Experiencing Bioshock for the first time
Yeah, we published two articles about Bioshock: Infinite last week and the opinion is clearly positive. It turns out that I had never actually played the original Bioshock. Sometimes even a well received title slips by and apparently it takes me 5 years to catch up with what everyone else already knows. So while my colleagues have been telling me how awesome Infinite is, I’ve been crawling through splicer filled streets of Rapture and having an amazing time with it.
I’m not sure why, but my biggest concern going in was that Bioshock was going to look dated. It’s seriously only a little over 5 years old, but that seems ancient in the modern world of gaming. Perhaps it’s not the greatest looking game compared to some of the visual feasts currently making their way to your screen, but it has held up rather well. The ambiance managed to be pretty darn creepy and I found myself jumping once in sometimes when splicers would drop down from the ceiling to attack. Thankfully they didn’t try to overdo it with that particular mechanic by, oh I don’t know, making demons jump out of hidden rooms behind you after the lights turn off. I’m looking at you, Doom 3.
The story is fabulous. I can’t believe I took so long to play a first person shooter built around themes like objectivism. Spoilers ahead if you’re the kind of person that still hasn’t played this yet and somehow doesn’t know about the plot twists. A plane crash near an unlikely island in the middle of the Atlantic with a mysterious lift (yeah, it’s a bathysphere, but they’re just elevator devices in the game) that delivers you dramatically to an underwater city. That’s pretty neat, but why stop there? Hook me up with some gene-splicing so that I can shoot lightning or fire and we have one hell of a good start. Power up my standard weapons with gears and gauges until I’m a walking steampunk arsenal! Wait… I’m programmed to be an obedient slave turned assassin made to kill my own father? What an awesome plot!
You guys know I can’t play a game without finding at least some little thing that bugs me. Despite the coolness of underwater steampunk pseudo-magic, I didn’t want to have to keep switching back and forth between plasmid and standard weapons just to pull off combos. Even with fully upgraded weapons, those freaky ass maniacs took way too many rounds to be practical before collapsing into bullet riddled heaps for me to loot. Smashing them into bits with my freezing wrench didn’t leave me anything to loot. It was a bit loot light and these guys took too many shotgun blasts to the face for my taste. Not to mention my Big Daddy killing strategy which generally involved me shooting it until it killed me, rinse, and repeat until I hear the sweet sweet sobbing of a child.
Then there were two mechanics in the game that were both necessary and completely annoying. The camera based research, without the aid of which I would likely never gotten through the game, was tedious and ended in my evisceration on more than a few occasions. At least I never ran out of film. Then there was the hacking. Fuck this game’s unwanted incorporation of that most hated game, Pipe Dream. I have never longed to play it again and I hate how necessary it is to hack every bloody thing you come across. I probably spent more time directing goo through tubes than kicking the crap out of some pretty deserving weirdos.
Sure, Andrew Ryan is not the most subtle or clever reference to Ayn Rand especially given that you’re taking directions from “Atlas” for the first two thirds of the game, but it’s still an incredibly enjoyable way to set up the game. Nothing makes for a fun weekend like a philosophical first person shooter. Apparently objectivism loses its appeal when your son beats your head in with a golf club; that’s what stoicism is for. I’m told that if I didn’t care for being a Big Daddy and doing the escort mission (hint: I did not), then I probably should steer clear of Bioshock 2. I’ll probably listen to that advice and just pick up Infinite whenever it goes on sale. I was already 5 years late to the party, what’s a couple more months to catch up to the new one?
