The story of how I came to love BioShock is an odd one. At first, my friend was extremely excited about it, he even got me to play the first level, but I shrugged it off calling it ‘lame’ and ‘boring.’ You should take note however I did not have a 360 at this time, so my interest was really non-existent.
How wrong I was. After looking into the play games many months later after I had bought a 360, its storyline struck me. It seemed intriguing. Along with reading a quote from one of the central characters, Andrew Ryan (as seen below) it seemed to me that I needed to play this game for myself.
“I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his 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, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.”
Forgive the length of the quote, but I think reading it is quite important in coming to understand the views and functions of what Rapture aimed to be. After this, I rented the game out. One word came to me while playing. Amazing. I rushed out and bought the game as soon as was possible and haven’t looked back since. Anyway, enough of me going on, now for the review…
The game is set in 1960 while travelling in a plane across the mid-Atlantic sea, suddenly there is an explosion and you plummet down into the ocean. After swimming to the surface you swim towards a lighthouse and enter it. You then enter a bathysphere and then you descend into Rapture…
Rapture was an underground utopian city on the bottom of the ocean; I say was, because this city has turned into the exact opposite. A dystopia. Built in the mid 1940’s, Raptures peak was through the 50’s when its population numbered in the 1000’s. Its occupants were the best of the best of their chosen field of work, artists, scientists, you get the idea. Through research, they uncovered a sea slug which genetic cells heals and replaces those of which it came into contact with. Scientists, realising this break through, quickly began to use it to change genetic code and develop ‘power ups’ called plasmids. These plasmids were things like Electricity, Fire, and telekinesis to name a few. After an injection from a plasmid, your hand became its plasmid and you could issue lighting for instance from it.
Now, these sea slugs needed a host so that they could harvest and make up these cells, called ‘ADAM.’ They did so by placing them within little girl’s stomachs. These little girls roam rapture filling up ADAM. They are accompanied by Humans placed in huge diving suits, named ‘Big Daddies’ for the little girl’s obvious protection. Now, Rapture is roamed by Splicers. Humans who have been mutated due to their plasmid and ADAM enhancements.
I’m not going to go into to much detail about the plot because I think its one of the finest ever made for games in the world, and discovering its plots and twists on your own is so much fun I wouldn’t want to rob someone of that.
Another thing worth mentioning is the Audio diaries picked up throughout your play through. They reveal thoughts of people and what rapture is becoming. Its one of the most important things to listen to, so as to fully enjoy the games storyline. There are 122 audio diaries throughout.
Game play is your standard FPS, with guns and plasmids being the weapons. Left hand, plasmids. Right hand, Weapons. It offers 3 game difficulties. Easy, Medium and Hard. Hard is as the name suggest… hard! I’ve yet to be able to finish it on hard, and I really don’t have time to dedicate long strenuous hours of trying to. Most will find Medium quite challenging at parts, so it’s a recommended difficulty. But if you want to enjoy the story and take things a little slow, then easy is for you.
Graphically, the game is absolutely great. Sharp images and effects look beautiful if you’re playing this on a HDTV, while normal TV looks the best its able to, which is damn good. Water effects are amazing and the atmosphere is a deeply immersing one. One of the best I’ve ever played.
There are various themes bought up in this game, which do require at least some depth of knowledge to understand as well as maturity. Saying that, I would really only deem this game to be suitable for people around 13 years and above, perhaps even older if to understand a lot of what goes on and its relevance. I won’t go into detail about what happens, but it’s very intriguing.
This is one of my absolute all-time favourite free games. The story is just absolutely excellent, and the twist half way through the game will have you spinning. Its probably worth mentioning that there is no multi player in this game, but its not something you would even want with it anyway. This is purely a single player title, one of the best.
