BioShock [SPOILERS INSIDE: ENTER AT OWN RISK]

[WindupAtheist]

So what happens if you just point your gun at one of the little nippers and hose her?

[Ironwood]

They're Immune.

There's even shitty backstory to cover the glaringly wrong programming.

 

[UnSub]

Okay, finally finished it. And by 'finally', I mean I was glad to get to the end.

BioShock is a great game and deserves the accolades it gets. In fact, it might even be the perfect game for a professional games review, because the quicker you get through it, the better the game looks and plays out. However, the plot is a mess that seems to have been hacked together to fit in with the twist of Fontaine = Atlas and planning to kill Ryan by sending a genetically altered, vat grown child that has Ryan's genetic material after him. It was like someone grabbing a great intro and reasonable twist in the middle, but a lot of the rest of the story to fit.

I got the good ending; I don't think I can be bothered to play through for the bad ending. For the people who did: does Tenenbaum help you after you kill Ryan if you've been harvesting Little Sisters?

[Miasma]

I just youtubed the evil ending.  I shouldn't have to say it but, that link is obviously one hell of a spoiler.

[WindupAtheist]

They're Immune.

There's even shitty backstory to cover the glaringly wrong programming.

Fucking pussies.

[Morfiend]

I also just finished it.

I felt that the ending was a pretty big let down. I got the good ending. Honestly, my favorite part was the "Would you kindly..." starting from when you see it written on the wall. After you are rescued by Tenenbaum, the game sort of goes all run and gun, and I was a bit let down.

A few thoughts.

Atlas = Fontain. Boring. The Atlas character seemed to have much more "life" to him, the Fontain character was so boring to me. I was let down by him as the bad guy. Ryan was creepy in that obsessed kind of way, Fontain was just generic power hungry goon. I think they could have done much better with this "twist".

I was waiting for the ending to bring a goon conclusion to the story, but it just sort of ended. I also agree that like some one already said, the medical part in the beginning was very creepy, but after a while, it just wasnt scary any more. Also, the big daddy mask shit was stupid. Lets blur the camera more please.

Also, I played through the whole game using mostly Shock, Incinerate, and Telekanisis. No need for any of the other plasmids. Also, I used the shot gun and machine gun. One upgraded it was just so powerful. It might have also been that I went photo crazy. I never even considered photographing little sisters or gun turrets though. Incinerate 3 is very powerful, I dont know if many of you found this out, but it stacks a DOT of people each time you hit.

[UnSub]

I see great irony in that BioShock, which seemed to have choice as a central theme, gave the player very little choice on what to do. You are always obeying someone.

Also, the intro scenes, while probably the best introduction I've seen in any game in a long while, makes zero sense when you realise that Fontaine's plan is to have you survive a plane crash into water. What would have made more sense (but not looked as good) would have been your character surviving an explosion on a boat. That's a lot more survivable than a plane crash.

[lesion]

it wasn't a crash though, 'twas a mysterious crash. in a mysterious crash "survivable" is finding yourself with no physical body but the ability to swim, smoke, and find love in a world gone topsy-turvy.

[Lakov_Sanite]

After killing Ryan I just have no desire to finish the game out.  I mean the story is essentially over at this point, it's just kill fontaine and A)be a hero or B) be the villain.

My question is and i may have missed it or its not been explained yet but...how did you get on the plane?

[Kail]

My question is and i may have missed it or its not been explained yet but...how did you get on the plane?

As far as I know, you were given a cover identity by Fontaine and used it to buy a plane ticket.  The actual nuts and bolts of the story don't make too much sense (or, if they do, I missed the tapes that explained it), so I wouldn't worry about filling in the holes.  I think most of it is just there to set up the intro and that scene with Ryan.

[UnSub]

My question is and i may have missed it or its not been explained yet but...how did you get on the plane?

As far as I know, you were given a cover identity by Fontaine and used it to buy a plane ticket.  The actual nuts and bolts of the story don't make too much sense (or, if they do, I missed the tapes that explained it), so I wouldn't worry about filling in the holes.  I think most of it is just there to set up the intro and that scene with Ryan.

As best I can work out, your character (who's name is Jack, btw) was sent to the surface when they were chronologically 2, but physically probably looked 19 or 20 or so. You then catch a plane, open the package you were given, hijack the plane, crash it near an entrance to Rapture and things kick off from there. I can't see Fontaine being the patient type in giving you time to form a life outside of Rapture before he'd want you to take out Ryan.

