Review of Bioshock (Remastered)
85/100
TL;DR: fantastic shooter, but tripped over its own message.
Synopsis: a man who suffers a plane crash, and must swim to a nearby lighthouse to survive. After reaching the lighthouse, he travels to an underwater city called Rapture which has a blend of Randian, steampunk, and 50s aesthetic which is very charming.
At the beginning of the game, you will notice many allusions to a man named Andrew Ryan, who serves as the main antagonist for most of the game. He is a parody of the objectivist hero John Galt, a man who also fled his country to build a city away from everybody else. A very memorable opening - one of the best, in my opinion.
Upon entering the city, you pick up a radio that connects you to your guide - a man named Atlas, who is kind of like an Irish Richard Spencer, but without the egomania and racism. Eventually, it is revealed to you that you can use genetic modifications to give yourself magical powers if you have ADAM, which must be taken from beings called ‘Little Sisters’, which are protected by these incredibly powerful creatures called ‘Big Daddies’. You can either harvest the little sisters or kill them - harvesting gives you the “bad end”, while killing gives you the “good end”.
As you waddle through the city, it is obvious that things have gone incredibly wrong. Everybody has destroyed their bodies with genetic engineering and plastic surgery, turning them into psychotic zombies (called splicers) who want to kill you. Everybody else seems to have either left or died. While this may seem unrealistic at first, but the adoption seems to have accelerated due to pressure of war, which seems more realistic to me. The criticism of objectivism is implicit — deregulation and technological acceleration have damaged human health and corrupted society as a whole, resulting in a collapse.
Atlas asks you to reach his family, and you fight through some splicers to get there, only for the capsule holding his family to explode at Andrew Ryan’s command. Atlas then directs you to personally kill Andrew Ryan. After lots of shuffling around the city, you finally meet him. With a twist of course: he is your father, and he tells you that Atlas is controlling you by using the activation phrase ‘Would you kindly’. After this, he makes you realize you are just a slave, by commanding you to kill him.
“A man choses. A slave obeys.” - Andrew Ryan
At first I thought this scene was really cheap, but after consulting with other people online, I can now see the genius in the scene. Andrew Ryan believes in freedom like any objectivist, after all, he founded Rapture in an effort to actualize these ideals. After Rapture’s failure, the only way he can stay true to those ideals is to make himself the man, and you the slave.
After this, Atlas reveals to you he is Frank Fontaine - an old legend who revolted against Andrew Ryan, and used you as a tool to kill him in revenge. The “rescue the family” operation was apparently a con used to manipulate you — a plot hole. Why would he need to do that if he could just manipulate you like a marionette with his little phrase?
Later, you meet with Tenenbaum, who eases Fontaine’/Atlas’ control over you, convinces you to become a big daddy (a monster)… To kill Atlas in revenge.
…Excuse me?
That undermines the theme/message of freedom the series is trying to convey. Why not find your own way to kill Fontaine? It’s not like he was hard to kill.
What I would do differently is have Tenenbaum propose to you to become a big daddy; you can take her offer or you can find your own way to kill Atlas — be it an army of security bots, some hidden plasmid that is super OP, or just raw skill. Then, the bad ending would be following Tenenbaum’s advice, a (hidden) neutral ending would be to leave the city and start your own life above water, and the good ending would be finding your own way to defeat Atlas while staying human.
The gaming community thinks this game is the pinnacle of video game storytelling. I don’t think that’s true — the Witcher 1 and Deus Ex hold that title.
You may be wondering why I think this is a good game, even if I think the storytelling is subpar.
My answer is that the production and gameplay make up for the story.
Bioshock, unlike other games, doesn’t have a “real soundtrack”. Most of the noise comes from the environment, NPCs, and machines - which all combine together very well. The lack of a soundtrack also makes it easy to listen to diaries - pieces of lore that are placed around the game for your curiosity. Most games have the lore in written format (which can get boring to read), but the option to listen to it makes it easier to engage with.
In terms of positives, the gameplay is on point. A lot of single player FPS make the mistake of having the weapons be too inaccurate, which is frustrating, unrealistic, and not skillful. Bioshock does not make this mistake, as you can opt for precise weapons by only playing with the pistol or the crossbow. The game also gives you lots of options in terms of playstyle, only 3 out of the dozens of vigours are needed to complete the game, and you have 7 different weapons to choose from. The ammo for these guns can be purchased in bulk from the vending machines, so you can play most of the game using only the guns you like.
One complaint — the game scales in terms of difficulty as you go on, and the splicers start turning into bullet sponges. Which is kind of annoying.
Scoring:
Design (17/20):
Atmosphere: (5/5) - best in the medium, possibly.
Graphics: (4/5) - great, but outclasses by modern games
UI: (2/2)
Bugs: (1/2) - i think it crashes?
Sound: (2/2) - ambient sounds are iconic
OST: (1/2) - fine, but not necessary
Character designs: (2/2)
Script (19/25):
Character Investment: (3/5) - didn’t care much for them
Character Realism: (2/2)
Character Complexity: (2/3)
Consistency: (7/10) - a few plot holes
Ending: (4/5) - multiple endings, all adequate
Gameplay (26/30):
Skill expression: (8/10) - headshots on moving targets are difficult
RNG: (5/5) - very little RNG
Satisfaction: (8/10) - hacking is boring but necessary at hard difficulties. Bullet sponge enemies.
Optionality: (3/3) - you can play the game how you want to.
Novelty: (2/2)
Value (12/15):
Skill: (5/5)
Originality: (4/5) - dystopic fiction is oldtroon tier, but the world is original.
Thematic elements: (3/5) - forced big daddy transformation is a retcon.
Enjoyment (9/10):
Did I like it: (9/10) - it’s a treasure, but not a masterpiece