BioShock | 
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| From: 2K Games
Category: Video Games
List Price: $29.99
Buy Used: $16.00
You Save: $13.99 (47%)
New (20) Used (15) from $16.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  183 reviews
Sales Rank: 318
Platform: Windows Xp
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: Windows XP
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.5 x 1.5
MPN: 21962
UPC: 710425219627
EAN: 0710425219627
ASIN: B000MK694E
Release Date: August 21, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Perfect Condition, ships next day.
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| Features:
| • | Biologically mod your body with plasmids - genetic augmentations that empower you with dozens of fantastic abilities | | • | Take control of your world by hacking devices and systems | | • | Upgrade your weapons at Fire-For-Effect stations located through Rapture | | • | Pick up materials in the city to modify them at U-Invent kiosks | | • | Explore an incredible and unique art deco world hidden deep under the ocean, vividly illustrated with realistic water effects |
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Product Description
BioShock lets you do the impossible as you explore a mysterious underwater city. When your plane crashes, you discover Rapture - an underwater Utopia torn apart by civil war. Caught between powerful forces and hunted down by genetically modified "splicers" and deadly security systems, you have to come to grips with a deadly, mysterious world filled with powerful technology and fascinating characters. As little girls loot the dead, and biologically mutated citizens ambush you at every turn. Now you're trapped, caught in the middle of a genetic war that will challenge both your capacity to survive and your moral allegiance to your own humanity. Make meaningful and mature decisions that culminate in the grand question - do you exploit the innocent survivors of Rapture to save yourself - or risk all to become their savior?
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| Customer Reviews: Read 178 more reviews...
 An Amazing Take on Story & Gameplay April 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This game is a really awesome game. The story starts off with a bang and does not stop during the rest of the game. It continues to keep you on your toes. Graphics are nice. You get more powerful through upgrading plasmids which are the highlight of the game. It really is true that you and your friend will play the game completely different. So many choices make a replay just as good as the first time around. I have had no problems with running it, just make sure you meet the recommended requirements and you should be fine. Have a friend who plays it on a PIV 3Ghz, 7900, and it runs fine. It depends on more than just graphics card and processor though. As for the activation problem, I did not have any problem. But not too good if you do not have internet. I know it will probably make the pirates mad. Excellent game, you have to experience the game of the year.
 Say That You Shock Me April 28, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
You were always meant to do great things, but sometimes that means terrible things along the way. So it goes when you embed a golf club into a poor sap's head.
I knew *BioShock* was going to be a good shooter from the get-go. Developed by folks behind the System Shock series, it crash-lands the player into a modern day Atlantis... and the middle of a civil war.
Built as a capitalist utopia, the city of Rapture fell into a Darwinian dystopia. For Rapture is also the test bed for radical stem cell technology. Unregulated use devolves the inhabitants into half-mad Splicers, while armored Big Daddies escort genetic scavengers.
Up front, *BioShock* isn't a revolutionary shooter. Every gameplay element has been done a dozen times before. And like all FPS titles, *BioShock* follows a predictable game path: there is one way forward, it ends at a gate, and you'll be betrayed, ambushed, captured, or lose your weapons en route. Along that route, you'll see bloody tableaus, dark corridors, and leaping monsters. Fortunately, there's always ammunition and health kits lying about.
Sitting in my dark office, different pieces of the game suddenly turn out to be part of a single hidden puzzle, which reassembles the story. And this is only one of a series of themes, turns and adventures which kept me playing from dusk to dawn. As derivative as the game is, the execution means *BioShock* isn't your typical trapped-in-a-maze shooter.
Rapture clanks and hums with vending machines that supply health and equipment--all of which cost money to buy. And when your wallet is slim--as it will often be--players can gather components to assemble at crafting stations. Most critical, however, are the Plasmids and Gene Tonics that boost the player character's body. These systems introduce economic, mechanical, and genetic strategy, which in turn affects the player's tactics.
In most shooters, the enemies beeline for the player as if they can see through walls; but in *BioShock* you can actually sneak up on enemies, or evade them altogether. Gene tonics even provide abilities such as camouflaging or backstabbing bonuses, though I was disappointed the player couldn't teleport as some NPCs can. Cameras, bots, and turrets can also be outmaneuvered, destroyed, or even hacked to join your side, while you can seduce Big Daddies into protecting you with the right plasmid. So I like the tactical options given to the player.
For the most part though, the gameplay is old-school FPS. You can't lean, lie prone, pistol whip your enemies, or use alternate fire modes (though you can select different ammunition types). Monitors display still pictures instead of FMV, there's no GUI interaction with computers, and the skyboxes are limited to 2D mattes. The design scheme is further reminiscent of the darkness of *Doom 3*, but ups the shadowy ante by omitting a flashlight altogether.
