Bioshock – Present Perfect Gaming

Contents

The Intro

The Game

The Replay

The Verdict

The Intro

Title: Bioshock

Release year: 2007

Developed by: 2K Boston / 2K Australia

Genre: first-person shooter (FPS)

Platform replayed on: PC

Would you kindly…?

Those three memorable words still haunt me to this day, just as much as they did back in 2007 when Bioshock was released, now almost seventeen years ago.

For those that know Bioshock, those three words will instantly conjure memories of playing not just another first-person shooter, but memories of exploring a utopian vision of a city under the sea gone horribly wrong. A city called Rapture.

Those three words have become synonymous with Bioshock.

And since taking those first few tentative steps in Rapture way back when Bioshock first released, the game and the series (Bioshock 2 came out in 2010, and Bioshock Infinite came out in 2013) have become one of my all-time favourites.

And I’m not even a big first-person shooter fan.

So how did the original Bioshock enrapture me, and why does it keep calling me back?

Would you kindly read on, and join me as I step back into Rapture to find out…

The Game

Bioshock begins aboard a passenger plane, flying over the mid-Atlantic in 1960. You join the protagonist, Jack, as he looks over a family photo in his wallet.

Jack looks over a gift from his parents, as yet unwrapped. Seconds later, the plane is going down. Jack resurfaces amid the debris, and looks up upon a foreboding lighthouse, backlit by a full moon.

Jack wades through the water to reach the apparent safety of the lighthouse, and takes his first step into Rapture…

What Jack discovers deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean is an underwater city, the brainchild of industrialist Andrew Ryan. Ryan had envisioned a utopia where scientists, artists, and fellow industrialists and visionaries could be free from government interference and religion.

However, Jack discovers Rapture in ruins, the result of a civil war sparked due to a power struggle between Ryan and the leader of an opposing faction, Frank Fontaine.

Jack is kept alive in Rapture by a man named Atlas, who communicates with Jack via shortwave radio. You see, Rapture is not a safe place.

The gameplay in Bioshock and the story seamlessly integrate as you explore and fight for survival in this once mighty underwater fortress. Rapture is inhabited by seemingly-crazed residents, hellbent on killing Jack on sight.

You soon learn what is behind this behaviour, as Jack finds a mysterious syringe and suddenly plunges it into his veins.

Jack has injected what is known in Bioshock as a plasmid—a serum providing superhuman powers. The first of which is the ability to hurl lightning.

You uncover many more of these plasmids in Bioshock, allowing you to perform feats with fire, telekinesis, and even insect swarms.

There is a traditional first-person shooter arsenal of weapons also available, and playing Bioshock becomes a balance of combining traditional firepower with plasmids effectively.

But using plasmids has a cost, just like ammunition. To keep using these super powers, Jack needs to keep injecting himself with another serum called EVE.

Acquiring more plasmids, as well as upgrading them, requires the gene-altering substance known as ADAM, one of the scientific discoveries made within the depths of Rapture.

And here is where we come back to the crazed residents of Rapture. The discovery of ADAM, and its potential to create super beings, led to high demand and addiction among the populace.

The subsequent civil war that broke out was fought with both sides using plasmid-enhanced humans known as “splicers”.

To escape Rapture, Jack must venture through various levels of Rapture, many of which are controlled by the scientists, doctors, and artists once brought here to help Rapture flourish.

Security in Rapture is also very tight, so you often find Jack needing to avoid security bots and weapons turrets.

Fortunately, there’s a way in Bioshock to turn the odds in Jack’s favour: hacking.

Hacking security bots, security cameras, weapons turrets, as well as doors and safes, is a minigame within Bioshock. You need to quickly manipulate tiles on a grid to create a path for a liquid to flow through to complete the hack.

Hacking the security in Rapture will allow it to aid you instead of hindering you. Security cameras will now target splicers, sending security bots to attack for you, just as hacked weapons turrets will also.

You can also hack the various vending machines around Rapture, allowing discounts on health items and ammunition.

Further turning the odds in Jack’s favour, it’s not just plasmids that ADAM is useful for, as you can also upgrade Jack with gene tonics. These tonics provide Jack with passive boosts to his offensive and defensive capabilities, his hacking and machine skills, and his physique.

The narrative in Bioshock is often delivered via the shortwave radio Jack picked up when he entered Rapture. Often, it’s Atlas navigating Jack through the various levels of Rapture.

