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Description
2010 update: Holy hell these reviews need serious editing! All sorts of errors and less than eloquent prose make it kinda hard to read years later! Revision on the way

This Christmas I was gifted with a brand new xbox 360; a pleasant surprise to be sure. Not being a fan of the last-gen controller setup I then went about acquiring games I was either interested in or had heard a considerable amount of hype about. The first two titles I chose each fit into one of this categories. On the hype side I went with BioShock and with the “I just want it, damn it!” side I went with dead rising. Neither disappointed and while each has its flaws which highlight the limits of last-gen control methods they both illustrate the lengths to which great gameplay can still be attained by using this setup in combination with intelligent gameplay design and streamlining. First up for review is BioShock and then later Dead Rising. So enjoy! Please feel free to comment, complain or object to any of the things I say!

BIOSHOCK:

The underwater city of rapture, the location in which the events of BioShock take place, and any underwater city is doomed to complete failure, don’t let anyone fool you into thinking otherwise. It’s underwater, that alone is enough to necessitate its failure. Throw in artificial selection to evolve individuals into having a variety of strange powers, like throwing globules of various colored fluid to control things and the power to set fire to people, and the inevitable doom of this idiotically conceived soggy deathtrap comes about a bit quicker. This is where you, the mysterious hero, enter into the picture. In BioShock the player is tossed into the current struggle for the control and fate of Rapture as they encounter various characters that unravel the history of the city while guiding you along your little underwater experience. And this experience is a great one thanks to top notch FPS fundamentals that combine with RPG elements to make a shooter that is not only cerebral and brutal in its action but one the offers the player a variety of means to achieve the end of victory aside from that of “blow everything up”. But in the end, like most singleplayer FPS experiences that rely on the story to motivate player action, once you reach the final chapter of this story you have no reason to play this game once you’ve conquered it. Which is to bad because the gameplay itself lends itself to a variety of possible modes, contexts and content types.

First and foremost what needs to be noted when dealing with a FPS game on a console is its controls, no matter how good they are they will always be far inferior to that of fps games like Metroid Prime 3 and half life 2 for the PC. This case is no different; dealing with the god awful aiming mechanic that’s mapped to the right thumbstick is an exercise in extreme aggravation and accounts for half of the games challenge. Having said that Bioshock utilizes the best controls possible for this kind of setup thanks to its clever gameplay design and weapon variety. Not only to you point and shoot to get the job done but you can manipulate a variety of creatures/security systems to do your bidding. So if you are like me and confronting a group of enemies head on with guns puts you at unnecessary risk thanks to a lack of accuracy then you have this, and other, options to even the odds. The powers one purchases from cleverly placed vending machines throughout the game in the form of “Adam” provide a wide variety of means for the ends of destruction. So if your not so handy with yer pistol you can always light your foes on fire, manipulate a big daddy to do the work for you or even pick up a fling objects around with your mind like some underwater Jedi. Further assisting the player in the difficult task of moving around the painful aiming thumbstick there are a variety of weapons that are fairly standard fair for FPS gameplay. You have the one bullet at a time pistol, you have the stream of bullets spouting machine gun, the pellet spreading close-range shotgun, a sniper like bowgun and a chemical spewing flamethrower. Standard options for an FPS game, right? Not really being as they account for only half of the possibilities of destruction while the Adam fueled super powers count for the other half. Not only this but these traditional forms of weaponry each splinter off into a variety of further weapons facilitated by the modification of ammo types. Lets say you have an enemy that is invulnerable to standard bullets and needs something a bit more personal, or anti-personal, to take him down. Pop in the anti-personal rounds and your good to go. Along with standard bullets and anti-personal rounds you have armor-piercing and explosive rounds. The flamethrower type weapon even has the ability to alternate between electrical, fire and ice ammo types. So taken in combination with the super powers the total amount of tools for destruction available to the player is staggering. The game developers had a specific purpose for this; each and every enemy, context and level is designed to test your ability to alternate between all these abilities. In these regards the level design is fantastic thanks to the solid combat foundations it builds and relies on.

