BioShock Review (PS3)

Mr. Bubbles & Me

Bioshock is one of the greatest first-person shooters of all time. The story is creepy and full of twists and turns. The gameplay flows without fault. The setting is what sells the game for me, with the desolate, atmospheric remnants of one man’s paradise.

Released in 2007, Bioshock was one of the first FPS games to burst onto the Playstation 3, alongside classics such as Resistance, Unreal Tournament 3 and Half-Life 2. Most games thrown into a situation like that would be underplayed and over-forgotten, but not Bioshock. The game would go on to spawn a world-renowned trilogy, and let’s hope it hasn’t stopped there.

Bioshock opens with a plane crash, of which you are involved in. Injured, you make your way to a nearby lighthouse, which just somehow happens to have an underwater elevator to the lost city of Rapture. You discover early on that the residents aren’t too friendly as they’ve all become addicted to a substance called ADAM, and they’ve been driven mad by it. The story features many twists and turns and really keeps you on the edge of your seat during the slower, atmospheric sections.

The graphics in Bioshock fit the game perfectly, the use of greens and browns in the colour palette really reflect the cities despair and rot. The lighting adds to the suspense and fear as you traverse the corridors of what you wish was Atlantis. The soundtrack fits the theme well, making the splicers seem every inch more psychotic and evil. The game also has its fair share of jump scares, but none of these feel cheap, therefore you stay immersed in Rapture.

Whilst the soundtrack is quieter, you will come across audio recordings of different characters. These play as you wander around, and they can be very creepy. It helps add more backbone top the story without having too many cutscenes and they are really there so you can flesh out the world, rather than have them be pivotal plot points. As these recordings make up the majority of your interaction, the game manages to make you feel so alone, and a little insane.

The gameplay of Bioshock is just as immersive as the setting. Ammo is rather scarce on the harder difficulties, and you’ll find yourself backtracking every room you’ve been past to find more bullets to take down a Big Daddy and harvest the ADAM from the Little Sister he is guarding. There are vending machines dotted around the levels that you are able to hack for cheaper prices, but you won’t be playing with full ammunition at any point in this game.

The range of guns is quite simple, giving you access to pistols, revolvers, machine guns, shotguns and the like. It definitely feels like enough though as when you are not using one of them you’re able to use your ADAM-infused super powers. Your powers allow you to shock, burn and freeze enemies or you can use them to complete mentally challenging puzzles to open up a way to the next stage of the level. These tend to run a little low sometimes too, and you must refill them by purchasing EVE from the vendors.

There are quite a lot of enemy types too, the majority of which being splicers. The Big Daddies are the real gut-wrencher though, as they are near indestructible even on the easiest difficulty setting. I chose to play through on the hardest and spent a tonne of game time running away from Big Daddies after making the mistake of believing I could take them down with 7 pistol bullets and a grenade.

Overall, Bioshock is one hell of a struggle on any difficulty. This reminds me of the days where there was no real easy mode, and you had to be actually good at a game to complete it, making it more of an accomplishment and something to brag about. This game is fantastic, as are it’s two sequels and I yearn for its return in the near future.