Bioshock
I played Infinite years ago, but that was the extent of my experience with this series. Regardless, I remembered enjoying it, so when I saw the collection for sale on steam I decided I’d try it.
If this game does anything right it’s the atmosphere. While Bioshock never becomes terrifying, I was constantly feeling uneasy, even though most of the enemies are rather easy to deal with. The constant voices of desperation and insanity legitimately mess with your mind after a while.
The world is also a treat to explore. Even when the game gave me a clear objective, I still wanted to explore every nook and cranny I could possibly find. The game rewards this through recorded diaries that give you lore, important story bits, and hints that make the city of rapture feel alive, or at least formerly so.
It’s not all perfect though. Despite being on normal difficulty I was constantly running completely dry on ammo and other resources, with most pickups giving you a pitiful amount. Seriously, the revolver pickups give you three bullets, which isn’t enough to kill a single basic enemy. A lot of the passive powers you can get don’t actually feel like they do anything, to the point where you don’t even bother going with any of the exciting ones and just get the defense upgrades and the sort. There’s also a segment towards the middle of the game that gets really annoying, as it’s constantly switching you to your non-weapon powers and locking which one you can use.
Then there’s the Adam mechanic. Adam is a currency of sorts that you get by either saving or killing mutated little girls. If you save them, you get some special rewards every once in a while, but less Adam than if you just kill them. Your choices here also determine what ending you get. Even if you decide to save every one of them, though, you’re still going to have more than enough Adam to carry you throughout the game, so there’s no reason to ever kill them, and therefore you will almost never see the bad endings.
There’s also a handful of mechanics that just... exist. The entirety of the crafting mechanic honestly doesn’t serve any purpose, and I often found myself just ignoring it unless I really needed armor-piercing ammo. The Hacking mini game also quickly overstayed its welcome, and even though it’s not particularly hard, I constantly got annoyed wihaving to do it every time I wanted to buy anything for slightly less than a small fortune
Still, even with all of that, Bioshock is an outstanding title, with an excellent story and world. Even with a few mechanical hiccups, it’s truly a game you have to experience to truly understand it’s worth.
The entire game is very similar to another series I played through recently, being the Metroid Prime Trilogy. Both are heavily atmospheric FPSs with an unconventional control scheme, incredibly detailed explorable worlds, and a story that’s mostly told in past tense through collectible records. If you’ve enjoyed even one of these games, but never played the others, I can’t recommend them enough.
8.5/10