Other times, some of the residents pick up on Jack’s signal and communicate to him, for better or worse.

Jack also finds audio diaries littered all around Rapture, which provide the back story and context of the downfall. These diaries are time capsules, giving voice to those on both sides of the struggle capturing the events leading to the failure of the Rapture social experiment.

Bioshock features a deep and thought-provoking narrative, so having the story told via conversations and audio messages also keeps the game moving, avoiding the need to stop and read through large amounts of text.

Jack has a lot to deal with as he is guided through Rapture by Atlas, with the splicers attacking him at every opportunity, the genetic mutations coursing through his veins, and the aftermath of the power struggle between Ryan and Fontaine on display all around him.

However, with all that is going on around Jack in Rapture, there is one unnerving question lying just beneath the surface.

Who is Jack?

The Replay

We last left Jack just as he had injected the Electro Bolt plasmid into his arm.

Atlas doesn’t seem disturbed by this, and merely tells Jack to hold on while his genetic code is rewritten. However, he later explains how plasmids changed everything in Rapture—destroying bodies, and destroying minds.

But that’s not what immediately concerns Atlas, as he’s hoping Jack can reach and rescue his wife and son. To do that, he’ll need to get to Neptune’s Bounty, a port complex in Rapture.

In a relative moment of calm, as Jack is led towards the exit to Neptune’s Bounty, the haunting reality of Rapture is laid bare.

Jack also starts seeing ghosts of former residents of Rapture.

Bioshock is a creepy experience, with moments of suspense and horror raising anxiety levels, as well as begging the question of just what happened down in the depths of Rapture.

But for all the mysteries lurking around each leaky corner of Rapture, nothing in Bioshock quite prepares you for the encounters with the Little Sisters.

Atlas instructs Jack not to be fooled, and that these Little Sisters are not the innocent little girls they appear to be. Little Sisters had been genetically modified and mentally conditioned to harvest ADAM from corpses around Rapture. This was due to the populace’s ADAM addiction, and the use of ADAM in creating the armies of splicers used in the civil war.

As the Little Sisters carry harvested ADAM around Rapture, this naturally makes them a target. This is where the Big Daddies come in.

This first encounter with a Little Sister and her bodyguard Big Daddy foreshadows an inevitable showdown, but for now, Jack has bigger problems. Andrew Ryan has become aware of his existence in Rapture.

With the exit to Neptune’s Bounty now locked down, Jack will need to find a way out. That way out is through the Medical Pavilion. And Dr Steinman.

Steinman has a key to override the lockdown to Neptune’s Bounty. Unfortunately, like many in Rapture, Steinman has devolved into depravity.

A plastic surgeon, Steinman became obsessed with perfection. With the freedom from ethical and moral boundaries Rapture provided, he began to experiment.

It’s a disturbing exploration of a mad man’s psyche, and as you play through Bioshock, these diversions serve to provide the context within which Rapture collapsed.

Steinman wasn’t the only doctor in Rapture to influence its demise, as Jack soon encounters Dr Tenenbaum.

Tenenbaum is connected with the Little Sisters. She is trying to protect one as Jack stumbles upon a ravenous slicer thinking there’s some easy ADAM on offer without a Big Daddy protector around.

Tenenbaum takes out the splicer, and threatens that Jack will be next if he hurts the Little Sister. Tenenbaum then provides Jack with a plasmid which will allow him to free the Little Sisters from their genetic modification and mental conditioning.

From this point on in Bioshock, you will have a choice whenever you encounter a Little Sister. You can either harvest them, receiving more ADAM, or rescue them, and be rewarded by Tenenbaum.

There is a lot of freedom available in play styles in Bioshock, due to the options and combinations with weapons, plasmids, and tonics, but there is little agency with the story. The choice to harvest or rescue Little Sisters is one way which does influence the ending.

Of course, future encounters with Little Sisters will also mean getting through their Big Daddies.

Each level in Bioshock contains a fixed number of Little Sisters, and it’s also optional whether or not you engage. Without engaging though, you won’t get the access to the ADAM needed to further upgrade Jack.

Entering Neptune’s Bounty introduces another optional gameplay element in Bioshock which can influence your play style. To get access to it though, it also requires negotiating with another mercurial Rapture resident.

