Bioshock review, just finished full game (SPOILERS)

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gsdg_gdsg

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8.5/10

First 2/3'rds of the game 10/10
Last 1/3'rd of the game 6/10

Let me start by saying that in my opinion, the first two thirds of the game were incredible, simply stunning in everyway you could ask for. Great storyline, great graphics, fun gameplay, awesome sound and more... However, I felt the story and gameplay really died after the meeting with Andrew Ryan (which i thought was the greatest cut scene from a video game, ever).

My first complaint
I chose to be evil, and harvest the little girls... now after all that why would I be helped by the "mother" of all these girls... I know its a lot of work.. but I felt that the game should have been split in two after the meeting with ryan. Even though i felt this was a flaw, it didn't bother me as much as my next complaint.

2) THE LAST BOSS FIGHT WAS TERRIBLE
The last boss fight/ending to bioshock was a huge letdown to me... As the pcgamer review said.. the last boss fight did not have the dark/gloomy bioshock feel. Instead i felt like I was playing in a fantastic 4 game with good graphics. I just wish that the producers of the game could have created a better final fight that was harder and had the atmosphere of the rest of the game.

3) Speed/Teleport plasmids left out.. would have liked to see a larger variety of plasmids.

But, all these negatives can be forgiven by what I think is the best beginning/middle that any game can ever have. The parts with the mad artist Cohen were simply stunning, as well as the cut scene with Ryan and the medical station level.

I would really love to see how others felt about the game... Up until (and through) the Ryan cutscene it was looking to be my favorite game of the year (as well as all time).. now i feel that crysis and BIA hells highway could top it.
 
I chose to save all the little sisters, but I'm pretty much on the same page as you. Fort Frolic was by far the best presented part of any game I've ever played; after the meeting with Ryan and filling in all the little story gaps, the end of game felt kind of tedious; and the final boss (hell, all of the bosses), could use some work. Despite the betrayal, I didn't really feel motivated at all to go after Fontaine, the pieces of the puzzle were all together after meeting Ryan. I also felt that the actual ending sequence could've been fleshed out more, it felt very abrupt and it could've at least had some fade in to credits instead of just blinking back to the menu screen like nothing had been done.

Also, there is a lot more MP potential in this game than I initially thought. Straight DM with user-selected plasmid layouts and maybe a mode with one player as a big daddy. Nothing too fleshed out, but the potential with these gameplay mechanics actually could've been interesting.

Ultimately, I was initially very compelled to play and tremendously impressed, but it all felt kind of empty at the end of the game with the simplistic final boss and short ending sequence. Bioshock was certainly a fantastic experience, but far from perfect.
 
Am I correct in assuming that your character, as Ryan's son, was experimented on by Dr. Suchong when he was in the employ of Fontaine? It doesn't make sense to me that Ryan would do that to you in order to control you with all of his "a man chooses, a slave obeys" rhetoric, but then it also doesn't make sense that he would allow it to happen to you at all.
 
krameriffic said:
Am I correct in assuming that your character, as Ryan's son, was experimented on by Dr. Suchong when he was in the employ of Fontaine? It doesn't make sense to me that Ryan would do that to you in order to control you with all of his "a man chooses, a slave obeys" rhetoric, but then it also doesn't make sense that he would allow it to happen to you at all.
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I didn't get the impression that you were his son. Just that they had gotten an incomplete DNA sample of his to create you.

Back on topic, I liked the whole game, but I'm in line with everyone else that's posted so far. The last third just felt rushed and somewhat pointless. I chose the rescue route and was thinking about playing the harvest aspect. Now that I see that it's the same ending (what a crock) I'll just sell it off for $30 and wait for the next game to come around. There's just no replay value at all.
 
more spoliers

In Cohens area you're orded to kill 4 guys, the last guy is at a strip club and if you jump on the stage and go behind it you'll find a room with a dead (presumably) hooker/dancer, and theres a ghost sequence and a tape diary under the bed which lead us to believe you're the son of Ryan.

I think Ryan had fond hopes that you were man enough to break your slave like ways and thats why he confronts you the way he does.

