, especially for a genre dominated with spaceship corridors and military bases.  Rapture really did feel like a genuine world that was in decay.  You could see traces of the old gilded exterior and the 'ghost replays' (mirages of now-dead citizens at the moment of tragedy) contributed a sort of mystical sense of nostalgia.  Though I'd never seen Rapture as it originally was, I felt sincerely sorry it had collapsed.  The locales you journey through - old theaters, dance halls, metros, apartments, markets, science labs - are dotted with this generation's favorite storytelling device: audio logs.  I loved these as well.  You could listen to them while you were playing the game instead of being forced to sit on a menu.  Each was cleverly written and delivered with convincing emotion.  If you play the game I suggest you pay attention to them - not only do they sometimes have passwords and key combos you'll need for precious ammo and EVE (more on that later), they're the primary plot device.  If you ignore them you're not going to have as good a grasp of Rapture and what happened to it.

Enjoying the plot and art is going to be a bit of a problem, though, because Bioshock brings the tension of survival horror resource management back to the FPS with a vengeance.  This isn't a game where you'll have more clips than you can carry and ammo restocks between cutscenes.  I swear, if I ever had more than twenty antipersonnel bullets for my pistol then I don't remember it.  Having to constantly scrounge ammo and goodies is a bit of chore and makes the game feel longer than it really is, but it definitely adds to the suspense and keeps you on your toes.  You have to learn how to use your plasmid powers (like psychic or biotic powers from other games) efficiently and combine them with your weapons for max damage, and maxing your money and ADAM is a must.  If you buy the right upgrades, keep your eyes peeled for loot, hack everything, and learn what weapons hurt what enemies then you'll be fine.  It just demanded more thought from me than I'm used to delivering.

Between the agile enemies and ever-present security systems I died quite a bit, and at first it was frustrating.  Then I became acquainted with the Vita Chambers, perhaps Bioshock's most bizarre design choice.  When you die, you are reanimated inside a nearby Vita Chamber with all of your health and ammo and gear intact.  Furthermore, the Vita Chambers aren't like checkpoints or game reload points - the game continues as if you'd never died, which means that all enemies have whatever health they had when you died.  So the harshest of fights could essentially be taken care of without a single bullet or drop of plasmid juice by whacking things with your hammer until you die, then coming back and whittling them down some more.  With Vita Chambers always so close to the action and so few ways for enemies to heal themselves, the unmotivated gamer is going to find Bioshock to be a pretty easy thing to slog through.  The final boss was a joke, too.

The Vita Chambers pretty much stole all the tension from the 'only one bullet left' resource management.  That was my main thought.  The story was solid, the atmosphere was impressive, and the game clearly had a lot of love put into it.  I'm interested to see 2K's take on things without Irrational's creative vision, so Bioshock 2 is on the radar.  But more than that I want to see how Irrational itself deals with these issues.  So bring on Bioshock Infinite, although I think we have more than just a little wait.  In the meantime, I recommend you try the first bit of Bioshock if you haven't played it yet.  I'm positive the thinking man will find some of the mechanics to their liking and pretty much everyone should get pleasure from the non-combat side of things.

#0004 - Prey - 2006 - Multiplatform - 3D Realms - First Person Shooter

It seems as if video game history rewards the cautious as often as the bold. Half-Life 2, for instance, suffered from delays but eventually released to worlwide acclaim. But for every Half-Life 2 there is a Prey - a game that became victim of its own bloated development cycle and missed its moment to shine. 3D Realms began work on the game back in 1995, and it finally saw release over a decade later in 2006 after being restarted from scratch several times on different engines. Obviously, tech changes a lot in a ten year span.

There was, however, a sweet spot in 1998 when Prey was nearly complete and looking fantastic by the standards of the time.It should have hit the presses right then - Prey would have made a huge splash with its destructable geometry, portal technologies, and impressive detail textures. Regrettably, instead of going gold it was delayed again and was forced back to the drawing board to take advantage of next-gen tech. When gamers finally got their hands on Prey in 2006, the destructable environments were gone - and had been done in Red Faction already, anyway - and the texturing was nothing special in comparison to contemporaries Quake 4, Half-Life 2, and Far Cry.

As it is, you can pick up the 360 version for $4.99 at any Gamestop. The multiplayer networks are dead, and the game is never mentioned, even in a negative. It has been, a mere four years after the long-awaited release, completely forgotten. It doesn't seem right to say that a game can become less 'good' over time - after all, it's either good or it isn't, right? Well, you've got me. To be honest, the actual gameplay mechanics and theme are nothing to be excited about. One has to wonder if it really needed to take eleven years to come up with a theme so unremarkable. So you can't really blame anyone except for 3D Realms for the way Prey has rotted in bargain bins.

But damn, if Prey had only beaten the new wave of FPS games to the punch back in '98, we'd probably be remembering it as a milestone in technical achievement. Watching the old E3 interviews you really get a feeling for how amazing the portals and environments were for the day - back when a Voodoo 2 was considered a solid graphics card. The programmers and design staff were clearly talented to come up with implementations for this stuff before Portal and Red Faction, and it's just sad that their achievements were delayed from the public eye so long that they became old hat.

To elaborate on the gameplay, Prey is pretty generic. After the awesome opening sequence which sees alien suck up a gas station, you're armed with a crowbar...uh, lead pipe...and eventually an assault rifle, heavier assault rife, and directed energy weapon. The guy you play as, Tommy, comments on the proceedings occasionally, and in the first few stages you gain access to a 'spirit walk' mode where you can fire a 'spirit bow' and pass through energy fields while your physical body remains transfixed.

For the people who brought us Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior, this is pretty dull. Where are the zany, badass weapons? The hilariously crude quotes? Gone - sacrificed to the modern wave of realism and drama that has become necessary in first person shooters. Prey would have done well to stick to the formula that made 3D Realms' 1990s offerings so well-loved. At any rate, what's left is a game that's almost identical to Quake 4 in theme and visual presentation, with some mind-bending gravity tricks as the only really defining difference.

Somewhere out there is an executive or design lead who's kicking himself for not getting Prey out sooner. I feel for him.