While the gameplay accounts for 90% of what makes this game great the other 10% is pretty damn impressive as well. First and foremost that which people notice most, and sadly focus on the most, is the games graphics. They are great; but the way people describe them in reviews and other articles you would think that this game is first and foremost the graphical equivalent of the second gaming of your chosen religious figure. Its all top notch, don’t get me wrong, with fantastic textures, water effects, lighting, shadows and particle effects but what really separates this game from any other before it is the insane level of creativity infused in each and every inch of this underwater battleground. The individuals in charge of the concept art for this game created an entire world of intelligent, fascinating and creative characters, places and objects. In my mind they deserve the vast majority of the credit for this games visual appeal. That’s not to say that the individuals who executed the creation of applicable textures, models and so on aren’t just as influential but that the ideas responsible for this games visual appeal hold the most value. Aside from the visual creativity that compels the player to continue their adventure the audio aspect plays an enormous role as the story itself is primarily told through audio segments. The game doesn’t stop and show you movie-like cut scenes in order to progress the story, rather you are in constant communication with the main characters of the game who, as you adventure deeper and deeper into the city, reveal all the relevant information through a radio. This is tremendously effective thanks to the heavy lifting the human imagination ends up doing; since you aren’t staring these characters in the face you get to fill in all the details based on the information they are given to you and as a result its more akin to reading a book than watching a movie in which flaws, inconsistencies and errors degrade the overall experience. Instead your imagination takes these seeds of information and grows them into a lush and appealing forest of compelling plot twists, character traits and suspense.

But this game is not without its flaws, but for the most part they are forgivable and don’t impact the games overall enjoy ability. Take the idea of the underwater city itself; the games developers are trying to convince you that the best and brightest of the world all thought it was a great idea to build and live in this doomed city. Really? It also takes a pseudo-philosophical tone in the beginning of the game which has led many reviewers to conclude that the game itself is a sharp criticism of the philosophies of Ayn Rand and her various novels, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Not only is it a tremendous straw-man fallacy to frame her ideas in this manner but the method by which they attack it is laughable at best. They basically say, “well the philosophies themselves led to this underwater nightmare” while trying to convince you that the high intellect of Raptures citizens deemed it proper to inject themselves with genetic altering material such that they could have the practical and useful power of lighting things on FIRE…really? Throughout the game there is the constant attack on ethical egoism that is not only framed incorrectly but taken to ridiculous extremes. The game supposes that it would be in an individual’s best interest to better themselves in any way available to them, such that they would inject themselves with life altering powers. Any person with even a decent idea of the tenants of ethical egoism can reason that doing so not only puts ones body in an artificial and unnatural state of duress, with the constant need for the next “fix” of adam akin to that of a drug addict, but it disrupts the basic social foundations that the worlds creators supposedly wished to further by the construction and habitation of the city. If everyone has the power to manipulate the security systems which protect the inhabitants of the city then your going to end up with chaos and anarchy, which is exactly what happens. But all of this really doesn’t effect the average gamer as we have been trained from an early age to suspend disbelief and focus on the elements that make the game fun to play to begin with; the gameplay. The setting and structure are merely intended as a way of facilitating this and as a result these philosophical blunders are easily overlooked given that the point of the game is to have a good time with the well designed gameplay.

But when one examines the gameplay itself it becomes clear that it is far too dependent on the storyline to motivate the player to continue to play. This is apparent when one defeats the game. Like most single player shooter experiences once you’re done you are done. Sure you can go back and play again, but the experience wouldn’t be nerely as complete thanks to the information you now already know as a result of having the information which the storyline has communicated to you. There needs to be some time put between you and the game in order to be able to fully appreciate it once again as you did the first time; so while there is no doubt a level of replayability generated by the extreme quality of the game like any great book or movie you most likely will pick this experience up again somewhere down the road in order to appreciate it on the level, or higher, that you did the first time you wandered into the world of rapture. The possible solution to this is to simply release more Bioshock titles, which they will inevitably do. But the game itself would have more gaming value if it had modes that exploited the games phenomenal gameplay elements in a competitive manner. An arcade mode where levels are designed to through varieties of challenges at you similar to the VR missions in the metal gear series would have been great. Players don’t need the story in order to appreciate the gameplay and they would most certainly continue to enjoy the gameplay if they had more challenges to conquer.

Which leads to my overall recommendation; rent. This is great game, no doubt, but as I said before when you’re done you’re done. If you have the cash to purchase the game by all means do so, but for those of us who feel like fools when they look at their game collections gathering dust it seems more financially prudent to first rent the game and then purchase it in the future at a lower price point. Its not as though you are going to be playing the game for months until you finish it, more likely a week. After that there is simply no more challenges to conquer, no way to test the skills you have learned. But don’t let this fool you; this game is one of the highest quality titles released this generation and is worth playing. The gameplay is far superior to any other FPS on the market thanks to its depth and variety and the artistry is top notch. The storyline is superb and the catharsis of emotion, mostly fear and curiosity, is compelling and fascinating. So when you are able to get yourself a copy of this game don’t hesitate to do so. Overall it’s a great experience that is short but oh so, so so so, very sweet.