I saved all the little sisters and it looks like it paid off in the end, I like the idea that the moral choices you make during the game effect the overall storyline.

I didn't kill cohen either but you actually meet up with him again later on when you're in the posh residence area and he's got 2 people dancing in a room, and if you disturb them by knocking over the music box they attack you, and after you kill them cohen appears and trys to kill you, at that point I killed him.

I love the idea that early decisions effected the latter part of the gameplay, I'd love to see a game much shorter than Bioshock but done in a similar manner (creepy FPS) where your choices heavily effect the outcome of the game, and that failing and having a less than desireable end is common and you replay the game in different ways to find the correct set of events to get a suitable ending, i think that would be very cool
 
Frosteh said:
more spoliers

In Cohens area you're orded to kill 4 guys, the last guy is at a strip club and if you jump on the stage and go behind it you'll find a room with a dead (presumably) hooker/dancer, and theres a ghost sequence and a tape diary under the bed which lead us to believe you're the son of Ryan.

I think Ryan had fond hopes that you were man enough to break your slave like ways and thats why he confronts you the way he does.

I saved all the little sisters and it looks like it paid off in the end, I like the idea that the moral choices you make during the game effect the overall storyline.

I didn't kill cohen either but you actually meet up with him again later on when you're in the posh residence area and he's got 2 people dancing in a room, and if you disturb them by knocking over the music box they attack you, and after you kill them cohen appears and trys to kill you, at that point I killed him.

I love the idea that early decisions effected the latter part of the gameplay, I'd love to see a game much shorter than Bioshock but done in a similar manner (creepy FPS) where your choices heavily effect the outcome of the game, and that failing and having a less than desireable end is common and you replay the game in different ways to find the correct set of events to get a suitable ending, i think that would be very cool
Click to expand...

I'll have to go back and re-play that diary. I don't remember that. Not that I doubt you, I just hate not remembering something when I just went through it.

EDIT: Do you think Ryan knew that your character was his son and was already sold off, but killed the girl anyway. Or did he kill her thinking that he was 'taking care of his problem'. There's a tape or message later on talking about how they used Ryan's DNA in you and it seemed like they thought he didn't know.
 
For those of you who saved all the Little Sisters, what type of ending did you get? I harvested all but the first and the ones at the end, and I got a very evil centric ending. Just wondering if there is a better one if you save the sisters.
 
I beat it with the 'good' ending. which is nice...i really liked it but some might find it a bit on the sappy side.

I think the reason people are bashing the last part of the game is just because the mystery mostly was gone...all the secrets were revealed so they had to do something unusual, which i thought was pretty cool (with the BD thing). The end boss was okay, but the way he met his final 'end' made it all worthwhile for me.

Yes, you are ryans son. The hooker from the strip club sold her embryo to fontain. Ryan found out, and killed her for doing it. Ryan knew you were his son, and knew you were brainwashed. he let you kill him probably for one of these 2 reasons.

1) he had no other real options. you had him cornered, and at least some moral part of him couldnt cause him to kill his son. He thought the best way to prove that he was being 'played' was to let him kill him this way.

or...and i kinda like this explaination...

2) The Vita-chamers are programmed to Ryans DNA. thats why they work for you. Ryans not dead. He knew he would be revived. Bioshock 2 baby.
 
Azith said:
I think the reason people are bashing the last part of the game is just because the mystery mostly was gone...
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That was pretty much the problem for me, as I said. There was really very little motivation to go through everything after meeting Ryan, as the story was essentially complete.
 
I'm kinda with you guys. I wanted to go back and replay it to see the alternate ending, cause I rescued the girls, but you're still helped by them? Doesn't seem to make sense. Also, I accidently disturbed the dancers and killed Cohen, to which I picked up the Muse Key off his body. I attempted to try and find out what it went to but was too caught up in the story and wanted to get to Ryan, or Fontaine, lol can't remember.
 
