This overall review of the first two Bioshock games will contain spoilers so make sure you’ve played the games before reading!
In August of 2007, a new first person shooter game was released by 2K. It’s a survival horror game based in an underwater city called Rapture. Based in the Mid-Atlantic in 1960, you play as Jack, a man who seemingly randomly ends up in a plane crash that results in him landing in the middle of the ocean and you are forced to swim to the only landmark seen for miles; a mysterious looking lighthouse.
Bioshock 1
From then on, you go through the once bustling capitalist city led by a new friend, Atlas, via radio, who needs your help in getting reunited with his wife and child, and he’ll help you navigate through the city to eventually get out. However, the creator of the city, Andrew Ryan, does not take kindly to your arrival and spends enemies your way constantly. You battle splicers, people who have been genetically messed up by Adam, which grants you various powers by obtaining Plasmids.
Things go to a head when Andrew Ryan kills Atlas’s family and you’re off to kill Ryan. You eventually reach Ryan, expecting a big final battle, but it turns out to be a bit stranger than that. It’s revealed that you are originally from Rapture. You just don’t remember it. He manipulates you into killing him by using the trigger phrase you heard throughout the series: ‘Would you kindly’. After this murder, Atlas reveals himself to be the true enemy of the series.
Throughout the game, you pick up audio logs that talk about life in Rapture from multiple perspectives. Many of those mention a notorious criminal named Frank Fontaine, but it’s public knowledge that Fontaine is dead. However, Atlas reveals himself to be Fontaine, and he’s the final person you must fight, and you have to break his spell first or he’ll keep manipulating you.
The game ends with you killing Fontaine, and you can have multiple endings depending on your choices. If you harvest the little sisters, which are little girls who are made to collect Adam, Jack ends up being a bad person in the end. If you save them, Jack ends his story with leaving Rapture and starting a new life with them as a family.
I wish I could replay this game for the first time. The utter betrayal I felt when Atlas laughs manically at you and his entire tone and demeanor changes to Fontaine was incredible and horrible. The game changes a lot from that point. You went from this big mission to kill the city’s creator and your father, to having to defeat the man who’s been manipulating you this entire time. You learn so much about the world of Rapture, and Jack slowly finds out his role in it. He was a test subject for Dr. Suchong and Tenenbaum, the latter who ends up feeling guilty for her part in creating you and helps you survive. You were never an outsider; you were simply coming home.
The game talks about the idea of choices, which comes to a head when you meet Ryan, and suggests that a man chooses, but a slave obeys, saying you are the slave, to him and to Fontaine. It’s fascinating how the game flips you on your head when you think you’re playing a more standard game and story and I love what it did here.
My favorite part about the game is always the unique atmosphere. It has bright colors but a mainly destroyed and grungy feeling as you traverse the city. The 1960s vibes really adds an extra layer of atmosphere to it as well, giving this location a unique look.
Bioshock 2
Bioshock 2 is actually my favorite of the series, but I have less to say about it because you can’t deny the genius of its predecessor. You play as subject Delta, a big daddy who has awoken after being ‘dead’ for years. You team up with a businessman named Sinclair but unlike Atlas, he’s a true ally who helps you along the way.
The overall goal here is to find your bonded little sister, Eleanor Lamb, who watched you kill yourself years prior and considers you her father. She can sometimes speak to you telepathically but her mother, Sofia Lamb, has her trapped to use Eleanor for a higher purpose. You must rescue her and escape Rapture together.
Along the way, Sofia Lamb sends splicers and beefed up enemies different from the first game after you to stop you from reaching Eleanor. Eventually, you do and you both have to fend off splicers in a final battle before fleeing. From then on, the game can end in different ways, which if you’re interested, here’s a good video showing all possible endings.
I’ll explain how you get these endings however. During your journey, you have choices to kill prominent people in Rapture, or spare them. These people have usually wronged you in some way, like Stanley Poole, a reporter who betrayed Sofia Lamb and was the reason Eleanor became a little sister. So there’s a big incentive to want to kill him and others. Eleanor will model her behavior and morality after what you do; if you save or harvest little sisters, and if you save or kill side characters. So, if you kill these figureheads but spare the little sisters, she will kill her mother in the end but show mercy to innocents. If you kill everyone, she’s a much more vengeful and rather evil person. If you save everyone, she spares her mother, talking about forgiveness. Whenever I play, I usually get the “good” ending, but maybe for my next playthrough, I should try what’s called the sad ending in the video I linked.
The morality in this game is more nuanced than simply saving or harvesting little sisters and I like that. For one side character, he is a scientist who went mad with Adam and trapped himself in his lab, but his living will is recorded for you and he asks you to kill him. Of course, what’s left of him doesn’t want you to do that, but I personally always do it as a mercy killing. I appreciate this nuance since in the first game it’s very cut and dry what the choices are.
However, I’m not going to touch on Bioshock Infinite in this review mainly because I haven’t played that one in years and need a good refresher, so one of these days, I’ll do a dedicated review of Infinite, and perhaps the remaining dlcs.
These two games are incredible in their own right that I always periodically revisit them because they’re one of the only first person shooter games I actually enjoy. I’m not big into the genre, but the gameplay, the stories, and the atmosphere makes it an enjoyable experience. If you’re not into this genre normally either, I’d really suggest checking the games out if you haven’t and for some reason you read this review. It’s a worthwhile experience that I still haven’t forgotten since my first playthrough 8 years ago.
