Bioshock, now infamous amongst gamers of all seasoning, shook the industry by proving singleplayer gaming was NOT dead. It proved Co-op was not necessary to be interesting, that multiplayer modes were not mandatory in an FPS, and that stupid plot lines and outrageous characters would not feel out of place in a serious tone. For lots of reasons, Bioshock was a great game, but for one, it killed the experience for me. Right now, I’m going to warn you, if you have not played the game, I cannot assure you I won’t spoil it. I’m going to talk as if you have finished it, so spoilers potentially start HERE.======================

Bioshock, in pieces, was a fantastic game. It included a simple but interesting skill tree, classic FPS mechanics, and creative weapons. It featured a sectoral but open level design. It had interesting and intriguing characters and back story. It’s narrative was well presented. But for all these nice touches, they didn’t mesh. Maybe I’m over thinking it, but I believe being critical of anything exposes why it was so good in the first place. Bioshock does not come together as a single whole or as one work. First of all, it was a lackluster RPG. Some people argue it was never an RPG to begin with, They say it was a Shooter. So why were the guns so arduous to shoot? Why was the game 25 hours? The reason a Shooter lasts at most 13 hours is because shooting for another ten is boring. If it was a Shooter, it was poorly paced. Another problem would be, why did we have free form character building, considering the ‘twist’ at the end? If I was a slave, I would be more concerned with kindly doing what I was asked, not wandering around for ADAM. And if I really was a slave all along, why did I do so much wandering? Now, I don’t know how you played the game, but me, I got into an area and the first thing I did was loot and kill everything I could. I even waited for respawns so I could get more. The only reason I ever progressed in the game was because the loading screen was the last door I hadn’t checked. For a slave, I do a piss poor job.

This was my biggest qualm with the game. They throw this dumb plot twist at you completely out of nowhere, like they were arguing with you, got you to swear and shouted “ha I made you swear!”. You walk through the last door in the area, which get’s blocked off once you do, and Fontaine comes on your comm shouting (in a very bad accent) “You were a slave”. Seriously? I couldn’t tell, I’ve been farming ADAM, I wanted to shoot bees, when did I become your slave? Maybe the RPG/Character Building stuff was too add a bit of irony to the situation. Hey, check out our customizable game experience, but wait! You were a slave all along! Maybe that was the case, but I don’t think so. I think Bioshock was trying to hard to be what people wanted it to be, instead of what IT wanted to be. They wanted to be like System Shock, because people loved System Shock. But they wanted it to be like Halo, because people love Halo. How do we combine the two? Keep the open-ish world and RPG elements, introduce the straightforward gunplay and level progression from Halo, 9.0s here I come! Obviously, and this is true with all products, there were compromises. They needed to sell the game, after all. But the game betrayed it’s own ideas. It’s own design. The game was not that intriguing to me. The only reason I made progress was because I was looking for more ADAM. I wanted to make Big Daddies kick other Big Daddy ass… Eventually I made it to the end, but not because I was being compelled by Fontaine’s nasty voice. Because I was trying to do something for me. Max out my stats.

The ability to choose to kill or let live the Little Sisters also betrayed the concept of the game. Just because Fontaine never said “would you kindly kill her” that doesn’t mean it fits right in. Fact is, giving me a dilemma like that (and so many times) contrasts the fact that I’m supposed to be going forward, following orders. I shouldn’t be stopping to choose to help or unhelp anyone. Why am I given a choice if I am a slave? The irony? On top of all this, the ADAM and plasmid system makes it most obvious. Why is my person being turned into whatever I’d like, at whatever points I’d like if I was just told to go to ______ or to collect ______? Why am I not following orders if I really am a slave? I think all this was poorly delivered. You could argue, “well the type of game they wanted to make wouldn’t guarantee the player followed the tracks we set so you have to take it with a grain of salt. Make a huge bottle, but ultimately come out at one narrow end”. Or you could design the game to play the way the story and characters develop. Linear. Tied to a goal without the choice to do other wise. Narrow paths, blocked exits, obvious directions and markings showing where you need to be. Then, you could unlock everything at the end, make it completely open when you stop taking Fontaine’s orders. That way the gameplay would mirror the design of the narrative.

Let’s look at Half Life 1 and 2. People say the plot of these games are not nearly as good as other people have made them out to be. What people do not realize is that Half Life is not just another shooter with a line stolen from every 1970s sci-fi book. It’s a First Person game. Not just a First Person Shooter, but a First Person game. Want to know why the story is so confusing? Because you don’t know what Breen and the slugs have been talking about, what Alyx and Eli and Kleiner have been up to for the last 10 or so years, what Judith does in secret, or what the Vortigaunts can see. You don’t know because you only have a pair of eyes. No ability to travel outside of your body and magically see what everyone else is talking about. The gameplay mirrored the narrative. It was a first person narrative. You got from the story exactly what Gordon had experienced. The gameplay was linear and the story farfetched because there were holes. You weren’t around to see or find out what happened, because you were in a vent instead of floating behind some Commanding Officer in a plane telling his men to kill everyone in Black Mesa. That’s why you don’t understand why the military is out to kill you. The game was designed superbly, and because Bioshock couldn’t take a hint, Half Life not only remains as one of the only games to do this, but probably the best game that’s done this, and to this day, is groundbreaking.

Now take a look at Shadow Of The Colossus. Everything about SotC was designed to push certain feelings and ellicit certain reactions. Why was the world so big? So you would feel small. Why were the Colossi so colossal? So you would feel helpless. Why was their no music outside of the fights? So you would feel lonely. Why was the colour so monotonous? So you would feel sad. Despite having an open world, there was next to nothing to do besides go to the next colossus. Why was there a never a direct route to getting to them (besides the first)? So you could see how much landscape there was, so you could see how insignificant you are. This game featured 3 story cinematics. The starting, the middle, and the end. Somehow, this game pushed more story, more consistently and more powerfully than any game I can think of before it and after it. Players who weren’t paying attention and who didn’t finish it passed it off as being empty and lacking any story at all. How does that explain the wikipages? The discussion that go on every night on some forum about it’s plot and it’s meaning? The game had a very healthy amount of plot considering dialogue was at a minimum and the only two conversations are between the main character and Dormin, and the shaman and his gaurds. The world and the experience and visuals told the story. Wanders deteriorating through out the game, the doves appearing by Mono, the statues counting down, the ruins strewn about the world, all of it told a story, thousands and thousands of years in the making. SotC is the perfect example of design and focus. Made with a purpose and it achieved so much more then people give it credit.

But for whatever reason, the broken Bioshock is selling millions and topping the rankings. I had fun turning the Big Daddies on eachother, I won’t lie. Hacking sentries was cool. The propaganda was funny. But, like I said earlier, seen in pieces the game is fantastic, but as a whole, it failed. Bioshock looked nice. It was well dressed in it’s novelty world. But deep inside it, where it all began on paper, it’s design failed.