BioShock Ramblings and Wishes ***ALL SPOILERS***

In case the title isn't clear enough, this is me talking to myself about the experience of playing BioShock and is chock full of spoilers. If you don't like spoilers and you haven't played the game, don't read it. Thus endeth the obligatory spoiler warning.

First off, a fair amount of the game had been spoiled for me. I didn't know who Atlas really was (or wasn't). But I knew the basics of the Big Daddies and Little Sisters. I thought I knew the ending too, but I turned out to be misinformed.

So let's start at the ending. Does it really seem possible that your character led a normal life after all that? Seriously? Adam was supposed to be highly addictive, and Suchong's log called the Big Daddy procedure a one way street. And the whole claiming of "family" as the main theme of the game seemed strange.

I can see how they laid it in with the relationship of the Big Daddies and Tennenbaum to the Little Sisters. But it was never my motivation as a player, so it seemed out of place in the final cinematic. And the alternative ending was simply lame, as a fight scene, anyway. But I guess the general idea (you set your sights on world domination) was fine.

Working backwards, did anyone else find the Little Sister escort segment a total pain? The Little Sister's AI seemed so random. Sometimes they'd go the wrong way. Sometimes they'd run ahead in ambushes obliviously. Often they get directly underfoot, stopping me from being able to move at all. Where was the option to pick them up and carry them like the real Big Daddies would frequently do?

Still working backwards, why did my hands still look like those of a guy in a sweater when I was supposed to be wearing a Bid Daddy suit? It was cool that I could walk around freely, not attracting any attention, but it seemed pretty ridiculous that my hands didn't change.

And during that whole segment, why didn't Fontaine try to make a counteroffer? He keeps saying how trusting Tennenbaum is crazy, but he doesn't use any of the grisly details of her Nazi past to turn you against her. And he never offers to bring you back in. This is the man who built an army by manipulating the disenfranchised. I'm pretty sure he would have at least tried to turn the player.

All that BS about being betrayed that he spouts at the end of the game seemed like a bad joke. All you've done for the past two hours is tried to kill me. Suddenly my betrayal stings you now? You think guilt is the best play at this point when you've expressed no remorse of your own over any of the murders you've been responsible for?

I think those are my main endgame concerns. Back to the beginning.

Why are all the splicers completely insane? There were good people in Rapture. Sure, Ryan had some of them impaled on spikes in front of his office, but turning the splicers into mindless bad guys seemed like the easy way out. I was really happy that I could leave the mourning splicer in the mortuary alone. The same goes for the dancing splicers. I understand that Ryan worked mind control into the plasmids he distributed, but then why would splicers sometimes attack Big Daddies? Was that supposed to represent their addiction to Adam overpowering Ryan's programming. I guess that would make sense, but I just remembered someone's preview article saying a splicer gave a sobering treatise on loss, and that was more interesting than the splicers I encountered.

Sander Cohen was an interesting piece of work as well. I could leave him alone, but he was definitely a monster. But I carried out his horrible masterwork (Was there any way not to?), so that made me a monster too. That's probably what made the idea of just sinking the whole city so attractive. It's too bad that was never really an option. And of course, I couldn't just kill off the Little Sisters.

They were interesting for a couple reasons. Where does the player get the magical power to save them in the first place? Also, who harvested them? In the opening sequence, when the player is helpless on the ground, they don't harvest the player. How could anyone justify harvesting them? It's not like I was ever hard up for Adam, what with all the guns I had.

And weren't there just a few too many ammo types? I mean, six weapons with three ammo types each? Was that even remotely necessary? I deliberately didn't open up extra plasmid slots so that I could switch between them with my mouse wheel. It's too bad there was no similar option for weapons.

And the difficulty curve of the game seemed bizarre as well. Only the first few Big Daddies were a problem. As soon as I got the hypnotize plasmid, I just pitted them against each other and that was that. It took me longer, of course, to guide one Big Daddy to another. But outside of a few levels where only one Big Daddy would spawn, it seemed like the smartest way.

Of course, I felt bad killing them at all. They were doing a crappy job with more patience and tenderness than any other being in Rapture. Part of me would like to ghost the game. Without the Adam, it'd be much more difficult. But it wouldn't be impossible by any means. I might have to write a FAQ. :)

Finally, Ryan's death was a big event for me. It's a fairly graphic and brutal murder carried out in first person. Usually, you just shoot someone until the ragdoll physics kick in. But I beat Ryan to death with a golf club, each hit registering its effect (just bruising, no blood) on his face and in his speech. And he didn't stop talking. In most cases it would be less effective for being a cut scene, but the whole point of the plot twist is that the main character's will is not his own, and that while I thought I was following my self-interest, I was actually being mind controlled.

But if that were true, why did I elect to save the Little Sisters in the first place? Fontaine obviously hates Tennenbaum. Why let his little toy do her bidding?

Ah well. It's like most fiction. It doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Still it was a fun ride, and I suspect it'll be a long time before we see a setting this novel and well realized again.