Recent reviews by john_matrix

Oh well, I say that it is good way to reboot a franchise. It took me longer than I expected to beat SP which has been welcome, although it has a linear storyline and it won't give you much more replay-ability, like Batman AA/AO Plus game modes or such.

It runs well, I think it's the same engine of Deus Ex/Hitman Absolution, the controls differs from those and are working pretty well for the platform sections, also combat isn't bad at all, albeit there are several QT events that are much more console-driven stuff than PC gaming. There are some sections where you need to use some brain but in general the puzzles are rather simple but well realized.

Nevertheless, if you find it in a sale and want to take a look how an old classic has been rebuilt from scratch - go for it. I hope a sequel will have more open-ended story and dynamic environment so that you can replay it using different playstiles.

Nice game and nice story. If you want some 3rd person action shooting game it's probably one of the best portrayals of "war" with its painful consequences, that I've ever played so far.

However, it's terribly short: less than 6 hrs to complete a campaign that doesn't offer much re-playability, because.. it's the usual "tunnel/rail" shooter. And even if it provides a few different endings, the choices you do during the game won't have impacts like in other games. If the location could have been freely explorable/roaming it would have been a blow, but it's not. Despite the good models, environment modeling etc, it's still a shame to see so well realized games still locked onto "old" mechanics.

Don't buy it unless it's below 10€, imho, at that point you can enjoy it as I did for slightly above 6€.

The story is nice, although you may require some time to digest it due to the way the game ends. Besides that it's somewhat different from the previous Bioshocks, mostly for the setting, but also for certain gameplay choices that are mostly console-port driven.

I mean, two carryable weapons only (although more realistic I wasn't used at it from the previous games), powers that are difficult to switch, interface directly taken from the consoles that is extremely small and hard to see at high resolutions (i play @1920x1200) and so on.

The best thing of the game is Elizabeth, quite a rare character in videogames to date.

Still, it's a 12-14hrs long gameplay, it gives you a nice story but personally nothing I plan to play again, also because there are no alternative endings or similar things at all.

In few words, as it happened for the first two games in the series and other SP only games like Metro 203Xs, my suggestion is to grab them when they are super-discounted (below 10€) to enjoy some good SP stories without raging to have spent 50€ on a 12 hours title (notice that I took my time exploring, doing side quests and so on.. if you skip them the game may last less than 10 hours imho).