Ian Morris
Ian Morris loves televisions so much he's been banned from wedding chapels in Las Vegas for trying to marry them. When he's not romancing technology, he can be found watching American TV. Ian likes roast potatoes, but he doesn't like digital rights management.
Wednesday 22 August 2007, 4:27pm
I love BioShock
Okay, I'm not going to get a reputation as a controversial journalist by saying things that everyone else has already said, but I played the Xbox Live demo of BioShock at the weekend and was blown away -- and not just in the game.
It's not that easy to pin down what's so good about it, although I have a feeling that it's my love of Art Deco styling and the deeply atmospheric music and sound effects. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of both Myst and Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic, neither of which revolved around shooting deformed underwater-dwelling, biologically altered humans with bolts of lightning. But both had a graphically rich environment, with Starship Titanic being set on an Art Deco spaceship.
I have some reservations about the score BioShock has been given by some review sites. As a reviewer myself, I'd be very reluctant to give anything a 10 out of 10 score -- I've yet to encounter any product that is perfect. Indeed, I've yet to encounter anything in the known universe that I'd consider perfect.
Based solely on the demo, I'd venture this game is at least an 8, very probably more an 8.5 or 9. Until I play the whole thing I'll reserve judgement, but one thing is for sure -- this is the most excited I've been about a game since Half-Life 2.
Articles by Ian Morris
Microsoft reportedly at loggerheads with BBC over iPlayer on Xbox Live
Crave We want iPlayer on our Xbox 360, but apparently there isn't much chance of that unless Microsoft decides to allow it on free 'Silver' Xbox Live subscriptions
Opinion: Apple owes Microsoft $30bn
Crave Yes, that's right. Apple owes Microsoft for its success -- big time. Join us as we run you through the argument
TiVo to make triumphant return to UK with Virgin Media
Crave You might think you know what a PVR is, but in the UK we're really stuck in the past with our digital recording antics. Happily, Virgin Media is bringing TiVo back
Terminator Salvation Blu-ray: The movie isn't the worst thing on this disc
Crave This weekend, we watched Terminator Salvation, which wasn't as bad as we were expecting, but we certainly didn't enjoy the process of persuading the disc to play
How to survive a zombie attack using consumer electronics
Photo Like it or not, zombies are coming and probably sooner than you think. Good news though -- we all have tech in our homes that can be used to defeat them, so let's find out how
Technology that's totally impossible
Photo Many things in this world don't make any sense. The popularity of Miley Cyrus is one pertinent example, but some technology is so bizarre that we refuse to believe in it
Seesmic Desktop for Windows: Better for Twitter than TweetDeck?
Crave This weekend Seesmic Desktop for Windows was released. We rushed to download our copy -- we've had enough of Adobe Air munching through our system memory
BBC: We may do 1080p on Freeview HD
Crave We've been trying to find out which format BBC HD would use on Freeview for some time now -- we were surprised to learn the service could use 1080p
