Adventures in Ayn Rand Land

Not Another Retro Review!

It was the cover story of an issue of Game Informer from 2006 that first brought Bioshock to my attention. The fascinating and haunting image of a Big Daddy carrying a Little Sister, names I did not know yet. The article did its job, peaking my interest and exciting me enough to talk about it to friends. By that time in my life online competitive gaming was starting to lose its interest for me and an AAA game that was story driven and did not have multiplayer was not a red flag, but a green one.

Bioshock is 80% First Person Shooter and 20% RPG set in a steampunk city under the sea built by a man who would have called Ayn Rand a commie. You find yourself arriving in the middle of a civil war that is nearing its bitter end. The war is fought over precious resources (what else) and in this world that resource is Adam. Adam is a powerful substance harvested from sea slugs that act unstable stem cells, rewriting DNA to grant super powers, in this world 'Plasmids', or passive buffs, 'Gene Tonics'. The issue is that Adam can cause madness and addiction, thus making people easy to manipulate. The addicts turn into Splicers, the fodder for your FPS gameplay. They come in predictable but fun varieties. The basic splicer who carry revolvers and pipes, ones that crawl on walls and throw fishing hooks, some that teleport as a way to avoid attacks. There is enough variety in their design to keep it interested, for a little while, but it is their pained dialogue, yearning for unscarred features, quipy lines, lost lovers and friends, that fill Rapture with a haunting sense of regret masked by berserker aggression.

What makes Bioshock special is its unique (for 2007) gameplay loop. In the world of the game Adam can be harvested from Little Sisters, girls with a deep sea slug placed into their bellies. This grotesque procedure allows more Adam to be created and thus harvested. These children gather Adam from corpses they find in the city, a nightmarish effort created by to save money by Andrew Ryan, the visionary who brought these would be captains of industry to the bottom of the Atlantic. Sent to protect these Little Sister from the Splicers are the Big Daddies. Stomping around Rapture these diving suit clad behemoths bellow and follow the Little Sisters around dutifully. You will see a hallow eyed little girl stick a needle into a corpse and you will see a Big Daddy mere feet away.

Therein lies the rub. You want to get more powerful to dispatch Splicers quickly? You wan to beef up your health increase your Plasmid power range or effectiveness? You need Adam. And to get Adam you must get it from the Little Sisters and you do that by going through the Big Daddies.

The entire city was conceived and funded by a man named Andrew Ryan. Andrew Ryan is a caricature of an objectivist. I won’t go into detail about Ayn Rand and Objectivism here but suffice to say even if you disagree with Rand’s philosophy you must admin Andrew Ryan is…a big much. The civil war itself is between Andrew and a mobster pulled straight form a Bugs Bunny short, Frank Fontaine. Much isn't known about him or his origins in the game, save for an audio log or two. While the story is told, piecemeal, through environmental story telling and audio logs you get a pretty good idea of what is going on. I won't discuss the story much further as I think it is one of the best elements of the game and should be experienced.

When I got my hands on Bioshock I was impressed immediately. The art design and direction was nothing short of inspired. An Art Deco metropolis powered by impossible steam contraptions set fathoms below the surface of the Atlantic (somewhere near Iceland, if my memory does not fail me). Graphics age but design choices don’t, not really. And returning to rapture in the remaster reminds me of just how incredible the setting was. While the remaster did “modernize” the graphics it was 5 years after it was released I actually sat down and played it.

Even almost 20 years later the design of rapture is a great example of design and environmental story telling. If you dig deep enough you will know what this world was and who lived here before the civil war. You can see how naïve idealists were duped into this nightmare that would have given Captain Nemo pause.

The game play itself is dated but dated like the special effects from the Wizard of Oz is dated. Any update that would allow you to duel wield between your Plasmid power and a gun would break the game, a game that is already too easy.

