Get caught in the rapture!
From the crash landing in the middle of the ocean and receiving a radio message asking me to kindly do something for someone to the first few moments in the city of Rapture and the terrifying first encounter with a Big Daddy Bioshock felt like something new and fresh when it first came out on the 360. The game has since been released on PS3 with some extras, most notably the survival mode which for me at least is the way to play the game and drastically reduces the amount of bullets, health and cash that you’ll find throughout the city of Rapture as well as making combat significantly harder.
As you make your journey through the atmospheric world of Rapture you will pick up audiotapes telling you much of the story of whats happened in this underwater utopia turned dystopia. Andrew Ryan the games villain is a mad scientist type with a great vision for a city in the sea. It becomes clear that his vision has failed completely and he’s basically created an underwater city full of drug addicts albeit ones with extraordinary powers called splicers not to mention the disturbing relationship between Big Daddy’s and and Little Sister’s.
The combat in Bioshock is extremely varied with the use of plasmids and hacking various security devices giving you a huge range of ways to defeat your foe. The plasmids are powers you can use with your left hand the most powerful and useful being fire or electricity as well as some more interesting and amusing ones like the cyclone trap which flings any splicer unfortunate enough to step on it into the air. To get the most out of the game you will want to experiment with all the plasmids and on the harder difficulty settings inventive use of the plasmids as well as hacking will be essential to surviving. The Big Daddy’s are tough on medium difficulty but on harder settings they soak up damage better than a good quality nappy soaks up liquid and I frequently had to use everything at my disposal just to take one down although you will be well rewarded for doing so.
The graphic design and art deco style of the underwater dystopia is well executed with excellent lighting and water trickling down walls and walkways, old posters and flickering billboards giving you a good sense of what it would of been like to live in Rapture during its better days.
The sound design is incredible from the the groaning of the monstrous Big Daddy’s to the ambient noises of the underwater city your trapped in. The voice acting is equally impressive, from Andrew Ryan’s powerful theatrical speeches about his vision of Rapture to the psychotic ramblings of the splicers as you explore the eerie underwater city.
My biggest disappointment with Bioshock was the vita-chambers which revive you once you die yet any damage enemies have taken when you got killed will stay making the game really easy and unsatisfying when you can just keep chipping bits of health of Big Daddy’s and re-spawning until they eventually die. This has since been updated so that you can turn the vita-chambers off and i would recommend anybody does this as it really affects the gameplay in my opinion.
Closing comments
With a storyline that challenges the imagination and an incredibly well thought out world from the sound and graphical design anyone that loves single player adventures and is looking for a unique experience should play this game.