A couple of days ago, the demo for Bioshock became available on the Xbox Live marketplace. I immediatley started letting it download that night, and I just have to say: wow. Amazing game, and I've just played the demo.

Some initial impressions: This is much, much more than your standard run of the mill FPS, and presents itself as such. I'm not very far into the game, and already the story is spellbinding. I feel like the character is drawing me into his predicament, and I'm just as curious as he is about what's going on. The demo drops you in the middle of the ocean, next to plane crash. You initially start out under water, fighting to get to the surface. The sounds are amazing; just listening to your character trying to make it to the surface while drowning is enough to make you wonder if he'll actually make it or not.

Once to the surface, you take control. The water effects are unlike anything I have ever seen, inky black with orange shadows from the flames of the fire. You have to navigate through the debris (at one point a large chunk of it explodes), until you find yourself in some sort of eerie, metal chamber. I won't explain the rest of it, for fear of spoiling things until other people have played the demo, but lets just say it's -good-. It's a little bit terrifying at times. At one point you can see this creature lurking int he shadows outside of the chamber you are in, when it finally rushes forward and slices someone to pieces, before jumping on top of your room and trying to hack through the roof. All the while you are in full control of the camera, able to set there and watch it try to get in to you.

Anyway, point is, you should check it out. Reviews are coming in from all the major sites (IGN giving it a 9.7/10), and there have even been some reports of it being said to be better than Ocarina of Time. Though I'm not sure how that comparison can be logically made, given the contrast of the genres.



Content: BioShock Demo
Price: Free
Availability: Not available in Japan
Dash Text: Welcome to Rapture with the official demo to BioShock, the “genetically enhanced” first person shooter. BioShock is a shooter unlike any you’ve ever played, loaded with weapons and tactics never seen. You’ll have an arsenal at your disposal from simple revolvers to rocket launchers and flame throwers, but you’ll also be forced to genetically alter your DNA to create an even more deadly weapon – you. Injectable Plasmids give you ungodly powers: blast electrical currents into water to electrocute multiple enemies, freeze them solid and obliterate them with the swing of a wrench, or create a swarm of attack hornets from your own mutated flesh. BioShock is that rare game in which Brainpower is as valuable as Firepower. You’ll need plenty of both to get out alive.
Size: 1.35 GB (approx.)

!!!

IS THERE A PC DEMO?

It's "coming soon"

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/33780/Bi...ck-PC-Demo-Soon

Graahhh. Oh well, only a week until the real game for me.

My 360 is still dead, but I'll have to look into this when I get it fixed. Bioshock, and then MASS EFFECT.

It looks like a scary game, and there aren't even any zombies :S I'd still get it though if I could

It -is- really scary, at least to me anyway. It does that thing where you can hear something a long time before you actually get to it that survival horror games do, so it's maddening where you can hear some creepy old guy shuffling around and talking, but you have no idea where he's at.

I just played through the demo again, though, and it really makes me want the game. I found a lot of things this time through that I didn't the first time; bags of potato chips you can use to boost your health, cigarettes that boost your mana-ish meter but drain your health. I even found some alcohol on one of the tables that made me drunk for a few minutes, and the screen got all hazy. It's little details like that that makes it a great game.

That is the point, yes. You guys who haven't should see if you can find an old cheap (or abandonware) copy of System Shock 2 while we wait for this. It's the "spiritual precursor" to bioshock and a masterful game on its own. It's worth playing just for the style of plot if nothing else.

Slightly unrelated, but: does anyone remember when the game concept for Bioshock was some kind of hive in an abandoned laboratory structure or something like that? If so, do you know if they ever talked about why they changed that?

EDIT: Looked it up on gamespot, but the first article they have seems to reference "when ___ was first announced on this site"...I assume it wasn't called Bioshock then. I don't know where to look though.

I seem to remember it being at the same time as some fantasy-looking FPS was announced where you had a crossbow and could warp time?

Timeshift?

Quite possible, checking the first gamespot coverage of it from last year. Doesn't seem to help me find the article I was looking for though.

EDIT: Found it. Guess I'll start looking from here.

EDIT: Bah, next relevant stuff after that is E3.

Hey Shiri, did you ever play the Original System Shock? I remember that game. It was out in 1994 I think. I loved it more than the sequel, although back then it was sort of Doomish when it came to the graphics (it was a full 3D engine though). SS2 was great but the sequel wasn't the same as the original, and since it used the Thief engine I had Garret deja-vu.

Sadly, I missed it, but a political commentator mentioned a game out where you could "kill little girls", which I assume was Bioshock. Hope that aspect of the game stays out of the press.

Not that it's what he was talking about, but you can do that in Deus Ex, too, iirc.

EDIT: Apparently, you have to kill the little girls to get upgrades/better powers.

Must have been. http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/798/798743p1.html


Really? I don't recall, where could you do that?

Best killing game I played was Manhunt, it rocked.

I like the commercials for Bioshock. The Frank Sinatra music contrasts entertainingly with the images.

I guess I was thinking of Invisible War, with the school full of children about halfway through the game.

I did! I'm coercing DosBox to run it now. The game was really scary at its time, but it still has its moments: WELCOME TO MY DEATHMACHINE!

Kromsh, while there were kids you could kill in DX:IW, there's no real "game incentive" to do so. In all the promotional material for Bioshock, they talk about the plasmids they hold and that you can kill them to get it. So I can see some media picking up on that as "encouragement" to kill little girls.

To be fair, the little girls started it.

No, I actually tried but it spazzed on me and I couldn't get it to run. Same with Legacy of Kain. Too bad, really. SS2 was masterful though, so no worries.

Also, thief (or rather, thief 2) was another one of those games that made me seasick so I never really finished it. Plus I only played it after SS2.