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Review: Bioshock (360*)

Graphics- 10/10
Sound- 10/10
Gameplay- 10/10
Replay Value- 10/10
Overall- 10/10

Bioshock carries some heavy weight on its shoulders as it follows in the foot steps of System Shock 2, but since many gamers (mainly console gamers) missed out on System Shock 2, they didn't know what to expect. I must admit, I was one of those gamers. But, I must say, after playing Bioshock, I can assure you that it is a game that refreshes the shooter genre. Bioshock boasts wonderfully detailed visuals and superbly fun game play, as well, it is obvious that Bioshock has a very powerful, high quality design to it. With such strengths, Bioshock is a strong contender for game of the year.

As I plopped Bioshock in for the first time, I was rather excited. Quite thankfully, I can say my excitement was for good reason as my high expectations were surpassed. The graphics were certainly one of the most polished parts of the game. Everything is in superb detail with a wonderful and realistic use of color and light. As well, the over all visuals are surprisingly clear and crisp, making it very easy to be immersed into the game's dark world. The design of the game itself is very original and very pleasing. The splicers, your main enemies, truly look like raving, murderous monsters that once used to be a part of human civilization. The Big Daddies and the Rosies (a different kind of Big Daddy) are one of my favorite character designs in Bioshock. Their armor-like, old-school underwater suits portray a very powerful and prominent creature in Bioshock. Quite basically, the designs are so successful that you know a fight between you, a Big Daddy, and a group of raving Splicers defines disaster.

The sound is another refined part of Bioshock's environment. The developers really hit the bulls eye of realistic sound with deafening gun shots, horrifying shrieks, and mushy-mashy bludgeoning sound effects. As well, the music and truly superb voicing of Bioshock over comes many of the best movies to date. The soundtrack is a wonderful composition of songs that define and push the game's stressful and insane mood, all the while fitting the era in which the game takes place. The voice acting, as well, is of just plain superb quality. Colorful wording that fits the vocabulary of people of the 50's/60's combined with lines that successfully echo each character's personality make for very entertaining and attention holding conversations.

When I started Bioshock, I didn't know what to expect. I knew it was in first person, but many people talked of a shooter/adventure/role playing game combo. It is quite true that Bioshock is a FPS game unlike any other. The firefights are of amazing realistic quality. It isn't an all out shoot out in Bioshock, oh no, it's much wilder than that. Splicers will jump left and right, dodging your shots, while you scurry for cover of your own. The kick back of your guns will throw your aim wildly around as you fire off each shot at the menacing splicers, who themselves desperately hurry to get their shots into you. The fights are wild and frenzied, with fear over coming both sides. But the wonderful action is just a small piece of the fun. All the fire arms you gather or loot are completely customizable; various add-ons include more damage, better aim, even completely custom bullets, and beyond. As well, one of the most important features is changing your genes to gain powers, called plasmids, is an amazingly fun part of the game. Powers range from freezing your enemies or shocking them to marking your enemies so security guns will shoot only them and making Big Daddies fight for you. But the developers took this already great feature even farther; in one part of the game you'll be going through a part of Rapture (where Bioshock is set) where ice has covered most of the area, by using your fire plasmid, you can melt away the ice and find hidden items and passage ways. Another fun trick is to shoot a puddle in which several enemies are standing to shock them all at once; or, another favorite of mine, you can catch a bomb or grenade thrown at you with telepathy and through it right back. You really have to think out of the box and get creative to fully utilize the potential of plasmids, which seems nearly endless. But, in the end, the truly most important part of Bioshock is deciding what to do with the Little Sisters. The Little Sisters are little girls who have been changed into mutants who gather Adam, a key component in the creation of plasmids. The catch: deciding what to do with them; you can either harvest them getting all the possible Adam out of them but kill them, or you can save them, releasing them from their mutant, hypnotized state but getting less Adam. Making the choice to harvest or save will affect the game immensely, so choose carefully.

All in all, Bioshock is an immense game that encourages exploration and creativity in a wild, dark, and very original setting. The ability to customize weaponry, freely explore, and making the decision to save or harvest the Little Sisters multiplies the replay value. With such high quality design, exciting game play, and so much play and replay value, Bioshock is one of the few perfect games out there.


Pros: Great visuals and sound, wonderful game play, tons to do and many reasons to play through multiple times.
Cons: None, that's right, nothing.

Review: Vedran

* Review for 360 version only, available on PC as well.

Review: Madden '08 (Wii*)

Graphics- 7/10
Sound- 9/10
Gameplay- 7.5/10
Replay Value- 9/10
Overall- 7.5/10

I was in need of my yearly Madden fix, but this year all that happened was I became anxious for the Madden to loose its license agreement. In a hit or miss series of games, this year features lots of misses.

When I got home to start playing Madden '08 the first thing that I noticed was the much improved loading times. This year is a vast improvement over last years average load times, and much better than the PSP version that I had last year was. However my enthusiasm was short lived, because once I actually started to play the game, I realized I was in fact playing the Gamecube version. I can barely notice the difference between the current Gamecube version and the current Wii version, graphical speaking. I have only noticed minor things, like extra shiny helmets, and new player animations. To counter the negativity, there was something that I was very pleased at, and that was the controls. I have found them to be very responsive and easy. The first thing that I would recommend that you do, is go to "learn Madden," it teaches you what you need to do, and you can start playing rather quickly.