Dallows said:
I'm kinda with you guys. I wanted to go back and replay it to see the alternate ending, cause I rescued the girls, but you're still helped by them? Doesn't seem to make sense. Also, I accidently disturbed the dancers and killed Cohen, to which I picked up the Muse Key off his body. I attempted to try and find out what it went to but was too caught up in the story and wanted to get to Ryan, or Fontaine, lol can't remember.
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The Muse key you use back where you complete Cohen's display. There's a locked display that'll give you some items if you kill him there, or go all the way back to that level. That is something I liked about this game, being able to go back to previous areas and finish something up if you needed to.
 
Dallows said:
Also, I accidently disturbed the dancers and killed Cohen, to which I picked up the Muse Key off his body. I attempted to try and find out what it went to but was too caught up in the story and wanted to get to Ryan, or Fontaine, lol can't remember.
Click to expand...

Do you remember two locked display cases in Fort Frolic? When you finish Cohen's masterpiece he gives you the key to one of them (contains Medical Expert 2 I believe), but the other remains locked. If you kill him then and there as I did you can grab the key and open the second locked display case. However, if you kill him later you can use a bathysphere to travel back to Fort Frolic and open it later if you so choose.

As for the end, I thought it was pretty damn good myself. I will agree that the build up to killing Ryan was the better part of the game, especially when you found out what was going on and you had to watch as you killed him against your will. That part was absolutely brilliant.

I don't really see where you guys are coming from about not wanting to kill Fontaine though. This guy forced you to kill your father, ruined your life, lied to you repeatedly, and then he used his backup code word to try and kill your heart. The guy was an evil son of a bitch, and I was more than willing to kill the bastard. I loved how he went down too, with the little sisters piling on top of him to suck out all that Adam.

It's disappointing to hear that the game doesn't change much if you choose to kill the little sisters. You still have to do an escort mission with them at the end, and they still kill Fontaine? Even if you murder every single one you come across? That sucks.
 
Well I should've specified. I thought the whole ryan encounter was amazing. And the way fontaine died by being stabbed together was kinda chilling. But the fight itself could have been better.

I was reading on the 2k forum and someone was saying how Tenebaum wanted to kill Fontaine for the little sisters thing, so that's why she helped.
 
So what is the "evil" ending? I was going to play through it again because I figure the last bit of the game should be completely different given the circumstances, but is it the same as if you save all the little girls? (getting saved by tenanbaum, and her helping you get over fontaines mind control). I was hoping that on my second "evil" playthrough the game would give me a different end portion. Bad design choice imo if the game plays the same either way.

Another thing that confuses me is the whole submarine segment thats pretty much the 1st turning point of the game. Ryan seems to know about the whole mind control thing, and that Atlas isnt really atlas, so why doesn't he alert your character to this fact earlier?

One funny thing is I remember saying to a friend of mine who was watching me play that Atlas says "Would you kindly" alot, wish I was smart enough to put it all together myself.
 
lol. I just thought it was the way he talked.

The thing about Tenebaum is that she had her own motive. So it actually made sense for her character to help you help her kill Fontaine.
 
If I can file one single complaint about Bioshock it's going to be the bossfight in the end. Personally I really don't like bossfights, especially not in games like Bioshock because I feel it dumbs the drama down.

Personally I would have prefered to battle my way trough Fontaines minions until I finally enter Fontaines office, once there I would have liked to have the choice to kill Fontaine or not, not as a fight but as an execution. Whether or not Fontaine is killed at such a point is really irrelevant as you at this point will have proven to him that you are a man and he is not (a man chooses and you choose to kill him or not) and that Rapture is not and never will be his. Then just turn and walk away -much more tension much more drama and for me a lot better than a bossfight. Also it wouldn't really matter if Fontaine at such a point remained in control of rapture, with you taking all the inhabitants to the surface Fontaine would be a king without a people and therefore really no king at all.
 
Games with 'atmosphere' such as bioshock are simply annoying. That grim 'feel' doesn't immerse you into anything but only create disgust and boredom of the repeating 'horror' monster-from-dark-corner attacks.

I bought DoomIII. Dunno why, never played it past the first level for the above mentioned reasons. It sucked. Fortunately Bioshock had the demo to convince me not to buy it.
 
