Review: Bioshock – Honestly, Who Builds A City BENEATH Sea Level?

Around a year ago, the 360 and PC guys on some of the forums I visited starting having this werid fever – which caused bioshocks over the course of the next 2 months. I asked them ‘WHAT THE **** IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE’, and I got a link to a gameplay video in return. When Bioshock was launched, I hugged my Big Daddy statue – kissed my embossed box and put the dual-layered DVD in my box. 

One year later and here I sat, with controller in hand, sat in front of a different machine – my big black beast. I was just watcing the game install, and I decided to write this very paragraph in that 7 minutes. If you don’t know what the hell Bioshock is, it’s the story of Andrew Ryan – a man with a dream to build an underwater utopia – he did this and he got more than he bargained for: genetic modification.

Oh nice it’s almost installed, anyway they found this slug at the bottom of the sea – and turned it into this big bottle of fluid you jam into your wrist called Eve, or into Adam – which was used as a currency for the city until it… was betrayed – by it’s own citizens, and even Ryan himself. I can’t spoil this damn thing, but I’ll go into depth of the story near the end. 

Hmmm…. installed…. I’ll get back to you guys after a week or two – we’ll see, I’m off to go ‘survive Bioshock’, I’ll send postcards while I’m on holiday in Rapture guys, don’t worry about me!

Back, lol, even though it seemed 1.3 seconds for you, it seemed like a year for me.. First of all I made the mistake of my life and put it on Survivor and decided to turn the vita chambers off – oh joy. After clambering into Bioshock and travelled down the sub, a few thoughts ran through my head. How can a game that scored over 120 Game of the year awards, a BAFTA and even a future film get any better? Oh yes it can. 

For starters, the plasmids and weaponary seem to work better on the PS3 – a quick selection and a hammer of the right trigger, make you spray lead, and the left trigger makes you shock that daddy to death or make someone’s best friend maul them to death. The controls somewhat feel slightly… ‘tight’, because of the SIXAXIS, it’s also a bit werid to be hammering down on R2 – I prefer R1 anyday, but 2K thought we’d be better of hammering those mountains. 

Bioshock belongs on my ‘games to remember’ list, it’s probably one of the best games ever made too – at the time of it’s launch – Halo 3 was a month away and we were getting clunked up FPSs like hot cakes – then Bioshock came along and whipped them to death. The atmosphere, the art, the story, the gameplay, the voice talent and even the damn cats are top notch. Bioshock did more than define a year – it defined the morality of videogames. 

A small little choice can make a big difference, right? There are things called Big Daddies – who roam the halls of Rapture and help protect the ‘little sisters’, twisted little girls who are forced to put syringes into bodies and drink the blood, for only one purpose – power! These sisters don’t get toys, they get adam – which grants genetic modification. Only by defeating these daddies can you get yor hands on the girls, and bloody hell…. on survivor mode, without vitas, it’s like pulling your teeth out with leprechauns. 

After beating the daddy to death, you grab the girls and get the choice, a choice to kill or save. Killings grants you more adam, but a consequence later on, while saving gives you a little sweet thank you and less adam – but a giant reward awaits… these little choices aren’t just on the little sisters, they’re everywhere and anywhere – from birdmen to Sander Cohen.

So, let me round this off with a comment on the story – Bioshock is deeper than the sea Rapture was built in, it goes beyond the laws of video games and at some points, storytelling. I cannot possibly think of a better story in videogaming, we all thought Metal Gearz was as good as it was gonna get, well… BOOM HEADSHOT.