How deep does the rabbit hole go?
Overview
"A man chooses, a slave obeys."BioShock is simply a great, atmospheric game, with beautiful graphics and gameplay to match. Some would say it's a horror FPS game, but it's not that scary, I'd say it's a first person shooter game with post-apocalyptic features (although i suppose it's more accurate to say steampunk) and some very light RPG elements. In the game the protagonist named Jack, is flying over the Atlantic Ocean during 1960. Unfortunately, there is a malfunction and the plain crashes, Jack is the only survivor and he swims to a nearby lighthouse, it doesn't take long after for the madness to start.
The greatest thing about BioShock however is ,without a doubt, the story and the atmosphere, few games match Bioshock's excellent atmosphere, F.E.A.R. 2, Cryostasis and S.T.A.L.K.E.R are among those chosen few.
Plot
"Would you kindly"As mentioned, the protagonist, Jack was on an airplane flying over the Atlantic ocean in the 1960's, it suffered a fatal malfunction and fell into the ocean. Jack, the only survivor, swims to a nearby lighthouse. In it he finds a pod that would eventually lead him to the demented depths of Rapture. He is contacted via radio by a certain Atlas, by the sound of it an Irish man, who's family is trapped somewhere in Rapture, he will ask for Jack's help in finding them. Jack will have to travel through the giant underwater city of Rapture in order to help Atlas, along the way Jack will have to fight off hordes of Splicers. Splicers were once humans who used too much ADAM, which "spliced" their DNA, their minds and parts of their bodies are far beyond repair. Adam, is made by a certain sea slug, which is perhaps the reason of why Rapture was built underwater. Adam rewrites the DNA of the user, allowing for amazing powers and abilities, but those who use it regularly will eventually become insane.
There are many twists within the game, some of them you'll see coming, others not so much, i won't spoil anything, but trust me when i say that this game has a superb storyline. Where as other first person shooters just give a semblance of a plot, BioShock on the other hand has it as it's major strength along with the atmosphere, and on top of all that, the gameplay is excellent as well.
What makes BioShock's story so excellent, like so many other post-apocalyptic games, is the fact that it's not just a well conceived plot, or a great concept, but the look into the very depths of human nature.
The power hungry, greedy, reckless and selfish nature of man destroyed the city of Rapture, and the events that followed after is what happens when humanity is given too much power. All around the city, Jack will find the skeletons of the past, both literally and figuratively, the tapes and protest signs that are scattered all across the city show the city's violent past, and what caused it to fall.
Like i said, the greatness of BioShock is its look into human nature.
I could write a lot more about the plot, but as i said, i don't want to spoil anything, trust me when i say that BioShock truly has an excellent story, and if you don't believe me check out other reviews.
Gameplay
"The assassin has overcome my final line of defense, and now he plans to murder me"The gameplay might not be as good as the story or atmosphere, but that's simply because the story and atmosphere are so strong. That doesn't mean that the gameplay is bad, in fact, far from it, the gameplay is excellent as it allows you to use over 8 different weapons to shoot, explode, flame and bash your enemies to a pulp. What makes BioShock's gameplay different than a standard FPS game is the use of plasmids. Plasmids are basically God-like powers, created by Ryan industries (more on the creator, Ryan, later on). Plasmids can be obtained by the player with the use of the before mentioned ADAM, ADAM is basically the currency needed to rewrite your DNA so that you may use these powers. The range, use and power of Plasmids range from fire, swarms of insects, electricity, invisibility, for the purposes of hacking, making your attacks stronger, creating a shock field every time you're hit, making you stronger and negotiating (somewhat) the effects of damage. You can create combos by using plasimds, for example, if enemies are standing in water, you can shock the water to damage and stun enemies. There are different types of plasmids as well, passive, active, technical etc. Each group of plasmids can have up to six slots for you to decide which plasmids you want to use. Plasmids not currently equipped will be stored in a gene-bank. To use plasmids, the player must have a sufficient level of EVE, which is similar to mana in other games. EVE can be restored by using EVE hypos, or smoking, or drinking coffee among other things, the player also has the health meter to worry about which can be restored by using first aid kits. A huge factor of gameplay is the fact that the player can not die, if your health bar reaches zero, you will be revived at the nearest Vita-chamber, which makes the game a lot less difficult and a lot less scary.
In combat, apart from plasmids, the player will have several types of weapons to choose from as well.
- Wrench - Your basic melee weapon you get at the beginning of the game.
- Pistol - Your basic firearm.
- Shotgun - Do i need to add a description?
- Machine Gun - It's basically a Tommy gun.
- Grenade Launcher - It's similar to Demoman's weapons from TF2. It launches 3 types of grenades.
- Chemical Thrower - Napalm, to set someone on fire, Nitrogen to freeze the target and electric gel, to electrify the target.
- Crossbow - Medieval style.
- Research Camera - Used to research enemies, once an enemy is researched you gain combat bonuses against them. There are several ranks of research.
Each weapon, except the wrench and research camera, can use up to three types of ammo. Normal, armor piercing, incendiary rounds are used in conventional weapons (pistol, shotgun, tommy gun). The grenade launcher uses grenades, proximity mines and heat seeking missiles. Crossbow uses bolts, incendiary bolts and trap bolts. The research camera uses film as ammo.
The player will run into "Power to the People" stations from time to time, these stations upgrade your weapons (more damage, more magazine capacity, less ammo consumption, more accuracy etc.).
Once killed, you can search enemies, they'll have ammo on them (if they used firearms), money or first aid packs and EVE hypos. Money can be used at various automated machines around rapture. Some sell ammo, others sell miscellaneous items. You can hack them in order to gain a better price. Hacking is an important aspect of BioShock's gameplay, you can hack security bots, vendors, cameras, automated machine gun turrets, safes and other gadgets. There are some plasmids that increase the efficiency of hacking.
