Thursday, February 5, 2009

My visit to Rapture

So.. I bought Bioshock sometime last year. I'd heard all of the hype, how it was amazing, mind-blowing, etc. I never really rushed into play it, so it sat on my shelf for some time. Eventually, I decided, "Hey, I should try this Bioshock game", so I did.

My first impressions (of the retail game, I had played the demo prior)were that the game looked really, really nice. The graphics, lighting, etc was very well done. On top of that, they had the faux 50's feel to it, with the cheesy voice over commercials. They also had a lot of 50's music, which for some reason chills my soul. The game is very, very creepy. It is set in a dystopian underwater city, run by a man named Andrew Ryan. You discover Rapture accidentally, and soon find that all is not well. It seems to be overun with psycopathic, violent individuals who are called "splicers". They don't seem to cotton to the idea of you visiting rapture, and try to rip you apart at every turn.

On top of the splicers, there are super creepy little girls (creepy kids freak me out), accompanied by their giant bodyguards called "big daddies". Big daddies are huge mechanical looking baddies, fashioned out of an old fashioned diving suit. They are big and dangerous.

The advantage to visiting Rapture is their genetic engineering break throughs. They developed a technology called "Plasmids", which come in the form of tonics. You inject the Tonic into yourself, and you assume the power of the plasmid. Some plasmids are passive, allowing you to absorb more damage, cause shock damage to your enemies if they attack you, etc. You can upgrade these as you move along through the game, and find or buy a ton more. I think I read that there are about 70 or so in the whole game.

I quit early in the game, but picked it back up recently on a whim and I am really glad I did. Immediately after the spot that I quit the game, you aquire a camera which allows you to "research" your enemies. Doing this allows you to learn more about each type of enemy, and gain bonuses AND plamsids to use against them. This further adds to the RPG-ish elements of the game, and has really helped draw me in. It's been a constant battle for my desire between Bioshock and finishing up Saints Row 2 with Jenn.

Now I should get back to pretending to be a good employee.