-MaTT

DEAD RISING: (whoops! I totally thought that i had uploaded this review months ago!)

The differences between Bioshock and Dead Rising are vast, and as such this review will reflect that. While Bioshock, with it deeply embedded philosophical thought experiment gone bad, may be more of a "book", so to speak, Dead Rising reminds one more of an unholy marriage of "Dawn of the Dead" and the pinnacle of arcade gaming. Its lighter, brighter and all around more accessible. Thats not to say that more people will enjoy Dead Rising over Bioshock, but merely that more people will MORE OFTEN enjoy it even years after its release.

The story of Dead Rising doesn't matter, but it does provide the context necessary for the suspension of disbelief necessary for maximum enjoyment. You are trapped in a mall with an unreasonable amount of zombies; survive. Thats pretty much it. This presentation relies on its simplicity because it expands it into ridiculous realms, and successfully so. The player can utilize nearly every object as a weapon and perform physical actions clearly outside the realm of possibility. But its believable because the specifics are subordinate to the larger picture of survival via tactical engagement.

And thats what the gameplay is; tactical. You the player are presented with a variety of situations and tool's to solve the problems embedded within. You must navigate crowds while controlling it, in so far as you can with your tools. Getting from point A to point B is the primary action the player must successfully complete and the developers do a great job making this interesting. The player is constantly rewarded with points, experience and visceral experience that encourages further action. More importantly the player can jump back into the game without feeling burdened by overall "progress" or a feeling of "been there, done that". This is because the game focuses on what the player does rather than simply what they experience.

And that's the real problem with Bioshock as compared to Dead Rising: Bioshock is a storytelling device and once you know the story its hard to summon enough desire to hear it again. With Dead Rising the focus is player skill. In this way Dead Rising resembles an arcade game more than a book and because of the medium it finds itself on, home gaming consoles, it has the upper hand.

If you had to choose, choose Dead Rising. But keep in mind that Bioshock is an experience not to be missed.

Description
2010 update: Holy hell these reviews need serious editing! All sorts of errors and less than eloquent prose make it kinda hard to read years later! Revision on the way

This Christmas I was gifted with a brand new xbox 360; a pleasant surprise to be sure. Not being a fan of the last-gen controller setup I then went about acquiring games I was either interested in or had heard a considerable amount of hype about. The first two titles I chose each fit into one of this categories. On the hype side I went with BioShock and with the “I just want it, damn it!” side I went with dead rising. Neither disappointed and while each has its flaws which highlight the limits of last-gen control methods they both illustrate the lengths to which great gameplay can still be attained by using this setup in combination with intelligent gameplay design and streamlining. First up for review is BioShock and then later Dead Rising. So enjoy! Please feel free to comment, complain or object to any of the things I say!

BIOSHOCK:

The underwater city of rapture, the location in which the events of BioShock take place, and any underwater city is doomed to complete failure, don’t let anyone fool you into thinking otherwise. It’s underwater, that alone is enough to necessitate its failure. Throw in artificial selection to evolve individuals into having a variety of strange powers, like throwing globules of various colored fluid to control things and the power to set fire to people, and the inevitable doom of this idiotically conceived soggy deathtrap comes about a bit quicker. This is where you, the mysterious hero, enter into the picture. In BioShock the player is tossed into the current struggle for the control and fate of Rapture as they encounter various characters that unravel the history of the city while guiding you along your little underwater experience. And this experience is a great one thanks to top notch FPS fundamentals that combine with RPG elements to make a shooter that is not only cerebral and brutal in its action but one the offers the player a variety of means to achieve the end of victory aside from that of “blow everything up”. But in the end, like most singleplayer FPS experiences that rely on the story to motivate player action, once you reach the final chapter of this story you have no reason to play this game once you’ve conquered it. Which is to bad because the gameplay itself lends itself to a variety of possible modes, contexts and content types.

