Bioshock Review [Feature]

A Big Daddy

This has got to be, without a doubt, my favorite game of all time.  Sure, everyone’s got opinions, but this is my review.  So, let’s just start with it already.

The plot starts off simple, then becomes a compelling immersive story that sucks you right in.  I personally enjoy a game with a good story, it’s what gives you a reason to continue.  Sure, you want to beat the game, but if it’s really good, then you also want to keep going to know what happens next.  This is Bioshock.  The main character survives a plane crash, therefore dumping him into an underwater city called Rapture.  This city, originally built for freedom from government and religion so artists and scientists can live without morality and laws, has fallen to ruin (for obvious reason).  Now, instead of humans, you’ve got a butt-load of security systems, genetically modified people, and other monsters.  All against you.  The whole city is essentially run on ADAM, a genetic gold of sorts.  This material allows you to genetically modify yourself with a slew of tonics and plasmids.  Big Daddies, monstrous defects who wonder around in a morbid, helpless manner, are probably the hardest part of the game.  They protect Little Sisters, the only creature that can harvest and recycle ADAM by getting it out of dead bodies and eating it themselves.  The rest are Splicers, they used to be people, but the upgrades messed up their brains.  The rest of the story is fully developed through a system of diaries, old voice recordings you find around Rapture, allowing you to hear what happened.

Cover Art

The gameplay is fairly simple for the most part, but nothing linear.  With each new level comes a bunch of new upgrades and abilities.  The focal point of power in this game is plasmids.  These drink looking thingies that you don’t drink, but you in fact inject yourself with them, give you amazing powers.  The first is electricity.  You can get fire, telekinesis, and much more.  You also have regular weapons, a pistol, machine gun, wrench, etc.  You switch between plasmids and guns to take down your enemies.  This makes the game a little more difficult, but also makes it that much more fun.  The other upgrades are tonics.  These are essentially perks that make the game easier.  For example, my favorite is one that when something melees you, you let of a wave of electricity, throwing them back and hurting them.

The music, while not a huge part of the game, is quite good.  2K has brought back classics from the time period (50s-60s), allowing you to get a feel for the atmosphere.  Also, because everything is falling apart, the creepy factor jumps up.  Get some screeching violin noises in there, blood on the walls, and the creepy splicers, you’ve got yourself a good recipe for a non-ridiculous but still scary game.

The graphics are beautiful.  Straight up.

While gameplay is not entirely dynamic, but it can be.  Big Daddies roam around and find the Little Sisters.  He keeps guard while she sucks the ADAM out of a corpse, they fight splicers that get too big for their britches and try to kill them, etc. You find splicers digging around and scrounging up materials, they use healing machines.  It all feels sort of alive.

Gameplay

The variety in the game is my favorite part.  Why just go through mowing down every splicer you see with your machine gun?  Have some fun with it.  Hack a security bot to fight for you.  Anger one splicer in a group of them, and they’ll kill each other.  Hypnotize a Big Daddy, and get him to kill something for you.  You can even set traps and decoys!

The moral system is actually sort of good, although pretty simple.  The choices seem to turn out balanced.  When you kill a Big Daddy, his Little Sister will cry by his body.  Then, you can choose to harvest her, which gives you the maximum ADAM to upgrade yourself with (but kills her), or rescue her, which turns her back into pretty much a normal girl (except there’s still something really creepy about her…) and you get less ADAM.  However, you get paid back if you rescue them.  Then you head to one of the many types of vending machines and upgrade!

Now, to work with the complaints.  There’s no inventory screen.  Which is rightfully complain-able, you can’t tell when you’ve got enough of something to make a new item.  And, when you get bandages or food, your character eats them right on the spot, disallowing you from saving them for a battle or something.  More than once I’ve opened a crate filled with alcohol, then quickly chugged every bottle of whiskey, vodka, and beer in the thing, then was hammered for a whole minute while everything around me fell to pieces, caught on fire, and shot at me.  AND I WAS HAMMERED.  I couldn’t even see let alone run away or fight back.  It would be nice to save alcohol for later when I’ve killed everything and would like to take a congratulatory swig for myself.

Another problem with the game is that it’s either too easy or insanely ridiculous.  So, it can be a little boring when you’ve got enough medicine, eve hypos (injections that allow you to use plasmids), and ammo to be a god.

But, all in all, it’s an excellent game!

10/10