Irrational Games
is one of the best development studios out there. In 1999 they made System
Shock 2, a hybrid first person shooter/role playing game set in a creepy
science fiction universe, and even now many consider it to be a challenging
game with immersive environments, an engaging story, and a sense that the
player’s choice uniquely affects how you actually play. Bioshock as a spiritual
successor maintains that engagement and atmosphere years later in a completely
new environment. A brief stint with the beginning of the game is evidence
enough of that.
The game takes
place in a fantastic environment like nothing else you can find today. You gain
control of main character Jack as he treads water following a plane crash into
the Atlantic to reach a lighthouse. It turns out the lighthouse is a gateway to
the underwater city of Rapture, a utopia built on the objectivist ideals of
founder Andrew Ryan and as a response to the post-World War II politics of the
era. The game exudes the old-time feel you might have witnesses in the Fallout
series and shows you beautiful towers as whales and other sealife swim about.
This is definitely a step up graphically from Half Life 2’s beginning stroll
through City 17, and the accompanying music make the view of Rapture from a
descending vessel’s window even more breathtaking. To add to the atmosphere,
you pick up audio logs that give pieces of the story of how Rapture ended up in
the dire situation it is when you start the game and the backstory of some of
the characters you will meet.
The gameplay,
while heavily borrowing from System Shock 2, manages to stay unique among the
other shooters on the market. You start out with a wrench for melee combat, and
early on you acquire a revolver and a machine gun. While you could stay with
standard munitions, to advance through the game you need to make use of
plasmids, which amount to magic powers limited by a mana pool. The electric
shock power lets you stun enemies, and you can even shock a pool of water to
take down multiple enemies in them at once. You are encouraged to switch
between guns and plasmids to surmount the challenges ahead, as the game
foreshadows an encounter with the iconic Big Daddy by showing what happens when
it gets enraged at another enemy for attacking a Little Sister, a key part of
the current ecosystem of Rapture because only the Little Sister can harvest
material for use in the plasmids. The attack is brutal as the Big Daddy rams
its large spinning drill into its foe so hard it sends the enemy through an
adjacent window. That’s not even the toughest enemy you will find in the depths
of Rapture. You can even exploit your environment through a hacking game, which
lets you take control of cameras to spawn flying drones, take control of
stunned enemy drones, and reduce the prices of goods at vending machines.
Bioshock
immerses you in a world of mystery right from the start. The introduction
starts with Andrew Ryan explaining his rationale for the underwater city and
ends with him accusing you of being sent to take him out, even as the city
seems to have undergone a major catastrophe. Bioshock is available as a
multiplatform release, and it’s a great example of the ways video games can
allow for exploration and immersion.
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