BioShock Review (Spoilers)

[Ayen]

Warning: The following review contains spoilers. Reader's discretion is advised.


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BioShock is a first-person shooter game developed and published by 2K Games and released on August of 2007. The game takes place in the 1960s in the underwater city of Rapture that player's character, Jack, ends up in after surviving an airplane crash. If it were me I'd be asking for a refund.


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Cole MacGrath?

The game does a good job with creating a sense of isolation, and the first-person aspect helps with immersion. You never know what could be lurking behind each corner. That said, the monsters themselves aren't that scary, and are more prone to rely on jump scares.

Rapture is presented as a mystery that you learn more about through audio recordings. The concept itself is a good one, the execution not so much. I quickly found myself becoming bored of Rapture and the monsters that dwell within it. About the only ones that kept my interest were the Little Sisters, and the Big Daddys, which sound like names you'd find in a porno, or Kick- Ass. There just isn't that much variety in the enemies. After the tenth or eleventh splicer it starts to become exhausting.

I like the idea of the wealthy creating a place where they can use their earnings as they see fit, as well as science having no limitations set upon it allowing for genetic engineering. The problem is that none of these elements are implemented well through gameplay. BioShock may as well have been a movie you see at the theaters, not a video game you play at home. I can at least say that the controls are probably the most simplistic I've encountered without being insulting. When they say you can easily switch between weapons, they really do mean it.

Weapons range from wrenches, to firearms, and powers like electricity, fire, and telekinesis. A common weapon combination involves stunning an enemy with electricity and then taking him out with the wrench. You can also use your environment to take out enemies. I think this is the first game I played since Pokemon where water really does conduct electricity. I commend BioShock on encouraging creativity when dealing with enemies, but once you stock up on enough weapons you can just blast through the splicers that get in your way.


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What is it with games and creepy little girls?

As soon as you arrive in Rapture you are contacted by Atlas. A citizen of Rapture who helps guide you through the run-down city and asks for your help in dealing with Ryan, the man who constructed the city. How do these characters become relevant to you in the end? Ryan is your father, and Atlas who is really the villain just using you. I would be impressed by these plot points if I haven't played Metal Gear Solid. Nevertheless, Atlas causing you to crash your own plane through hypnosis is pretty cool. His motives on the other hand are the usual “power and money” lingo that has plagued villains motives since the beginning of time.

BioShock uses a lot of “this path is blocked” throughout the course of the game, like pretty much the majority of survival horror games ever invented. The first time this happened I needed to find the telekinesis plasmid to proceed. The second time, the fire plasmid. A little more creative than needing a key to open a locked door, but it gets old, very, very quickly.

The game has three alternative endings that depend on how you interact with the Little Sisters. Basically, if you save them you are good, if you do anything less than that you are a horrible human being. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground, but sadly that's a problem that a lot of games seem to have.


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Conclusion: The game is boring. I'm sorry, but it just is. Say what you want about games like Metal Gear Solid being more of a movie than a game, at least they managed to make the actual gameplay fun. Once the novelty of Rapture wears off all you have is an interesting concept, and a concept can't carry a game.

Skip it.

[Psychotic]

Absolutely bang on in your conclusion, Tori. Interesting concept for a world, but it's just a rubbish game.

[Old Manus]

I played this game a few months ago having heard all the hype about it, and never finished it. I thought the same as you - it just gets boring. I kept hoping that the next level would reveal some kind of new game mechanic, level design or even just a new type of enemy, but I soon realised it was never going to. I think I started to give up after it railroaded you into the incredibly tired "defend this room for 5 minutes while hordes of enemies attack!" set-piece. I could see it coming a mile off, and could tell they were expecting me to find this exciting or something. What a shame, it was a cool idea.

[Shauna]

I, on the other hand, disagree wholeheartedly with your conclusion. But that's simply because I never found the game boring on any level, thoroughly enjoyed myself from start to finish. That one little thing changes everything. xD

I enjoyed playing the game, and I thought the setting was pretty brill. I never got caught up on the jump scares, but definitely the atmosphere got to me more. They sold Rapture as a scary place pretty well, I thought. The plot was fine until after the big reveal at which point it was kind of "Really? You had such promise."


I will ask you to elaborate on this point though:


I like the idea of the wealthy creating a place where they can use their earnings as they see fit, as well as science having no limitations set upon it allowing for genetic engineering. The problem is that none of these elements are implemented well through gameplay.

