Reviewed by Barry Little - September 20, 2007

ESRB Rating: M (Mature 17+)

I’m Andrew Ryan and I’m here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow?

 

No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor.

No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God.

No, says the man in Moscow. It belongs to everyone.

 

I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose…Rapture.

 

A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not by constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.

Billed as a “Genetically Enhanced First-Person Shooter” by the folks at 2K Games, BioShock combines traditional first-person shooter combat with character development and strategy elements. Art Deco and 1950’s Sci-Fi are skillfully blended and woven into every aspect of the game, from Rapture’s architecture to the smallest game world item like a pack of cigarettes. Brought to life by the renowned Unreal Technology graphics engine with stunning and eerie realism, to say that BioShock is the most unique and beautiful shooter to date, would be an understatement.

BioShock begins with a flight across the Mid-Atlantic in 1960. The game’s protagonist is having a cigarette while looking at the photo in his wallet of himself and parents, and a gift-wrapped box from them. The note on the box reads “To Jack with love from Mom & Dad,” with the request “Would you kindly not open until—” The rest is obscured by the fancy ribbon and bow. Glimpses of the unusual tattoos of broken links from a chain on Jack’s wrists, and the kindly-not-open-until request of the note are subtle but significant hints not only of things to come, but who (and what) he really is. Jack speaks (the only time in the game that you will hear him do so), preparing the player for what will soon be an amazing journey.

"They told me: Son you were born to do great things. You know what? They were right..."

Suddenly, the plane crashes in the ocean. Barely reaching the surface, Jack is the only survivor. The cold, dark waters surrounding him are ablaze with wreckage from the plane. He desperately swims for what appears to be lighthouse, bathed in moonlight like an ominous beacon, as the tail section of the doomed plane slowly sinks beneath the waves.

As it turns out, the lighthouse is a doorway to Rapture—an incredible, self-contained underwater metropolis on the ocean floor, built by a wealthy, powerful and somewhat eccentric businessman named Andrew Ryan. Bitter and disillusioned with church, state and the affairs of the world Ryan hand-picked and populated Rapture with the world’s best and brightest artists, scientists and industrialists—a  perfect society for the world’s elite. Of course, any time you turn science loose without concerns for “petty morality,” something really bad is bound to happen.

And in Rapture, it did.

No sooner than the bathysphere that takes you down to the city reaches its destination, you witness in the shadows the gruesome murder of a terrified man pleading for his life by someone who appears to be human, but is horribly disfigured and moves with the unnatural speed and agility of an animal. Whoever—or whatever it is, leaps on top of the bathysphere with an crazed shriek, trying to claw and pound its way inside before finally giving up and leaving. The awe-inspiring, majestic view of Rapture you saw moments ago is quickly forgotten. Alone and unarmed, you know you’re in a world of trouble.

You nearly leap out of your skin when you here the squawk of a portable radio inside the bathysphere. It’s a man who calls himself Atlas—the only friendly voice you’ve heard since this ordeal began. Atlas has been cut off from his wife and child who are waiting for him in a small submarine, by the mutated humans that are Rapture’s only “survivors.” Everyone else in the underwater city has been slaughtered in the ensuing chaos when a violent struggle broke out between Andrew Ryan and his rival Frank Fontaine for control of the city, and the mutants went on one final, bloody New Years Eve rampage.

Atlas agrees to you help you survive and escape the city if you can clear the way for him to his wife and child who are waiting for him in a small submarine, but have been cut off by the mutated humans. Armed with just a Wrench (your default melee weapon) and injected with a mysterious serum that has altered your DNA and allows you to hurl electrical bolts from your fingertips, you make your way into the city to save Atlas, his family—and yourself.

Not only do you have the usual weapons at your disposal for dealing with enemies, but BioShock allows you to perform genetic modifications to your body and make it a weapon as well, giving you a number of interesting (and entertaining) ways of dispatching your foes. There are more genetic mods in the game than you can possibly utilize as you play through it. So it’s up to you to decide which ones are the most useful to your individual playing style and preferences.

