ZarkSeven

Introduction

The highly anticipated Bioshock, by 2K Boston (formerly known as Irrational Games), was released in late August to high acclaim.  Billed as a morality-based first person shooter with RPG elements, it’s art deco styling and intriging mechanic of “Big Daddies” and “Little Sisters” set it apart, and fan groups such as The Cult of Rapture were active and vocal before the game was ever released.  The Limited Collector’s Edition, which was “demanded” by fans who voted on what it would contain, was sold by Gamestop and containted a Big Daddy statue, sold out instantly and became instant collector’s items, which unopened still fetch up to $125 too this day.  So does Bioshock live up to the hype?

Story

     I am Andrew Ryan and I am here to ask you a question:
     Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow?
     No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor.
     No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God.
     No, says the man in Moscow. It belongs to everyone.

     I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something
     different. I chose the impossible. I chose…

     Rapture.
     —Andrew Ryan

In Bioshock, you play a character named Jack, whose plane crashes in the middle of the ocean, right next to a mysterious lighthouse.  You swim to the lighthouse and go inside, and discover and journey to the underwater city of Rapture.  Rapture was created by Andrew Ryan as a self-sufficient utopia for humanities best and brightest.  When you enter Rapture, however, it becomes clear that something went horribly wrong.

The story unfolds mainly though a audio logs that the player finds scattered thoughout Rapture.  Andrew Ryan’s hatred of oppressive authority led him to create the city, and apparantly for awhile it was the utopia it was meant to be.  But his insistance that Rapture needed to be completely isolated from the influences of the outside world lead to a seedly smuggling authority to gain a foothold and ultimately battle Ryan for control of the city.  Ryan abandoned some of his ideals in order to try to win this conflict, and the city and it’s inhabitants suffered the consequences.  You as the player enter the city in the aftermath of this, and must learn how to survive so that you can escape it.

You are immediately introduced, via radio, to a person named Altas, who appears to be in the same sort of predicament.  He is trying to save his family and escape Rapture as well, and he helps to introduce you to the world of Rapture and how to survive in it.  Andrew Ryan, believing you to be a government agent, also communicates with you during the game, and sents the forces of the city that he commands against you.  As the game progresses, you learn all about the city, the inhabitants, and your radio companions Ryan and Atlas, and this anti-utopian world you’ve been thrown into.

A major element of the story is the scientific development of ADAM, which are stem cells developed from a sea slug that were genetically engineered into a “plasmid” that can be injected to give the user everything from a cure for baldness to super-human powers.  Non-passive plasmids require EVE, a mana-like substance.  Rapture scientists developed a program to harvest ADAM from young girls by implanting them with the sea slugs.  However, as the city degenerated, the young girls called “Little Sisters” metally and physically reconditioned to harvest ADAM from dead people and process it inside themselves.  This made them highly desirable to the degenerating, ADAM-obsessed populate, forcing the scientists to create protectors for the Little Sisters.  These enhanced, dive suit clad protectors became known as the Big Daddies.

In order to survive Rapture, you need to become like Rapture, and use ADAM to genetically modify yourself in order to survive the horrors that you face.  But how far will you go and what will you do to survive?  Will you shed your humanity and harvest (ie kill) the Little Sisters in order to gain the ADAM you need?  Or will you save the Little Sisters from their horrible fate, at perhaps the cost of your own life?

Gameplay

The first person shooter aspect of the gameplay is pretty straightforward.  You pick up various weapons and ammo throughout the levels that you control through the right trigger and shoulder buttons.  You also pick up genetically enhanced abilities by acquiring ADAM that lets you purchase these plasmid-created abilities, which you control with the left trigger and shoulder buttons.  3D movement is as you would expect, and you can do the typical things like jump and crouch.  There is no cover system ala Gears of War or the upcoming Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune.

Much of the gameplay focuses on acquiring plasmids as well and tonics, which give you physical, engineering, and combat abilities.  Some of these help you out in battles, and some help you with the environment.  You can only “equip” a certain number of these abilities at any given time, and you “unlock” more ability slots with ADAM.  You can “spend” ADAM at Gatherer Stations and you can swap out your various plamid and tonic abilities at Gene Banks, both located around each level.

