Amnesia

*warning contains spoilers of the video game*

I finished Bioshock last night at 2 a.m. My initial thoughts relative to the game are these:

a.) While I was happy with most of the game mechanics and overall story, I was terribly disappointed with the ending fight.
b.) This is one of those games that you don’t play in the dark.
c.) Barring a few fixes with the main themes of the game, Bioshock 2 (if there is one) should be amazing, although the “good ending” of the game, leaves little room for a sequel.

The world is beautiful, mysterious and deadly. A very wealthy man decides he has no room for traditional government any longer and builds an Anarchist’s paradise below the sea. Although the game is supposed to take place in the 1950’s, the scenery is rich in color and reminiscent of decor and art of the 1920’s and 1930’s where sin and sex was rampant and society balked at the idea of prohibition.  

The opening scene is a suspicious plane crash that has you swimming towards an odd looking oasis in the middle of the night. Instead of looking for a radio or some way to call for help, you get in an odd contraption which takes you to the bottom of the sea.

As you exit your submarine into ruined darkness of what used to be called “Rapture”; angry and bitter masked monstrosities greet your path and must be taken down.  You find out that freedom from normal top-side rules allowed doctors to practice their craft and manipulate the human body without consequence. From the first look, you realize that messing with DNA in such a way, has had disastrous consequences.  

Through radio communications with a man named Atlas, you are persuaded through various stories, that Andrew Ryan, the man who built this underwater city needs to be stopped. While welcoming those who would join in his paradise, he will not let anyone leave, branding them traitors.

After injecting yourself with a blue substance called an EVE hypo that just happens to be lying around, you find that you are now able to ingest colorful bottles called ‘plasmids’ that give you amazing powers. Through the game, you find and are often times given these abilities, some of which let you freeze your enemies, burn them, electrocute, send a swarm of insects, and/or wrap them up in tornado winds. With the various weaponry you pick up through the game, you are suddenly a one man army. While I found the plasmid powers to be useful at some turns, I heavily relied on the tradition weapons given throughout the game; (i.e. pistol, crossbow, flame thrower). Ammo was constantly short, but I actually found the weaponry more effective against the inhabitants than your jacked-up DNA.

Atlas leads you through different parts of the city on the quest to dispatch Andrew Ryan, claiming that his family has been held in an submarine that is not being allowed to launch. Wanting to be the hero, I followed every single twist and turn, and hoped for my own survival in the process. Free the family=free myself from this hellhole.

As you can imagine, something goes terribly wrong with the launch and Andrew Ryan destroys the submarine holding Atlas’ family. In a heart breaking turn of events, you are sent running by Atlas, who’s shocked, mournful and angry voice tells you to get out of there and kill Ryan as revenge.

With little subplots that have you running from one end of the complex to the other in order to advance, there are definitely some well timed scares. The one that made me get up and walk away until I could control my heart again, was that I was rummaging through a desk looking for more blue syringes, and first aid packs, when I turned around and had a murderous doctor standing behind me with a large weapon. Had he been yelling as he approached would have been expected, but to turn the 1st person camera into a facade of quiet craziness, there was a split second where I think my heart actually stopped, until I fired my shotgun into his face.

The two other characters that ultimately dictate which ending of the two you’ll get at the game’s conclusion are the gargantuan “Big Daddies” (the mechanical diving suit-thingy on the Bioshock cover)  who protect red-eyed, genetically spliced little girls known as ”Little Sisters”. Once you dispatch those bodyguards, you have an option to harvest the little girl or to rescue her. Harvesting gives you more ADAM, which allows you to buy more plasmids or slots in which to hold your new powers, but ultimately kills the girl. Rescuing them, doesn’t give you nearly as much ADAM, but as I found out, tends to balance out in the end of the game.

Don’t listen to me though, I could be completely betraying you on this. You should really make up your own mind with what you want to do…you’ll certainly have alot of influence from the main players of the game.

While I’ll leave most of the plot points from here for anyone who hasn’t played it, I must say, that the end battle pretty much sucked. I found it easier to dispatch of the end villain than some of the ’splicers’ you meet throughout the game. While I thought it would be a bigger battle, or one that heavily relied on your plasmids, it really turns out to be a shooter in the end. In fact, had I used the plasmids through the battle, I probably wouldn’t have beaten the guy on the first try.

Regardless, I do think you should try the game. It does have some great cinematic game play, along with a great story. The only thing that it’s lacking is a decent balance on the shooter aspect at endgame.

3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

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