Like D3, the game world is a hermetically-sealed community, divided into a series of theme-levels, such as The Medical Pavilion or Fort Frolic. Though similar to Mars City in principle, Rapture doesn't feel claustrophobic or monster-populated to an annoying degree like *Doom 3*.
Yet the design is even more conservative. I wondered at the absence of escalators, ladders, cables, and bridges. There are no vehicles to ride or combat; the bathyspheres act mainly as level exits. And for a submarine environment, I was surprised the game never puts the player onto the ocean floor. Indeed, we are blocked from any body of water deep enough to submerge in.
Otherwise, BioShock displays more mastery in atmosphere than just about any game I've ever played, on both subtle and garish ends. To begin with, the game never breaks from the first person view until the end cinematic. The comical vending machine recordings juxtapose with period music and propaganda announcements. Realistic water leaks into the maps in a variety of forms, from drips, to steady streams, to outright waterfalls; the fire and electrical effects are mediocre, but fog and smoke effects look great. Even the footwork is good, as splicers scrape their bludgeons on the floor, and diving suit monstrosities shake the floors with their stomps.
Explorers will get the biggest dose of this environment, for the developers added extensive side rooms and even whole buildings filled with loot, battles, and tableaus. Fort Frolic is a particularly artistic exploration, if also chilling. Moreover, players can backtrack to most of the levels in the game.
Finally, the gradual revelation of back-story ties up the experience. Tape diaries, radio logs, and enemy chatter provide this illumination in period slang and voice inflections. Several of these logs chart the fates of denizens at various caste and class levels, and they also accompany many of the tableaus, thus functioning as subplots.
However, *BioShock* strikes me as an alienating game. It teases the player through brief interactions with a cast of otherwise intriguing characters. Whenever the PC does meet up with an NPC, a barrier tends to stand in between. This alienation, in which the player can only experience other characters at arm's length, creates a psychological message that would not register in a game that simply didn't have friendly characters. But it also dampens the heroics. At one point, a villain questions why the PC is trying to save Rapture. I had to agree because the game establishes too little connection between the plight of the city and the plight of the character.
In my review for *Doom 3* I wrote "It is awesome when it isn't repetitive." I gave it three stars.
For all the RPG elements and art design, *BioShock* is also an old-fashioned horror-survival FPS. While few elements seem ambitious, the overall effect is a lesson in doing more with less. And far from repetitive, it immersed me in an obsessive weekend of gaming. That's as ringing an endorsement as I need to give.
 5 stars for fun, 0 stars for Gestapo practices April 22, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a fun game, no doubt. But it does create a counterfeit-protection registry alteration the you cannot get rid of. While it's not really a root-kit, it is darn close. I don't pirate games and I don't appreciate my system being infested with gestapo software to foil a few pirates.
I would have bought this game today if it was clean. Since it isn't, the game stays with them and my money stays with me.
beautifully designed and great gameplay April 17, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
The underwater art deco world that the game takes place in is absolutely gorgeous. I find my self sometimes just standing there and looking at the fishes or dead bodies floating by the glass. The game play is immersive and compelling and there's a short learning curve. I just love the use of the X-box 360 controller in this game as well.
The Thinking Man's Shooter April 15, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Do not miss out on one of 2007's best games. There is no multiplayer, co-op mode, and it takes a beefy PC to run this game well. Those are the cons to BioShock. The pros are a great storyline, with characters and environments that ooze depth, a customizable arsenal, and the ability to splice your genes to wield electricity, fire, ice and much more against your enemies. The real sandbox aspect comes in the form of choices.
Choices set BioShock apart from many other run-of-the-mill Shooters. Players will frequently be confronted with so many choices it's fortunate the game has a pause button. In any given foe battle, a player can choose whether to set a trap with trip-wires and mines, perhaps turn an automated turret on an enemy, or harness your character's spliced genes to set your enemy ablaze with a snap of the fingers, only to electrocute that foe after he or she dives into a pool of water. And that is only the beginning of the rabbit hole of choices.
I am running BioShock on a 2006 factory Dell machine with minor RAM and video card upgrades. My single 2.2Ghz AMD processor, 1.5 GB RAM, and my GeForce 7600GT (256MB) graphics card run BioShock, on the highest settings, quite adequately with minor dips in frame rate. With my PC falling well under the $1,000 mark, don't let skeptical gamers tell you that BioShock demands a monster PC.
If you're a shooter fan who loves eerie environments, non-stop, non-linear, shooting action (with VERY limited need for backtracking), and creepy, retro Art-Deco interior design-- BioShock is for you. The replay value is better than most shooters and FINALLY voice acting is superb. If it wasn't for Call of Duty 4, I would easily give BioShock my game of the year nomination.
At BioShock's current lowered retail price you'd be "Atlas Shrugging" off a can't miss game.
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