Review: Bioshock Remastered

After finishing up Bioshock Infinite, I decided I needed to go ahead and complete the other games despite my lack of enthusiasm for horror games. Based on my previous review, you could tell that I really enjoyed Infinite. I was told by many that the original Bioshock games were even better.

A few important things to note:

1. I played the Remastered version. This means that my comments on the graphics and playability may only be limited to this version of the game. Thus, may not be as representative of the base game.
2. I played the game knowing the outcome of the game. I was spoiled for this game long before I had any interest in the franchise. Thus, when talking about the plot, I will be discussing it from the perspective of someone who had already known what was going to happen. However, I didn’t know when or how it would have been executed.
3. This means that this review WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS. This is your official SPOILER WARNING. This game is over a decade old at this point. So, most people would have already played it. However, I will be doing my best to keep the spoilers at minimum (unless explicitly needed to express my thoughts on the story). Thus, if you are against spoilers, I would advise you to skip over the ‘Plot’ section of this review.
4. Also, keep in mind that the following is my opinion and may or may not be unpopular. Feel free to let me know if I missed anything in a calm manner.

Much like my previous reviews, I will be analyzing the game with the P.A.G. Model. Plot, Aesthetics and Gameplay. I will repeat here again, should you wish to avoid too many spoilers, I would suggest for you to skip over the ‘Plot’ section.

So, let’s take the Bathysphere down to the spoilery depths!

10 Fathoms
|
20 Fathoms
|
30 Fathoms
|
100 Fathoms
|
200 Fathoms
|
500 Fathoms
|
750 Fathoms
|
1000 Fathoms
|
1200 Fathoms

Plot

The year is 1960, a commercial airliner mysteriously crashes in the middle of the ocean, in front of an ominous lighthouse. The crash’s sole survivor, Jack, swims to it and finds a submarine-like mechanism that sends him to the depths of the ocean. Here, he comes across a mysterious underwater city.

As he traverses to the murky depths of the ocean, a video plays:

“I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.”

At this point, players understand the world they are about to enter. It is a world where the free market runs rampant. A world where morality is not even a polite suggestion. A world where anything goes. This world is Rapture.

Players then encounter Atlas, a kindly man, willing to help you out in exchange for helping him out with his family.

Continuing through the game, you learn about the intricacies behind Rapture and its messed-up population. With many entertainingly colourful characters such as a mad maestro and a crazy surgeon, travelling through Rapture is definitely a fun experience.

The overall plot seems simple at first. Follow the kind man’s instructions, survive and kill a man. However, what really makes this game interesting is its major twist. I knew the twist beforehand. However, the execution was amazing. There was so much foreshadowing for players, as long as you had paid attention as the plot progressed. The more you chose to explore and listen to the diary entries strewn across the levels, the more story you get. When the story finally reaches the big reveal… Damn… It is hard to put it into words. You will really have to experience it yourself.

The game has relatively slow pacing at first which makes it an understandable turnoff for most mainstream gamers. However, the overarching plot and overall execution and resolution is what gives this game its critical acclaim.

The themes in the story are quite interesting. There are two main ideas at play. One is the ferocity of the free market and purely capitalistic ideology. The game discusses this in the form of the world of Rapture and how everything and everyone are essentially insane due to their pursuit of self-preservation or improvement via pure morals-be-damned capitalism. It is, of course, an exaggeration. However, with money running everything globally, who is to say that this wouldn’t be a possible reality in the future.

A second theme present is a theme that also appeared in Infinite. Choices. A man chooses while a slave obeys. In life, we are given many choices. Aren’t we? Or are all the choices made by another force? These are the questions that Bioshock asks the player. How much of our life is truly under our control?

Aesthetic

Despite being set in the 1960s, most of the design looks more like the 40s to 50s due to the years Rapture was built. So, if you are into that sort of 50s nostalgia, you will definitely enjoy Rapture’s design.

Unlike Infinite, Bioshock was definitely made to be a horror game of sorts. Every scene in the game was off-putting and uncomfortable. All the enemies looked like goth steampunk zombies. And there were a lot of implications that you could put together based on the diary entries found throughout the levels. Implications that were really… disturbing. I think I will use some of the design choices from the Bioshock games for Inside the Company haha.

My favourite enemy in the games are the Big Daddies. I guess this would have been an automatic pick since the Big Daddy and Little Sister are the most iconic parts of Bioshock 1 and 2. I love that their designs are similar to a heavy diving suit. They lumber around like hulking giants. It is really cool! The Little Sisters are also insanely creepy.

The weapons are more modern looking than the early 1900s steampunk look present in Infinite. One thing that is really cool about the weapons are that the design modifies slightly as you progress through the game and tack on upgrades. For example, when you upgrade your shotgun to have a higher damage output, the barrel changes a little. These little touches definitely help improve the perception of progress in the game.

Gameplay

Bioshock’s gameplay is definitely its weakest point by a significant margin. To sum it all up, playing Bioshock is a chore for the first 4 hours or so. I was playing on Medium for the first 2 hours. However, ammo was too scarce and enemies were too hard to kill so I swapped down to easy. I am quite used to playing First Person Shooters, having played Counter Strike among others. However, the weapons that do have ammo miss the target often due to the high amount of recoil, so putting the enemy in the reticle doesn’t matter if you are using the Machine Gun until you get to the latter half of the game.

The hacking mechanic is slow and unfulfilling, making it easier for me to just shoot them down than play Pipe Dream for minutes on end. I was truly spoilt with the Possession Vigor in Infinite. I think that if the hacking mechanic was adjusted, it would have been more interesting

Speaking of Vigors, the Plasmids in Bioshock were mostly useless in the long run. I managed to complete the entire game without using my plasmids as much as I would have hoped to use them. The enemies didn’t really take enough damage from them to make it worth investing the Adam into them.

However, after the second half of the game, when your damage output is higher. Playing through the game becomes way easier and more comfortable. For example, the machine gun gets a stabilizer mod that reduces recoil by an insane amount. The only thing that is weak towards the end of the game is how boring the final boss was. All he does is shoot and dash. Nothing special.

Conclusion

Bioshock is a game that is extremely story driven. The themes discussed supplemented by a great story definitely helps this game work, despite poor gameplay. I would give Bioshock 1 a 6/10. It has the same problems that Infinite had in the sense that there was no real replayability to the game. However, the terrible gameplay for the first half reduced my score further. Overall, I wouldn’t say that this is a great game but I can at least say that it is a good game.

---

Check out my Bioshock Infinite review here!