:P Lost Planet

Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own 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 these answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose RAPTURE.

- Andrew Ryan, founder of Rapture

Listen to Lost Planet review Bioshock!

Bioshock is without doubt the longest game I’ve ever played.  Essentially Atlantis is what Bioshock purports to envision.  It’s a pretty good approximation of that future, as its textures are very much of the 50’s.  Art Deco is surely a comforting environment under the sea which is where Bioshock occurs.  The developers have done a very fine job of showing the undersea city of Atlantis to great effect.

At the beginning you play as Jack as your plane crashes into the Atlantic in the 60’s.  Jack finds Rapture and it’s not in good shape as you make your way throughout the city under sea.  There you are ‘assisted’ by Atlas a denizen of the city who is at odds with Andrew Ryan, a self made man with high ideals who created the underwater oasis.  Atlas comes off as a good guy for most of the game, and it is not until much later that you discover that he isn’t exactly what he seems.

I literally spent one month playing the game, and it wasn’t actually all that ‘fun’ for me.  It is an extremely dark habitation.  The ’splicers’ are former citizens of Rapture who have basically gone ‘nuts’, who come at you constantly.  They are not difficult to defeat, but don’t actually seem to mind too much that there is someone who is capable of ending their unhappy existences in the underwater oasis.

During game play you are given a great many powers, such as Plasmids that are genetically designed abilities to defeat enemies, such as the ability to use electric currents at you adversaries.  You are also given many weapons to use, such as a revolver, a shotgun, a machine gun, a rocket launcher, a cross bow, and a camera!  Which you are to use to take pictures for research.  The play revolves around getting to Mr. Ryan who has become something of an adversary to his own creation and those living within it.  His high ideals have indeed failed him and you are essentially moving forward to meet him… which you do.  Yet even after that you are given another task as there is more to do.

In this new version of Bioshock on the PS3 the makers of Bioshock seem to have let a bit of the story go for brevity I assume.  Over at Wikipedia you get a sense that things were explained much more clearly to XBox users where the game originated.  It’s not much of a problem since Bioshock is a very entertaining game.

Much is made of the so called ‘Little Sisters’, young girls who have become possessed into some dark dealings, they are protected by ‘Bouncers’ who look a bit like ‘Captain Nemo Sailors’ and are always about Rapture.  One of the main game play features of Bioshock is after ending a Bouncer you get to decide if you will ‘havest’ or ‘heal’ a little sister.  By harvesting the little girl you get more Adam, which is what increases your attack stance with the Plasmids and other assorted weapons.  The decision is really quite a shocking one when you have to first decide whether or not to let the first little sister survive.  I chose to harvest the little sister at the first and actually didn’t ’save’ her until much later in the game.  I was actually a bit chagrined to find a gift from their caretaker after saving a little sister… still in my estimation the extra Adam seemed more important to me in the game since things did seem pretty intense and my instincts felt correct.  Then later in the game as I felt a bit more comfortable about my abilities then I did begin to ’save’ her mostly.  In my estimation the little sisters didn’t seem all that upset about being harvested as I looked at it as a better situation for them in the so called hereafter.  Yet the few I did ’save’ really seemed surprised that I had done so, so there is that factor as well.

I was generally pleased that the game allowed me to play it without the usual part by game creators to ’stop me’ with something too hard to do in a game.  The game allows you to play it without stumping you with too much trouble.  I played it on Easy of course, and it delivered here very well indeed!

Atlas Shrugged… indeed.  Funny thing is I’m actually reading Mrs. Rand’s book at this very time.

Bioshock…. not to be missed.