Too bad for you, you're missing out on an absolutely amazing experience.

And Doom 3 isn't even a quarter of the game Bioshock is.
 
Thats simply not true. Doom 3 was a fantastic game. So far, after burning through Bioshock, I enjoyed it, but I cant say I liked it any better then I did Doom3.
 
I after I got all the huge number of technical issues worked out and got the game running pretty good, I love it. WAY better than Doom III.

Doom III atmosphere = turn off the lights and have monsters jump out of closets behind you.
Bioshock has the best atmosphere ive ever seen, by far....music, creepy dialouge from the NPC, all kinds of creepy stuff in the various levels...WAY more creativity and artistic value than Doom III. Doom III was tech demo, not much else.

And I agree, only the ending really was a letdown.
 
The only thing that brought the experience down for me was the escort mission near the end.. I almost quit playing it was so frustrating for me.
 
Andrmgic said:
The only thing that brought the experience down for me was the escort mission near the end.. I almost quit playing it was so frustrating for me.
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Yeah, me too. Just finished the game this evening and that part was unnecessarily frustrating. It was annoying because more often than not I'd want to run ahead and disable a turret or whatever and the girl would be stuck under my feet making it almost impossible to move. I ended up bunny hopping about the place.


I agree though with the OP: the first 2/3rds of the game were great, the last bit was a bit weaker. I hated the part with Fontaine draining your life and even worse the random plasmids bit. I guess they thought it'd make it interesting, but I just found it irritating. Considering the amount of depth and audio diaries lying about, the game's clearly designed to make you take your time, except these bits just added a sense of rush which let to annoyance.


Fort Frolic was amazing though. I'm so glad I took my time there and really explored it completely. So much depth and detail. Makes you realise how much of a rarity this game really is.

My only real gripe was the weak ending really. Fontaine was way too easy to kill. Did it first time using only 3 of my 9 med kits and barely touched most of my ammo (medium difficulty). I never actually used either the crossbow or chemical thrower at all throughout the entire game. Not once, seriously! Just didn't feel the need and they looked clumsy.


I was kinda expecting/hoping to see the entire city flood and generally get destroyed as part of some escape sequence, but alas, no. I guess they're saving the city for a sequel.
 
IMO Doom 3 does not compare to bioshock... my friend told me to just beat the demo 6 times and that was like beating the game (he was right). After i borrowed it from him, i found it to great graphics, and repetitive gameplay... but that was alrgiht b/c doom 1 and 2 were just all about run and gun.
Bioshock on the other hand is a work of art... people who just focus on gameplay might compare it to doom 3 (as the gameplay DOES get repetitive) but the story/sound/visuals/atmosphere of the game is what makes ppl give it high ratings..

Like someone on here said, by solving most of the story at the andrew ryan killing part, the rest of the game feels trite...

But I just want to give one more complaint to an otherwise great game. When I chose to harvest the girls (putting myself in character here) I was doing it for my own survival, to do what ever is neccesary to get out of rapture... The ending shouldn't have been that you let the splicers out and take over the world? or what ever that end sequence did
 
gsdg_gdsg said:
But I just want to give one more complaint to an otherwise great game. When I chose to harvest the girls (putting myself in character here) I was doing it for my own survival, to do what ever is neccesary to get out of rapture... The ending shouldn't have been that you let the splicers out and take over the world? or what ever that end sequence did
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At first I thought the same (I actually didn't harvest, I saved), but I went and watched the other ending and initially thought the same as you. Then I thought that maybe it's not so much you are a bad person and released the splicers deliberately, but more that you just selfishly escaped and did nothing to stop them getting out.

There's actually 2 versions of the bad ending, both the same video, but with slightly different narration.

Tell me, how much adam do you get if you harvest? You get 80 if you save, but after 3 saves Tenenbaum gives you get a teddy bear filled with 200 adam, lots of health, and a free plasmid or gene tonic. I saved the gatherers and never felt short of adam at the end, infact I had about 170 left unused.
 
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