I'm having difficulty figuring out BioShock's timeline. For a game where the narrative is meant to be so important, I'd expect things to fit together more smoothly.

[Litigator]

I beat Bioshock over the weekend, and, while those who are looking to point to video games as a sophisticated medium are pointing at this as their new example of it, this was much shallower than a "Zelda" or a "Grand Theft Auto."

The much-hyped moral stickyness of the game boils down to whether you press the X or Y button to dispose of the gatherers. Everything else is just run-and-gun shooter.

The art design of the game is a cut above what you see in most games, and its 30's deco style is really consistent throughout the game. The exterior shots of Rapture are really cool. But the art design is built into boring level design. The maps never really feel like a city. It's just rooms and corridors. It's polish and production design built over very antiquated mechanics.

It seems like corners have been cut in this game. The scripted sequences that are taken for granted in top-tier single player action games are almost absent here. The maps are not designed around creating a sense of place.  The idea that Rapture is a city torn by a war between Fontaine and Ryan is a subtext developed exclusively in the audio files. The game is just a series of rooms and hallways with splicers spawning in to attack you.

It seems like the whole premise of the game was supposed to be the choice between harvesting and rescuing the little sisters, a premise that was evidently gutted rather than seen to fruition.  Emerging in the safehouse full of little girls makes no sense at all for players who have been killing the little sisters, and for those who have been rescuing them, the whole Point Prometheus level makes no sense. If you rescued the girls, why do you have to look like a Big Daddy to get them to open the doors for you? Didn't one of the girls open the door of the safehouse for you before you got the suit?

One obvious inference is that the game was meant to branch into two paths depending on how you had been making the one relevant choice the game gives you, and ultimately that was shelved for efficiency and getting the game done.  Likewise, the idea the idea that that choice should have been a difficult one is thrown out too. Since you get a gift with 200 Adam for every three gatherers you save, the penalty for playing the hero is insignificant.  So to the extent that a central idea of the game is to offer the player an opportunity to do something noble while putting a greed incentive on doing something repulsive, that idea is likewise gutted, probably because they didn't want to work out how to balance the game around some players having very little Adam and some players having lots.

Also, the audio diaries are an awful way to tell the story. They are totally external to the game play. They might as well just print the backstory in the manual. 

[UnSub]

I watched the "Making Of BioShock" video that came with the Collector's Edition. It seems that the game went through so many iterations that perhaps it became a matter of what could be sewn together into a releasable product. The art book shows a lot of stuff that was cut from various versions of BioShock, up to the SLO Pro Big Daddy model (which apparently a lot of work went into).

I still think that BioShock deserves kudos for trying something different and for looking so good. However, when you look at the player journey, a lot more is implied in it than actually happens.

I wonder if Irrational's lack of success with the Freedom Force sequel and then purchase by 2K saw BioShock limited in its eventual release.

[Ironwood]

Oh fuck off.

They ended up with nothing different and if we reward eye candy now we'll continue to get substandard games.

Fucking ridiculous;  We got a shooter that was little or no different than Far Cry.

[Tebonas]

I am in the middle of replaying System Shock 2 now, and to my horror I must admit that most things I liked about Bioshock was leftover System Shock love.

I would really buy a new copy of System Shock 2 if they remade it with the Bioshock engine. Except, I couldn't replay ever so often due to the DRM reaming I'd get.

Fuckers.

[lamaros]

I am in the middle of replaying System Shock 2 now, and to my horror I must admit that most things I liked about Bioshock was leftover System Shock love.

I would really buy a new copy of System Shock 2 if they remade it with the Bioshock engine. Except, I couldn't replay ever so often due to the DRM reaming I'd get.

Fuckers.

I have SS2 in front of me but havn't been brave enough to reinstall yet. I got motion sickness last time I tried to give it a go. :(

[Miasma]

My question is and i may have missed it or its not been explained yet but...how did you get on the plane?

Didn't the note from the letter you read on the plane have a "Would you kindly" in it?

[Miasma]

Ahh, here we are:


He hijacked the plane and brought it down at the rapture lighthouse's coordinates.

[Ironwood]

Which still begs the question 'Why ?'


I'm still a little unclear as to why the hell Fontaine was so desperate to GET OUT of the city and seemed unable to, yet had the ability to send this fetus half way around the world to hijack a plane to get back.

[Samprimary]

Ok I beat the game again on hard and once more on normal with intent to be a badass and am now ready for review + comic.

