Honorable Mention # 5: BioShock (Warning Spoilers)

Now I will openly admit that I am a first person shooter Nazi (As in I really don't like them). I only have one first person shooter on my top ten list and even a first person shooter that is considered one of the best games bored me (but I might get into that in another review). So it does take a lot to make a FPS impress me and thats just what BioShock did. As I said in my Metroid Prime review I call BioShock the "King of Atmospheric Games". The atmosphere for this game was so good that even its sequel did not top it. Now technically this is an RPG not a FPS however it is in the first person perspective. This game is just so much fun there really is nothing about it I do not like (Well I might have one part I don't like but thats it).

So let get in dive deep into the underwater master piece called BioShock. So let us start with the back story which has your main character in an airplane remembering his past life and his family. When suddenly the plane starts to go down crashing into the water. Leaving you to make your way to an island as the plane sinks around you as fires burn. You seem to be the only passenger still alive. So you find yourself in a building with the only exit being a submarine. So you get into the Sub and it starts going down to the once great city under the sea called Rapture.

You will be introduced to Andrew Ryan via a "video" he will tell you about Rapture and before the shield opens up that is over the window and you will see the outside of the city under the sea and it is impressive. There is a whale that is swimming around and neon lights this makes Rapture looks very impressive. So now you have arrived at Rapture and boy does it look impressive. The first thing you see is a human like creature killing another human. Once the other person is dead the hook handed thing senses you are there and will talk before attacking your sub trying to get in. You will hear a voice telling you to pick up this radio box that is in the sub and you will be introduced to Atlas who will send in some security bots to take care of the Creature. He will tell you what is going on and that he needs your help to find his family so they can all get away from the dying Rapture. See this as your only way to get back to the surface is by helping Atlas so you agree. He is going to help you along the way he will tell you to find yourself a weapon or something mentioning a crow bar as a nod to Half Life. However you find a wrench and for a melee weapon I actually like it. In my last play through of BioShock I used the wrench the majority of the game preferring it over the guns (The electric plasmid and wrench combo is effective killing most enemies with one use.) Now you will make your make your way around Rapture. You will find something that is called a Gathers Garden this is where you can buy Plasmids and Tonics. When you find your first Garden it will have a Plasmid called Electro Bolt which will shoot electricity at enemies. Like in real life if you shoot it at water or at an enemy in water it will be fried killing most enemies like that.

While you are exploring Rapture you will encounter Splicers which are people who have been driven mad by genetic manipulation. There are different kinds of splicers as well which you will run into along the way. The Thugish Splicers are splicers who just use melee weapons to attack you. Leadhead Splicers are splicers that still have the ability to use guns and are rather dangerous. Spider Splicers are in my opinion the most disturbing of the splicers. The Spider Splicers us fish hooks as weapons (The splicer that attacks the sub is a Spider Splicer) they will also use the fish hooks to climb the ceiling. Houdini Splicers have the ability to vanish and the reappear out of no where. They are not the strongest splicers when you get down in dirty with them however when it comes to ranged attacks they are skilled. Once they are out of danger they will start throwing fire balls at you.

Another enemy you will face are called Big Daddies. The Big Daddies protect the Little Sisters. The little sisters hold the precious substance known as Adam. Adam is what allows people to manipulate there genetic codes. Now the Little Sisters (little girls who have sea slugs in them that will recycle old Adam into new raw Adam) wonder around harvesting the used Adam inside the dead bodies of the splicers. Now if you get to close to a Little Sister there Big Daddy (A genetically altered and mentally erased humans in armored diving suites) will get defensive and if you try to attack a Little Sister the Big Daddy will try to kill you. If you manage to kill a Big Daddy you will have to option to either save or kill the Little Sister. To save them you will use a plasmid that was given to you by a Doctor who helped create them. This Plasmid will remove the slug from there bodies returning them to normal little girls which will give you a good amount of Adam. Now if you Harvest the Little Sister you will kill her and get more Adam at this moment. However if you save a good majority of Little Sisters they will leave you a present which will include Adam (If you save all of the Little Sisters you will actually get more Adam then if you harvest them).

You will be making your way to Neptune's Bounty which is where Atlas tells you his family is hiding in a Bathosphere (Submarine). However to get there you will have to go through some creepy enemies like the crazy plastic surgeon Dr. Stinemen. With Adam Stinemen was able to mold the flesh like clay however this lead to him never being happy with his work. This caused him to continually operate on people more then they wanted and eventually lead him to killing his patients because they weren't perfect seeing them as lost causes.

