Demo: BioShock

re: Demo: BioShock

GOON36O — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:44:08 GMT

Wooohooo! Awesome!

re: Demo: BioShock

SanderT — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:44:08 GMT

Great... the demo is out..!!!!.. This was worth waiting for till 3.50 AM :)

re: Demo: BioShock

Sendell1 — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:26:13 GMT

I just. Oh my. This game. Unbelievable.

Alright, so Bioshock. I don't follow games before they come out. I pretty much refuse to watch trailers, read previews, all that. So, when the Bioshock demo hit Live Marketplace, I had no idea what to expect. In fact, a friend of mine had to badger me for three days to get me to put aside a few minutes to play the demo.

I cannot believe I spent three days not knowing the impact this game would have on me.

I play games with story. Let me rephrase that. I exclusively play games with story. And hell, Bioshock has one heck of a tale to tell. What really caught me most of all was how real this story was. As I played the demo, I kept thinking "this is possible. This could happen." And then the game pretty much said "hell, yeah!"

The detail in the game is flawless. The architecture, the way each room is decorated, how every splicer has its own story... The game has me convinced that somewhere out there, this place could exist. The survival horror genre has nothing on this game. Bioshock has already invoked questions in me no other game ever has. And hell, I'm pretty freaked out by it.

Now, there's always more to a game than story, even if the story is undeniably excellent. This game looks and sounds amazing. For example, I couldn't tell the difference between cutscene and gameplay in the opening scene. I just stood there, waiting for more to happen, not realizing the game had given me control. The water effects-phenominal. The soundtrack/sound effects-unbelievable. Or rather, very believable. Everything just fit. The developers somehow caught the ambiance of a thriving-city-turned-desolate-shell-inhabited-by-homicidal- maniacs, and put it to music.

The game's intuitive. You just KNOW what to do. It showed a map of a few controls, and then let you do your own thing. I never fumbled with the controls once. I never physically lost my way in the game. I just knew how the game worked, without need of a tutorial or anything. It all comes back to how real the world in the game has been crafted. The rules of real life are all applied in-game (minus the whole modifying genes bit). As Ken Levine said in the podcast--If you light a guy on fire, he runs to the nearest pool of water. And then-ZAP!-you electrify him with 1000 volts of energy. The AI is flawless, almost too convincing. This whole game is so real, you have to wonder if it's a good thing. Can a game so close to reality even be called a game anymore?

After playing the demo, I am ready to be blown away by the game itself. Though I don't know how I can be any more impressed. With this demo, I have already touched perfection.

re: Demo: BioShock

Da Rico — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:55:47 GMT

I started download, and it got to 47%, and then decided to go on Rainbow Six Vegas. It said Download stopped (As expected) But when I checked at the percentage about an hour later it was 31%!!! Why must I wait longer!!??

re: Demo: BioShock

shodanjr_gr — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:41:27 GMT

Double Post again because my original didnt go through:

Did you get a chance to look into the "Content not available to your region" error Major?

PS: UK, Europe region here.

re: Demo: BioShock

khamur — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:49:52 GMT

I am glad to see a game without a multi-player aspect. Too many games (ie Gears) are all about the online multi-player and the campaign suffers. I am ready for a campaign that actually has a story and plot.

re: Demo: BioShock

bio freak — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:28:03 GMT

omfg omfg omfg its here!!!!!!!!111 ive been on preorder sience it was available cant wait 2 play!!!!!!! * downloading*

re: Demo: BioShock

frank — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 10:56:15 GMT

tag schön

re: Demo: BioShock

MST3K Crow — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 04:36:31 GMT

BioShock Demo Review by MST3K Crow

BioShock has been a game I have watched with a keen eye since first seeing screens for it a long time ago. It is rare in the years I have been playing games for me to look at a screen shot and say "Wow, this game will be something truly special". In a Industry that is growing more and more on "sure thing" sequels it just goes to show that their are some developers and publishers who still think that games are more then a product they are working on to sell. But a blank canvas they can use to create something that will live in the minds and hearts of those gamers who play it. They are an art form and you can tell that Irrational or now known as 2K Boston/Australia had a passion from the start to break out of the typical archetype that is the standard first person shooters of today. The city of Rapture is so detailed it is almost unfathomable to a gamer like me who thought they had seen it all. When I finished the demo for the first time my reaction was disappointment. Not because the game was not as special as I had hoped but because the demo had ended and I wanted more. Not many games can do that these days. The reason I have not yet talked about the great technical achievements of the game or how wonderful story seems is because you see that in videos, interviews, and pictures. What you don't see is how the game will effect your emotions. To me that is what BioShocks all about and the love that was put into the game I have not seen form a developer since Valve released Half-Life back when I was in High School.

Now that my babble on how emotionally provoking this game is I will talk about the technical stuff. The city of Rapture is simply breath taking. When I was went back and looked at old videos I had on my pc it was great looking but had major frame rate issues due to not being optimized yet. But never did I think the game would run at such a nice frame rate even after optimizing it. Rarely do I find slow down in the demo even when fighting multiple enemies. The funny thing about the demo is that it makes you feel like you are in this giant city even though you are not seeing the whole thing all the time as say in a game like Crackdown. The water effects are not even comparable to any recent games I have played. As Major said in his podcast the game makes you feel like you are under water and getting wet. The animations on the enemies are wonderful and the audio aspect of the game is insane. Not once in the demo on my first time though did I hear a repeated line of dialogue.

The story is something I won’t go into for many obvious reasons. I will say that just by the demo I can't wait to find out what Rapture is all about and for the first time I pre-ordered the collectors edition of a game not because of a sound track or the wicked looking big daddy figure. I pre-ordered the collectors edition for the behind the scenes DVD because I want to hear the guys that made this crazy city up talk about it. Thanks for reading and be sure to pick the game up. If the demo or the reviews (currently a 99% on gamerankings) are any indication we are about to experience something truly special.

re: Demo: BioShock

DaForce2000 — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 04:26:20 GMT

Darkorcs:

This is an xbox360 demo not a PC demo. You need to download it via xbox live.

The PC version might be out in a few weeks....

re: Demo: BioShock

Varanos — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:50:12 GMT

I still haven't been able to download this demo. I have attempted to around 10-15 times. I have plenty of space (3-5 gb) and it just won't work. I've tried directly connecting to my modem and I've tried clearing my cache. Nothing seems to work. The 2 times I was actually waiting for it, at around 75% it would pop up with "Can't download Bioshock Demo".

re: Demo: BioShock

Wheels721987 — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:11:01 GMT

My Review: great demo, some of the most detailed water effects i've ever seen, plasmids are a blast to use, it actually made me want to buy the game and for me very few demo's do that, my only problem was aiming the plasmids, didn't always go right where they were supposed to, that could just be my problem though since i'm used to the aiming in games like Gears Of War, all in all one of the best demo's ever released on XBL.

(surry if I was supposed to post this somewhere else but this seemed like the most logical place)

re: Demo: BioShock

Darkorcs — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:33:23 GMT

Where is the download link??

re: Demo: BioShock

Darkorcs — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:27:01 GMT

Where is the download spot?

re: Demo: BioShock

shodanjr_gr — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 21:05:58 GMT

Europe (UK) Major! PS: Sry if this is a double post, not sure if my last comment went through...

re: Demo: BioShock

Major Nelson — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 20:31:38 GMT

If you can't download the demo, it would sure help if you said what Xbox LIVE region you are in!