Bioshock is a major showcase of how immersive a game can get when the proper attention to detail is given
The game takes place in Rapture, an underwater city. However, simply qualifying Rapture as a group of buildings located somewhere under the weight of the Atlantic's waters is failing to give credit to its conception, because it would be hard to find a videogame location or universe that has been developed and constructed in the detailed way Rapture has. What is amazing here is not how bricks and steel foundations have come together to create this engineering marvel, but how the history of Rapture and the complex web of political relationships that led to its ultimate demise are revealed to players throughout the game. There is no location without a backstory, there is no object of importance without a solid tale to tell and there is no character roaming the dark corridors of the city who is devoid of the human spirit, something that makes us all neither good nor bad, but simply a product of our surroundings. Rapture may seem dormant at the bottom of the sea, but by the time you start digging through its remnants, they will reveal a city that is alive like no other.
Rapture was the product of the mind of Andrew Ryan, a magnate who when in conflict with the government over one of his most valuable inventions, decided that he had to build a place where brilliant scientists and important figures of society could create and experiment without the oppression of the world's political leaders, and he found the perfect location for his city under the Atlantic ocean. Sadly, his supposedly utopia would eventually tumble down due to a huge number of factors including the isolation of Rapture's society from the rest of the world and Ryan's overly authoritarian decision's as Rapture's most prominent political figure. This series of events would lead to a devastating civil war fought between Ryan's forces and a group of rebels powered by the discovery of ADAM, a special kind of stem cell that when injected in humans brings them supernatural powers.
Players will enter the scene not too long after Rapture's social fabric has been completely torn apart. The game will begin as Jack, a man on a plane, reads a letter containing instructions demanding the opening of a mysterious box when the plane reaches certain coordinates. He does so only to find a gun, in the following seconds the plane crashes at sea and Jack awakes right before drowning to discover an impressive lighthouse standing alone in the middle of the ocean with the letter "R" marked all over its steel foundation. With nowhere to go Jack enters the lighthouse and finds a bathysphere that when activated starts going down towards the sea bottom as Andrew Ryan delivers a pompous speech introducing visitors to the supposedly wonderful paradise that Rapture is. As Jack looks out the window he sees huge buildings squeezed together under the water like a shining promising metropolis in the middle of a lifeless desert of water. Little does he know that Rapture is not what it looks like.
From the get go Bioshock hits players with its welcome card and introduces us to its unique pacing: an intriguing mix of Resident Evil's constant tension and fear, Metroid Prime's ability to involve gamers in its storytelling and the action found in great traditional shooters. Upon arriving in Rapture, Jack is contacted by Atlas, one of the few remaining rebels that remains alive and with enough will to stand up against Ryan's dictatorship, who tells Jack they could help each other as Atlas can help Jack stay alive in the deadly land that Rapture has become and Jack could help Atlas rescue his family. However, Jack's bathysphere is suddenly attacked by an inhabitant of Rapture that, falling victim to an addiction to ADAM due to the arms race of the civil war, has become an aggressive half-human half-zombie figure called splicer. As he bangs against the metal surface of the bathysphere, players have to helplessly try to avoid its attack, and Bioshock shows its sharp claws for the very first time.
Throughout the game players will visit a large number of locations within Rapture, as Jack faces many detours in his quest to find Atlas' family and get to Andrew Ryan. Within each location, besides an abundance of dangerous enemies, Jack will come across important figures on the Rapture political scene, some of which will be willing to aid him in his quest and others who have gone completely mad due to isolation from the outside world, intense consumption of ADAM or uncontrollable narcissism allowed by the extreme freedom of any important social laws Ryan gave his most prominent scientists and guests when they entered into Rapture. Everything contributes in making Bioshock an extremely intense experience, as Jack will be constantly receiving threats, dealing with absolute maniacs with uncanny intellectual abilities and navigating through a city that has been visibly destroyed, abandoned and corrupted by ambition. It is hard to tell what is going to be around the next corner, it could be a horde of enemies, a surveillance camera, a deadly trap, a wrecked apartment, a wicked theater or a beat down hospital; it is something that keeps players on their toes and immerses them even further into the world of Rapture.