Once you finally make it to Neptune's Bounty you will get ready to send prep the Sub that Atlas's family is inside for launch Andrew Ryan destroys it and sends a hord of Splicers after you (you are currently locked in the room that has the controls on it.) Atlas is devastated by the lost of his family wonders if you would kindly kill Andrew Ryan. Which will serve as our story for the majority of the game.

In your hunt for Andrew Ryan you will be sent to Fort Frolic where you will meet the coolest character in this game. As soon as you get out of the Sub in Fort Frolic your communications with Atlas will be cut and the Sub will sink into the water. Bunny Masks will come from the ceiling and statues of Splicers standing on pedestals that will raise from the water. (you will see many of these statues and they are actually the bodies of splicers covered in plaster.) A new voice is on your radio and it is the voice of Sander Cohen. Now Sander Cohen was once a famous singer, song writer, actor, poet, and dancer who was invited to Rapture by Andrew Ryan him self (Possible friendship before Rapture.) He was given authority over Fort Frolic before Cohen started into madness. Now Sander Cohen is incredibly creepy in the most awesome way. Through out the game you will find audio diaries of various characters in the game how ever the one by Sander Cohen called "The Wild
Bunny" is by far the best.

"I want to take the ears off, but I can't. I hop, and when I hop, I never get off the ground. It's my curse, my eternal curse! I want to take the ears off but I can't! It's my curse! It's my fucking curse! I want to take the ears off! Please! Take them off! Please!"

Now this is just creepy after hearing it I instantly felt like someone was going to attack me. I just love that poem its sets the tone perfectly for the kind of person Cohen is. He will have you hunt down his former students wanting you to kill them and then take their picture to place in has master piece. Cohen sees death as a work of art and thinks of you as his newest student calling you a "Little Moth". While working on his master piece he will think you don't like it and will send a bunch of Splicers after you. However when you kill the Splicers he will apologize for loosing his temper. Over all Sander Cohen is an amazing character well designed well acted and creepy as all get out. I will post a link so you can hear "The Wild Bunny" for yourself.

So eventually you will be at Andrew Ryan's doorstep and ready to kill the jerk face. This will lead to a cut scene that has one of the biggest twist in any game I have ever played. I really don't want to spoil this but I have to talk about it to continue the review so I am going to do this Spoilers Spoilers Spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You will finally come face to face with Andrew Ryan who is playing "golf" in his office (just putting really). He will talk to you about the life you think you have. He will say his slogan "A Man Chooses A Slave Obeys" he will say that over and over again before he opens the door to his room. He says "Would you kindly come in" to this you enter his room. He will hand you his golf club and says "Would you kindly Kill" to this you begin beating Ryan in the head with the golf club as he keeps saying would and telling you to keep attacking him until he dies.

If you did not get it he is revealing you are nothing more then a puppet for Atlas who you will find out is actually Ryan's biggest enemy Frank Fontain. Fontain was thought to be dead after he lead the lower class citizens who were all spliced up against Andrew Ryan for control of Rapture. You are no more then Fontain's puppet as he had designed everything that has happened to you. Him and a Dr. Suchong had created you and implanted memories into your head. Everything that happened to you was designed so you would take out Ryan and Fontain would be able to take control. Of course you are not to happy about it but you don't have to long to think about it as he sends in a bunch a security bots in to kill you. However thanks to the help of the little sisters you will escape and be taken to Dr. Tenenbaum who will remove Fontain's influence over your brain.

How ever he hasn't lost all power over you he still has he still can cause your heart to stop for a small amounts of time. You have to fight your way through splicers and other enemies as you make your way to Fontain Futuristics where you will have a showdown with Frank Fontain himself who has been over splicing. Now you will go through a rather annoying part of of the game. Its the only part that I really don't like. You have to become a Big Daddy by getting the body suit, the Helmet, vocalizer, and the smell of a Big Daddy. This will get on of the still infected Little Sisters to lead you to Fontain. Now this is annoying because you need to protect the little sister as she harvests Adam. This is just annoying to have to protect her while swarms of splicers attack you.

So after this little bit of annoyingness is over you will have to face Frank Fontain. He has been doing nothing but splicing making him look like a giant man who's flesh has been burned off. He is very powerful and is not very easy to beat. He is powerful in strength, he also has projectiles, and control of the splicers. Now I really liked this battle but I am not going to walk you through it because there are many different ways to defeat him.

Now I want to talk about one of the main things that make this game so atmospheric the Splicers. Yes the Splicers make this game very atmospheric. They have personalities and a very dark aura about them. They will walk around rambling and talking to themselves even singing to themselves. They will sing an incredibly scary version of "Jesus Loves Me" that will just creep you out. They really help make the games atmosphere and is just amazing. So thats BioShock if you haven't played it then do it.