Yes yes yes. I’m one of the lucky ones who managed to [del]get lucky[/del] hypnotize my local Toys R Us into breaking the street date and selling Bioshock early. Worked late yesterday and then had a whole bunch of obligations at night, so haven’t had a chance to play it yet.
I’m counting down the hours till I’m off today and then am going to [del]literally[/del] utterly dive into this game. Anyone else just nearly [del]busting a nut[/del] bursting with anticipation as I am?
I’ve been waiting for this game for over a year, and it’s a major reason I’m going to buy a 360 as soon as they start getting the 65nm units on shelves. After reading about it for a year, I finally got to play it at Wizard World this past weekend and it was pretty much everything I’ve been hoping for.
It’s a beautiful game - the whole unique, idiosyncratic “submerged, decaying Art Deco metropolis” setting is the type of thing that we should be seeing in games but don’t see enough of in an era of fratboy gamers and lowest-common-denominator test-marketed mainstream games. The characters’ interactions and AI were very interesting, as I followed a Big Daddy around just to see what it would do, then recoiled as it encountered a guy harassing a little sister and slammed him through a wall. I was also impressed at how “non-FPS’y” they’ve managed to make it - it’s very much more of a first-person RPG a la Oblivion rather than a blast-em-all frag fest.
Apart from everything else, it’s from the same guys who did System Shock 2, one of the greatest computer games ever made, and is actively trying to capture the feel of that game without repeating it. From the 360 demo, it looks like they may have succeeded.
PC Gamer (UK) gave it 95% which is basically the Half-Life 2 watermark. It’s so incredibly, incredibly fucking scary. I was playing an, er, liberated version at a friend’s last night, and a doctor in a medical ward beat me to death with a rake.
As if that wasn’t cool enough, he noted my time of death . . .
Edit: Basically, if nothing else, it’s a Ken Levine project. He’s an absolute genius, a Kubrick of games.
To give you an aproximate SCARY indicator score, Ken Levine is the guy who designed The Cradle level in Thief 3 . . .
I’m going to wait for the PC version, er, mostly because I don’t have a 360, but also I don’t like shooters on the console even if I did. But I’m really looking forward to it, and I hope it lives up to the hype.
Bioshock is part of the legacy of Looking Glass Studios, where the original System Shock (one of the best games ever) was made, as well as Thief. Deus Ex is in that line as well, and there’s been no indication that this will fail to fit in that company. At the very least, there hasn’t been anything similar expected to come out.
Like DeadlyAccurate I’m waiting for the PC version as well. (For exactly the same reasons.) Quite honestly, I’m still curious to see if the PC version hits the shelves on the launch date, considering that the PC demo wasn’t ready on the 13th according to the Cult of Rapture website.
No demo 8 days before launch? Apparently it’s in the last stages of “testing and approval” and Irrational wanted to be certain it’d run on a wide variety of computers.
Well, my fingers are crossed. Really looking forward to it.
Played about 4 hours last night. I’ll tell you now that this game is excellent. I have a similar feeling about this game like when Half-Life 2 was released. i.e. OMG IT LIVES UP TO THE HYPE. So often as gamers, particularly gamers who follow previews and upcoming releases, we’re constantly being disappointed (well at least I am). Even some of my favorite games from the last couple years, really good games, in some way fell short of expectation and what is [del]promised[/del] suggested to us. This feeling of disappointment is pretty much directly proportional to the amount of hype and anticipation leading up to a game’s release. So it’s refreshing to know that every once in a while there is a game that actually delivers (here are my fingers crossed for Mass Effect).
I certainly won’t spoil anything, but I will tell you that the game jumps right in. For me at least, it’s fairly refreshing to see a game that gives you access to some pretty sweet weapons and powers (plasmids) only a couple minutes into the gameplay. Then the purchasing/upgrade system just goes up and up from there.
I’m happy to answer questions if you might have them, but you should probably just play it.
You will love this game.
The PC version is available through Steam, you cna preload now and play on the 21st. So retail versions of the game for PC should be available on the 21st-22nd.
Oh, and PC users. If you have DX10 hardware, you’ll be handsomely rewarded. This game is beautiful on the 360 using DX9. I can only imagine how much better it is with all the bells and whistles of DX10. When I finally upgrade to DX10 on my pc gaming rig, this will probably be the first game I buy/play. OK, maybe Crysis.
On the other hand, what makes this game so damn beautiful and awesome is the much-discussed atmosphere. The steampunky Art Deco underwater environ works incredibly well, much like Half-Life 2’s dystopian, generic, european city atmosphere. Again, like HL2, I’m reasonably convinced you could crank this game down to 800x600 with all the effects turned down, and still be awestruck by the graphics. Good times!