I thought that this was handled pretty well. It makes sense for plasmids to exist here, and the player character can use the plasmids because of plot reasons. I am just struggling to see how they don't marry up. xD

[Jinx]

I don't think there shoudl be middle ground if you choose to harvest a Little Sister instead of saving her. So you only harvested one...yeah, no. You're definitely a horrible human being. xD

[Shorty]

The aesthetics of Rapture were smurfing incredible. Incredible. It gave me such high hopes for the game. I was legitimately spooked by the splicers and pretty much terrified of the at first. Then as the game went on and I was able to handle combat better, the ones that really only freaked me out were the houdini bastards and the spider splicers. I can say 100% that because of these asses I was not bored by this game.

I also have to agree with Shauna that I found the plasmids earning system. I thought it was a great system.

I was just so disappointed by the grand reveal. The "twist." The "moral consequences" in themselves were terrible, but I consider them an afterthought to the revelation of the programming of the character to do Atlas' bidding. It seemed like an almost lazy plot twist.

I will play BioShock 2, though, if only to get to Infinite. I'm stupidly excited for Infinite and I hope it's not disappointing like BioShock was for me. :(

[Slothy]

I will play BioShock 2, though, if only to get to Infinite. I'm stupidly excited for Infinite and I hope it's not disappointing like BioShock was for me. :(

:erm:

Infinite has the same problem for me that Bioshock had, and largely the same problem Tori talks about: they focused really heavily on the world building, story telling, etc. and all of that's awesome, but the game is a bog standard FPS. Hell, that might even be giving it too much credit because there are bog standard FPS games that are a lot more fun to play. It has some neat ideas, but they never really amount to much.

If you could play through Bioshock without having an issue with the gameplay you'll probably be fine. But for me, Infinite is entirely underwhelming in the ways that really matter. I like a good world and story as much as the next guy, but if your game isn't interesting then why the hell was it a game to begin with? Especially when the game the game you made is about as run of the mill as it gets and doesn't even add anything to that world you built? It just boggles my mind and I can never help but think guys like Ken Levine wanted to make a movie more than a game. Perhaps even worse is that they spent six years making it.

[Ayen]

I will ask you to elaborate on this point though:


I like the idea of the wealthy creating a place where they can use their earnings as they see fit, as well as science having no limitations set upon it allowing for genetic engineering. The problem is that none of these elements are implemented well through gameplay.

I thought that this was handled pretty well. It makes sense for plasmids to exist here, and the player character can use the plasmids because of plot reasons. I am just struggling to see how they don't marry up. xD

I meant overall it was just boring. You run around, enter a new room, zap a splicer, hit it with a wrench, shoot something, set it on fire, find a new blocked path. It's very wash, rinse, repeat. Navigating through Rapture overall, not just the genetic engineering.

[Shiny]

While I agree with your review— particularly the part where you said it's boring — I can't deny the fact that the storytelling and originality are outstanding. It takes all of the indecent things about humanity like greed, murder, selfishness, yearning for perfection, manipulation, drugs, political corruption, dishonesty, and loss innocence and throws them together in to a complex ball. The story I find fascinating, but the gameplay not so much. I think they could have also been a lot more inventive with the creation of Rapture. It's an underwater city for goodness sake, why does it look so plain?

[Shauna]

Navigating through Rapture overall, not just the genetic engineering.

Fair enough. Just wasn't made too clear what you were meaning. :3

[I Took the Red Pill]

Bioshock is the only first person shooter(ish) in like the past 10 years in which I could stomach the single-player campaign. In fact I fucking loved it. Whole-heartedly disagree with your review, but to each their own.

[Pete for President]

I agree with ToriJ. It was an awesome setting, but gameplay-wise it did little else than fetch-quests. Exploring without a mission marker was the most fun.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

I really haven't played many FPSs (on purpose), but I did try this one.

Since I haven't played many I was able to play the game much longer before the combat began to feel too repetitive, but eventually it did.

Still, I overall enjoyed the atmosphere, certain aspects of the story, and the world very much.

The plasmids were cool, the story behind their development was cool, but I agree other aspects of the combat didn't feel as creative as the rest of the game. I wish the "plot twist" wasn't as obvious as it was. I think I found the little snippets of story you found about other people more interesting that the story for the main character.

[Del Murder]

I tried getting into this one due to the critical acclaim. Like sharky, I don't play a lot of FPS and in fact this was the first one I'd played in years. Due to my rust I just couldn't jive with the controls and even though I felt the atmosphere was cool, I just couldn't get into it. Sometime later I played Borderlands and loved it, but mostly for the RPG aspects. I don't think I'll come back to Bioshock because like others have said the gameplay gets repetitive without some kind of RPG aspect to it.