BioShock PS3 Reviews

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Written by BuckGB on October 23rd, 2008

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For whatever silly reason, Sony hasn't decided to make Trophies on the PS3 a mandatory thing. The folks at 2K Marin understand the addictive nature of the shiny collectables, giving Bioshock even more addiction appeal as you can now get trophies for your efforts. The trophies are very similar to the achievements on the Xbox 360 max out your research, photograph a splicer, hack a security robot, complete the game without using a Vita-Chamber, and various other story-related objectives.

On its own, Bioshock serves up a fantastic story. The plot thread keeps you guessing throughout, and you will never see the twist ending coming in a million years. Just like watching the movie Momento, once you've seen your way through to the end, you simply have to play it again to notice everything that lurked just under the surface of your perception. The only thing that mars the replay value in any way is that the combat, on lower difficulty, is actually quite easy. Once you obtain the wrench, electricity, and fire, you'll be able to walk through all but the most hearty of foes. An issue easily remedied by simply playing the game on Survivor difficulty.

The PS3 version still has all of the great Plasmids and Gene Tonics to use and collect, Plasmids allow you to throw fire, freeze enemies, use telekinesis to catch and throw items and there is even a cool Plasmid that causes enemies to attack each other or have Big Daddies protect you for a change. Gene Tonics can allow you to hack computers quicker, increase your strength and also surround you in an electrical field so if anyone touches you they will get a powerful shock. On top of the plasmids you also have your more traditional weapons including shotguns, flame throwers, crossbows and machine guns. All of these items are upgradable and improve on areas like recoil and ammo capacity.

With an extra year behind it, the developers have managed to tweak the game a bit more in the looks department, some of the backgrounds look better than the Xbox version, but this is really only a slight improvement, Xbox owners need not despair.

It's hard to believe it was a little over a year ago that BioShock was taking the game industry by storm (read my review of the 360 version if you somehow missed the phenomenon the first time around). Equally hard to believe: It's taken a full year for a PlayStation 3 port that merely adds a tougher difficulty setting and the exciting opportunity to download bonus content that's just weeks away. But whether exclusivity dealings or technical hurdles caused this delay is ultimately immaterial. BioShock remains one of the most impressive and (if you never had the chance to play spiritual predecessor System Shock 2) fresh first-person shooters around.

There was a time when, if a game was released on the PlayStation 3 after it had already come out on the Xbox 360, it would invariably be vastly inferior and buggy (we're looking at you, F.E.A.R.). So we understand why PS3 owners might look at this version of BioShock, which comes more than a year after the 360 and PC editions, with suspicion. But let us start this review by quelling these, uh, fears: the PS3 version of BioShock is an almost exact replica of the 360 version. Its controls, graphics, and sound are as tight, beautiful, and effective, respectfully, as the original, making this version nearly identical to the game X-Play (and countless other magazines, websites, TV shows, and fans) declared the best of 2007.

It's perhaps most telling that although we have already played BioShock a bunch of times on other platforms, it's still every bit as intoxicating on the PS3. In fact, the temptation to complete additional playthroughs proved too much to bear as we immediately began a new game after finishing it the first time around. And it's not even like we just blazed through it in order to get the review done, because this game just begs to be savored. The story pacing and scattered collectibles require a severe degree of attention that forces you to take it a bit slower than your average first-person shooter, but leaves you with the feeling that it was time well spent.

This new mode is one of the few items currently on the disc that differentiate it from last year's PC and 360 versions. In this mode the game will force you to use your brain for nearly every single encounter. Using methods like the one I mentioned above are crucial because the game strips you of nearly all items, ammo and health packs that are usually scattered around the game. Find a gun on the floor and it may only contain one bullet as opposed to four or five, health packs give much less relief and money is even more scarce making hacking various vending machines essential to survival.

The other addition is actually just the downloadable plasmids that were available on the other systems shortly after launch. Thankfully though with the PS3 version everything is available from the beginning and you can access these new power-ups very early in the game. Everything else feels nearly identical and to be honest while I was playing it I felt a sense of familiarity, which is a good thing. Outside of the mandatory ten minute install (which really does seem to speed up the loading screens) this game is exactly the same as the one you played last year.

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