WOULD YOU KINDLY NOT BITCH ABOUT SPOILERS? I'm going to do my best not to with this one other than minor-ly but no promises
I'm not often blown away by things anymore. Between hype machines, the internet spoiling every story when it leaks, and just all around not having as much time as I used to: expectations become too high. The media I have consumed after recent hype (Inception, Burton's Alice in Wonderland, GTA IV, The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, etc.) was either flat out bad, or just disappointing as my expectations had been so lifted. Now when something gets hyped I just wait. I don't rush, I'll get to it eventually.
I should've played Bioshock as the first thing on my Xbox 360.
It seems almost every game is a shooter nowadays. A shooter layered in brown colors. Call of Duty, Gears of War, Halo (not as brown but still). You burn through a single player campaign in 4 hours, then are supposed to enjoy getting yelled at by 12 year olds that you're a noob and they can't believe how much you're making the team lose (I kill my teammates when this happens). There's a few guns better than all the others, and they're hidden on the map so everyone dashes to the same spot in hopes of getting it. I never have liked that. I probably never will enjoy that experience so prevalent in the gaming culture today. I like well told, interactive stories with fun gameplay. If its beautiful, has a unique style, and engrosses me, all the better.
Bioshock came out in 2007. That's 6 years ago for those counting. And it does everything right.
Let's start with the story. You hit start on the game, seeing a beautiful title screen and a strange city in shadows in the background. Let's kick this pig. A cutscene begins. Jack..1960..on a plane light over the ocean...And you start thinking to yourself "for the love of god, don't let this be like Square Enix cutscenes (the first 3 hours of the last Final Fantasy is like 10 minutes of gameplay)..Before you finish this thought your plane crashes and you're in the ocean surrounded by flames, and are now given control of Jack.
Wait...the cutscene was only a few seconds long before letting me play? Fantastic! Lets see what's in that building over there!
You find a radio and see some displays that end up informing you've come to the formerly great underwater Utopia of Rapture. You travel down, seeing some beautifully rendered scenes along the way, and start the main part of the game, being guided by the mysterious Atlas.
If you're not intrigued yet, you make me sad and I have no desire to talk to you further. Let's look into the other key elements.
Rapture has a beautifully made art deco style throughout. From the vending machines, to the sick and twistedness you'll eventually discover, everything creates a entrancing, but terrifying world in this undersea city. For 6 years old and on a standard definition TV, it still looks amazing. I'm not sure how they did it, but other companies need to take a lesson here. This is how you make a game look good. Nothing looks flat, fake, or tacked on. Often there'd be a small detail on the wall I'd investigate to make sure it was nothing special.
Rather than being told through cutscenes constantly (even though a few do exist, they're very quick), most of the story is told through radio transmissions and audio diaries you find scattered throughout Rapture. This fantastically intertwines the story with the gameplay, so you're not taken out every few feet with exposition. While you're listening to the story, you can still explore, loot, pick up things, or even fight, as if you are Jack hearing segments of the history and people of Rapture. Once again, the story is beautiful and engrossing, but terrifying and sickening. Just..I can't say how good it is enough.
I hear you out there. Oz! Its a video game not a movie! Tell us about the game!
They took what I consider 2 tired genres (shooter and survival-horror) and combined them for something innovative and fresh. Rather than just having the traditional melee and gun selection, each gun has three different types of ammo you can find (or make) so you can situationally handle anything you find. But here's where it gets really fun. You also throughout the game find "Plasmids". Think super-mutant powers liked shooting lightning, telekinesis, setting things on fire, or even summoning a target dummy out of nowhere (worst super power ever). The wonderful thing is about the plasmids is they aren't overpowered. To limit plasmid use you have an "eve" (think mana) meter that depletes and must be refilled with Eve injections when you run out, making you have to adjust on the fly when the plasmid you had just isn't cutting it. The best part of all this is you can't kill something easily with just plasmids, or just guns. Through a balance of switching between the two, you have to defeat the deranged splicers that roam the depths of Rapture. The enemies are varied in their behavior and some plasmids will cut through some of the enemies like butter, and are much like a butterfly landing on their shoulder on others. You're constantly making new strategies and finding what works and what doesn't. It makes for a different approach to the classic shooter mechanic and makes this game a hell of a lot of fun to play.
So overall..do I have any gripes about this game? While I suck and was playing on easy, the final boss was a joke. You can literally sidestep all of his attacks. Seriously. That's the only thing wrong in this entire game.
So for the love of god if you call yourself a gamer and you haven't played it yet, play the first Bioshock. Its a fantastic horror adventure with great gameplay and a beautiful and entrhalling, yet darkly creepy and terrifying style, visually and story wise. The best part is? After you finish this one there's 2 and Infinite for you to play!
Shooting lightning bolts is fun!
-Oz
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