Bioshock

Ive found myself in an odd position today. Boishock is the first game I have played which I really do not like, but think is a great game. While I have found this many a time with films, I had until now never thought it was possible to not like a game, but think its a very good game.

A game in essence should entertain you, keep you challenged and make it an enjoyable experience. I have never been able to play Gears of War for more than 30 minutes at a time because it does none of the above. So how does Bioshock do this?

WARNING SPOILERS:

Bioshock to begin with seems like the box standard First person Shooter (FPS). You begin the game on a plane and a standard scripted even begins: The plane crashes, and you survive (surprising that isn't it?). And as you swim around the wreckage a hugh tower appears out of the sea. This immediately got my attention, as an experienced mariner this was novel:

Upon walking up the steps, you enter a "lift" that transports you down into an underwater city, where you are shown a video explaining the basic concept/reason for why the city was build: Independence. "The sweat on a mans brow should be his own" Communism says its the states, Republics say it belongs to the poor, the church says it belongs to god etc. And your presented with what seems like a grand hidden city called Rapture.

Only upon entering this underwater city, do you realize its a ruin. Right from the start you have a guide via a short wave radio you find called Atlas who has his wife and kids stuck in a submarine trying to escape, and he needs you help. All the population except a certain few have been turned into "splicers" which are humans that appear to have forgotten who they are and essentially have been genetically altered. They do not regard you as "One of us" and therefore attack you at all times, this is all linked to a substance called ADAM. Atlas then implores you to use a substance called EVE. You do so and your genetic code begins to be re-written and bingo! You can fire electricity out of your hand to stun enemies...and then kill them with a wrench.

By this point I realized this may not be the box standard FPS I was expecting, and it was also set in the 1950, with all the styling and weapons to go with it (tommy gun etc). So as you move thought the game you find diaries of the people who used to live there, and you begin to put together what happened through little glimpses of information. You slowly but surly help Atlas in his quest to help his Wife and kid who are in this submarine. Then came a big part of the game. Through the wall pops a big daddy (see the box cover at the top). These big daddies normally are protecting a little girl who is collecting ADAM, so now the big daddy is dead, one of the splicers is trying to kill the little girl. Once the splicer is dealt with Atlas implores you to kill the little girl and harvest the ADAM from her (hang of wasn't a lack of ADAM what drove every one mad and turned them into splicers?). Then a woman runs in and begs you not to kill the girl but to free her. So you had the chose, kill the girl or free her. I though this was a no brainer; free the girl. But this was one of the parts that really got to me: Atlas screaming at you that "Its not a little girl any more: kill it". Has this crossed the line?

Anyways: You eventually get to the point where your at the submarine and Andrew Ryan (who created the city and you have listened to some of his diaries) gets in contact with you over the radio. Ryan destroys the Submarine and Atlas's Wife and kid. So the next task is to get Ryan. You again continue getting more tasks to do and levels to move though, one that stood out was the entertainer level. But this part for me just seemed to drag out and went on and on, and I seriously considered moving the difficulty from hard to easy just to get though it quicker.

You eventually get to Ryan and this part for me was the best part of the game. Ryan is obviously a philosopher of sorts and realizes your under the direction of someone else and says to you "A slave obeys, but a man can choose" and to make his point; lets you kill him, when it was well within his ability to stop you. This is where you find out Atlas, isn't atlas, and he has been able to directly control you. So next objective: Kill Atlas and more tasks and finding more abilities.

Not everything in the game is mentioned above, and there is allot more depth. So does it do the three things I think a game should have? Well; yes it did. It entertained me, challenged me and it did make it enjoyable. But I think the reason I don't like the game is because of the way it did it.

• It challenged me, not by having to think, but by taking me out of my comfort area and making me decide whether I should kill a little girl or not, and who to trust
• It entertained me by the whole notion of an underwater world, and finding out what happened by having to play more.
• Enjoyable, It was enjoyable to play because of the satisfaction when you finally took down the Big daddy, or got another power to try out.

8/10 - GK