At the beginning of Bioshock, the player is whisked away to Rapture, a would-be Objectivist utopia on the ocean floor. But, like so many utopias, things went horribly wrong, and Rapture is now rotting underwater, inhabited by the last of its former citizens, who have modified their genetic codes so much as to be barely human. The player's task, at first, is simply to escape the city alive, using a combination of traditional weaponry (such as a machine gun, shotgun, and the ever-visceral wrench) and plasmids, gene-altering technology that bestows psychic powers.
Bioshock, like the city it supposes, is a searing flash of failed ambition. Time and again conservative design and conventional narrative choices belie the game's evident desire to reach something more important. Critics lauded the complex moral choices with which the game purportedly confronts the player, yet there is really only one such choice to be made (whether or not to kill the little girls who wander Rapture, thereby gaining more "plasmid fuel" for yourself), and it makes almost no difference in the overall gameplay. The progression of the game's story, rather than being affected by player choices, is basically inevitable. The game's conceit that there is moral conflict in its world would be strengthened if something more than just the brief ending cinema were affected by the player's actions.
It's clear that Bioshock wants to say something pointed, even powerful, about man's place in his own life and how much we may be in thrall to forces beyond our control, and this aspiration alone makes it somewhat unique among video games. But in the end, its own conservativism betrays its vision. Bioshock disappoints exactly because it could have been so much more.
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The worst thing about this game is that it's so fun it'll suck up all your time until you're done.
Bioshock is a compelling story that happens to be packaged as a game. It's also an homage to Ayn Rand unless I'm a complete fool. Bioshock is set in an undersea city called Rapture. Without giving away a lot of spoilers I'll cover the good and the bad.
The good: storytelling, storytelling, storytelling. Every bad feature in the game was completely overwhelmed by my need to find out what would happen next. The diaries scattered throughout the game (which are left by residents of Rapture now mostly deceased) really added to the overall immersion.
The bad: predictable monsters.
Bioshock isn't really about your mad skillz with hand/eye coordination. It's not about not dying. It's all about the vision of one man who built a city under the sea - a utopia that has gone mad. This game is GREAT because it makes you really want to explore Rapture and find out what is around the next corner. You will almost certainly not be bored with what you find.
"The worst thing about this game is that it's so fun it'll suck up all your time until you're done."
"This game is pretty good. It has a lot of originality and innovating things for a new game."
