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BioShock

Moby ID: 29886
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Description official descriptions

In the year 1960, a plane crashes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with a man named Jack as the only survivor. He has the apparent luck of resurfacing in front of what looks like a door to an underwater complex. Without hesitating, Jack enters the door and is greeted by slogans that praise the city of Rapture, a paradise of free will built in the 1940s by a business magnate named Andrew Ryan. However, even before he assimilates all this new information, the descent to this supposed paradise ends and he can only see ruins and chaos. Learning about the destiny of Rapture will be now Jack's main motivation while he tries to survive the horrors that free will can create.

BioShock is a first-person shooter with gameplay elements and storytelling technique reminiscent of System Shock games. Rapture, the once-proud social experiment inspired by the real-world objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand, has been nearly destroyed, its inhabitants either dead or fallen victims to bizarre scientific experiments. The retro-futuristic setting incorporates elements of sci-fi with art deco and steampunk influences, featuring interior design and propaganda posters reminiscent of 1950s.

The game's plot is largely revealed through recorded messages left by Rapture's inhabitants before they were killed or mutated. Much of the plot development is therefore dedicated to reconstructing the events of the past, similarly to System Shock games. Limited usage of stealth, the possibility to hack security cameras and other devices, and character customization are the gameplay elements that further tie BioShock to its spiritual predecessors.

At its core, however, the game is more action-oriented, restricting the role-playing mechanics of System Shock 2 to abilities and upgrades that can be acquired and equipped by the main character. Most of the enemies in the game are Splicers, the deformed and insane citizens of Rapture. The protagonist has an arsenal of firearms to combat them but is also able to use plasmids, which act similarly to magic and deplete a special energy called EVE. Various types of plasmids may directly hurt enemies, sabotage their movements, or enhance the player character's defense. Combat tactics often rely on successive usage of different types of weapons and plasmids. For example, encasing an enemy in ice with a plasmid makes it possible to shatter it to pieces with a single shot; protecting himself with an electric shield, the protagonist can electrocute enemies and strike them with melee weapons, etc.

The player can only equip a limited number of active and passive plasmids, and also has an inventory limit for every type of item. Restoring and enhancing items can be found by exploring the environment or purchased from vending machines. These can also be hacked, similar to turrets, cameras, safes, and other types of locks. Hacking is presented as a Pipe Mania-like mini-game.

Plasmids, on the other hand, are mostly purchased by spending certain amounts of a mutagen known as ADAM. This mutagen can be obtained from mysterious creatures called "Little Sisters" - little girls that can be seen in most of the game's locations, accompanied and protected by very strong, genetically enhanced humans grafted to armored diving suits and nicknamed "Big Daddies". In order to capture a Little Sister the player normally has to defeat her Big Daddy. Afterward, the player has the choice of killing the girl, harvesting large amounts of ADAM in the process, or sparing her life. Depending on the player's moral decisions concerning the Little Sisters, the game's story will be concluded with different endings.

The Playstation 3 version adds a harder difficulty level called "Survivor Mode" to the game.

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Credits (Windows version)

464 People (423 developers, 41 thanks) · View all

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Average score: 94% (based on 193 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 411 ratings with 17 reviews)

Wow!

The Good
I confess that I bought an X-box 360 for this game. After 2 years of hearing how wonderful it was, I broke down and tried it. I hooked up the unit to my HD TV and experienced something remarkable.

2k studios spent a great deal of effort designing this game. They designed an entire city, sculpted and shaped in the Art Nuevo of the preceding decades. Then they smashed it with blunt objects of war and destruction. The details are astounding, portraying a beautiful gleaming city in the process of an ugly death. Everywhere you look, you see what it was and what it is. Rubble and debris. Surprisingly creepy…

Using the Unreal 2.5 engine, The graphics are detailed, revealing textures and dimensions that add to the feeling of being in a real environment. The sound is equally well done, with subtle music cues. You won’t forget the first time you hear someone sing a gospel in a weary, lost voice. The random pieces of dialogue you hear from the NPCs wandering around only contribute to the sense of madness that has possessed Rapture.

