 Kill with the snap of a finger. After crash landing in the middle of the Atlantic, a man is saved by a convenient entrance to an underwater city filled with psychotic superhumans. It's up to that man to figure out what happened and how to fix the situation. Oh, and did we mention that the player gets some pretty awesome powers?
1. Gameplay
 A tin man. The creators of Bioshock took this idea and used it to create a dystopian society based on the utopia that Ayn Rand proposed creating. Rapture, the underwater city in which Bioshock takes place, was designed to be a place where inventors and business people could work without the restrictions of socialism, morality, or a large government. The concept seemed ideal at first, but the creation of a substance called “Adam” eventually led to the downfall of Rapture as a society. The game focuses on the positive and negative impact of Adam on Rapture. Even though the civilization that was able to create Adam has completely fallen apart, no one in Rapture seems willing to accept this. They all suffer from extreme forms of psychosis brought on by the Adam.  Like seeing ghosts. Adam is a chemical substance that gives the player supernatural abilities. These abilities range in effects, but it allows the player to do anything from light things on fire with the snap of a finger, freeze enemies by throwing ice bolts, or even send swarms of angry hornets to attack a group of enemies. These powers aren’t always hostile either. The powers can make the player move faster or make hacking into vending machines easier to accomplish.  There's no power to raise the dead. Yet. Bioshock is a very deep game with an intricate storyline, but this game is very, very dark. As I mentioned, this is a dystopian society plagued by severe psychosis. There are very few allies in this game and while things may seem extremely empty at times, it fits with exactly what the developers had in mind. Every detail within the environment forwards the concept of a once utopian society that quickly and violently descended into madness.
Once the storyline is finished, there is nothing left for the player to do except go back through the game. While this would be extremely boring for most games, Bioshock is different because of how many powers the player has available. While the player will usually lean on one or two extremely strong powers, there are a multitude of others to try. There are also two different possible endings that the player can achieve.
 This is hacking? Man, 1960 was simple. The problem is that the puzzle pieces are randomly generated, which means that it is sometimes impossible to solve. Sometimes there are too many broken pieces that form a sort of wall between the inlet and outlet, sometimes there simply isn’t enough of the right pieces. The end result is a very frustrating experience. The other problem is that hacking was a very large part of my overall experience. There were so many things to hack that towards the end of the game I was purposefully avoiding hacking things just to get to the end of the game faster. I spent nearly one-fourth of my time in this game hacking, which got very boring and repetitive. 2. Parental Notices
 A wrench is always a good choice for a weapon. There are a few methods that are more graphically violent than others. These almost exclusively center on the powers that the player can obtain through Adam. The player can light enemies on fire instantly with Adam.  WHO WANTS TOAST?! One of the most common methods of killing that I used was a sort of “one-two punch”. First I would shock the enemy which would instantly paralyze them. Then I would rush up quickly to them and hit them with the wrench. This would kill almost every enemy in a single hit, so I expect that many players would also use this method.  One, two. There are other powers that the player can use, but aside from these and the “Insect Swarm” power (which allows the player to fling a swarm of bees on an enemy) they are relatively mild.  BEEEEEEES! Late in the game, the player finally confronts Andrew Ryan, one of the game’s main antagonists. The entire confrontation is Ryan going off on a lengthy monologue. His entire speech is summed up in the statement “A man chooses, a slave obeys” which seems to be his way of mocking the player for being under the influence of mind control. He even toys with the player by telling the player to sit, stand, run, and stop (which the game forces the player to obey).  Ouch. Then Ryan walks up to the player, hands him a golf putter, and tells the player “Kill”. The player (again, under control of the game) hits Ryan hard on the side of the head with the putter. Blood goes flying and Ryan looks up with a huge bruise on his face. He repeats the statement “A man chooses, a slave obeys.” The player continues to hit Ryan with the putter until the putter is bent and, after one final blow, breaks off and gets lodged in Ryan’s skull. It’s extremely bloody and graphic.  It's a gusher.
