The Orange Box too. I was totally into Bioshock too, mindblown at the time by it and Half Life 2. I hadn't played Half Life as I'm a console person. Still obsessed with Half Life I might add. Bought a Steam Deck for Half Life and Black Mesa..
I always cry when I get to the ending when you save all the little sisters and there's shots of them getting a degree, getting married, then finally holding your hand on your death bed. Then Tenenbaum says "What was your reward? A family". It just tugs at my heartstrings. It makes me think about when I meet little ones in real life and how they make me feel.
I harvested all of them. The messages in this game were so shallow and lazy that the moral compass of each choice felt hollow. Could only really see a gameplay motivation for everything
@@zzodysseuszzif you don't harvest then you get all sorts of extra stuff like plasmids that aren't available otherwise. The gameplay motivation isn't as clear cut as you think
I seem to have a memory of them demoing an even more involved water stimulation and stuff like water dynamically flowing into the game area and actually filling it up to much higher levels that I remember seeing in the finished game. Would have been cool to see, but I don't know how much effect it would have had on the gameplay.
But the water had no bearing on the game overall it was just a pretty feature outside? I never got why people love bioshock's water environments because as a player you are never IN water so it's just an ornate thing outside? Anyway just my opinion
2007 was one of the best years for video games. Bioshock, Mass Effect, Orange Box and Halo 3 to mention a few. Bioshock looked and felt amazing even with the limited power of the Xbox 360. I played it on a projector screen back in the day with surround and it was so immersive.
XBOX360 and PS3 had the best games of any console era. I never owned the XBOXONE, nor wanted one. I did buy a PS4, but I hardly ever used it. Buying it was a mistake.
@@TurnerTurnip 360 and PS3 had some great games for sure but PS4 has plenty of good ones too. 360 and PS3 has aged fairly well as they support modern standards like HDMI and feel modern enough to still play today unlike the earlier generation that is more difficult to play on a modern TV and often have very outdated game design and controls. I just wish PS5 supported PS3 games and more Xbox 360 games got the 4k60 treatment on Series X as playing the 360 games at 4k60 makes them feel almost new.
@@wertywerrtyson5529 PS4 was aight but it doesn't hold a candle to the previous gen and the incredible games on those consoles. I have a PS4 and an Xbox360 and I tend to use the Xbox more often, the library of games is better
@@myztklk3v It's not as good as the first two, but it's still definitely an above average game, in immersion and visuals at the very least, so I don't mind mentioning it. I also really enjoyed the stealth-focused dlc, and I've been hoping for a stealth Bioshock game ever since. Imagine if Arcane developed it, damn. Infinite also ran surprisingly well on my pc at the time. I remember it being a bit below spec and I was worried it would not run, but it was pretty much smooth sailing and that main menu screen at the start was gorgeous.
Something else they improved on in 2 was the endings. Not only are there more than just “good” and “bad”, but some of them aren’t that hugely divisive. They sit and that morally grey area. Also Eleanor is soo good narrating those endings. Creepy or wholesome depending on which ending you get.
along those lines, i loved those little snippets we got of Ryan and Lamb’s public debate, and i wish we’d gotten more. they both come across in such a way you can totally believe that they’d both have devoted followers, making points persuasively using the type of arguments people like them would make. It adds so much realism and texture because while both were deeply morally compromised, both were also very good at getting people to follow them. i kind of hate it when evil leader types in video games are portrayed as simply loud and evil and their followers as just dumb and bad. It feels like i’m being patronized, like i can’t be trusted to look around and see the way their ideology doomed the world around me. Ryan and Lamb’s ideologies and philosophies are both worth debating but what’s cold hard canonical fact is that they convinced lots of folks to follow them, and in those debate audios you can see that regardless of how you feel abt their ideas, their charisma was undeniable. i really dig how he calls her “Dr. Lamb” and she calls him “Andrew”, both are being condescending from their own point of view. Ryan distrusts psychiatrists, so for him and his followers, it’s a diss to constantly be reminding everyone of her profession. Meanwhile, she’s talking to him like one of her patients, it’s overly familiar as if he’s a friend who’s a bit tweaked out and needs talking down, like the antagonism is 100 percent coming from him even though she’s definitely a hostile political entity making aggressive moves on his territory wish i could hear the whole debate
Bioshock 2 was awful on the consoles, because they did NOT give you the option to disable auto-aim. Why would anyone want to play a shooter with auto-aim? Kinda defeats the whole purpose of playing a shooter. I wonder if they finally fixed this problem in the Steam version of Bioshock 2?