First and foremost what needs to be noted when dealing with a FPS game on a console is its controls, no matter how good they are they will always be far inferior to that of fps games like Metroid Prime 3 and half life 2 for the PC. This case is no different; dealing with the god awful aiming mechanic that’s mapped to the right thumbstick is an exercise in extreme aggravation and accounts for half of the games challenge. Having said that Bioshock utilizes the best controls possible for this kind of setup thanks to its clever gameplay design and weapon variety. Not only to you point and shoot to get the job done but you can manipulate a variety of creatures/security systems to do your bidding. So if you are like me and confronting a group of enemies head on with guns puts you at unnecessary risk thanks to a lack of accuracy then you have this, and other, options to even the odds. The powers one purchases from cleverly placed vending machines throughout the game in the form of “Adam” provide a wide variety of means for the ends of destruction. So if your not so handy with yer pistol you can always light your foes on fire, manipulate a big daddy to do the work for you or even pick up a fling objects around with your mind like some underwater Jedi. Further assisting the player in the difficult task of moving around the painful aiming thumbstick there are a variety of weapons that are fairly standard fair for FPS gameplay. You have the one bullet at a time pistol, you have the stream of bullets spouting machine gun, the pellet spreading close-range shotgun, a sniper like bowgun and a chemical spewing flamethrower. Standard options for an FPS game, right? Not really being as they account for only half of the possibilities of destruction while the Adam fueled super powers count for the other half. Not only this but these traditional forms of weaponry each splinter off into a variety of further weapons facilitated by the modification of ammo types. Lets say you have an enemy that is invulnerable to standard bullets and needs something a bit more personal, or anti-personal, to take him down. Pop in the anti-personal rounds and your good to go. Along with standard bullets and anti-personal rounds you have armor-piercing and explosive rounds. The flamethrower type weapon even has the ability to alternate between electrical, fire and ice ammo types. So taken in combination with the super powers the total amount of tools for destruction available to the player is staggering. The game developers had a specific purpose for this; each and every enemy, context and level is designed to test your ability to alternate between all these abilities. In these regards the level design is fantastic thanks to the solid combat foundations it builds and relies on.

While the gameplay accounts for 90% of what makes this game great the other 10% is pretty damn impressive as well. First and foremost that which people notice most, and sadly focus on the most, is the games graphics. They are great; but the way people describe them in reviews and other articles you would think that this game is first and foremost the graphical equivalent of the second gaming of your chosen religious figure. Its all top notch, don’t get me wrong, with fantastic textures, water effects, lighting, shadows and particle effects but what really separates this game from any other before it is the insane level of creativity infused in each and every inch of this underwater battleground. The individuals in charge of the concept art for this game created an entire world of intelligent, fascinating and creative characters, places and objects. In my mind they deserve the vast majority of the credit for this games visual appeal. That’s not to say that the individuals who executed the creation of applicable textures, models and so on aren’t just as influential but that the ideas responsible for this games visual appeal hold the most value. Aside from the visual creativity that compels the player to continue their adventure the audio aspect plays an enormous role as the story itself is primarily told through audio segments. The game doesn’t stop and show you movie-like cut scenes in order to progress the story, rather you are in constant communication with the main characters of the game who, as you adventure deeper and deeper into the city, reveal all the relevant information through a radio. This is tremendously effective thanks to the heavy lifting the human imagination ends up doing; since you aren’t staring these characters in the face you get to fill in all the details based on the information they are given to you and as a result its more akin to reading a book than watching a movie in which flaws, inconsistencies and errors degrade the overall experience. Instead your imagination takes these seeds of information and grows them into a lush and appealing forest of compelling plot twists, character traits and suspense.

But this game is not without its flaws, but for the most part they are forgivable and don’t impact the games overall enjoy ability. Take the idea of the underwater city itself; the games developers are trying to convince you that the best and brightest of the world all thought it was a great idea to build and live in this doomed city. Really? It also takes a pseudo-philosophical tone in the beginning of the game which has led many reviewers to conclude that the game itself is a sharp criticism of the philosophies of Ayn Rand and her various novels, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Not only is it a tremendous straw-man fallacy to frame her ideas in this manner but the method by which they attack it is laughable at best. They basically say, “well the philosophies themselves led to this underwater nightmare” while trying to convince you that the high intellect of Raptures citizens deemed it proper to inject themselves with genetic altering material such that they could have the practical and useful power of lighting things on FIRE…really? Throughout the game there is the constant attack on ethical egoism that is not only framed incorrectly but taken to ridiculous extremes. The game supposes that it would be in an individual’s best interest to better themselves in any way available to them, such that they would inject themselves with life altering powers. Any person with even a decent idea of the tenants of ethical egoism can reason that doing so not only puts ones body in an artificial and unnatural state of duress, with the constant need for the next “fix” of adam akin to that of a drug addict, but it disrupts the basic social foundations that the worlds creators supposedly wished to further by the construction and habitation of the city. If everyone has the power to manipulate the security systems which protect the inhabitants of the city then your going to end up with chaos and anarchy, which is exactly what happens. But all of this really doesn’t effect the average gamer as we have been trained from an early age to suspend disbelief and focus on the elements that make the game fun to play to begin with; the gameplay. The setting and structure are merely intended as a way of facilitating this and as a result these philosophical blunders are easily overlooked given that the point of the game is to have a good time with the well designed gameplay.