 I'm not sure I'd want to find out what goes on in a XXX strip club. When the player first injects himself with Adam, he falls from a balcony and passes out. Two splicers come up and one mentions that the player must have “popped his cherry”, meaning it was the first time he’s used Adam. There are a few ads that show nudity. A screenshot of one of the ads is featured in the “Religion” section below.
 And it's Russian! Cigarettes and cigars are also featured throughout the game. The tradeoff for the use of cigarettes is the opposite of alcohol. The player will gain some EVE in exchange for losing a bit of health. When the player uses the cigarettes, a puff of smoke emerges from just below the player’s view and floats up into the player’s face.  And they're Cuban! One of the audio tapes that the player can find throughout the game mentions how Adam was originally created. A handicapped sailor is bitten by a sea slug and soon after the use of his legs (which were previously paralyzed) is restored. One of the scientists in Rapture notices the change and, upon finding out what caused the miraculous healing, uses the sea slug to create Adam.  He's starting to look like a slug now too. The substance “Adam” is discussed in detail in the “Miscellaneous” section.
 The right to earn money and the right to fritter it away on pointless pursuits of more money. That's freedom. The player can use the slot machines to gamble for more cash. The player deposits $10 and can win money just like a normal slot machine. There is very little point to this, however, since money is in such abundance throughout the game. 3. Other Factors
 My, God, what big hands you have! Rapture was designed to be a place for scientific and technological research without restrictions based on morality. As a result, any religious articles are considered contraband. There are dozens of examples of religious symbols and text (specifically crucifixes and Bibles) that were being smuggled into Rapture. These are most prominent in “Neptune’s Bounty”, the port area of Rapture.  And that's not the blood of Christ. A few of the splicers will sing songs like “Jesus Loves Me” or make references to religion or Jesus in their random banter. This occurs frequently throughout the game. Some of the advertisements make references to religion. There was one advertisement in particular that was for “Eve’s Garden”.  The apple's actually made of tuna.
 At least the handcuffs are still getting some use. However, there are still a few “lawless” actions that are enforced by robotic law enforcement. If the player breaks a shop’s window (whether or not it was done intentionally) an alarm will go off and the player will be attacked by small flying helicopter bots with machine guns. The player can also hack vending machines and health stations to give him goods and services for less money. But even the law enforcement is a bit vague. There are alarm stations set up around Rapture that will go off if they identify the player (which will inevitably lead to more helicopter mini-bots). Turrets will also attack the player regardless of if any crime is committed.
The game focuses entirely on the use of Adam, a red liquid that is injected into the blood. The game explains that Adam destroys the body’s natural cells and replaces it with extremely unstable cancerous cells. These cells can be easily manipulated in order to provide almost supernatural powers. All of the abilities that the player can accumulate, whether active or passive in nature, are a result of Adam. The player injects himself with Adam early in the game. The initial reaction is extremely violent and seems to nearly kill the player. Eventually, however, the player is able to use whatever powers he obtains.  No no no eeeeeeeewwww. There are serious negative consequences for using Adam. The natural lack of stability of the new cells results in two distinct biological problems. The skin of the user deteriorates rapidly and quickly falls off. This is why the splicers look deformed. The second consequence is a rapid mental deterioration. All of the splicers are completely insane. It’s a bit like each one of them is suffering from severe psychosis. The player is affected by this psychosis as well. It is only mild, but he sees “ghosts”. These ghosts are images of past events.  If ghosts had jobs, do you think they'd form unions? United Ghost Workers #60. Mind Control Some of the audio tapes that the player finds in the game mention the possibility of mind control. It turns out that some of the characters in the game have the player under mind control. Every time a person uses the phrase “would you kindly” in association with a request, the player must do this action. The game doesn’t directly force the player to perform this action, but indirectly forces it by making the action a requirement in forwarding the storyline (and removing any other possible routes).  