I remember like 5 years ago playing through bioshock 1 and having quite a great time with it. Soon after i picked up bioshock 2 and got maybe half way before getting sidetracked and just, stopped playing it. And now for like 4-5 years i've been trying to play through it on and off when i felt like it but. Between me forgetting what was going on since i last played, the spookiness (which i'm not into), and the sort of repetitive gameplay loop regarding gathering adam, i rarely felt like playing the game more than like half an hour. Just a week ago i tried forcing myself to play through the remaining quarter of the game or so, but the game kept crashing in seemingly random spots and i had lost progress in weird ways to the point i think my save file is just, borked beyond repair. Enjoyed bioshock 1, loved bioshock infinite, ended up disliking bioshock 2 because i couldn't get myself to finish it.
@@Verchiel_ Yeah. I didn't like it at all. And rushed through the whole game, wanting it to end as soon as possible. And as I said in my previous post, the main reason I hated the game, is because auto-aim with a gamepad could NOT be disabled. WTF is that??? A shooter that aims for you, is just not fun. I played Bioshock 2 on the PS4. It was the remastered version. Thankfully Bioshock 1 & Bioshock 3, does let you disable auto-aim. BTW, I also LOVED Bioshock 3. Gameplay wise, it's one of my all-time favorite games. It's by far the best Bioshock game.
I played through Bioshock 1 & 2 on my steam deck recently and even thought I've played them loads of times. It still to this day captivates me like no other game has. From the sound track to world design and story (even if BS2 isn't considered as good) I still loves these games.
Bioshock 2 might be a little underappreciated. Imo the story isn't as good as the first game, but it's not bad. The gameplay was vastly improved. Being able to use plasmids and weapons at the sametime is so fun. And the drill is fucking insane.
@@abelramirez7320 Why do people think 2's story is bad? I'm genuinely curious. It's set 8 laters later after the events of the first game, Sofia is now in control, there's a story about her child, some characters like Gilbert are thrown into the mix, he's a failed adam experiment in a way, etc. If anything, 1 has a simple story like 2. I think people just can't look past how good Bioshock 1 is so they immediately hate everything else.
@@Xenorvya Bio shock 2 suffered from the same thing as the dead space sequels. The first one was so original it didn’t get the same shock awe feeling when playing the sequels.
bio"SHOCK" while 2 was a nice game set in rapture, there really wasent a whole lot of Shock to it like the other games in the Shock series. The entire shock series is really a horror series at heart so playing as a big daddy was a total miss becasue it took away much of the tension. by the end of Bioshock i really felt like i had enough of rapture and that its story was done @@dontdoxmebro
BioShock still remains my favorite FPS of all time. The deep and awesome combat coupled with the artstyle that still holds up today, all topped off with some of the best writing and storytelling in any game I’ve ever played makes it a masterpiece that I love going back to.
Bioshock 2 was awful on the consoles. It's one of the only console games that wouldn't let you disable auto-aim. Nothing ruins a shooter more, than a shooter that automatically aims for you. How is that supposed to be fun?
The fully upgraded bees in bioshock 2 are nuts, because you can combine them with fire and they spread around. Put that together with any other damage source, and you can chew through mobs like nobody's business
Played Bioshock a year or so ago, maybe 2021, and if it had been new and released that year, it still would have gotten my vote for game of the year. It always feels like a breath of fresh air when I jump back into this game.
