Bioshock

Platform: Xbox 360, also PC.
Verdict: Art Deco horror.
Rating: 4½/5
Every once in a while a game will come along and take your breath away – be it the enchanting Ico with its minimalist design or the brutal Gears of War with its destroyed beauty. Both games excel beyond mere aesthetics but they’re always the first thing you notice about a game. Bioshock is one of the most stunning games yet and thankfully its qualities also extend far beyond eye candy.
Set in the underwater city of Rapture, a 1930’s vision of utopia, Bioshock tells the tale of a lone survivor of a plane crash seeking refuge amidst a city gone to ruin. Guided over short wave radio through the sumptuous Art Deco nightmare by the uncannily persuasive Atlas, you’re a fish out of water in a world gone insane. Signs of a civil uprising are apparent and the hedonism that fuelled the city has spiralled out of control as its inhabitants found themselves hooked on genetic upgrades that lead to madness.
Playing much like the unsurpassed Deus Ex, Bioshock is an FPS with an RPG edge. Mixing 30’s aesthetics with sci-fi technology and genetic modification, it gives you plenty of tools to fight with. Your eventual arsenal of modified guns is backed up by Plasmids, the DNA scramblers that re-programme your genetic structure and grant you abilities like telekinesis and lightning attacks - but will they send you mad?
The inhabitants of Rapture are a dangerous bunch but none more so than the lumbering Big Daddies that moan like blue whales as they escort the Little Sisters – GM girls sent out into the city to harvest corpses for rare genetic material. This unlikely pair are central to Rapture and its story and provide the game’s moral crux and subsequent ramifications – to harvest or rescue the sub-human sisters.
With shades of Metropolis, 1984 and Atlas Shrugged, Bioshock is a horrific dystopian vision with one of gaming’s most triumphant narratives (and twists), buoyed by stunning Art Deco aesthetics, fantastic voice acting and carried by solid and occasionally innovative gameplay.
Now would you kindly play this game…

Alien Syndrome

Platform: Wii, also PSP.
Verdict: Warrior needs food.
Rating: 2½/5
While building a new life in a new city, there’s nothing like playing a 4-player game on your own to make you miss old friends. Thankfully the 360’s online services help bridge that gap - as the makers of the rather imminent Halo 3 are well aware of, playing a game with friends is almost always better than on your own. Alien Syndrome may not have the online components of this year’s pre-destined hit but it does at least have 4-player co-op too. Beyond that though, it’s bragging rights rapidly diminish.
Remaking their popular 1987 shooter, Sega have attempted to update its simple old school formula by increasing the amount of players that commit alien genocide and by adding stat crunching RPG style elements. Playing more like a dungeon crawler than a frenetic shooter, Alien Syndrome has you blasting your way through an alien filled space ship of repetitious design while upgrading your abilities as you progress.
Updating the twee graphics of yester-year to a 3D vision of the generically gritty industrial future, Alien Syndrome is an ugly, dated looking game that suffers from being a port of a PSP title and is disappointing considering the Wii’s more than capable abilities.
Elsewhere, Sega have tried to justify it’s presence on the Wii by introducing motion controls for melee combat and special moves. While not unwieldy, button presses would more than suffice, making the controls feel unnecessary. What does work well however are the twin stick style controls – using the left stick to move and the Wiimote to point and aim is an intuitive setup and in the right game (like Geometry Wars: Galaxies) could work wonders.
After reading this my friends will probably be thankful we live miles apart because although some fun can be gleaned from this uninspired shooter it’s time that’ll be better spent playing online Gauntlet through rose-tinted spectacles, or Halo 3.

Space Giraffe

Platform: Xbox 360. 400 MS points.
Verdict: Psychedelic Marmite.
Rating: 4/5
Few games rarely generate such divisive opinions yet Jeff Minter’s latest animal inspired opus has exploded the gaming community alight with vitriol and praise in almost equal measures. With its distinctive visual style, sense of humour and dance music, Space giraffe has much to please or offend the gamer.
Taking the classic Tempest 2K (Minter’s popular remake) as its starting point, Space Giraffe is a psychedelic shooter concerned more with synchronised audio/visuals and complex gameplay strategies than actually shooting.
Placing you in control of the titular Space Giraffe, an auto-firing abstracted shape that can move left and right along a floating neon web, you have to destroy enemies floating up towards you. Shooting them is the obvious solution, yet use of the Power Zone, Jump Pods and Bulling technique will net you a far greater score and that’s what dangles in front of Space Giraffe like a virtual carrot made of psychedelic gold.
Points may not mean prizes but they certainly go a long way in giving you an incentive and you can even attempt to topple Minter’s own high score off the leader board. To do so, certain techniques (that notably stray from the Tempest formula) are necessary - charging up the Power Zone allows you to ram enemies off the web when they reach the top. Shooting enemies or using Jump Pods charges the Power Zone so a careful risk/reward balance has to be struck in order to reap the benefits of point heavy Bulling.
Online leader boards, a constant (and in my case damning) assessment of your progress by the game and the continual hypnotic mix of pulsating visuals and synchronised music (including your own custom soundtracks) all serve to egg you on to that next multiplier bonus and brain melting moment of gaming zen as you enter the zone.
Such glory comes at a price though as Space Giraffe is no simple shooter to pick up and play. The tutorial could be more clear cut in its instructions and the ‘trippy’ visuals can get in the way of gameplay but despite its niche shooter status and love it or hate it stylisation, its budget price and sheer exuberance means it should at least be given a chance to puke its addled charms out of your TV.