Gameplay is an elaborate gun and run mix up, enhanced by weapon choice, weapon improvement and general collection of supplies. I really like how you can use different approaches to killing your enemies.

One of the biggest points of the game is the story. It’s told through old tapes, ghosts, NPC narrations, and settings in the environment. Its not your run of the mill tacked on adventure. Its critical to the game and how it is played. I was taken by surprise when I saw the rooms that the little sisters were kept in. It was reminiscent of the brutal experimentations that were done by behaviorist in the early 20th century. B.F. Skinner is even mentioned in passing.

Voice acting was pretty good, if not slightly over the top. The accents were heavy and seemed to be coming from a b-movie cast.

It was very cool, how you had a few methods for turning enemies in to allies against their will. It was even cooler, how you could rack up achievement points for Xbox live.

The Bad
For a game based on self-determination, this game is pretty linear. You can find a lot of cool stuff by wandering off the path, but to progress, you have to pretty much follow the directions put before you. The game even alludes to it about 2/3 of the way. You end up normally using 2-3 plasmids for most of the game and the same goes for the weapons.

And its short and a little on the easy side. Replay value is not its strongest point.

The Bottom Line
This game is proof that games can be art and have a meaning to them. And yes, it was worth buying the Xbox 360.

Xbox 360 · by Scott Monster (986) · 2010

Welcome to Rapture

The Good
Bioshock was one of the most eagerly awaited games in a long time. It was conceived as a new concept for a exploited genre that needed a breath of fresh air, we had many good FPS games like Half Life 2 or Prey, but Bioshock is something different. System Shock 2 was a great game, and Bioshock is the confirmation that a new sub-genre of FPS has been created. A new sub-genre that doesn't need just the action to be a good game, what's more, the action isn't the best thing of the game, not even one of the good things remarkable.

In this game, you can customize your character with plasmids, you can configure your genes to acquire special attack powers like flames or electricity, or just acquire some plasmids to avoid alarms, easy hacking or be invisible if you're not moving. You can also customize your weapons upgrading them, and there are many weapons with many kinds of ammo to use. Every enemy has their weakness, and you'll need to know which is the best weapon/ammo for every situation.

The story is the main attraction of the game, the main concept is so good that everything's good because of that. The attractive beginning is a good proof of this, and the rest of the game is as good as it should. Some stages are really good, and the characters, the residents of Rapture, are strident and insane people, corrupted by money, freedom... and plasmids.

Game's really long and three different endings are available depending on what you've done during the game. The game is not easy. You can't die, but you'll be sent to the vita-chamber many times.

As on System Shock 2, you can search everything, dead bodies, desks, bags or anything that could be searched. You can find ammo, some drinks, cigarettes or food. Everything has an effect on you, so, be careful what you take. You can buy things with your money, inventing some items with some things that you take in the game or buy new plasmids with the Adam taken from the Little Sisters.

Places are big, with many details. It's really easy to get lost because everything's ruined, it's a totally mess. There are many particles in the air, you can see the dampness, the water effect, broken objects everywhere, furniture lying crosswise... And this is not one of those games with many details during the first levels and nothing more, here you have details during all the game. Stages are filled with so many things that sometimes it's uncomfortable to play, but this is how it should be (if you want a more realistic experience, of course).

The Bad
The range view is small. It's like you were zooming all the time, and as I said there are many details and places are big. Aiming is difficult because of that, and because enemies run fast (and without any sense, they just run). Action is not the best thing of the game, it could be much better, but it's not a big problem anyway.

The volume for logs is low, you can't listen some messages and you will stop doing what you're doing when a message is coming because you won't here nothing unless you stop. If you're in the middle of a fight it's impossible to know what messages are saying to you. Sound's good, music is good, but the volume for the logs are really bad.

