Critique: Bioshock

[llsaidknockyouout]

Many people make the case that Bioshock is an example of games-as-art. I can see where people are coming from in the sense that most games have weak stories and contrived overworlds. Bioshock is a beautiful game that has a fully realized world and deep lore to it, but it doesn't really come together as a whole. The game's structure, combat mechanics, and player motivation all failed to come together, and as a result, I felt such a fully realized world was wasted.


~~~ Paper-Thin Structure ~~~

I don't really interact with the world or characters in a meaningful way other than just moving from point A to point B. I'm just in Rapture to get what I need (or precisely what other characters need).

Regardless of the all the game has to offer, most of it is just clearing enemies, moving to the next objective. You basically do by-the-number quests like "collect X amount of photographs" or "collect X, Y and Z to make an elixir". These just feel like busy work to get you to see the world, in a similar way Legend of Zelda has "tears of light" or "collect 15 deku nuts" just to make sure you are exploring the overworld. So many beautiful and alluringly disturbing sights to see, but IG could not think of any meaningful way to actually get you to explore it.

Yes, the point of the game is that I am a puppet with only the illusion of free will, but that was apparent from the beginning. Why would ever feel like I wasn't a slave and I wasn't being used as a pawn if I never even had the impression that I could do more inside this world than what Atlas told me.

~~~ Dull Combat ~~~

All pretense aside, the majority of the game is based on shooting people. I really love the upgrades and plasmids, but the core combat of the game has problems such as lack of a meaningful death penalty. The main feature of the game's action is to fight Big Daddies, which is incredible once. Having to fight several more of them lost it's fun since all of the Little Sister scenes are duplicates, showing no growth or change in any of the characters or situations aside from the amount of plasmids I can hold at once.

Big Daddies have high health, but no matter how lethal they are, you can just come back and whittle away at them. It's basically a constant game of hit-and-run, repeat and refresh 100 times. I feel like I'm exploiting his clumsiness rather than overcoming a riveting and taxing challenge. He even loses sight of me and goes back to his business like I never existed. There's no fear that he's going to, chase me frantically, look me in the eye and end my life. My only fear in the game is that I'll run out of ammo and have to grind for more.

It's hard to understand how a murderous bio-engineered creature sworn to protect his daughter would be totally focused on killing me and then ignore me the next. Killing the Big Daddy never felt like a triumph from a challenge. I never survived by the skin of my teeth. I just exploit his stupidity.

~~~ No Real Motivation ~~~

I think the game would be different, let's say I was playing as Tenenbaum to protect my Little Sisters or playing as a drug-addled plasmid-junkie hungrily awaiting his next fix as I stumble on a path to redemption.

Perhaps the purpose of the game was for me to be an outsider, to set myself apart from the underwater city's craziness, but nonetheless, the end result was that I just wasn't invested into it. I had no motivation to want to progress through the game, even though I did.

As Jack, I have no real motivation to succeed. I enter this world in the beginning. And then I spend the rest of the game looking for a way out (in a linear path, with fish-hook bait fetch quests).

It's a game that has done so much and a world with so much going on but my relation to it as the player (or Jack's relation to it as a character) is so hollow.

~~~ Conclusion ~~~

I stand in Rapture, peering through it's window looking at it with both fascination and disgust of a dichotomous utopia in ruin. But, I look away with indifference realizing that I have little real inclusion in the world, and go back to doing the mundane work I'm ordered to do.

I don't think Bioshock is a bad game, but I just can't say I've had many pleasant memories with it. Like I said with Red Dead Redemption, Rapture is a fully realized world, but one I never felt a meaningful part of.

The tenet "do - not show" applies for games. I don't just want to see a story. I want to be a part of it. Sure, Bioshock doesn't rely on cutscenes, like many other games, but it relies on visual cues (especially provocative ones) to tell it's story. I'm not sure what shooting people and awkwardly fighting Big Daddies (which is most of the game) really had to do with any of the game's merits. There's a ton to remember about Rapture, but there's not much I remembered actually doing.

I remember Bioshock for what I saw. But not, more importantly, for how I interacted with it. And what a damning fate for such an ambitious game.

 

[llsaidknockyouout]

Eh, I really liked it up until the meeting with Ryan and the "would you kindly"-scene, after that the game dropped in wuality fast and the ending was, no joke, almost able to contest with Mass Effect 3 for horrible ending. Holy fucking crap the second half of Bioshock sucked.