God I better get to that asap

[Miasma]

I don't remember Fontaine wanting to get out of rapture, I thought he wanted to stay there and control it.  He only pretended to want to leave while in Atlus form.

[Ironwood]

He pretended ?  To his Mind Controlled Clone ?

Ok.

Explain that one to me.


In fact, explain why in the name of fuck he bothered with the Atlas shit in the first place.

[Miasma]

A WIZARD DID IT!
A WIZARD DID IT!
A WIZARD DID IT!

[Tebonas]

Because he was a fucking con man, as admitted the whole Rapture thing was a long con to him. Deceiving people is what he get his rocks off obviously.

And don't forget he still had everybody to fool that could listen in on your radio transmissions. Not that that mattered, Fontaine is just a compulsive liar. He only told you to rub it in when he thought you would die anyway.

[Kitsune]

Fontaine didn't come up with Atlas to fool you, he did it to fool the citizens of Rapture.  Likewise, I rather suspect he wasn't going to the trouble to deceive the mind-controlled vat-grown man-baby, but rather he was avoiding tipping off Ryan and Tannenbaum about your identity; they may have taken steps to break his control if they'd suspected that you were the man-baby in question.  It would've been a really short game had Ryan known from the start who you were:

BIOSHOCK - THE IRONWOOD EDITION

Atlas: WOULD YOU KINDLY KILL RYAN FOR ME, SLAVE!  YOU'RE MY SLAVE!  I MADE YOU!
Ryan: Oh, you're back.  I'm your daddy.  Would you kindly hop back in the bathysphere and leave?  Thx.
You: Okie, daddy!

GAME OVER

[Morfiend]

Quick Review.

Whoever wrote the story should find a new line of work.

Whoever did the atmosphere should get a raise.

[Kail]

Likewise, I rather suspect he wasn't going to the trouble to deceive the mind-controlled vat-grown man-baby, but rather he was avoiding tipping off Ryan and Tannenbaum about your identity; they may have taken steps to break his control if they'd suspected that you were the man-baby in question. 

Is this actually implied in the game anywhere?  Because I can make up non-canon excuses for character's nonsensical behavior myself, if I feel the need.     As far as I can tell, though, A) They were interested in decieving the main character for reasons that are never explained, since they went through the whole "false memories" rigamarole, and it's not like Ryan can read your memories, and B) Ryan already thought you were an agent of the CIA or KGB, and was trying to kill you because of it; how would being an agent of Fontaine been any different?  And unless Cohen was somehow the linchpin to Fontaine's scheme, I can't think of anyone else who wasn't already charging at you trying to bludgeon you to death WITHOUT knowing about your background, and it's not as if a relationship like that can get a lot worse.

I mean, it's a neat story to play through, very atmospheric, but the plot is not making a whole lot of sense to me in retrospect.  There are huge gaps in the story that I'm not getting.  And maybe I'm missing some key logs or something, but it still seems to me that there are way more question marks than I'm confortable with.

[UnSub]

I believe in one of Fontaine's radio addresses he says that Tenenbaum and he put you in that bathyscape. Also, Tenenbaum extracted the fertilsed egg from Jolene. So Tenenbaum already knows (or can guess) about who you are. However, given that Suchong did the mental conditioning work, I don't think Tenenbaum necessarily knows that side of the equation.

However, Ryan has figured a lot of it out. It takes him a while to work out the "would you kindly" control phrase and who you are, but, once he does, he lets you in.

Fontaine loves being smarter than everyone else and fooling them all into playing his game.

I agree though that there seems to be an audio diary or three missing that actually spells all this out. And why Fontaine thought you'd survive a plane crash into the water.

[Samprimary]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1394-Zero-Punctuation-BioShock

[schild]

Including STALKER with Deus Ex and System Shock 2 is more of a stretch then including Bioshock.

Oh, and yes, it was very funny. As Yahtzee tends to be.

[Ironwood]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1394-Zero-Punctuation-BioShock

Even without sound, I know I'm going to agree wholeheartedly with that guy.

Again, for the benefit of those still listening :  Bioshock, fun fps Game.  Not a classic, not a 9/10 out of 10, and, here's the real fucking kicker;  I have ZERO interest in playing it again.  Like, ever.  I may as well use the CD for my coffee cup.

Dissappointment is my middle name. 

