"...they told me, 'Son, you're special, you were born to do great things.' You know what? They were right.” This was the first line spoken by Bioshock's protagonist, Jack. After that, his plane he was on suddenly crashed into the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Instead of dying along with the other passengers, he finds salvation at a lighthouse. He enters it and is lead to a bathysphere that brings him down deeper into the ocean. There he discovers Rapture; a city underwater hidden from the rest of the world, ruled by Andrew Ryan. Instead of being a great paradise, it is a nightmare come to life as the city's citizens become monsters, the city slowly crumbling, science gone berserk, and no way to escape. With only a man named Atlas guiding him through Rapture, Jack will do whatever he can to survive.
Gameplay in the game is mostly a shooter. Use various weapons to take down Splicers, the mutated citizens of Rapture, before they take you down. With an interesting twist, Jack is able to use powers called Plasmids. With these abilities, he can perform various combos to defeat enemies such as electrifying them before whacking them with his wrench, setting them one fire before firing a heat seeking missile, moving a bolt with an electric string with telekinesis to get the upper hand, and much more. There are also advanced security machines that can be hacked and made allies with an interesting minigame that involves putting pipes together. With their assistance, more imposing enemies, or even groups of them, can be easily be dealt with. However, these abilities can be upgraded with the use of ADAM; the wonder drug of Rapture. These are gathered by the Little Sisters, little girls that are mutated to seek out ADAM from deceased Splicers. However, their protectors, The Big Daddies, must be dealt with before Jack can do one of two choices: Harvest them to get all of the Adam he could get or save them. Turn the young girls back into normal and only collect a smaller portion. Whatever the choices, these will affect the ending.
The graphics, to a certain extent, have aged decently. The underwater scenes of the intro look good and the environments create a creepy and desolate city scape. The Splicers look grotesque due to the mutation of ADAM and Plasmids. However, some of the allied NPCs are reskinned Splicers and not given a unique model, save for a few. Even so, the atmosphere of the game is truly a haunting experience. As the Player traverse through Rapture, they can see how everything went downhill, with the help of Audio Diaries, they can supply backstories for the lore, characters, and the city's history.
I have listed this game, on my list of "Games You Need to Play", and it is one of those games. I would talk more about how everything in the game about its twists and turns, but it is better for you to experience it. So... Would You Kindly... play Bioshock.

Reviewed on Jan 24, 2021


Comments