As far as actually playing the game goes - it isn't bad. Once you get used to using the Wiimote to throw a pass, it is all good. Especially once you learn to set a" primary receiver." Doing that is a fairly simple task, and can really help you out. Before you snap the ball - when you are surveying the field by holding down "B" - you hit the button of the receiver that you would like to throw the ball to. Now that you have done that, all you have to do is flick the Wiimote to throw the ball - you don't have to hold down a button. As far as running the ball, it is very fun - you use the Wiimote to stiff arm and the Nunchuck to juke. On top of that the power moves have improved, because you just have to shove the Wiimote forward, instead of last year where you had to shove both the Nunchuck and Wiimote forward. As for this years new feature (player weapons) it is all fine and dandy, but I honestly don't use it all that much. What the feature is supposed to do is help you identify superstars allowing super star players to be noticed. For example Randy Moss is a "spectacular catch" receiver, allowing him to make amazing one-handed grabs and Reggie Bush is an "elusive back," making him more agile then most players. The other way to play is superstar mode, and there is only one big change this year is the creation process. Gone are the days of randomly shifting through your parents "DNA," and it is instead replaced with a point system. You are assigned a certain amount of points which you can add to your players attributes.

The other big new feature on the Wii this year, is online capabilities, which flat out suck. It takes you way to long to find someone with a strong enough signal to play ( it has to be full, other wise you will not be able to get past three minutes without ramming your head through the wall.) Then once you find someone with a strong enough signal the game still has way to much lag. Not only that there are a lot of glitches with the scoring system. For example I was playing someone and I was winning, so they decided to be a little baby a quit, but hey what do I care I get the win and there DNF % goes up. Ha, I was wrong - we both got a win plus a DNF. Other times it has worked to perfection, making the system extremely hit and miss.

There are a few other problems that I have noticed, but the big one is freezing. It always seems to freeze whenever I go to team schedule in my franchise instead of weekly schedule. It is easy to avoid, I understand, but it is still something that I shouldn't have to deal with. The only other problem is that the Gamecube version is better. Yeah, thats right. The Gamecube version has a ton more options and ways to play. The Gamecube version contains certain options such as create-a-team, that are lacking in the Wii version. So, what am I trying to say? Buy the Gamecube version, seriously. Unless you need sucky online play, there is no reason for the Wii version. The only other feature, that the Wii version has is Party Mode, which is how your Miis are involved in this particular Wii game. Should I expect better from Madden, you ask? Well, probably not, but I do and this game has failed me in that regard.

Pros: Good controls, Load times, Got my yearly Madden fix.
Cons: Everything else.

Review: Dan

Available for many systems. Review for Wii version only.

Review: F.E.A.R. (360*)

Graphics- 9/10
Sound- 9.5/10
Gameplay- 9.5/10
Replay Value- 9/10
Overall- 9.5/10

FEAR was the game to get on the PC awhile back, but now it's on the 360, and that age old question comes up again; did it survive the port?

I had high hopes for FEAR on the 360 for 2 reasons; 1. this generation of consoles has the power to port PC games successfully, and 2. when FEAR came out for the PC, I couldn't run it. Thankfully, the port was a success. The 360 makes fine work of running the game. The graphics, as a shining point of the PC version, was what I scrutinized first. The difference between the graphics on the 360 and those of the PC were non-existent, if anything. The textures were flatter than those in Gears of War, but this is no surprise, as FEAR on the PC is an older game. The resolution, colors, and lighting was top notch, though. The textures did little to hold back the visuals as a whole, as the overall picture was sharp and very easy on the eyes. The most important part of the picture was the lighting, though. As a horror game, FEAR uses the lighting heavily to influence the mood, and it does this quite successfully.

Working together with the lighting, the sound is surprisingly realistic. Every shot fired, every step taken, literally everything has a freakishly crisp, realistic sound. The ambient noises and the music blend seamlessly into the gameplay, effecting the mood and, ultimately, how you play. Gameplay, though, is the best part. It reminded me a lot of Half-Life, where adventure and story line were stuffed right into the action, meaning almost the entire game is from a first-person perspective. The game is filled with weapons and different types of grenades, as with most shooters, but unlike most shooters, there are health and reflex boosters scattered through the levels. Health boosters raise your health permanently, and reflex boosters do the same for your slow motion powers. This feature adds a new angle of gameplay, it's kind of like an RPG in this way, giving you the option to beef up your character through tons of fun, truly frightening exploration. As well, finding all the scattered boosters adds wonderfully to the replay value. The levels, themselves, are quite stunning. FEAR is in no way linear, as the levels have tons of diverging, twisting paths; and it's up to you to choose the ones you want to follow. But don't worry about getting lost; these paths, in the end, will lead you to your objective. Besides adventuring through all those horrifying levels, you'll also be treated to a lot of adrenaline filled firefights. The action is loud, fast, and very satisfying. The slow motion powers add to the fights with lots of action movie moments. Besides raising the fun level, the slow motion is surprisingly useful; it's not just another gimmick. Many times, these powers are the reason you survive the battles.

In the end, FEAR is a superb game. The large, free-form level design along with the multiplayer adds a nice touch of replay value. The game is just plain fun; the level design and health and reflex boosters, along with the wonderfully action packed shootouts make FEAR a refreshingly fun and exciting shooter with a great adventure game feel to it; and the complex story from a first person view really adds to the depth, tension and fear.

Pros: Great shoot outs; adventure feel adds to the depth of game play; large levels; superb lighting, sounds, and music; very good story; surprisingly scary.
Cons: A bit flat on the textures.

Review: Vedran

*Available on the 360, PS3, and PC. Review for 360 only.