[Kitsune]

Is this actually implied in the game anywhere?  Because I can make up non-canon excuses for character's nonsensical behavior myself, if I feel the need.     As far as I can tell, though, A) They were interested in decieving the main character for reasons that are never explained, since they went through the whole "false memories" rigamarole, and it's not like Ryan can read your memories, and B) Ryan already thought you were an agent of the CIA or KGB, and was trying to kill you because of it; how would being an agent of Fontaine been any different?  And unless Cohen was somehow the linchpin to Fontaine's scheme, I can't think of anyone else who wasn't already charging at you trying to bludgeon you to death WITHOUT knowing about your background, and it's not as if a relationship like that can get a lot worse.

I mean, it's a neat story to play through, very atmospheric, but the plot is not making a whole lot of sense to me in retrospect.  There are huge gaps in the story that I'm not getting.  And maybe I'm missing some key logs or something, but it still seems to me that there are way more question marks than I'm confortable with.

Ryan stops trying to kill you once he figures out who you are, and Tannenbaum breaks the mental lock once she gets her hands on you, as well as demonstrates a great dislike for Fontaine.  It's a presumption on my part that she would've thrown a wrench in his plans if she knew he was Fontaine at an earlier point in the story, and since Ryan gives a very clear demonstration of knowing the magic words, it only makes sense that he'd have used them to his advantage before it was too late, rather than allow you to wander around the city and break through his defenses.

[Tebonas]

That review was pure goodness.

[Ironwood]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1394-Zero-Punctuation-BioShock

Even without sound, I know I'm going to agree wholeheartedly with that guy.

Again, for the benefit of those still listening :  Bioshock, fun fps Game.  Not a classic, not a 9/10 out of 10, and, here's the real fucking kicker;  I have ZERO interest in playing it again.  Like, ever.  I may as well use the CD for my coffee cup.

Dissappointment is my middle name. 

Oh God, That was ME, except with an English accent and he could talk a lot faster.

Funny as hell and 100% true.

[Kail]

Ryan stops trying to kill you once he figures out who you are, and Tannenbaum breaks the mental lock once she gets her hands on you, as well as demonstrates a great dislike for Fontaine.  It's a presumption on my part that she would've thrown a wrench in his plans if she knew he was Fontaine at an earlier point in the story, and since Ryan gives a very clear demonstration of knowing the magic words, it only makes sense that he'd have used them to his advantage before it was too late, rather than allow you to wander around the city and break through his defenses.

That's all highly speculative, though.  If Ryan could do it, if Tennenbaum could do it... I don't see where it's even implied that it's possible in the story, though.  Tennenbaum has to have you knocked out on the operating table for a good period of time to do anything, and even then she's only able to fix part of it.  Ryan clearly knows your trigger words when you march into his office, and he doesn't seem intent on using it to his advantage then, even at the cost of his life.  I mean, yes, theoretically, you can probably construct some framework that makes the whole thing coherent, but shouldn't it be mentioned somewhere in the game if it's important to understanding what the hell is going on?  I finished the game, yet still don't understand the game's fundamental premise, why Fontaine bothered with ANY of the stuff that he does in this game.  As far as I can tell, the argument I'm hearing is that Fontaine gave you all this screwy mental conditioning to fool Ryan and Tennenbaum, because if they'd known the truth, they might have undone his screwy mental conditioning.  Seems a bit circular, you know? So maybe Fontaine has some kind of psychosis where he values deception so highly that he concocts insane plans wherin he fakes his own death and creates a hidden army of splicers, but then decides to suddenly stop being deceptive at the key moment, or whatever, but if that's the case, it should be mentioned in the bloody game.  Not just leave it at "Fontaine is a con man" and assume that this somehow includes an explanation of why he would kidnap his arch rival's embryotic son, super-accelerate his aging, enslave his mind, send him to the surface, and then order him to hijack a plane and crash it into the ocean.  And in order for this to work, a dozen other kind of "well it doesn't actually say this, but..." scenarios have to be made up.  And now we start getting into these weird "what if" scenarios where major characters and events have to be explained by convoluted chains of events which aren't alluded to in game.  While I suppose it's possible that this is a very tightly written story and the threads are just so subtle that I'm not seeing them all, it's also possible that it's a fairly rough and unfinished story that was thrown together for a few excellent scenes and then left to hang while they went to work on how to get the player to stop falling through the floor in level six, like the stories in 99% of other video games.  There's only so far I'm willing to take this hypothetical invisible plot before I just end up saying "fuck it, Yeah, a wizard did it."