If you are a veteran of Halo, Golden Eye, Call of Duty the gun play in Bioshock will pose no challenge. Though appropriate weapon variety and upgrades the weapons are a clear afterthought to the Plasmids which come in predictable sci-fi flavors. You got your electric power that lets you throw lightening, flame power that shots flames out of your hands, wind power that lets your throw enemies and ice powers. You also have a telekinetic power which is fun this allows you to catch grenades and rockets and send them back to the shooter. Where the game is at its most fun is when you use the environment to your advantage. Enemies standing in a shallow pool or water? Zap the water with a fist full of lightening. Puddle of fuel? Time for a BBQ. You can also modify the machines in an area to work for you instead of against you, security drones buzz around you opening fire on anything that wants to hurt you.

The guns are your standard fare as well. Era appropriate pistol, shotgun, Thompson sub-machine gun, etc… Your melee weapon is a pipe wrench which feels heavy when you swing it and heavier when it connects and a perfect choice for the setting, you have a Grenade launcher and a chemical thrower which allows you to shoot flames ,electrical gel and liquid nitrogen. Each weapon has can upgraded at an in game vending machine called ‘Power to the People’. Allowing for more ammo, ammo types, decreased kick back, more damage. Its all fun to use and modify and easy to get all modifications. You never have to choice or sacrifice. Rapture is lousy with money and loot from just about every combat encounter and in trash cans. Hell dying isn’t what it used to be. When you do die you are revitalized by a 'Vitachamber' for reasons better left unsaid.

Another resource you have to manage is money. This is a hyper capitalist dystopia so everything is for sell. You can buy ammo and other resources from vending machines all around each level. You can eve ‘hack’ the machines and get reduced prices by playing a bland “Pipe Deam” rip off. Some people hate that mechanic but I found it so boring I couldn’t muster anything beside indifference. If you fail a hack you are swarmed by these wonderfully designed Steampunk drones, helicopters with machine gun that rush to attack the would be thief.

Each level is varied without the trope of “Water level”, “Industrial Level”, “Scary Level”. You get to explore the world at your leisure and find resources and enemies to fight. You will meet a character, a luminary figure in Rapture that will test you in some way and will often act as a mini-boss. You help them or fight them and only a few are memorable.

Bioshock isn’t about the mini-bosses that help to flesh out the world! No its about fighting the big daddy for that sweet, sweet Adam. Bioshock was lauded at release for these optional boss fights and while still fun I find these fights lacking as time went on. First each level has one to two big daddy and little sister pairs. You can’t miss them and they will avoid you if you don’t get to close. There are two Big Daddy varieties: Bouncers and Rosies. The Roise is blockie and have a rivet run it will use at Range. Despite the relative size of the Big Daddy he is nimble and will send rivet after rivet down range directly at you. The other more iconic version is the Bouncer. He is fast and does not have a ranged weapon. So he stomps, shouts and comes at you like freight train, his drill spinning. While intimidating, both versions, with a modicum of preparation you can make quick work as their tactics don’t change much from encounter to encounter. And late in the game, you rich on Plasmids, modified guns and expirience taking about a Big Daddy just takes longer, not harder.

Bioshock employs a simple morality mechanic. You will need to deal with the little sister but early in the game, well before you cam choose to pick a fight with a Big Daddy you are given the means to rescue the little sister instead of killing her. The story reason is about as simple as the mechanic itself. You are supposed to be punished for your heart, given less Adam per encounter if you choose to rescue instead of kill. Later in the game, however, for your mercy you are rewarded with extra Adam. It feels like a cop out.

The remaster is good and doesn't do much aside from improving the graphics, making them sharper. The remaster does come with the sequels and their DLC and is worth the money to get it (Reviews for the other Bioshock games will come out in due time).

Bioshock's ending has not gotten better with time as it was famously bad when it was new. A game that blazed so many trails ends in a boss battle that feels overstuffed, tacked on, and uninventive.

Bioshock was an excellent game and time has only dimmed to merely a Great game, able to stand toe-to-toe with any modern FPS shooter. Where it truly comes up short is only because they sacrificed for player engagement. The creators wanted you to enjoy the game play and the story and I can’t really blame them for that. This game blazed trails that other games continued and for that alone I think it is worthy of praise. You get more than that with this game you get a lot of fun as well.