User Review : BioShock

Beyond the Sea on PS3

First off, *punches self for not thinking of better teaser* okay, let's get rolling.
One year ago, Bioshock took the 360 and PC by storm with its incredibly well-told story, great atmosphere and being its own FPS instead of trying to be Halo. Though, most say the game is to System Shock 2 what Zathura was to Jumanji, but how many of you Bioshock fans actually played System Shock 2?... yeah, that's what I thought... neither did I...
The game begins with you seeing your characters hands moving around on a plane, when the plane goes down in the ocean. you find a lighthouse, go in seeking shelter, and finding Rapture, a city at the bottom of the ocean in perhaps the most jaw-dropping exposition in a video game ever. It's really interesting being promised a utopia only to find a mutant-infested hellhole... at least it would be if everybody didn't know that for a year before the game came out! Did I mention you're in control of the character almost the entire time this is happening, you lose control to watch a cutscene no more than half a dozen times across twenty hours of play. most of the story-telling is done through audio diaries you collect (which raise a number of pointless questions like "why do these people just leave these lying around?" and "why isn't their entire diary on one tape?")you can get through the game alright without them and understand the story mostly, but there's no reason not to collect them since you can listen to them as you play, and the fall of Rapture is quite an interesting and thought-provoking tale.
The game gets really fun with the power-ups you get, called plasmids, which do all sorts of fun things, like shooting lightning out of your hands, lighting things on fire, hypnotizing enemies, and the crowd favorite, shooting bees on your hands. and i'm frigin' terrified of bees so this is like literally conquering my fears for me. There are some RPG aspects involved, but its probably even less complicated than Pokemon. Oh, and you're not gonna think you'll need those "level 2" plasmids. yes you do, trust me.
Those plasmids come at a price though, you need to collect Adam which can only be attained by finding Little Sisters, small girls that have been mutated in experiments to collect Adam. now to get to them you have to get through the not-to-be-screwed-with-but-you-kind-of-don't-have-much-of-a-choice-so-you-better-start-screwing-with-them Big Daddies. Once they're out of the way, you can approach the Little Sister (who you made cry, by the way, jerk) and either "harvest" her take all her Adam which will kill her or you can "rescue" her which cures her mutations, but doesn't get as much Adam. now this would make an interesting moral choice, but one of the characters will deliver a large package of Adam to you as a thanks for saving every three girls. This sort of downplays the self-sacrifice aspect of being the good guy. depending on what you do with the girls, you'll see one of two endings. i've only seen the good ending, which was disappointingly un-badass though it was cool how the last boss died in a creepy way. sorry, but i don't feel like playing through the game again to see the other ending, so... wait a minute, we have the internet! to YouTube! *watches endings*... well that's depressing. okay, technically there are three, one is voiced differently than its counter-part. it would be really nice if you didn't have that lady yelling at you in the evil ending. i mean the main character talks for a few seconds in the beginning, couldn't he have voiced it?
The gameplay's solid, standard shooter controls except, for once, you don't regenerate health, however dying just sends you back to vita-chamber if you play the game with default settings anyway. you can turn vita-chambers off though. i played weird, i left them on, but i insisted on dying as little as possible, so i probably wasted about $1000 on first aid kits as a matter of pride. at least a deadly sin making me die less was a cool paradox. the game's difficulty just can't be taken seriously unless you turn off the vita-chambers. also, i thought those little pop-up tips like "check containers for LOOT" would turn off near the end. but no. I was getting that message during the final frigin' boss fight.
All in all, its a remarkable game that simply must be played. so if you own any system that can play it, then run out and buy it, would you kindly?... crap! THAT should've been my teaser line! (it'll make sense when you play it!)

Fun Fact: there's an objective near the end strangely reminiscent of the flash game Peasant's Quest.