It’s me, live with it

Some reviewers are complaining about Bioshock’s difficulty. They think it’s too easy.

I think so too. At the beginning of the game, I was totally freaked out by its atmosphere. Just a few minutes in the game, You will be presented with a shocking scene that helps to build the game’s creepiness. Each time I hear a Splicer talking, I freaked out, not sure what to do. To make it even worse, being trapped in an underwater city, you can’t expect to see any sunlight. Which makes the atmosphere even darker (literally) and creepier.

The first hours in the game manages to give me the creep. Listening splicers talking, watching dead body laying around, Looking at a Big Daddy crushing a Splicer without breaking a sweat, Looking at the crumbling Rapture, It all manages to give deep atmosphere to the game.

But it all changes after the first time I fight with a Big Daddy. The reason is simple, I died a few times.

Before fighting the Big Daddy, I haven’t died even once. I play carefully, if I feel I’m in pretty bad shape, I reload my previous saved game. While fighting the Big Daddy, I realize that death is not a big deal afterall. My Items are intact, I revived at a nearby Vita Chamber with enough health and EVE to continue fighting. Basically, death only give you a thirty-metres extra walk to continue bashing skull.

After that, Nothin scares me anymore. Shocking maybe, but not scaring. I walk all over Rapture, killing all Splicers I meet with full confidence, barely using my medkits.

I even tried to exploit this. I give a Big Daddy a nice (and very well executed) shotgun blast to the…erm…head…I think, and let him kill me, lather, rinse, repeat. And I saved a hell lot of ammo by doing that, since I practically don’t miss at all. It almost feels like cheating.

No, I don’t enjoy that, it takes too long to kill a Big Daddy that way. But I don’t think that the vita-chamber revive thing is a bad idea. Sure, It slide the diffficulty far down, But it makes it fun and enjoyable too, in my opinion.

Don’t take me wrong, I like challenging game. I finished Call of Duty 4 and Medal of Honor:Airborne in veteran-guy-dying-every-70-seconds difficulty.

I just feel that Bioshock reminds me that I’m playing games to have fun. I’m not playing game to be stressed out. It’s a pretty nice change.

I just got a copy of Bioshock, and like all sane people, tried it right away. My first impression is that the graphics is very beautiful. I know it is using the same engine as Medal of Honor: Airbone and Unreal Tournament 3. I remember what Airborne looks like. It isn’t bad at all, it’s the opposite, really. But, somehow, I feel that the graphics in Bioshock is prettier. I don’t know whether it’s just my imagination, or…

Boy, look at that water and reflection…

and…

Indoor shot, with a lot of water…

It might actually be the water that makes the difference. As far as I can remember, in airborne, there were a few shot of puddles that seems to be literary wet. Don’t take my word for it, try the demo.

However, in Airborne, water is not a big element in the environment. A puddle here and there, maybe, but the puddle is the last thing you should be worrying about when a whole platoon is trying to get your arse.

Bioshock takes place in Rapture, an underwater city. In Bioshock, water is a HUGE element of the world. You see leaks, puddles, pools, even underwater tunnel.

I haven’t played Unreal Tournament 3, so i can’t make any comparison. But compared with Airborne, Bioshock is a sure winner.

And, I’m happy to say, Bioshock is not a serious system hog as it might seem, I can play happily with all of the pretty-setting enabled using my humble 8600GT at 1024x768. This is a good news for those with slightly old card. If you already have a radeon X1300 or Geforce 7300GT and above, you can run Bioshock with some pretty-settings enabled at a humble resolution.

If you’re about to comment about how screen resolutions below 1280x1024 and its widescreen equivalent are not suitable for gaming, you should bugger off now.

I’ll continue my rambling about Bioshock in the next few posts, so bear with it.