ADAM is the substance that became the cornerstone of Rapture before its downfall, and is critical to your survival now, as you fight to survive and escape the city. Secreted by a deep-sea parasite discovered by Rapture’s scientists when attached to a human host, ADAM not only generates mutated stem cells that endow the host with incredible healing powers, but the ability of instant, external genetic modifications ranging from cosmetic to extreme. There are two types of these instant genetic mods available through ADAM: Plasmids and Gene Tonics.

You begin BioShock with two available Plasmid slots, and two available Gene Tonic slots. Your supply of ADAM is used as “genetic currency” to purchase more slots, as well as more Plasmids, Gene Tonics, and other genetic upgrades at Gatherer Garden Machines .In your explorations of Rapture, you will undoubtedly come across more Plasmids and Gene Tonics than you have available slots for, even after you have advanced through BioShock and installed the maximum number of slots (six for Plasmids, and six for each of the three Gene Tonic categories). At that point you can either swap out existing Plasmids and Tonics for the new ones, or store the new ones for later use. All unused Plasmids and tonics can be retrieved and equipped in your available slots at the Gene Bank Machines you’ll find throughout the city.

BioShock’s Plasmids are “on-demand” genetic weapons and counter-measures. Each one has unique visual effects on the player’s body when activated. The Winter Blast Plasmid turns you into BioShock’s version of Iceman from the X-Men comic books—covering you in a layer of frost as icicles burst through your hands. Winter Blast allows you to literally freeze enemies in their tracks, where you can shatter them into a thousand frozen pieces with a whack of your wrench—or a few well-placed bullets. With Electro Bolt, you can temporarily short-circuit or stun enemies, or electrocute them if they’re standing in water, as well as open doors with damaged controls panels by giving the panel a quick zap. Grabbing out-of-reach supplies and ammunition or hurling a propane tank at a foe sending them to an explosive, fiery death is no problem with the Telekinesis Plasmid.

There are three levels of Plasmids in BioShock. The more powerful ones whose effects last longer or do more damage will not become available to you until you’ve advanced further into the game. You equip and switch between your different Plasmids the same way you would with ordinary weapons in any first-person shooter. Whenever you find a new Plasmid, a campy little 50’s-style cartoon will play giving you a brief explanation and demo of what it does.

EVE is the serum that fuels your Plasmids. Hypos of the stuff can be looted, found and purchased throughout Rapture. You replenish EVE by equipping any available Plasmids and pressing the Reload key, where you’ll inject it into your wrist. If your EVE reserves run dry while using your Plasmids, you’ll automatically inject yourself with a hypo from your inventory to replenish it. Just as it’s a good idea to keep your regular weapons loaded between battles, you should always reload and keep your EVE reserves full charged between confrontations. Some foods and drinks can be consumed to restore small portions of EVE to your reserves as well.

Gene Tonics enhance specific abilities and are always active the moment they are placed in any available Gene Tonic slot. There are three different types. Physical Gene Tonics enhance your body. Engineering Gene Tonics increases your ability to hack and circumvent all kinds of locks and security systems, and invent things using fewer components. Combat Gene Tonics increase your ability to deal out and resist damage—like the Armored Shell Tonic, that allows you to take more physical punishment and survive injuries that would normally kill you. Gene Tonics come in different “strengths,” so if you load an Armored Shell and Armored Shell 2 Tonic in your available slots, the Armored Shell effect becomes cumulative.

You’ll come across a lot of alcoholic beverages in Rapture. Drinking them will temporarily make you woozy (the effect is nicely rendered with blurred and double vision while the screen wobbles). Even worse, alcohol will drain your EVE reserves. Later on in the game, you’ll find Gene Tonics that will allow you to consume liquor and wine, while boosting your EVE levels. Until then, you’ll live a lot longer in BioShock if you avoid getting sloshed…

BioShock features most of the conventional weapons you’d expect to find in a first-person shooter—Pistol, Tommy Gun, Shotgun, Crossbow, Grenade Launcher and Chemical (Flame) Thrower, with a few interesting and refreshing twists. First, BioShock gives you different ammunition types that are more effective against specific enemies than others. Then there’s the appearance of some of the weapons themselves. The Grenade Launcher and Chemical Thrower distinguish themselves from the rest of the weapons in your arsenal by being cobbled together from all kinds of crazy odds and ends—wrenches, spark plugs, paint cans. This gives them a rather unique and wildly refreshing “Crude but Effective” look seldom found in other shooters.

