Revisiting: Bioshock (possible spoilers)

26-08-2012 12:19am #1

Recently I've started reading the book that's the prequel to Bioshock, called Bioshock: Rapture. For anyone that's interested in Bioshock and the Rapture universe, I thoroughly recommend it. As I was reading the book and various characters popped up, I would then go and look these up on YouTube, just so I could remind myself what happened to them in the game. This then brought me on to the individual soundclips of the various Splicers encountered in the game. Listening to these separately to the game adds so much more level to the "Splicers" and some make you even feel somewhat sorry for them, especially the "Rosebud" and "Pigskin" ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86lXwexm4rg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JZVycs2jgM

While Bioshock did have it's flaws, it was still a wonderfully detailed, visually impressive and, of course, with, I personally believe, one of the greatest twists in gaming history.

For the others that have played it, what are your opinions?
I'm somewhat ignoring Bioshock 2 happened, because while it wasn't a bad game, it was largely pointless

cloud493 · 26-08-2012 12:22am

I'm currently playing bioshock right now for the first time on PS3. Still love it. The audio recordings, atlas coaching you as you step out the bathesphere, your reaction the plasmids, cooking splicers in electricity when they stand in water.... damn good game.

calex71 · 26-08-2012 12:26am

Loved the first game so am very interested in looking into what you have outlined re: books and totally agree with you re: the second game, enjoyed playing it but it added little or nothing to the the 1st game

to be blunt it was a game that was ruined by it's sequel in many ways..... but sure thats the modern age I guess

26-08-2012 12:30am

When you listen to the audioclips of the Splicers separately, you realize just how good the voice acting was in the game.

CastorTroy · 26-08-2012 12:56am

Got it in the Steam sale so just started and got as far as the Med lab so far

Odaise Gaelach · 26-08-2012 1:14am

Bioshock just didn't do it for me. It was stylish and classy, but felt very shallow and unengaging. The main story was also pretty poor - the fact that

Andrew Ryan is your father

could be seen a mile off. And because you couldn't easily replay audio tapes/logs (like you could in System Shock 2) I never really got involved with all the backstory.

I couldn't bring myself to care about the game or Rapture or what had and was happening, to be frank.

johnny_ultimate · 26-08-2012 2:16am

Odaise Gaelach wrote: »

Bioshock just didn't do it for me. It was stylish and classy, but felt very shallow and unengaging. The main story was also pretty poor - the fact that
Andrew Ryan is your father
could be seen a mile off. And because you couldn't easily replay audio tapes/logs (like you could in System Shock 2) I never really got involved with all the backstory.

I couldn't bring myself to care about the game or Rapture or what had and was happening, to be frank.

I have to disagree there. As I said in another thread a few days ago, there's valid criticisms to be levelled towards Bioshock - most notably in some gameplay aspects, which were only really honed to their potential in the sequel - but Rapture is anything but a shallow setting. Where most games just provide shooting galleries or prettily vapid locations, Rapture is one loaded with depth. It's a world based on a flawed ideology and critiques it thoroughly, while the game makes constant effort to analyse the relationship between player and designer. Bioshock is the FPS about the FPS genre, about how we're brainwashed into conducting mindless fetch quests by a friendly voice in our ear. Yes, the final hour or two kind of pisses away that fascinating subtext, but the realisation that the developers were effectively commenting on the linearity and mindlessness of game design was Bioshock's most thrilling revelation.

Whatever about comparisons to System Shock 2: Rapture stands on its own as a terribly beautiful, fully realised setting. One that reflects the contradictions of capitalism and objectivism. Sure, it's a visual and audio treat: but Bioshock offers you a world designed for highly specific, convincing reasons. Every individual location is loaded with little background details, with the logs (clunky though they are) further enhancing this. I can think of very few other examples that offer the same sheer depth of world design.

Peter85 · 26-08-2012 6:12am

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I have to disagree there. As I said in another thread a few days ago, there's valid criticisms to be levelled towards Bioshock - most notably in some gameplay aspects, which were only really honed to their potential in the sequel - but Rapture is anything but a shallow setting. Where most games just provide shooting galleries or prettily vapid locations, Rapture is one loaded with depth. It's a world based on a flawed ideology and critiques it thoroughly, while the game makes constant effort to analyse the relationship between player and designer. Bioshock is the FPS about the FPS genre, about how we're brainwashed into conducting mindless fetch quests by a friendly voice in our ear. Yes, the final hour or two kind of pisses away that fascinating subtext, but the realisation that the developers were effectively commenting on the linearity and mindlessness of game design was Bioshock's most thrilling revelation.

Whatever about comparisons to System Shock 2: Rapture stands on its own as a terribly beautiful, fully realised setting. One that reflects the contradictions of capitalism and objectivism. Sure, it's a visual and audio treat: but Bioshock offers you a world designed for highly specific, convincing reasons. Every individual location is loaded with little background details, with the logs (clunky though they are) further enhancing this. I can think of very few other examples that offer the same sheer depth of world design.

I was wondering which would break first, your spirit or your body

krudler · 26-08-2012 10:25am

I loved the first one, it still has one of the greatest openings to a videogame ever. The plane crash, seeing the lighthouse off in the distance, getting into the bathysphere, and then Ryan's speech as you see Rapture for the first time, fantastic setup of the games universe. The whole setting is brilliant, the decay of Rapture, seeing the aftermath of its downfall, its got some twisted humour, great characters and gorgeous production design.

I really must play it again its been a few years.

26-08-2012 1:57pm

That first view of Rapture is probably one of the greatest moments in games. Probably one of my biggest gripes with Bioshock is the Vitachambers, which took away a lot of the suspense and the urgency from the game, because you knew that if you died, you'd just respawn a few metres away, so you wouldn't need to be careful at all.

I hope they don't have this in Bioshock: Infinite.

One of the things that stand out most, having read the book, went back reading over various articles, and listening to the audio samples individually, is that the people you're fighting aren't evil per se. They're driven insane by the chemicals they've introduced to their bodies and by having to see their world effectively collapse around them. This, for me, stands out amongst other games.

deathrider · 26-08-2012 2:14pm

It's a game I simply couldn't get into. I played through it twice, just hoping it would catch me on my second playthrough. It didn't. Yeah, there were a lot of great audio clips which epanded the game's world and added colour to it, but I still found it boring. The characters did nothing for me, and Rapture (no matter how fleshed out it was) didn't manage to instill any for of emotion upon me at all. That big twist- saw it coming a mile off, so even that didn't shake me the way iy probably should have.

Grumpypants · 26-08-2012 3:12pm

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Rapture is anything but a shallow setting.

In fact Rapture is quite deep !

ill get my coat

Icaras · 26-08-2012 3:26pm

Bioshock completely blew me away, the depth, the little details, the stories that easily could have been totally missed.
I liked bioshock 2, its slower and more tactical than the first one. When getting Adam I was planning 3 or 4 moves in advance which I never needed to in bioshock 1. The main things that got me about 2 was the terrible design/look of the drill which considering its your first weapon is almost unforgivable the other is I always felt under powered as a big daddy - 4 or 5 splicers could easily kill me.

cloud493 · 26-08-2012 3:28pm

I thought the thing about the splicers was a given. They're not like 'soldiers' or even something to kill, they're junkies, created by this world Andrew Ryan thought would be utopia. Goddamn great game.

Revisiting: Bioshock (possible spoilers)

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