BioShock is the first game which has genuinely shocked, frightened and amazed me. It's setting, plot and characters are given to me in a way I have never experienced before. When combined with the breath taking visual and audio design, the game creates the single most immersive gaming experience I have ever had. When I say I think BioShock is good, do not be under any doubt about my compassion and admiration for the game. It has shown me how truly great games can be and inspired me in innumerable ways.

This is why I have taken it upon myself to use BioShock as my game of choice for this month's Monthly Musings. The topic challenges you to write about ways to improve upon your favourite game. As somebody who is known for picking up and hammering home the more negative elements of some games, I thought it would be fair to turn my hand of critique (often miss-labelled as my hand of whining) onto the game I would like to make babies with.

Also, if you have not played the entire of BioShock and have even a mild inkling that you may well want to, please don't read this.



Before tackling the only consistent improvement people seem to bring up, a few other tweaks are in need of addressing. These are admittedly more based around personal preference, but I do feel they could marginally improve things.

When playing BioShock with the vita chambers turned on, you never feel you really die. In my opinion this is necessary and a great game device used to allow you to stay within the world of Rapture. However, when you turn off the vita chambers and begin playing on hard difficulty, a few issues beginning to crop up. The only auto-save is at the start of each level, forget to quick save and accidentally fall out with a Big Daddy and you can find yourself repeating rather large sections of the game. These bits are then often rushed the second time through and the atmosphere is turned from the usual dense fog into only mild wisps here and there. Adding an extra checkpoint or two along the way would be a dream. Though I admit, it's my own fault for turning off the vita chambers in the first place.

Throughout your travels through the game, power-ups of all descriptions are gained. Extra plasmids, weapon upgrades, tonics and enemy specific damage increases. As much as these add to the game, loosing track quite quickly of what has be acquired is all but inevitable. A simple screen or extra vending machine where things like the research done so far could be seen, as well as what is still needed, would go along way to improve the clarity of the situation.

BioShock is ultimately a linear game. Occasionally there are times where a choice is given to the order that tasks can be completed in, but there are no real free roaming elements to speak of. To open up Rapture to the player, to allow exploration and discovery of the city would be truly wonderful. Making the game feel more open would be impractical from the development perspective, but it would give the player so much freedom, and yet so little at the same time.



Freedom, or lack there of, is what BioShock is all about. Choices in the weapons, choices in the actions, and choices in you, the player's morals. Or at least that is what we are lead to believe. The biggest choice you have to make during your time in Rapture is one so simplified as to come close to undermine the entire premise of the game. To harvest or to save.

The way things are set up at the moment is very, very successful. The first time I harvested a Little Sister I felt like crap, actual crap. I refused to play the game for at least half an hour and refused to harvest any more. A huge success of the game's part. Or was it? I continued playing and was saving every Little Sister I could find, resulting in me feeling good about myself, but had I made a choice? Every time it was the same thing.

What would improve the game would be to force a choice to be made every time. Including some element where some times it is easy to save, but sometimes it's almost impossible. Imagine a situation where saving a little sister would lead to the player essentially sacrificing themselves, or at least putting them in harms way. If it was in desperate times, a real choice would have to be made.

The power of the characters who inhabit Rapture would easily be able to instil a feeling of utter betrayal if harvesting took place. In Bioshock, the moral choice is there and is clear, but never questioned. At no point do you get half way through the game and re-evaluate what you decided on several hours ago.



BioShock can keep it's two and a half alternate endings, it's nice to know how you were judged as you played. Creating more checkpoints, an inventory screen and more free roaming elements would allow the game, at it's core, to be improved. Adding a little extra guilt, pressure and range in situations to the decisions you make could push BioShock even further out of the console and into the head.