Affan's Blog

BioShock is an FPS game published by 2K games. The game sets in year 1960, in the underwater city of Rapture. We play as Jack, a featureless protagonist, trying to survive after a plane crash.

Setting

We play in an Underwater city of Rapture. A utopian city planned by Andrew Ryan, he wants to create a city where everyone is free to do whatever they want. Science has advanced so far, they’ve created a serum to rewrite human’s DNA, granting them superhuman power like telekinesis. Some people try to take advantage of this. Enter Frank Fontaine, the leader of gangsters and the preparator of chaos in Rapture.

On this game, we get to see the Rapture after the all-out war of Fontaine vs Ryan. The city’s broken, all the people inside it has some weird genetic mutations, and some of them are downright crazy. The game also has this dystopian and cyberpunk themes. It feels unique and fresh to see these settings in an FPS game.

Story

It’s okay, the title of this article is “… Spoiler Free Review”. I’ll do my best not to spoil anything.

The protagonist, Jack, survived from a plane crash in Atlantic Ocean. Jack swam to a nearby lighthouse, apparently this lighthouse is the entrance to Rapture. We got a radio call from a man named Atlas who said that he is tasked to save the survivor, meanwhile Andrew Ryan is angry because he thought the protagonist is one of Fontaine’s subordinates or a CIA Agent. Thus, you need to survive.

Don’t worry, it’s just the first 5 minute of the gameplay, not really a spoiler. This game has overwhelmingly impressive story. All the intricacies and details is really mind-blowing.

Gameplay

People often said that BioShock 1 is a survival-horror games. And as someone who hates horror games, I think this is kind of misleading. It’s not Amnesia/Outlast, you’re not some random powerless person that could only run from threats. You are a human that has mutant powers and wielding a lot of guns. I’m glad that I overcome my fear and just play this game. On the beginning, the sound is kinda scary, but after a while it’s not as scary as it seems. The enemy as well, the “Little Sisters” is pretty eerie if you’ve never played this game due to their scary glowing orange eyes, but they aren’t scary at all once you play the game. So, if you afraid to play it because you hate horror games, you don’t have to worry about it.

Phew, that was a long “not a horror game” disclaimer haha. I simply hate the term “survival-horror” applied to this game.

The gameplay is FPS with some RPG elements. The weapon selection is really unique and not like other games. The power that the player wields is really interesting. The game really rewards exploration, since you could find ammunition stash and new power by searching every nook and cranny. I really like this aspect of the game, it reminds me of dark souls where majority of weapons are kinda hidden and you are rewarded for searching around the area.

There is also some “hacking”, it’s just a minigame where you arrange different kind of pipes so the fluid will flow nicely. Hacking is really beneficial in this games, you could lower ammo vending machine price, or even hack bots so they’d protect you. There are some stash with maximum hacking difficulty as well, but if you hate hacking, you could just use Automatic Hack Tool, a pretty rare single use item, use it wisely!

Music

The music is amazing and fits the theme perfectly, some of the songs has this 40s-60s feeling to it, it is really awesome. On the other hand, the music is really intense in some parts, enhancing the feeling. Playing with a headphone is recommended in my opinion. I Can’t explained it better haha, you could hear it by yourself.

Conclusion

• Setting - 10/10
• Story - 10/10
• Gameplay - 9/10
• Music - 10/10

You should play BioShock series at least once in your lifetime.