Weapon upgrades can be installed at Power To The People machines around Rapture that can increase damage, range, rate of fire, reduce recoil, etc. Using them is free; but you can only perform one upgrade on one weapon per machine. Once the upgrade is performed, the Power To The People machine is permanently disabled. Even the upgrades for weapons have that MacGyver-does-Art Deco look.

Once a thriving, living testament to Andrew Ryan’s vision and genius, Rapture is now a dying, disintegrating testament to his vanity and megalomania—an underwater City of the Damned. Death and destruction are almost everywhere. Recorded diaries left behind by Rapture’s citizens are as chilling as the icy waters of the Atlantic seeping and pouring in through structural damage and flooding parts of the city, vividly describing Rapture’s descent into madness and anarchy. Through them, not only do you gain valuable information that can assist you, but you gain greater insight into why things went so horribly wrong. As Atlas guides you through the city performing tasks that bring you closer to your goals, and you scrounge for money, ammo, Plasmids, Gene Tonics and anything else that can aid in your survival, you come to the conclusion that the dead all around you are the lucky ones.

And then there’s the Splicers.

Nicknamed as such for the way ADAM “splices” itself into DNA, Splicers are former shells of their human selves—disfigured and driven insane from the excessive consumption of Plasmids and Gene Tonics, Splicers roam through the city ranting, singing and scavenging the dead for ADAM and whatever else they can find. Psychotic and homicidal to the extreme, Splicers not only attack each other, but anyone who is not a Splicer—which unfortunately, includes you. The most frequently encountered foes in BioShock, whether male or female, they are not to be taken lightly—especially in groups.

Thuggish Splicers are your basic cannon-fodder types armed with makeshift clubs and pistols. Confronting one at a time isn’t too much of a problem. But if you’re forced to fight more than one, they can easily overwhelm and kill you.

Leadhead Splicers are tougher versions of their Thuggish brethren, armed with Tommy Guns. Fire Bombs are the weapon of choice for Nitro Splicers. Their uncanny aim makes them dangerous ranged combat opponents. The explosives hidden on their bodies that detonate when you kill them at close range make them even more dangerous, especially if your health is already low.

Spider Slicers get their moniker from their superhuman speed, agility, and ability to crawl across ceilings for ranged attacks, Spider Slicers hurl Meat Hooks at their victims like Shurikens with lethal precision, and their slashing attacks with these hooks are even more devastating. The most dangerous Splicer of them all is the Houdini Splicer who can vanish and reappear at will, and is armed with Winter Blast and Incinerate Plasmids.

You won’t have to spend much time in Rapture before you come across two of its most notable inhabitants that are both a necessity and a threat to your survival in BioShock—the Little Sisters and Big Daddies. Small, dirty, with unnaturally pallid skin and glowing orange eyes, Little Sisters are young girls serving as hosts for the ADAM parasite who prowl Rapture’s decks carrying huge, wicked-looking syringes used to “extract” ADAM from the bodies of the dead, for their own nourishment. Virtually indestructible and walking ADAM refineries, these mutated little girls with their creepy, sing-song voices never travel alone. They are escorted and fiercely protected by huge, Frankenstein-like creations in metal diving suits—the Big Daddies, who are the meanest and toughest opponents you’ll encounter on a regular basis.

Like Rapture’s previous and current inhabitants, you need ADAM to enhance your body with Plasmids and Gene Tonics. The good news is, Little Sisters are the most commonly available sources of ADAM in BioShock—and there are two or more on each level of the game. The bad news is, you’re going to have to fight and kill the Big Daddy before you can get to the Little Sister.

Taking on a Big Daddy is like going head-to-head with a pair of pissed-off, charging Rhinos on steroids—Rhinos that also happened to be armed with Ore Extraction Drills, Grenade Launchers, Rivet Guns, and one serious, bone-crunching “body slam” melee attack, no less. Still, Big Daddies aren’t as indestructible as the Little Sisters they protect. Generous applications of firepower with Gene Tonics that can harden your skin against damage and boost your health are your best friends when dealing with these intimidating brutes.