The weapons aren't as effective as they should. Most of them need a lot of time to be reloaded, and you'll be changing your weapons all the time because some of them have just a few shots 'til they need to be reloaded. Plasmids aren't spectacular, maybe just the first time that you use them, and many of them has the same effects as some weapons that you have, so, they're a bit stupid.

The game was conceived to be a non-linear game but it is. The only difference between other FPS games and this one is the fact that you can customize some things like plasmids, but nothing really important, the genre is still the same. If we have System Shock 2 as a reference nothing has changed so much, just better graphics and some minor new things. Maybe a sub-genre, but not a new genre of games.

Maps could help you during your game, but they're imprecise and they'll confuse you many times. You don't have a map for each floor, you'll have the entire map at your help for every location of Rapture. If you enter a building with many floors you'll need some time to know where you are in the map.

The use of water is attractive at the beginning, but when you're progressing it becomes more secondary. Maybe a pair of floods more would be much better for the game.

The Bottom Line
"It wasn't impossible to build Rapture at the bottom of the ocean. It was impossible to build it anywhere else."

Windows · by NeoJ (398) · 2009

Prepare to be BioShocked

The Good
If anyone of you have played System Shock 2, you would have known that that game was set in the future. The same cannot be said about 2K's latest offering, Bioshock; the game is set in 1960, way before I was born. A plane crashes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and you are the only survivor. You resurface in front of what appears to be an underwater complex. You go and investigate this complex and, before you know it, you are taken to Rapture, a city that was built in the '40s by Andrew Ryan. It is supposed to be paradise, but you immediately find out that your descent into the city caused destruction and chaos.

The first thing I saw, long before I entered Rapture, was how amazing the water animates at the beginning of the game, and the fire around it. I think that this could be part of the DX10 enhancements in the game. It is this point in the game where you have to make your way to the bathysphere. Just looking around shows me what I could expect. As BioShock is set in 1960, the walls are decorated with old-style posters plastered around the walls and music that was common in that year.

After watching the introduction from Ryan, the window opens up to give you breathtaking views of Rapture, as the bathysphere takes you to one of the entrances leading to the city. I enjoyed the views while I was making my way there, with neon lights embedded onto each of the buildings. During the game, there are windows that you can look outside from, but these are not quite as spectacular as the one inside the bathysphere.

Around Rapture, there are a variety of weapons scattered in certain areas, and most of these weapons have three different types of ammunition. It doesn't hurt to try out all the types just to see what they are like. I prefer the machine gun for the early enemies, and the “Bucks” and the heat-seeking RPG for later ones. Of course, you will mainly use these weapons to kill Splicers. You will know when you are about to approach a Splicer: they chant and sing to themselves. As the manual states, a Splicer is a citizen of Rapture who became so obsessed with Plasmids that their overuse altered their genetic structure. Splicers are only alerted to your presence when you walk into their vicinity or shoot your weapon for no reason. Doing the latter takes me back to the days when I was playing Wolfenstein 3D when I could alert the Nazis simply by shooting at nothing. When they see you, they really do their best to destroy you. The audio logs that you can pick up (also an element from System Shock 2) are interesting to listen to, as these are a record of their memories during their time in Rapture .

Now, BioShock uses an element that was borrowed from System Shock 2 and the Thief games. When Splicers are killed, you will be able to go through their pockets and steal some useful items like extra cash, health, components, and much more. I enjoyed doing this as you never know what stuff you can collect. If you have enough of a specific item, the game doesn't let you get any more until it has been used. For instance, the game assumes that $500 is enough (even though there is a four-digit number for the money counter).

To get through the game, you need to use various machines. The manual has detailed information about these machines, so I won't bore you with all the details. Each of the machines attract the player to their location by playing some sort of melody or by speaking to you. “El Ammo Banditos”, for example, shouts something in Spanish. I can say that I used these machines more than twenty times in a level, to stock up on things like health, EVE, and ammo, as well as getting more Plasmids.

