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Positives:
The world building is filled with intricate detail
Impressive amount of customization
Gunplay is brilliant
The story is engaging.
Negatives:
The enemy designs are bland
Forgiving respawn system hurts tension
Beginning is overwhelming
Positive: An Incredibly Crafted World
The rundown underwater city is fantastically expanded on in each of the games levels. These confined areas are brimming with things such as posters peeling off the walls, rundown facilities and video tapes which give context to certain people or areas. Everything has the wholesome style of the 50’s in America, with corruption also showing how it’s destroyed and twisted its innocence. Besides the setting, the Big Daddy’s and Little Sisters have a the deep story behind them and the role the player develops with them keeps them a highlight of the game. In each level, the Big Daddy’s give more life to the environment due to how it contrasts the other enemies and that it lacks any 50’s inspiration. The passion put into this game is evident in every section of the levels, in these spaces an incredibly intriguing environment is created.
Positive: Customization
The customization is vast, letting the player play in almost anyway they want. “Plasmids” are used to give different abilities (lightning, fire, bee swarm) to your character. There’s a diverse variety of these, plus there’s even separate plasmids to enhance things such as hacking and physical abilities. The player starts with only a few slots for plasmids, which keeps it from being overwhelming, giving a chance to understand the system and what the players prefers before more options are given. Also, there’s a huge amount of customization in the settings, if there’s any gameplay or audio problems it can be fixed there.
Positive: Gunplay
Thirdly, the gunplay is crucial to a first person shooter, and Bioshock gives the player a diverse array of firearms. The chances are a player won’t be able to only use one, since many different types of ammo given out, using different weapons is necessary which invigorates the gameplay. Discovering that a gun is more useful than initially expected is always a welcomed surprise, and the fact that the game forces the player to do so is a tell of good gameplay design. The sound design is also incredibly satisfying, shotgun pumps out shells with all the power a shotgun should, while aiming and firing the crossbow has impact beneath every shot.
Positive: A Well Crafted Story
Finally, the story is initially hard to invest in, but once the player is able to it presents a satisfying experience.(SPOILERS) The twist reveal of Atlas being the overarching villain was fantastically delivered, he had been acting as your guide throughout the game, and once the player has no use for a guide his real role in the game is revealed. (END) All the characters in the game also make the story more interesting, their use of friendly 50’s slang combined with their grimy and corrupt personalities is incredibly entertaining and makes learning about them more intriguing.
Negative: Forgettable Enemy’s
There are three types of enemies, Big Daddy’s, Splicers and Security Bots. The Splicers are the most frequently encountered enemies and they’re also the most boring in presentation and abilities. The differences between different splicers are incredibly hard to notice, they all have the same “deteriorating human” look and the dialogue they’re given makes them come off as silly rather than scary. This hurt the horror aspect of the game, since by fighting them so much they didn’t feel like a threat
Negative:Negative: Respawn System is Too Forgiving
Secondly, when the player dies they respawn in the nearest “Vita Chamber” with some health and EV (the energy used for plasmids). These Vita Chambers are easy to access, and walking from a Chamber to any other area doesn’t take very long. So far, this sounds like a positive but it does majorly hurt tension. There is rarely a fear of death (aside from the occasional well placed Vita-Chamber) to a point where just dying is a better idea than using health kits. It makes the game easier, but cheap strategies also become much more viable and it makes trying to survive in some areas feel pointless.
Negative: Rough Beginning
Lastly, the overbearing introduction makes the game hard to invest in. This game wants to keep a lot of its elements a secret, so at the start it feels way too dependent on insane coincidences and lacks any real explanation for what’s happening. It’s a rocky start, but as the game progresses things begin to become more apparent.
Ultimately, despite some minor flaws Bioshock offers a fun and interactive experience with an intriguing world and addictive gameplay.
Entertainment rating: 8/10
Critical rating: 7.5/10
Final rating: 7.75/10
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