Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

I beat BioShock last week after picking it up on release day. It’s weird, I never thought the Xbox 360 would be the system to get me back into the cycle of anticipating a game, buying it on release day, then playing it to completion. I’ve still never seen a Wii on a store shelf and the games really don’t look compelling. The PlayStation 3 is too expensive and it will be awhile before the games I’d want to play on it come out. Meanwhile Microsoft has got a good thing going with the 360. They may not be wooing the alpha moms but we seem to be hitting that period in the console’s lifecycle where the early wave of games put out by developers still feeling out the new generation’s capabilities. Also, while I don’t have an Xbox Live account at the moment, I can still download demos for free of both retail games and Xbox Live Arcade titles, which is pretty cool. The continuous hardware problems are certainly a black mark on the 360’s legacy but at least Microsoft is working to correct the hardware’s deficiencies.

BioShock is such a confident execution of interesting ideas that it seems so amazing now that it almost didn’t get made, and now there’s talk of sequels becoming a triennial event.

The game has a unique setting and story, great graphics, fantastic voice acting, and pitch perfect music that greatly enhances the atmosphere. Beyond all that, I offer the following incomplete list of ways to kill bad guys as evidence of the excellent entertainment experience embodied in Ken Levine’s masterwork:

• Wrench
• Shotgun
• Flamethrower
• Throwing barrels at enemies with your mind
• Throwing corpses at enemies with your mind
• Throwing flaming corpses at enemies with your mind
• Bees
• Hacking security cameras to send sentry helicopters at your enemies
• Lighting conveniently placed oil slicks on fire
• Attaching proximity mines to a fuel cannister and throwing it at enemies with your mind
• Convincing your enemies to attack each other for your amusement

With instant revival after death at the nearest “Vita-Chamber”, BioShock is an extremely forgiving game. In many cases I would reload to my last save after a kill of one of the game’s toughest enemies, the Big Daddy (pictured above), because I felt that I hadn’t been smart or skillful enough in my takedown of the lumbering beast. When you’re not just rushing to get to the next plot point but want to replay parts to get it just right, that’s the mark of a great game, I believe.

The next big game I’m looking forward to is Mass Effect. So far it appears to be another game that brings together all the different elements to create le package totale.

(photo from AngelsDontBurn at Destructoid)