BioShock has two other elements that need mentioning, and these are also taken from System Shock 2. Security cameras are scattered around Rapture, and they are on the lookout for any intruders. Like SS2, once they have you in their sights they give a warning sound. Several seconds later, they confirm your sighting, sending security droids to your location, and these droids have orders to shoot and kill. You can destroy them, and put the droids to good use. That brings me to the second element: hacking. Hacking something brings up an interface where you have to connect some pipes until a pipe reaches the exit point. In this case, successfully hacking a security droid will cause it to protect you and shoot any splicers it sees. I enjoy how droids sound like bees when they follow you. Hacking is not limited to droids. You can also hack turrets, health stations, and most of the machines, but one machine that you can't hack is the “Gatherer's Garden”.

Sure, there are weapons that you can use to kill the Splicers. But the real magic of BioShock is the Plasmids that you can also use to perform special attacks. For example, you can electrocute your enemies, incinerate them, throw them up in the air and make them go down hard, sick bees onto them, and even turn Splicers against one another. Just because you selected specific Plasmids at the start of the game does not mean that you are stuck with the same ones throughout the game. You'll find hundreds of Plasmids to choose from at one of those “Gatherer's Garden” machines. If you had enough of your equipped ones, you can always buy new ones. (Hint: You might want to purchase a slot to store the plasmids in.) I like those “Evolve Today” black-and-white ads that introduce the Plasmids. They are hilarious to watch. Of course, you need to stock up on EVE if you want to keep using Plasmids. If you have no EVE, you cannot use Plasmids.

As you walk in some locations, as I said earlier, you can hear actual '60s music playing in the background. I describe the music as slow-moving, but in some places it just has a jazzy feel to it. If you like the music, you can stop what you are doing and listen to it right through to the end.

Two characters that I enjoy most are the Big Daddies and Little Sisters. The Daddies walk around making bear noises, then stop making those noises when they are accompanied by a Sister. Because the Daddies go around in diving suits, that must explain why they are called “Mr. Bubbles”. As the manual says, you can't do anything with the Sisters until you have dealt with the Daddy first, but it takes a lot of firepower to defeat them. When defeated, the Sisters mourn the Daddies as if they are a part of their family. I like how you have two options of dealing with the Sister. You see, you can harvest (kill) them to get a lot of ADAM, but that won't be pleasant to look at. An alternate, safer way is to rescue the Sister but you get less ADAM than you would by killing them. ADAM is one of the important items to get as it determines how many Plasmids you can get. What I did during the game was kill the Sisters, but only if I was very low on ADAM. I prefer to save them, however, since I don't believe in hurting innocent young girls. Once you have enough ADAM, you can spend it at one of those “Gatherer's Garden” machines.

One thing that I had to laugh at are what happens when you decide to save Sisters. When you manhandle her, all they say is “No!” four times while you are trying to get at the ADAM. After you release her afterward, she forgets about the Daddy since she is too busy saying “Thank you. You've saved my life” or something along those lines, then goes back to where she came from.

Although you have that yellow Quest arrow pointing to your objective at the top of the screen, I ignored it most of the time until I am ready to accomplish it. As with most first-person shooters, I like to explore a bit, hunting for weapons, health, EVE, and other stuff. This way I can avoid spending the cash I just collected on vending machines.

The controls are easy since you may be more familiar with them playing early first-person shooters. I really like how you could quickly switch to another weapon/Plasmid by turning the mouse wheel, and by switching between weapons/Plasmids with the right mouse button. It doesn't hurt to memorize the key bindings for special weapons/Plasmids. More often than not, I happened to press the wrong keys when I got involved in a full-blown fight with a Splicer and I end up losing a lot of health for doing this.

The Bad
I found that the areas are far too dark to see anything, even if my monitor/video settings are set to a satisfactory level. I had to rely on the Quest arrow to get me out of those dark areas.

About the vending machines: hacking machines doesn't really give you much of a discounted price. It is normally 15 dollars less than the normal price. They would not be worth hacking into since this is the case.