But when one examines the gameplay itself it becomes clear that it is far too dependent on the storyline to motivate the player to continue to play. This is apparent when one defeats the game. Like most single player shooter experiences once you’re done you are done. Sure you can go back and play again, but the experience wouldn’t be nerely as complete thanks to the information you now already know as a result of having the information which the storyline has communicated to you. There needs to be some time put between you and the game in order to be able to fully appreciate it once again as you did the first time; so while there is no doubt a level of replayability generated by the extreme quality of the game like any great book or movie you most likely will pick this experience up again somewhere down the road in order to appreciate it on the level, or higher, that you did the first time you wandered into the world of rapture. The possible solution to this is to simply release more Bioshock titles, which they will inevitably do. But the game itself would have more gaming value if it had modes that exploited the games phenomenal gameplay elements in a competitive manner. An arcade mode where levels are designed to through varieties of challenges at you similar to the VR missions in the metal gear series would have been great. Players don’t need the story in order to appreciate the gameplay and they would most certainly continue to enjoy the gameplay if they had more challenges to conquer.

Which leads to my overall recommendation; rent. This is great game, no doubt, but as I said before when you’re done you’re done. If you have the cash to purchase the game by all means do so, but for those of us who feel like fools when they look at their game collections gathering dust it seems more financially prudent to first rent the game and then purchase it in the future at a lower price point. Its not as though you are going to be playing the game for months until you finish it, more likely a week. After that there is simply no more challenges to conquer, no way to test the skills you have learned. But don’t let this fool you; this game is one of the highest quality titles released this generation and is worth playing. The gameplay is far superior to any other FPS on the market thanks to its depth and variety and the artistry is top notch. The storyline is superb and the catharsis of emotion, mostly fear and curiosity, is compelling and fascinating. So when you are able to get yourself a copy of this game don’t hesitate to do so. Overall it’s a great experience that is short but oh so, so so so, very sweet.

-MaTT

DEAD RISING: (whoops! I totally thought that i had uploaded this review months ago!)

The differences between Bioshock and Dead Rising are vast, and as such this review will reflect that. While Bioshock, with it deeply embedded philosophical thought experiment gone bad, may be more of a "book", so to speak, Dead Rising reminds one more of an unholy marriage of "Dawn of the Dead" and the pinnacle of arcade gaming. Its lighter, brighter and all around more accessible. Thats not to say that more people will enjoy Dead Rising over Bioshock, but merely that more people will MORE OFTEN enjoy it even years after its release.

The story of Dead Rising doesn't matter, but it does provide the context necessary for the suspension of disbelief necessary for maximum enjoyment. You are trapped in a mall with an unreasonable amount of zombies; survive. Thats pretty much it. This presentation relies on its simplicity because it expands it into ridiculous realms, and successfully so. The player can utilize nearly every object as a weapon and perform physical actions clearly outside the realm of possibility. But its believable because the specifics are subordinate to the larger picture of survival via tactical engagement.

And thats what the gameplay is; tactical. You the player are presented with a variety of situations and tool's to solve the problems embedded within. You must navigate crowds while controlling it, in so far as you can with your tools. Getting from point A to point B is the primary action the player must successfully complete and the developers do a great job making this interesting. The player is constantly rewarded with points, experience and visceral experience that encourages further action. More importantly the player can jump back into the game without feeling burdened by overall "progress" or a feeling of "been there, done that". This is because the game focuses on what the player does rather than simply what they experience.

And that's the real problem with Bioshock as compared to Dead Rising: Bioshock is a storytelling device and once you know the story its hard to summon enough desire to hear it again. With Dead Rising the focus is player skill. In this way Dead Rising resembles an arcade game more than a book and because of the medium it finds itself on, home gaming consoles, it has the upper hand.

If you had to choose, choose Dead Rising. But keep in mind that Bioshock is an experience not to be missed.