On top of the first half of Bioshock sucking. Actually, the first half-hour of Bioshock was really cool. Medical Pavillion on, it's a chore.

It's a graphics-game. Maybe not one that's there to wow you with it's realism. But one that's there to wow you with provocative imagery to make you forget that you're just doing mundane mindless fetch quests.

 

[MysticSlayer]

but the core combat of the game has problems such as lack of a meaningful death penalty.

If this was back in 2007, I could understand this complaint. However, due to all the complaining that did erupt back then, Irrational ended up adding the option to turn Vita Chambers off in one of the patches. Consequently, the complaint really isn't worth much anymore and is really just a sign that a person isn't playing the latest version of the game or didn't read the options menu close enough.

Otherwise, while I do agree that there's not a lot of interaction with the world, it was probably better for it. Trying to add characters outside of the Splicers really ran the risk of detracting from the chaotic, dystopian nature. I mean, most of the named characters either try to kill you, get killed shortly after meeting you, and/or are absolutely insane. Only one character by the end was ever friendly and capable of staying alive, which helps reinforce the hostile nature of Rapture. Taking that away would take away from the atmosphere. Not to mention, the more agency the player had the less impacting the major twist would have been. They already messed it up a little with the Little Sister choice throughout the game.

In any case, even if the game's nature removed itself from really offering a sense of agency or deeper interaction with the world, it is a rather mentally engaging game, and I think that makes up for it. Trying to piece together the different characters and their stories, trying to figure out what happened to the world, and picking apart and analyzing the game's themes is really what kept me engaged. Looking back, most of it was due to a lack of experience with games that had better worlds and stories (of which I've played plenty since), but I'm not going to complain too much.

If anything, I think the most damning part of the game is how disconnected its world felt. OK, some minor characters interact with each other through audio diaries, but after that, there's really nothing to connect the different areas, especially since those audio diaries have little to do with the area you're in most of the time. What happens in the Medical Pavilion stays in the Medical Pavilion. What happens in Neptune's Bounty stays in Neptune's Bounty. You get the picture. Ultimately, it makes it seem like you're on a tour of Rapture, rather than actually becoming part of a large, interconnected world. I mean, I understand that the game's lack of characters makes it hard to connect everything, but they could have done more with the audio diaries, comments from Ryan and Atlas, and in the pacing of its themes to not make it feel like numerous disconnected levels.

Otherwise, I think the game did a very good job of working with its necessary limitations to build a compelling and reasonably engaging world. Sure, you get more interaction from other worlds, but how many of them deliver an atmosphere quite like BioShock's and manages to pull it off as well as BioShock did?

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

OP

While I disagree with a few points, that's a very lucid and certainly a valid interpretation of one of my favorite games. I applaud you for taking the time and thought to do this, rather than throwing out some pithy quips about your problems with the game. I see that FAR too often, and it's just become tiresome and whiny to my ears.

The biggest issue I would argue you on is that, yes the Vita-chambers are a terrible idea that saps the combat of all danger and urgency; fortunately, in any current version of the game you have the option of turning them off, which I did early in my first playthrough and have never used them since. Problem solved.

The combat may be a bit repetitive, true. You mostly kill endless splicers of a few different types and sprinkle in a Big Daddy here and there. I happen to thoroughly enjoy the very mechanics of gunplay and plasmid use, so it never bothered me, but obviously your mileage on that may vary.

Now, your problem with the motivation and thin structure of the plot is a little confusing to me. Surely you've realized that the vast majority of video games, beginning with Pong itself, are about you, the player character (whoever and whatever that may be) setting out to accomplish the game's goals with very little context or personal motivation. Why do any of the characters in Street Fighter fight in streets? Sure, they want to "win" and "be the best" or whatever, but that's as meaningless as motivations get. What's the emotional involvement? Does anyone care? Why does it bother you in this game, of all games, when nearly every other shooter out there is about shooting things first, explaining why second (if at all)?

BioShock's true narrative brilliance lies in its awareness and acceptance of that convention. It understands that your motivations in games are thin as paper and transparent as crystal, because the purpose of a game is to play it; any other motivation is the character's, not yours. Thus, it gives you a character with no motivations, or rather, false motivations, until the game reveals to you that your purpose here has never been your own.

