The Bioshock games are superb and free

I have found myself with an alarming amount of time on my hands recently, at the same time that Playstation’s monthly free games included the entire Bioshock trilogy. As responsible adults, we have been self-isolating, so the timing could not have been better. I had played the original Bioshock years ago and absolutely loved it, so it seemed like the planets were aligning for an all-out binge.

All three Bioshocks have similarities. The game-play involves a weapon in the right hand and plasmic/tonic/magical effect thing in the left. The weapons vary from simple hitting devices to machine guns and RPGs. The left-hand abilities range from lightning to hypnosis to shooting out bees and crows and so on. It sounds a tad complicated but it is done so well, it is not just easy but a shitload of fun. One thing you will see if you google what are the best left-hand and right-hand combos is a huge number of people describing not what is best but what they enjoyed.

Bioshock

The first Bioshock came out in 2007. Even then, it looked and sounded gorgeous, with superb art. What made the game such an instant classic, however, was that the game-play was brilliant and the story superb. It is hard to get all these elements together but when it’s achieved, it makes for a classic.

As the main character, you survive a plane crash and end up near a mysterious lighthouse that has a bathysphere. You get in the bathysphere and end up in Rapture – an underwater city that is populated by a load of nutcases. Some of these are that way thanks to using a load of drugs. The most notable and iconic opponents though are some creepy little girls called ‘Little Sisters’ and their giant ‘Big Brother’ protectors. You are guided by a mysterious benefactor, as is often the way in games, through various regions of Rapture caught between a mysterious man called Andrew Ryan and a mysterious man called Atlas. The game was heavily influenced by Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged so you can see where the names originated.

The game is highly recommended and won a ton of awards. And rightly so. I was aware that a sequel had come out but there was a bit of debate – some said it wasn’t as good as the original, while others think it is the best game of the trilogy. I played the sequel a couple of weeks ago, so let’s see.

Bioshock 2

In Bioshock 2, you remain in Rapture but this time the developers bravely went with a twist. This time around, you are a big daddy and you team up with the delightfully creepy little girls, protecting them as they suck essences out of people with massive needles. To be fair, at one point you play a ‘little sister’ and see the world the same way they do and it is kind of sweet and innocent, yet still eerie as fuck.

The game briefly begins before the original Bioshock with you as a prototype Big Daddy paired up with a Little Sister. Stuff happens and you are put on ice for 10 years. So the game properly begins after the events of the first one. The main quest in this one is to meet up with the Little Sister you were bonded with at the start and see how she turned out. Also, if you don’t, you will die.

I loved this one too. I can understand some of the negative points in that at the start, it is pretty damned similar to the first Bioshock. But after a while, it is not and really differentiates itself. The plasmids are even more fun this time around, with my personal favourite being a swarm of bees. The story takes a really different direction as well and is equally satisfying. Although some fans were critical at the beginning, the reviews and ratings are universally high with some fans claiming this one to be the best.

Bioshock Infinite

I finished this a couple of days ago. It still features a gun in one hand and magic-like stuff in the other (this time called Vigors) and you still traverse a mad city killing an absolute shit-load of people. But pretty much everything else is different. This time, you aren’t in Rapture, you are in a steampunk city called ‘Columbia’ that floats in the sky.

You play a guy called Booker DeWitt, an ex-Pinkerton agent, all-round badass and killing machine. You are hired by weird people to “bring us the girl and wipe away the debt”. The girl is a young lady called Elizabeth. It is all damned enigmatic and odd as you are rowed to a lighthouse and from there ascend to the sky city. Once there you learn about the ‘Prophet’ and some hints of rebels and a chosen one. There is also a ‘False Prophet’ that is destined to come to Columbia and fuck everything up. You can probably guess who that turns out to be. Things certainly take a turn for the worse for the inhabitants of the floating city as you try and track down the girl Elizabeth.

This might be controversial but I loved Bioshock Infinite the most. It could be because I write science fiction and read it by the bookshelf-load, but I found the story the most satisfying. The magical left-hand stuff was still great but I found myself using guns more as they were so much fun. You also spend a lot of time with Elizabeth and she is a great companion who thankfully can’t be killed (she is good at hiding in cover). I don’t enjoy games where you lose a life if your companion dies. She can also open rifts in the fabric of reality into parallel universes and- The whole thing gets complicated but brilliant.

Bioshock: The Collection

As I said, all three games were recently free on Playstation Plus. So if you have a Playstation, odds are you have the Bioshock Collection. If you are sitting on the fence about them, I can heartily recommend all three and given the current situation outside in the big bad world, you might as well do all of them. They are brilliant. Here is a trailer: