Developer : 2K Games
Release date : August 21, 2007
Synopsis :
BioShock is a 2007 first-person shooter game developed by 2K Boston (later Irrational Games) and 2K Australia, and published by 2K Games. The first game in the BioShock series, it was released for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 platforms in August 2007; a PlayStation 3 port by Irrational, 2K Marin, 2K Australia and Digital Extremes was released in October 2008. The game is set in 1960, and follows Jack who discovers the underwater city of Rapture. Built by business magnate Andrew Ryan to be an isolated utopia, the discovery of ADAM, a genetic material which grants superhuman powers, initiated the city’s turbulent decline. Jack attempts to escape, fighting ADAM-obsessed enemies and Big Daddies, while engaging with the few sane humans that remain and learning of Rapture’s past. The player, as Jack, can defeat foes in several ways by using weapons, utilizing plasmids that give unique powers, and by turning Rapture’s defenses against them.
Bioshock’s concept was developed by Irrational’s creative lead, Ken Levine, and incorporates ideas by 20th century dystopian and utopian thinkers such as Ayn Rand, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley, as well as historical figures such as John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and Walt Disney. The game includes elements of role-playing games, giving the player different approaches in engaging enemies such as by stealth, as well as moral choices of saving or killing characters. Additionally, the game and its biopunk theme borrow concepts from the survival horror genre, notably the Resident Evil series. Bioshock is considered a spiritual successor to the System Shock series, on which many of Irrational’s team, including Levine, had worked previously.
BioShock received universal acclaim and was particularly praised by critics for its narrative, themes, visual design, setting, and gameplay. It is considered to be one of the greatest video games ever made and a demonstration of video games as an art form. Bioshock was followed by two sequels, BioShock 2 and BioShock Infinite, released in 2010 and 2013, respectively. Ports of Bioshock were released for macOS and mobile following its console releases. A remastered version of the game was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch as part of BioShock: The Collection.
BioShock takes place in Rapture, a large underwater city planned and constructed in the 1940s by individualist business magnate Andrew Ryan, who wanted to create a utopia for society’s elite to flourish outside of government control and “petty morality”. This philosophy resulted in remarkable advances in the arts and sciences, which included the discovery of “ADAM”: a potent gene-altering substance which is created by a species of sea slug on the ocean floor. ADAM soon led to the creation of “Plasmids”, mutagenic serums that grant users super-human powers like telekinesis and pyrokinesis. To protect and isolate Rapture, Ryan outlawed any contact with the surface world.
As Rapture flourished, wealth disparities also grew, and conman/businessman Frank Fontaine used his influence over the disenfranchised working class to establish illegal enterprises and attain power—enough to rival even Ryan himself. Together with doctors Brigid Tenenbaum and Yi Suchong, Fontaine would create his own company dedicated towards researching plasmids and gene tonics. As ADAM became addictive and demand skyrocketed, Fontaine would secretly mass-produce ADAM through slugs implanted in the stomachs of orphaned girls, nicknamed “Little Sisters”. Fontaine was then killed in a shootout with police, and Ryan took the opportunity to seize his assets, including control of the Little Sisters.
In the months that followed, a man amongst the poor named Atlas rose up and began a violent revolution against Ryan, with both sides using plasmid-enhanced humans (known as “Splicers”) to wage war on one another. To protect the Little Sisters, Ryan created the “Big Daddies”: genetically-enhanced humans surgically grafted into gigantic lumbering diving suits, designed to escort the sisters as they scavenged ADAM from dead bodies.[5] Tensions came to a head on New Year’s Eve of 1958, when Atlas ordered an all-out assault on Ryan and his supporters. The conflict turns Rapture into a war-torn crumbling dystopia, resulting in societal collapse, countless deaths, many Splicers becoming disfigured and insane from ADAM abuse, and the few sane survivors barricading themselves away from the chaos.
In 1960, the protagonist, Jack, is a passenger on a plane that crashes in the Atlantic Ocean. As the only survivor, Jack makes his way to a nearby lighthouse that houses a bathysphere terminal, which takes him to Rapture. Jack is contacted by Atlas via radio, and is guided to confront the perils of the ruined city.
Atlas requests Jack’s help in stopping Ryan, directing him to a docked bathysphere where he says Ryan has trapped his family. When Jack first encounters the Little Sisters, Atlas urges him to kill them to harvest their ADAM, but Dr. Tenenbaum intervenes and insists Jack should spare them, providing him with a plasmid that can remove the sea slug from their bodies and free them of their brainwashing. Jack eventually works his way to the bathysphere, but Ryan destroys it before Jack can reach it. Infuriated, Atlas has Jack fight his way through various districts towards Ryan’s lair, forcing Jack to contend with Ryan’s deranged allies along the way: such as the mad surgical doctor J.S. Steinman, and insane artist and musician Sander Cohen.
Eventually, Jack enters Ryan’s office, where Ryan is casually playing golf and explains Jack’s true origins. Through his dialogue and the evidence gathered up to this point, it is revealed that Jack is actually Ryan’s illegitimate son, sold by Ryan’s mistress as an embryo to Fontaine, who then had Tenenbaum and Suchong rapidly age Jack into adulthood and turned into an obedient assassin, capable of accessing any of Rapture’s systems locked to Ryan’s genetic code and thus ensure Fontaine’s victory in the war. Jack was then smuggled to the surface with false memories of a normal life, waiting to be called back to Rapture when needed. Ryan suddenly takes control of Jack’s actions by asking “Would you kindly?”; Jack realizes this phrase has preceded many of Atlas’ commands as a hypnotic trigger, forcing him to follow any orders without question. Jack also realizes he was responsible for the plane crash, having read a letter onboard containing the same trigger phrase.
Ryan chooses to die by his own will, and compels Jack to beat him to death with a golf club. Atlas then reveals himself to be Fontaine, having faked his death and used “Atlas” as an alias to hide his identity, while providing a heroic figure for the poor people to rally behind for his own ends. With Ryan finally dead, Fontaine takes control of Ryan’s systems and leaves Jack to be killed by hostile security drones. Jack is saved by Dr. Tenenbaum and the Little Sisters that had been cured, and is helped to remove Fontaine’s mental conditioning, including one that would have stopped Jack’s heart. Jack pursues Fontaine to his lair, where he transforms himself into a blue-skinned humanoid creature by injecting himself with a large supply of ADAM. The Little Sisters aid Jack in draining the ADAM from Fontaine’s body, and eventually kill him.
The ending depends on how the player interacted with the Little Sisters:
If the player rescues all of the Little Sisters, Jack takes them back to the surface with him and adopts five of them as his daughters, and Tenenbaum happily narrates how they go on to live full lives under his care, eventually surrounding him on his deathbed. This ending is considered canon in BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea.
If the player harvests one or more Little Sister, Jack turns on the Little Sisters to harvest their ADAM. Tenenbaum sadly narrates what occurs, condemning Jack and his actions. A US Navy submarine then comes across the wreckage of the plane and finds itself suddenly surrounded by bathyspheres containing Splicers, who attack the crew and take control of it. The submarine is revealed to be carrying nuclear missiles, with Tenenbaum claiming that Jack has now “stolen the terrible secrets of the world”: The more Little Sisters Jack harvests throughout the game, the harsher and more furious Tenenbaum’s narrative becomes.
Source : Wikipedia
