PixlBit

Despite the apparent quality of Bioshock, it has taken me nearly five years to explore the world of Rapture and the demented mind of Andrew Ryan. After initial hype painted the experience to be something more akin to a puzzler than a shooter, I was extremely excited… until I actually played it. It wasn't at all what I expected and that was enough to force me to shelve the game until the right time. Thankfully I did, because revisiting it all these years later has allowed me to have an immensely enjoyable gaming experience.

Rapture is a stunning world that's completely unparalleled in gaming. In an amazing feat of engineering, a full-fledged city was created on the ocean floor by Andrew Ryan. Upon your initial encounter, it's clear that it was once an active and bustling place, but has since been left to decay. Water drips from everywhere from the damage done to the structure; however, despite the damage, the facility is still functional. Electricity still courses through its veins, the tubes that connect the various underwater structures are intact, and the bathyspheres that allow travel between completely disparate parts also function.

You arrive at Rapture via a convenient plane crash that happens right above the submerged city. When you make your way indoors, it's clear that though in disarray, Rapture is still inhabited. Reaver-like splicers occupy the hallways of the compound. Completely destroyed mentally and horribly disfigured by "splicing" a variety of plasmids, they are walking examples of the radical effects of ADAM on the human body. While not created by city founder, Andrew Ryan, a complex pheromone distribution system allows him to mobilize the creatures at his discretion. You'll eventually come to learn why he has assembled this army of splicers as the game and story progress.

While the game has a definite storyline progression, most of it is explained via your interaction with two characters, Ryan and Atlas, as well as a variety of audio recordings that tell bits and pieces of the larger story of Rapture. Not all of them seem immediately important, but as you collect more and more recordings, all of the pieces start fitting together. It's an unbelievably effective way to deliver the story, as it helps both establish some meaning behind this amazing world you find yourself in and gives you impetus to explore its depths. At the point where the recordings finally paint a picture of what exactly is going on in Rapture, the game takes an amazing twist, which sets into motion the final events of the game.

As a video game world, Rapture is something to behold. Every inch of it seems to be designed with a purpose and in thematic agreement. Posters fall in line with the styles of the forties and fifties, the characters' speech patterns, much of the technology, even though more advanced, seems like something you'd see if the world suddenly took a huge leap in technological advancement. As such, everything is big, bulky, and designed like commonplace items of the era. Combine this with the underwater setting, the decaying nature of Rapture, and the psychopaths that now control the various portions of the city, and you've got one of the most compelling settings and ambiance ever for a game.

Given the degree of care given to both the story and setting, you'd think the gameplay would have a hard time matching up. In some ways, this is true, but it's good enough to remain compelling until the end of the game. Combat is comprised of utilizing plasmids and weaponry. A melee wrench is bestowed upon you at the beginning of the game and by the end, if you play your cards right, it can be one of the most potent weapons in your arsenal. This holds true for any weapon though, as the game allows you to apply upgrades to a variety of things in a few unique ways.

While the wrench is great, plasmids are your new best friend. While the splicers have been destroyed by injecting too many, your body is capable and ready to be infused with these new abilities. For whatever reason, you're able to apply each one and each gives you a different ability. Telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and electrokinesis (among others) become a standard part of your arsenal. In an interesting twist, they're used to not only attack your enemies, but defend yourself and modify the environment.

If there's some spilled oil puddled below some enemies, hit it with your incendiary plasmid and light up all of the splicers. It can also be used to gain access to doors that have been frozen over, thanks to leaking water from the juncture points of Rapture. Telekinesis can be used to fling projectiles back at enemies or turrets. These are the situations in which the plasmid concept really shines; more often though, that's not how you'll use them.

Conversely, weaponry can help you do some of the same things. Over the course of the game you'll pick up a variety of weapons, some of which can supplant your plasmids in a pinch. You can only hold so many plasmids at a time, so it may be helpful to have your chemical thrower on hand to melt a bit of ice to gain entry to a room. Chemical thrower? You may have asked yourself. Yes, a chemical thrower – rather than limiting each weapon to a single function, the ammo you equip gives them up to three behaviors. So the chemical thrower is a flamethrower, a freeze gun, and a lightning gun. While other weapons don't quite have the same versatility, they all have the same "three distinct ammo types" design. It's a neat idea and it helps bring some versatility to the limited weapon set, each with different effectiveness on given enemies.

The versatility of the weapon-plasmid concept is extremely compelling. I don't know that they fully realized the strength of it because most often you'll use them together in mundane ways, like shocking a splicer with an electro bolt and subsequently beating him to death with your wrench. Often, it's easier to skip the whole plasmid interaction and just shoot him down. Ammo is limited, but money can be found in excess everywhere, so you don't have to be conservative as you can just buy more ammo when necessary.

Upgrades are a major part of the game and this is mostly what keeps the combat portion interesting. It's fun to get stronger and interesting to apply different tonics to your character and see the effects. Tonics are like plasmids, but have lasting effects while they are equipped. Some will allow you to become invisible when standing still; others will let you swing your wrench more rapidly; others still will give you more health when using a health pack or even a little plasmid meter (EVE) boost.

These upgrades would be impossible without ADAM, which you must acquire from Little Sisters. These little girls are constantly harvesting ADAM from corpses and producing it on their own, so they are rich with the important substance. The Big Daddies are inextricably bound to these little girls as they are their protectors. Donning heavy weaponry and a giant diving suit, these creatures will defend the Little Sisters to the death. Taking on these brutes was one of my favorite parts of the game. The subsequent moral dilemma following the battle was also an interesting idea. You must choose to harvest the ADAM from these little sisters, or cure them. Harvesting will result in more ADAM, but curing them will offer potential benefits in the future, as explained by the "mother" of these little girls, Tenenbaum.  Needless to say, I saved all of these little sisters, which produced a number of great results and a special ending to the game, yet another interesting side effect from your actions.

Machinery in the game (vending stations, flying security bots, turrets, etc) can be hacked to either be converted to a friendly or provide a discount on items. As such, you'll be hacking all the time. The hacking mini-game is essentially Pipe Mania, but one that's randomly generated each time and rarely compelling. As a matter of fact, it gets to be downright annoying hacking everything all of the time. Worse, while it's by no means required, it greatly reduces threats and challenge throughout the game to do so, which makes it strongly encouraged. Conceptually, hacking was a great idea, but its execution left plenty to be desired.

Needless to say, Bioshock is an extremely layered and loaded game, but one that fell folly to a few design traps. Though deep and layered, the gameplay has a tendency to get repetitive. Furthermore, the game could've done a better job of allowing you to utilize splicers to your benefit given their creepy and aggressive behavior. Instead they become commonplace enemies and nothing more than a distraction in the larger goal of figuring out Rapture.

The end game sequence was also clearly rushed, putting players through a number of fetch quests and culminating with an aggravating escort mission. The end boss fight did help redeem some of this, but it doesn't change the fact that this portion of the game could've used some of the TLC shown to the rest of the experience.

In closing, Bioshock is a game that everyone needs to play. Despite waiting four years to play it, it still holds up as one of the best experiences of this generation; it progresses the gaming medium with its unique approach to storytelling and lays a blueprint for just how amazing levels can be designed with the right amount of care.