At least they're polite about it. Aside from the Andrew Ryan confrontation scene (described in the “Violence” section), there is one audio recording of the mind control that is particularly disturbing. One of the scientists has a child (the player) in a room. He shows the child a puppy. He then instructs the player “Would you kindly break this puppy’s neck.” The child cries and says no, but after more prompting (always with the phrase “would you kindly”) the puppy lets out a yelp and the scientist says “Good.” This is used to demonstrate the powerful effect of the mind control (and the player/child’s lack of ability to resist), but is still extremely disturbing. Human Disfigurement As mentioned before, the splicers are severely disfigured by the Adam they use. Their skin is basically falling off and many have cancerous growths on their face and body.  "Honey, is there something on my face?" This entire game features humans who are badly disfigured by the Adam they use but a few cases in particular that were especially disturbing. Early in the game the player encounters a plastic surgeon who has gone completely insane. He has developed an obsessive-compulsive disorder that makes him see every “patient” as completely imperfect in appearance and goes to absurd lengths to try and rectify the problem.  Fourth time's a charm? Seriously, while everyone in rapture is a bit insane in one way or another, this guy was the kind of crazy that I would rather nuke from orbit than get within 500 miles.  Ah, perfection! The “Big Daddy”s are also deformed versions of people. Towards the end of the game the player must also become a Big Daddy. Part of this process involves removing the player’s voicebox through a very crude and almost certainly painful process.  That looks sanitary. Little Sisters While this would normally fall under “human disfigurement”, the Little Sisters deserve special mention. Little Sisters are small girls who were taken from their families, injected with a large amount of Adam, and sent to collect Adam from dead bodies around Rapture. They use a large needle to inject the Adam out of the stomach of the body. The Adam in their own bodies make them almost completely invincible.  This reminded me of The Shining. Needed another small creepy child though. These girls seem innocuous but they’re not the kind of girls you’d want around the house. They don’t attack (the Big Daddies protect them) but they can be extremely vicious.  EXTREMELY vicious. Suicide There are two examples of suicide in this game. The first is a couple whose daughter had been taken and turned into a “Little Sister”. The couple later saw their daughter and, disgusted by what their daughter had become, killed themselves by taking poison.  The second example is a random person who seems to have killed himself with a shot to the head with a pistol.  Torture There is a body hidden in Neptune’s Bounty that was attached to a car battery and electrocuted. The torture seems to not have been for information but simply as a horrible form of murder.  I think he'll need more than the first aid kit next to the car battery to patch those burns up. Hijacking At the beginning of the game, the player is shown in a seat on a plane just before the plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean. Later in the game it is revealed that the player was forced (through mind control) to hijack the plane and crash it into the Atlantic so that he could enter the city of Rapture.  There weren't any pat-downs in the early 60's. Tree Killing Getting frustrated with his failed attempts to prevent the player from stopping him, Andrew Ryan releases a poison gas that kills all of the trees in Arcadia (one of the districts in Rapture). These trees are the only source of oxygen for all of Rapture, which means that unless the trees are revived, the player will suffocate and die.  Isn't green supposed to be good for trees? Gas Later, Andrew Ryan uses a gas similar to the type used to kill the trees to kill the only scientist capable of reviving the trees.  As I stand idly by with a wrench in front of what should be a breakable window. Execution Towards the middle of the game the player encounters a deranged artist named Sander Cohen. When the player first encounters Cohen, Cohen has a musician playing a grand piano. The piano is completely wrapped in giant sticks of dynamite. When the musician fails to play the song to Cohen’s liking, Cohen detonates the dynamite and kills the musician.  It certainly makes the E♭ turn into an E♯. Petrification Cohen also has a sort of fetish for taking people’s bodies, pouring concrete on them, and then posing the bodies into a horrible form of “art”. These are definitely bodies because there is blood coming from inside the concrete.  My first question was "WTF?". My second question was "How did the concrete solidify when the contents inside were all mushy?".
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