Published on March 21st, 2024 | by Scott De Lacy
Bio Inc Redemption Playstation 5 Review
Bio Inc is an outstanding concept that surely has been secretly wanted by gamers. The ability to play pretend doctor and heal patients, or live out a sick and twisted fantasy to make healthy people as sick as possible.
Play Style
The player will choose their play mode between good or evil. A static human body will be displayed in the centre and animated fixed movements will periodically move the characters limbs, such as a cough or a clutching of the heart.
There are several overlays from muscular to vascular that exposes some organs, but overall this is just a visual display with busy click-work to change between, as the game gives the player blood cells and other bio-items to collect.
Bio-items is the in-game currency that needs to be collected by the player in order to spend on treatments or mistreatment’s, order diagnostic testing and medicines.
All movement around the main screen is ‘cursor’ based which requires heavy stick control movement and manic speed to keep the attention focused.
With enough bio-items collected before the clock runs out, another screen groups and displays the symptoms into body systems and the good or bad doctor must select the optimal approach, order tests and treat the confirmed diagnosed illnesses.
Video
The graphics are great, it is a simple game and simple graphics are all that is required.
The overlays are very similar to the Human Body (3D) applications although there is no outer skin layer.
Audio
There is a delightful sound track that sets the mood and sense of urgency and it is very powerful for the overall buy-in of the game.
Sound effects are throughout and players can expect coughing, painful wincing and emergency sirens and hospital beeps. Every single diagnostic test seems to have the associated sound and all of them are realistic and perfectly done.
Final Thoughts
At less than 800MB install this game is not a bad one to have in the library, especially when a ‘non-thinking’ game is needed after a hard days work.
It is a bit of a laugh and perhaps more enjoyable to be evil. But no respectable nurse, doctor – including veterinary medicine, or medical student should play this game, if so they would be yelling at the screen “why would I prescribe anticoagulants to a Haemophiliac” immediately before finding out they are apparently a Haemophiliac with have blood clots.
This game is fun for the first hour or two, then mind numbingly painful in the logic it presents and the formulaic ‘everyone has severe clinical depression, Lupus, Parkinsons, and.. one random thing’. The game becomes predictable and the treatments and detection is kind of moving around. The game is less about intelligence, learning, mastering the skill and advancing to the end, and 100% about gamifying random chaos and collecting enough bio-items.
After spending a few hours playing, either the player is perhaps suffering about as much as the patients or they just simply wont want to play a game that randomises the goalposts for objectives that should be linear. After all, the suggestion is the developers meticulously researched the medical aspects of the game, but the play style and randomisation of the illnesses does not bear that out.
Gamers who love bubble break, and mind-numbing nothingness, Bio Inc offers something actually interesting and dimensional. Players who were hoping for a medical simulator and actual mental exercise, will find nothing here.
Summary: A mindless busy-clicker that would be perfect for those needing to mentally detach from reality for a while.