To top off this amazing layer of presentation, the game has a very unique and effective way of telling its story. While people who communicate or threaten Jack via radio will be concerned with what is going on in the present, Jack will come across many audio recordings lying around Rapture's diverse locations. Those recordings can be picked up and played without any pause to the action so that a character of certain importance will give us a insider's glimpse not only of the location Jack is currently in, but also of the many events that happened in Rapture before his arrival, knitting an amazing web of political disputes and human behavior while adding a deep background to pretty much everything you see and feel. Bioshock is not a game that can be partially experienced, it requires players to dive into its world, and it helps them by providing quite a deep pool of information to be explored. Finding the diary entries is completely optional, but the plot they trace is so interesting that it will basically force players to explore equally optional locations only to make sure they didn't miss a key recording.
In order to face so many dangers, Jack will lean on a remarkably varied arsenal. The game offers a wrench for physical combat; a traditional pistol; a shotgun; a machine gun; a rocket launcher; a bow; and even a camera so that Jack can take pictures of different enemies to research their weaknesses and learn more about their behavior in battle, earning bonuses that will make fighting tough enemies an easier affair. All guns feature different kinds of ammo, ranging from bullets that set enemies on fire to capsules that better penetrate armored foes. However, ammo is very scarce, so learning how to use all guns effectively – even the surprisingly powerful wrench - will be key to surviving in Rapture. What sets Bioshock apart from other games of its genre, though, are the plasmids, substances developed with ADAM that give Jack a unique array of powers such as a paralyzing electric bolt, telekinesis, hypnotizing enemies, enraging splicers so that they will fight each other and much, much more. The list of powers goes on and on, and no amount of hours would be enough to try all combinations. Switching between plasmids and guns is pretty simple as guns are all mapped to the numeric keys of the keyboard while plasmids are all located on the function keys. It is a seamless exchange that once mastered helps a lot in more intense combats.
Of all the enemies Jack will encounter on his journey through Rapture, the most iconic ones are the Big Daddy and Little Sister. The mighty duo was created due to the war's increasing need for ADAM. Researchers found out that by incubating the cells within young girls, they could radically increase their production of this important weapon in the civil war. Therefore, young girls around Rapture were captured by scientists and turned into ADAM-collecting mindless beings who are protected by a genetically modified human wearing a powerful diving suit while they collect ADAM from corpses. Each level has a certain number of Little Sisters roaming around and defeating the mighty Big Daddies, while optional, becomes an important matter as Little Sisters can be either rescued from their zombie-like state or harvested, a decision that will account for different amounts of ADAM, and impact the game's ending. The ADAM can be used to upgrade your plasmids; acquire new slots for plasmids or physical abilities; or simply buy health upgrades or new powers. It is hard to find a shooter that gives players so many options to upgrade their powers and weapons in order to find new ways to fight, but Bioshock does it very well, giving players as much customization powers as they would find on good RPG.
Bioshock is not without its issues, though. The game's structure can get a little bit repetitive as the game progresses. Although Jack will be constantly going into new scenarios and discovering more about their backstory, it is hard to deny that all of the game's levels are structured in very similar ways, always making Jack explore the whole area amidst fighting a bunch of splicers so he can find a few useful tools that will allow him to progress. Even though combat is varied, there is little to no deviation from the game's initial gameplay, Bioshock never takes a leap towards new grounds within its defined structure, and it hurts the game overall. The second, and possibly only other problem, is how the ending falls like a huge thud. By the time the curtain closes, it is possible to see how the game's ending could have moved us in a number of ways, but it just fails to do so, which ends up pointing out a big failure on how the game built up to its final stretch. Bioshock's writing is, overall, absolutely stellar, but it stumbles on its crucial final minutes.
If there is one area where the game features no issues, it has got to be its technical department. Rapture's integrity goes beyond the development of its best and extends into the consistency of its visuals. The city is an unforeseeable blend of the advanced technology required to build something this big under the sea with a dystopian look, combining art-deco architecture and objects of the late fifties and early sixties. It is a cohesive statement on how the gaming industry has some of the best and most daring artists in the world under its ranks. When it comes to sound, Bioshock stands out in its sound effects, which heavily contribute to its dense atmosphere, as the background is filled with noises of air, clanking steel and even the occasional sound of sea animals swimming by.
Ultimately, Bioshock is a major showcase of how immersive a game can get when the proper attention to detail is given. Rapture wraps players in its arms and takes them to the bottom of the sea to a society where the supposedly best humans in the planet have ended up showing the worst possible characteristics of the human species. It features twelve hours of intense gameplay, great storytelling and good character development, its gameplay may get a little bit repetitive at some points, but exploring Rapture and finding new details of its history will never get tiring.