A paranoid smuggler hiding out in Fontaine Fisheries by the name of Peach Wilkins wants Jack to acquire a research camera for him, and also to take some shots of what are known as spider splicers. Doing so will allow Jack passage through Fontaine Fisheries, and ever closer to the rendezvous with Atlas.

Jack keeps the research camera, and from then on in Bioshock you can take photos of the splicers, Big Daddies, Little Sisters, and even security bots. Doing so earns you research progress on the target within shot. The better the shot, the higher the progress made, and the faster you will achieve bonuses against your targets.

Like the hacking minigame, it’s entirely optional in Bioshock whether you take research photos throughout Rapture. But like hacking, it’s incredibly addictive, and just as thrilling. It’s nerve wracking as you quickly whip out the research camera to take an action shot of a splicer or Big Daddy charging at you before quickly switching to your plasmid or weapon to deal with the threat.

Cutting through Fontaine Fisheries, Jack can finally see Atlas, as he stands outside a bathysphere containing his wife and son.

Without spoiling too much, things don’t quite go to plan, while Ryan radios in and ponders Jack’s presence in Rapture.

A change in plan from Atlas moves Jack onto a collision course with Andrew Ryan himself. But getting there won’t be easy, with another lockdown, another madman, and a bomb to build awaiting Jack.

After the fast-paced introduction to Rapture reached its climax, the next part of Bioshock slows things down, for better or worse.

Ryan locks Jack down again, this time in Arcadia, an experimental forest and botanical garden. Ryan has injected a herbicide into the area, reducing oxygen levels by killing the plant life, and as such triggering the lockdown.

Jack must work with resident botanist Julie Langford to build what’s known as the Lazarus Vector, a chemical solution which would revive the plant life in Arcadia.

This mission in Bioshock is a bit drawn out, requiring Jack to hunt down a list of ingredients. It’s a bit repetitive from a gameplay perspective, but narratively it’s important as Jack uncovers more about ADAM and his ever-present radio guide, Atlas.

Jack escapes the lockdown, but Ryan continues to torment him.

But Jack is getting closer. That is, until he meets Sander Cohen.

It’s yet another Lockdown situation, as Sander Cohen has his own plans for Jack in Fort Frolic—Rapture’s entertainment district.

Sander Cohen, an eccentric artist, ran Fort Frolic for Ryan. However, Atlas describes him as a lunatic and a psychopath. And this is soon proven to be true, as Cohen won’t let Jack leave without helping him complete his “masterpiece”.

Cohen has also blocked all radio transmissions, so there’s no more Atlas and Ryan for a while.

Just a madman and his moth, as Cohen refers to Jack.

It’s a truly macabre experience, as in order to complete Cohen’s masterpiece, Jack must take photos of Cohen’s deceased disciples, and display them.

This is another level in Bioshock which doesn’t contribute much to the overall narrative, but further deepens understanding of the level of depravity found festering in Rapture.

Satisfying Cohen’s extravagant and insatiable lust for revenge, Jack is allowed to leave Fort Frolic.

Atlas then brings Jack ever closer to the endgame: to kill Andrew Ryan.

But Andrew Ryan isn’t about to just let Jack walk through the door.

So it’s time to build that bomb.

Like scavenging for the ingredients for the Lazarus Vector in Arcadia, scrounging for bomb parts around Hephaestus, home of the Hephaestus Power Facility, got a little tedious. At one point, I actually got stuck looking for the final piece.

I also think that as a player you know Andrew Ryan is so close once you reach Hephaestus, the motivation to run around another level of Rapture facing the same splicers, Big Daddies, and security systems is not there. This is one section of Bioshock where I felt the pacing was slightly off, as you can feel the tension rising as you enter Hephaestus, only to be slowed down with another hunt and gather mission.

Completing the mission, building the bomb, and taking out the power core of Hephaestus is worth it though.

Ryan knows Jack has arrived, now seemingly resigned to the fact he’s been caught.

But rather than cowering in a corner, Jack finds Ryan calmly putting golf balls in his office.

Perhaps not quite the introduction one might have expected, if playing Bioshock for the first time. But whether or not it’s your first time or your fifth time playing Bioshock, coming face to face with Andrew Ryan, founder of Rapture, is intimidating.

However, in the end, he’s just a man.

This is not the end of Bioshock, but it is the end of part one of this retro replay on Present Perfect Gaming. I’ll wrap up the replay and deliver my verdict in part two.

Would you kindly stay tuned?

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