Bioshock Review

Introduction

Bioshock is a first person shooter set in an underwater city called Rapture. The game begins with you surviving a plane crash before finding the underground city. Rapture was planned to be an underwater paradise and a realisation of Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism. Objectivism is the philosophy that consciousness is separate from reality. The art style of the game is from the 1920/1930’s with neon lights and cocktail bars, with many posters in the same style as Ayn Rand’s theatre show posters. Rapture creator Andrew Ryan promises that the inhabitants be rewarded for the sweat of their brow although not everything goes to plan.  Plasmids are used to enhance people physically and mentally although there are bad side effects where the people who use the plasmids can go mad.

wrench equiped, and plasmid poster

 Gameplay

As well as guns there are also plasmids which give you super human powers such as giving electric shocks or calling swarms of insects. Weapons are upgradable as the many plasmids abilities. The graphics in the game are really good not only technically but the world is unique to other games I have played and consistent through the game. Combat with plasmids and weapons gives lots of tactical options and the ammo in the game is very rare so you have to use ammo wisely and search everywhere for money so you can buy from vending machines. Travel between levels is done metal dome vehicle called a bathysphere.

Big Daddies are one of the most interesting enemies in Bioshock. You will encounter Big Daddies every time you try to get Adam from Little Sisters. They are something in an atmosphere diving suit with a giant drill for a hand.  They don’t attack unless attacked them and one must be killed for every Little sister harvested or rescued.

Plasmid upgrades need a resource called Adam, which got from harvesting little sisters which are young girls that have been genetically modified and mentally conditioned to look for Adam. You can choose to rescue little sisters and get less Adam, or take maximum Adam but kill the little sisters. There are multiple ending and what you choose here decides what ending to the game you get. The game is scary because of the atmosphere and also the enemies that are mad have scary dialogue and show up when least expected.

Electro Bolt plasmid equiped,poster in a bar

Conclusion

Overall Biosock is a unique first person experience and is definitely worth playing, there is a lot more to the story than I have mentioned. The combination of plasmids and guns is a good idea, although I felt the shooting of the game could have been implemented better because sometimes I was not sure if my shots were registering on the enemy. The game also does not have a lot of replay value other than going for different endings and experimenting with different combinations of plasmids. The soundtrack to the game is good and fitting with the rest of the Bioshock.

Score 9/10