BioShock

I bought BioShock about three weeks ago. After spending literally hours trying to "Activate" it (the part where you type in a long string from the package and the installer asks their server if the code is valid - in my case some settings in IE somehow prevented it from connecting to their registration server, even though IE could browse the net just fine, as could Firefox, and their installer stupidly rolls back the installation if the activation fails, hence hours) I was eventually successful.

I then played the game every few days, maybe ten hours total. It was fun.

Tonight I was again prompted to enter my activation code. Again. I suspect that this is because earlier today I installed Spore for my daughter, and both games use this half-baked SecuROM system. As it turns out, I am traveling (I'm playing from my laptop) and I don't travel with all of my install codes with me. So I'm locked out from playing a game that I paid good money for until I return home and dig the manual out of my filing cabinet. I tried posting on the 2K forums, but have been ignored.

The game is fun but it treats you like a criminal.

Now I see what people mean when they say this sort of "copy protection" only encourages pirates, because their cracked versions of these games don't harass them. Only honest customers like me get screwed.

This game got 5 stars on x-play,and i would also give it the same rating.In the game,you are a man onboard an airplane when it crashes into the water,luckily,you're alive.you swim to a tower and then take a pod underwater.You find that Rapture is completely crazed up with splicers,the most common enemies in the game.splicers are crazy,they wear buuny masks and try to kill you for ADAM.ADAM is like money that you can use to upgrade your guns,buy guns, or buy powers.You get needles in the game that you can you use to inject yourself and get powers.There is electro bolt(thunder)which you can use on splicers in the water so that they die a kind of slow,but surely painful death.There is also fire,ice,teleckenesis,the ability to through huge swarms of insects,and Big Daddy hypnosis bomb.Big Daddys are huge,monsterous,things that have either a huge spining drill,a huge spining gatling gun, or a huge spining grenade launcher.They protect the Little Sister,because,well,they are little.They are little but evil.They go around using huge needles to take ADAM from splicers.Splicers,or you cannot harm or go near them or you will have drill through you're body in no time.The Big Daddy hypnosis bomb lets you through a bomb at any active Big Daddy and he will help you,exept he cannot leave a room,so it kind of sucks.You should prbably go for tricking a splicer near a Little Sister.The graphic are great and gory.This,for me is one of the best games ever.

Bioshock from 2K games is a pretty horrific but fun FPS game that has some seriously impressive underwater city designs coupled with some of the heaviest guns and gruesome characters to have hit the games market in a long time. The game is based on missions usually revolve around collecting items as you go across maps killing mutants and making a choice over if you should harvest `Adam' from little zombie girls or not. If you don't you get a positive ending. If you do, you get a negative game ending.

The real star of this game is the underwater city. It looks like the cities in Star Wars episode II but underwater with a 1920's feel. The city has been created by Fontaine, who installed genetic gene banks and dispensers to allow the citizens to perk themselves up, only the citizens hacked the machines, overdosed on Adam and turned themselves into killing freaks. They run around the place barking mad and you must kill them with a choice of either using special powers, a wrench, pistol, machine gun, shotgun, rocket launcher, flame thrower or crossbow. You can take pictures of the enemy to learn more about them and inflict more damage. You collect money to buy upgrades to your body and guns.

All in all Bioshock is worth playing on a Directx 10 machine for the full effect. Most of it is standard run around and kill everything on the screen without thinking too much and the story is worth following as you listen to tape recorders reveal what is happening to you. Although it takes awhile to break into the swing of things the game is worth sticking with and genuinely becomes a little addictive like the mutagen `Adam'. At the same time as having some of the best graphics for any FPS game available it does get a little clichéd and doesn't really do anything new or anything you haven't seen before. Granted the AI is not bad but sometimes security can get a little boring to deal with, especially the 50 second alarm attacks. There isn't a whole lot to complain about and when this game gets fun, it really does take off. Play Bioshock if you got the PC to run it.

Pros
Bioshocking fun
The city design is amazing
Fast and furious

Cons
Nothing you haven't seen before
Requires high system spec

Hello, An absolute blast to play. It'll run your computer into the ground! I really like fps but when it as frighting and bug free as this game has turned out to be all you'll be able to do is lock your self in the computer room and Rambo the hell out of this game! Best script so far. Smart AI and well thought out! Here is an example of a game strategy... Hack the anti-personnel 50cal in the Neptune corridor then hang proximity mines around the cannon then watch the A.I. send splicers to beat (Re-hack) the 50cal only to find the mines hanging from the walls like Christmas stockings.It'll rip'em a another one:o As for a capable computer I'd recommend additional VGA cooling and short duration play 1/2 hrs max.If I could recommend any game play improvements it would be while the splicer is suffering an electric blast and I switch to the shot gun at blank range I should get the satisfaction of rip'en them in half!(they never fragment).also The telekinesis ability to drop an object should be the rt 2 trigger buttons and not the trigger and restore hypo button.Almost every time my character will replenish the hypo rather than drop the object in telekinesis. Other than that quit your job and lock your self in your apt...I'm almost feeling sorry for the nasty splicers...Almost:)

This game uses the same horrible DRM scheme that is found on Far Cry 2, Mass Effect, Crysis Warhead, Spore, Dead Space, Sacred 2, and Red Alert 3. I refuse to purchase a game that requires me to ask permission to install the game. There are several games that I own that I have had to install more than five times for various reasons. That is why I refuse to purchase a game that limits the number of times I can install the game, let alone a DRM program (like SecuRom) that could be considered a trojen horse.

As a side note, this DRM method does nothing to stop piracy. All of these games were pirated within hours of their release and in the case of some, like spore, even before their release (with the exceptions of Sacred 2 and Red Alert 3 which have not been released yet, however the developers confirmed that they would use the SecuRom activation DRM scheme). The only thing this DRM does do is prevent this game from entering the used game market.