Another big gameplay aspect is hacking.  You hack torrets to make them shoot your enemies instead of you.  You hack security cameras to alarm when they spot enemies, sending flying, shooint security bots after them instead of you.  You hack safes to get to the contents.  You hack health stations, so that you can get a quick health repairs, or so that if you injure an enemy, and he tries to use a hacked health station to heal himself, it will hurt him instead.  You hack vending machines to lower the price of the available goods, such as health and EVE hypos and ammo.  You hack U-Invent machines to lower the cost of supplies to invent items.  All this hacking is done via a minigame which shows as a hidden grid of pipe components and obstacles.  You have to construct a continuous pipe from an entry point to an exit point, as fluid begins flowing through it.  If the fluid hits a disjointed section, you fail and are injured, and possibily set off security alarms.  If you finish the continuous pipe first so the fluid can flow freely, the hack is successful.

Some elements take a big non-traditional turn as well, such as researching.  You gain the ability at some point to use a camera and film, and you can take “research pictures” of your enemies.  These pictures add to a research score for each opponent, and as you take more and more, you gain greater advantage over them when fighting them.  You also start picking up various small items in the game, off dead bodies or in desks, cabinets, etc, such as glue or rubber hoses or the like.  You can use these items to “invent” ammo or tools such as automatic hacking devices.  You don’t have to do either of these things, but doing them does level the playing field a bit, as the game gets progessively harder.

Overall, the gameplay mechanics work very well.  While it becomes apparent that some plasmids and tonics are more useful than others, the overall use of them sets the gameplay apart from the typical FPS like Halo or Half-Life.  These things allow you to use the enviroment to your advantage more than you are used to in a FPS.  For instance, you can use a plasmid ability called Incinerate to catch enemies on fire.  You could also use it to catch fire to an oil slick he’s about to run through.  Or you can use an Electo-bolt on the pool of water your enemy is standing in, electrically charging the water and frying him.  You can use Telekenesis to pull objects towards you.  Or you could stick a bunch of proximity mines onto something and use Telekensis to hurl the object at your oponent, detonating the mines.

The Big Daddy/Little Sister encounters are one of the highlights of the gameplay.  In order to get at a Little Sister, you have to kill the Big Daddy protecting her.  Towards the end of the game, as you become more powerful, this isn’t too hard, but at the beginning of the game, when you only have a pistol and one or two plasmids, it can be pretty difficult.  You have to learn to use the environment to your advantage.  You pretty much don’t forget your first Big Daddy encounter.

Things such as researching your enemies and inventing objects keeps the game fresh.  So does hacking.  Bioshock was produced by the developers of the highly acclaimed classic game System Shock, and according to the developers, it’s like the spiritual successor.  Hacking, plasmids, storyline told through logs, modifiable weapons and ammo, and a guiding radio voice all harken back to the System Shock games.  So do some of the plot twists.  There is much more to the story and plot than I described above, with a major and brillianty played out twist about 2/3rds in.

Extras

There really are not extras to speak of.  Once you finish the game, you are finished.  The really the only thing you can do is replay the game at a different difficulty level, or play again making different moral choices regarding the Little Sisters, which would result in a different game ending.  Set up completely as a single-player experience, there is no multiplayer or co-op.  There are the usual 1000 Xbox achievement points available, ranging from ones received for advancing through the game to ones for completely researching (photographing) every enemy, or finding every tonic, or finding every audio log.  Doing those things only makes the game a better experience, and personally I got 49 out of 50 achievements (960 achievement points).  The only one I didn’t get is playing through the entire game on the hardest difficulty setting.

Conclusion

Overall I found the game interesting, unique and compelling.  It has a 96/100 score on Metacritic, and I think it is well deserving of it.  The art-deco, 1950’s visual style is outstanding. 

My only real complaint is that by the end it felt a little too long.  Maybe it’s because some of the elements like plasmids and tonics were so unique and different at the beginning, and encountering Big Daddies seemed so daunting and difficult.  By the time you get to the big plot twist you’ve discovered everything gameplay-wise there is to discover, so from there to the end it feels a bit like you’re just slogging your way to the conclusion.  There are additional and possibly unexpected story elements yet to unfold which keep you hooked, but I would have perhaps made it a level or two shorter.  There are also a couple of small plot elements that don’t quite make sense or tie up as neatly as I would have liked, but nothing that would ruin the overall experience.  I’d say that this is easily a heavy contender for 2007’s Game of the Year.