The Bottom Line
In BioShock, you can hack, steal items from your enemy's pockets, and evade security cameras; and these are the elements that were taken straight from System Shock 2. Each section of the game should take about 30 minutes to complete, but it may take longer if you are like me and explore the area a bit, ignoring the Quest arrow as you go. You encounter a variety of Splicers, and nearly all of them run towards you and jump in the air for an attack, so it is better to use what weapons you have to kill them before they are inches away from you.

Two characters that play an important role in the game are the Big Daddies and Little Sisters, both of which are funny to look at and listen to. There are three endings to this game, but what ending you view will depend on how you deal with the Sisters. If you view a specific ending, it would not hurt to play BioShock two more times and try the other endings.

The sound is great, and the music reflects the year that the game is set in. The same goes for the graphics, but you won't get the extra benefits without a DX10-compliant video card,

BioShock is the first games in the series, so expect a second and third game to be released later. There is also a movie that ties in with the third game.

Windows · by Katakis | ă‚«ă‚żă‚­ă‚ą (43091) · 2009

[ View all 17 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
initial Mac releases Cantillon (76135) Feb 7, 2022
Gameplay feature: New Game+ Cantillon (76135) Jun 22, 2021
German PEGI (uncut) Steelbook Cover Art Zerobrain (3052) Oct 15, 2010
Yikes. Indra was here (20756) May 16, 2009
They're doin' it for themselves Slug Camargo (583) Mar 21, 2009

Trivia

1001 Video Games

BioShock appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

German version

To ensure that the game wouldn't be put on the infamous list of BPjS/BPjM indexed games, 2k Games released a slightly modified version of the game and the Collector's Edition with only the German language on the disc in Germany. The changes include less blood, some changed cutscenes and no wounds on burned bodies. This version got rated "Not free for minors" by the German rating organisation USK.

Hacking

The hacking mini-game (which can be performed on a variety of devices including safes, security cameras, item dispensers, robots, etc.) is basically a slightly altered version of Pipe Dream.

Reception

According to Wall Street Journal Take Two's shares increased by nearly 20% after early favorable reviews of BioShock.

References

In Farmer's Market cantina, you can find a piece of cheese that resembles Pac-Man, even with the dots!

References to the game

BioShock was parodied in an episode of "Die Redaktion" (The Editorial Team), a monthly comedy video produced by the German gaming magazine GameStar. It was published on the DVD of issue 12/2007.

Soundtrack

On August 24, 2007 2K Games released a 12 track compilation with songs from the orchestral score composed by Garry Schyman. The compilation can be downloaded for free here: http://downloads.2kgames.com/bioshock/BioShock_Score.zip

One of the songs that were included on the Bonus EP in the Collector's Edition, was made by Moby. It's a remix of "Below the sea".

Water

2K Games had to hire a water programmer and a water artist to implement the pools and the pouring water around Rapture. This involved modifying the Unreal 3.0 engine to create realistic water effects.

Awards

  • Games for Windows Magazine
    • March 2008 - #4 Game of the Year 2007
  • GameSpy
    • 2007 – #2 Console Game of the Year
    • 2007 – #2 Xbox 360 Game of the Year
    • 2007 – #3 Game of the Year
    • 2007 – #3 PC Game of the Year
    • 2007 – Best Art Direction of the Year
    • 2007 – Best Sound of the Year
    • 2007 – Best Story of the Year
    • 2011 – #2 Top PC Game of the 2000s
    • 2012 – #2 Top PC Gaming Intro
  • Mac|Life
    • December 2009 - Editor's Choice Award

Information also contributed by Agent 5, Apogee IV, [bakkelun](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,70962/), [Emepol](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,12364/), [PCGamer77](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,1717/), [Scott Monster](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,35225/), [Sicarius](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,70866/) and [WildKard](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,16566/)

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by MichaelPalin.

OnLive added by firefang9212. PlayStation 3, iPhone, iPad added by Sciere. Macintosh added by Zeppin.

Additional contributors: Sciere, Maw, Zeppin, Jason Strautman, Patrick Bregger, Starbuck the Third, FatherJack, firefang9212.

Game added August 23, 2007. Last modified March 23, 2024.