Atlas/Fontaine has manipulated not only Jack, but YOU. As a person. If the lack of player character motivation seems conspicuous, that's because it is supposed to be. You're not normally supposed to question why you do what you do; you are given a task by the narrative, you go about completing that task to advance in the game and continue shooting things. BioShock is aware of this and keeps it in mind every step of the way, dropping small clues and foreshadowing events about the nature of the player character and his relationship with the real-life player. This is the one game that can get away with setting you in the middle of a story without explaining why the character, or you, should care.

Obviously, I'm gushing. I've thought a lot about this, and it gets smarter, deeper, and more awesome every time I play it. I'll stop here, but I appreciate the opportunity to express this like a formal debate.

 

[Mikejames]

Rapture isn't really a living world to interact with, it's the ruins of Andrew Ryan's society. The fact that you're usually alone with nothing but maniacs and the recordings of the terrible events that happened is meant to build tension and a mystery to piece together. You want to escape by following Atlas's lead, but you're only drawn further in.

The pacing isn't perfect, and you can argue that Jack doesn't have much emotional depth considering his role as someone's puppet, but for the most part, I enjoyed the experience.

 

[skywolfblue]

~~~ Dull Combat ~~~

All pretense aside, the majority of the game is based on shooting people. I really love the upgrades and plasmids, but the core combat of the game has problems such as lack of a meaningful death penalty. The main feature of the game's action is to fight Big Daddies, which is incredible once. Having to fight several more of them lost it's fun since all of the Little Sister scenes are duplicates, showing no growth or change in any of the characters or situations aside from the amount of plasmids I can hold at once.

Big Daddies have high health, but no matter how lethal they are, you can just come back and whittle away at them. It's basically a constant game of hit-and-run, repeat and refresh 100 times. I feel like I'm exploiting his clumsiness rather than overcoming a riveting and taxing challenge. He even loses sight of me and goes back to his business like I never existed. There's no fear that he's going to, chase me frantically, look me in the eye and end my life. My only fear in the game is that I'll run out of ammo and have to grind for more.

I personally wasn't too bothered by Vita Chambers. But I do find the combat of Bioshock 1 to be rather lackluster, primarily because of the lack of ability to shoot plasmids and guns at the same time, having to press buttons and wait to switch hands was dull and frustrating. Bioshock 2's combat is worlds better because of that, I don't enjoy Bioshock 1's combat, but I sure enjoy Bioshock 2's.

It's hard to understand how a murderous bio-engineered creature sworn to protect his daughter would be totally focused on killing me and then ignore me the next. Killing the Big Daddy never felt like a triumph from a challenge. I never survived by the skin of my teeth. I just exploit his stupidity.

I think of it as, they're living in a city of splicers, if they leave their little sister for even a second to go chase someone down, that little sister's going to get grabbed by a splicer. Shooting on sight after respawn is logical, but perhaps it's better from a gameplay standpoint to let the player choose the moment they enter combat, rather then a big daddy flattening the player the instant they step out of the vita chamber before they can fire back.

~~~ No Real Motivation ~~~

I think the game would be different, let's say I was playing as Tenenbaum to protect my Little Sisters or playing as a drug-addled plasmid-junkie hungrily awaiting his next fix as I stumble on a path to redemption.

Perhaps the purpose of the game was for me to be an outsider, to set myself apart from the underwater city's craziness, but nonetheless, the end result was that I just wasn't invested into it. I had no motivation to want to progress through the game, even though I did.

As Jack, I have no real motivation to succeed. I enter this world in the beginning. And then I spend the rest of the game looking for a way out (in a linear path, with fish-hook bait fetch quests).

It's a game that has done so much and a world with so much going on but my relation to it as the player (or Jack's relation to it as a character) is so hollow.

I agree with this, jack is an empty character. He doesn't have much in the way of motivations or backstory (he's Ryans son, so what? That's ALL we're told, nothing more, tell me more!). There's no explanation given as to why he doesn't talk before he becomes a big daddy.

Bioshock 2 is a lot better in this regard. Delta has clear motivations, can make choices to save or kill people, everyone seems to know his backstory and they all bring up various bits of it at every turn. Even though Delta cannot speak because he's a big daddy and his voicebox has been ripped out, he's a much more fleshed out character then Jack.