Once the Big Daddy is out of the way, you have two choices in extracting ADAM from the Little Sister. You can Harvest her, which removes the parasite from her body and gives you the most ADAM at the expense of her life. Or you can Rescue her, which will give you some ADAM—though not as much as you would have gotten had you harvested and killed her—turning her back into a normal child. Your choice has consequences, with the potential to make your already difficult life in Rapture easier or harder. As tempting as it might be to try and avoid Big Daddies, Little Sisters and the whole genetic mods thing, I have one word for you: don’t. You cannot and will not get far in BioShock without ADAM, your Plasmids and Gene Tonics.

There are a number of machines throughout Rapture with resources and services that you’ll need to stay alive and advance through the game. One of the most important beside the Gatherer Garden is the Vita-Chamber. There are several Vita-Chambers strategically located on every level in BioShock. If you are killed, you will automatically be restored to the last Vita-Chamber that you encountered on that level. You’ll have the same resources and gear that you had at the time of your death. The state of the level—enemies killed, still alive, etc.—be also be the same at the time of your death.

Health Stations can provide you with First-Aid kits to heal yourself. However, your enemies can also use them as well. Vending Machines dispense everything from ammo to EVE hypos, while Ammo Banditos sell ammunition only.

In your explorations, you’re likely to find all kinds of seemingly mundane items and material. Unlike some games, in BioShock these items and materials aren’t just useless clutter or “stage props.” Go to your nearest U-Invent Machine and you can turn that “junk” into anything from specialized ammo like Exploding Buckshot and Heat-seeking RPGs, to Gene Tonics.

Unlike Gatherer Garden, U-Invent and Power To The People Machines, all the other dispensers in BioShock require money to use. You can find money in cash registers in most of Rapture’s establishments, as well as on corpses and the bodies of fallen enemies, and in a number of other places. Your wallet can hold a maximum of $450 at a time.

Fortunately for you (and much to Andrew Ryan’s chagrin), with some of the brightest people in the world assembled in Rapture, it’s no surprise that someone would find a way to hack just about every machine and security system in the city. In BioShock, hacking involves changing the circuit flow on a machine or lock, making it more “accessible” to the user. Hacking numerous vending and service machines in Rapture not only allows you to gain items at a lower cost in cash or other resources, but also unlocks things that are normally inaccessible. Hack a Security Bot, Turret or Camera, and you can use them against your enemies.

Anything that can be hacked will present you with a prompt when you are close to it. Pressing the <Hack> key will take you to the machine or object’s Hacking Menu, where you can determine the difficulty of the hack and how to proceed. There are three ways to perform a hack:

1. You can physically hack the device.

2. You can use an Autohack Tool.

3. You can use Cash (Hacking Buyout).

Choosing the first method takes you to BioShock’s connect-the-dots—or more accurately—connect-the-pipes puzzle. Your task is to connect a series of straight and angled pipes from Point A to B as a “metallic liquid” flows through them. First, you must uncover a grid of tiles to expose all of the different pipes that make up the “circuit.” Naturally, these are all mixed up, so you must drag and drop the right one in place to make the completed circuit connection as quickly as possible, while staying ahead of the flow of liquid.

To complicate things, there are damaged junction points you must avoid along the route. If you don’t complete the connection by the time the fluid reaches the last pipe, the hack fails and you get a nasty “short-circuit” shock that takes a bite out of your health. If you abort the hack before you complete it, you also get zapped.

As you progress through BioShock, the hacks get more complicated, the fluid flows faster, and the penalty zaps get even nastier. Fortunately, some hacks have special pipes that can slow down the flow of fluid, giving you a few more precious seconds to complete the connection. There are also Gene Tonics that boost your hacking abilities, giving you an edge against even the toughest hacks.

The Autohack Tool does exactly what the name implies—it automatically and instantly completes the circuit flow override, unlocking the machine or device. The Autohack Tool can only be used once. Afterwards, you throw it away. You can only carry five at a time. And they are very hard to come by in Rapture, even after you’ve gained the ability later on in the game to make your own from a number of common materials. The Hacking Buyout works the same as an Autohack Tool, except you use cash instead. Obviously, the number of Hacking Buyouts you can perform is limited to the amount of money you have at any given moment. Although cash is a lot easier than Autohack Tools to come by in BioShock, the hacks with more valuable buyouts are very expensive. As a side note, the higher the buyout is, the more difficult the hack will be, should you attempt it.

Hacking presents the highest risks in time and potential injury (or death if you fail a hack while your health is critically low), but is the most “economical” in terms of your resources, as it does not require cash or an Autohack Tool. But if you need to hack something in a hurry—like a vending machine or security camera with enemies patrolling nearby—then cash or an Autohack Tools are the way to go. Fortunately, BioShock isn’t so restrictive in terms of individual player skill and preference, that you are locked into one way of solving a problem, so you can do whatever is comfortable and expedient for you.

Some games leave you twisting in the wind trying to figure out where to go, what to do next, and even wondering what some things are and what you should do with them. Aside from the obvious frustrations in this, it also bogs down and distracts from any story the game is trying to tell. BioShock’s Quest Marker (a fancy name for a directional arrow) always keeps you homed in on the direction of your current objective. You can also get hints on your current goal from the Status Menu, or by pressing the <Hints> key.

BioShock’s unique Adaptive Training system automatically reminds you about things you may have missed while you are playing. One example is that it will prompt you with a message to purchase more Health Kits or EVE Hypos if they’re getting low in your inventory. Another is a warning about trying to move on to the next level without harvesting ADAM. This is a great feature for players new to games like BioShock who may be wary of thoroughly exploring the game’s large and varied levels for fear of getting lost. For more experienced players who find the feature more of a nag than help, Adaptive Training can be turned off.

Placing the reticule over searchable items will bring up a “Search” prompt—which you can then do by pressing the <Use> key. If the item has already been searched and its contents removed the “Search” prompt is grayed-out, so you don’t waste your time searching an empty container or desk again—a simple yet effective feature that surprisingly is omitted from a lot of games. Holding the reticule over anything that you can interact with for longer than five seconds, will bring up the “What Is This?” prompt. Pressing the <Help Message> key, will give you information on the item.

You might think that managing the usual shooter elements (health, weapons, ammo) along with a wide range of genetic enhancements would result in a cluttered, confusing and awkward interface. That might be true for some other games—but not BioShock. Switching between conventional weapons, different ammo types and Plasmids are quick and intuitive with hot keys, or you can use the <Shift> key to bring up the Weapon/Plasmid Selection Menus.

As with most PC games and first-person shooters in general, although BioShock supports Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Controller for Windows, the game really shines with a keyboard and mouse, and you’re free to map the keys and mouse buttons pretty much to your liking. Although BioShock uses checkpoint saves, you are also free to save your game at any point and reload it—a user-friendly concept of choice that is sadly being discarded by far too many game studios these days.

Rapture’s Security Cameras can really make your life difficult in BioShock—and short if you aren’t careful. If you are spotted by a Security Camera, an alarm will sound, and a countdown meter resembling an old-style automobile odometer with a red light next to it, appears on your HUD. The meter starts a sixty-second countdown as waves of Security Bots are sent after you, and there are few places to hide where they won’t seek you out and drill you full of hot lead. Like most problems and challenges in BioShock, there more than a few ways to deal with them.

1. Avoid the cameras in the first place.

2. Observe the camera's field-of-view and search pattern (which is easy as it shines a wide, red arc of light on whatever it sees). Then duck past the camera while it is looking away from you.

3. Hack cameras so the work for, rather than against you.

4. Destroy any cameras that are out of your reach that you cannot hack.

5. Find a Bot Shutdown Panel before the Bots overwhelm and kill you (using the Shutdown Panel will cost you twenty bucks). Not only does this kill the alarm and prevent more Bots from spawning, it disables any nearby Bots so you can hack them and use them to escort and protect you.

6. Do it it "Rambo" way and try to take out all the Bots. Hope you've got a lot of ammo, EVE Hypos and Health Kits.

7. Find yourself a Shorten Alarm Gene Tonic that cuts the duration of alarms in half (even Rambo needs a little help every now and then).