Very close to my fave game of all time. This blew my mind when I first played it, I was about 15, and I played through this 10 times, it's the first game I ever got all the achievements on my x360 - then bought it again on PC later and played it multiple more times. There's something about this art design/level design that has never been bested IMO. Just exploring, finding everything and seeing every perfectly crafted nook and cranny of the city. I also find the gameplay extremely fun and dynamic
Amazing how a game from 2008 still looks better than some current AAA titles thanks to the amazing lighting and art direction. Give me this over the soulless overly clean world of titles like Back 4 blood or Gotham Knights.
Bioshock does not look better than either of those games, hell, it wasn't even a looker back in 2007. Both Gotham Knights & B4B look better graphically, Bioshock just has an art style that you prefer.
The problem is, often good graphics look boring if they don't have a specific art style. I'm currently replaying Prey (2017), the very good FPS/RPG game set on a space station, and the graphics are great, well drawn and realistic (I mean the doors, the furniture, the lights and lighting, the walls, the computer equipment, the rooms, and so on), but since they have no unusual style then they don't catch your eye or make you stop and stare they way they would if they had a strong and unusual art style. Bioshock really does have an individual and unique style, and it really makes the game's world much more memorable.
@@ConkerTS No it doesn't, the art style looked like every game that used unreal 3 at that time. Prey's art style holds up way better and way more effort put into it, I mean tell at least 4 games that look exactly like prey.
I think it’s worth mentioning the “Would You Kindly” plot twist. I’ve unfortunately been spoiled prior to playing it myself, but I can’t imagine how mindblowing it would’ve been when playing it in 2007.
Can confirm, that was a pause the game and put down the controller moment. Bioshock 1 is still one of my favorite games of that generation of consoles.
Truly, Bioshock is one of the most unique and interesting game worlds I've ever seen. The Art Deco design plus the water outside is as iconic as the atomic 1950s style for Fallout. I can't say the "twist" is that complex but at the time I had no idea about it. Both Bioshock and The Line are some of my favourite gaming twists of all time. I think 2007-2010 was an amazing time for gaming even though I probably have rose tinted glasses as I was a teen back then). Lots of games had extremely unique mechanics or looks to them. I've always said I'd adore a Bioshock movie IF DONE WELL.
I was literally telling one of my coworkers how great this series was last week. He put it on his wishlist and is awaiting a sale so he can buy all three. I waited a long time to play Bioshock, and it's now one of my favorite game franchises around! I was even looking into hypnosis to see if someone could help me forget that I played it so I could "play it again, for the first time" ( I did find a guy online but have yet to try it). A fun and beautiful series of games, I always recommend them.
So when you wake up naked in a bathtub with one less kidney, you can get to enjoy the plot twist of the first game all over again. That doesn't seem like a bad idea, so would you kindly send me the contact information of this hypnosis guy?
I haven’t even watched the video yet, but the combat in bio shock 2 still stands the test of time. I miss that era of just 6 hour linear shooters, but their well crafted and have great attention to detail.
BioShock 1 takes 12 hours (Main Story) to complete if you play it normal, and 15 Hours with the extra stuff. BioShock 2 takes 10 hours (Main Story) to complete if you play it normal, and 14 Hours with the extra stuff. BioShock Infinite takes 11 hours (Main Story) to complete if you play it normal, and 15 Hours with the extra stuff.
For whatever reason the word linear became a dirty word in the corporate games media and amongst publishers. Not every game needs to be an 80 hour time-waster. Hopefully the highly polished and focused linear story driven game will make a comeback.
Insect Swarm is best plasmid ever. They seek out enemies that might be hiding, it stuns enemies so that during situations where multiple enemies are around you can use the bees to keep some of them busy while you focus on killing the ones who are bee free, and if you upgrade it all the way the bees will linger in corpses meaning enemies that try to run up on you from behind will be stunned in place either giving you time to move on or turn around and counter their attempted ambush. I will turn the entirety of rapture into Nick Cage in the Wicker man!
My favorite fps game series up there with Stalker, Metro 2033, Half-life & Fear. Utilizing the dummy & having the splicers walk into your proxy mines willingly is pretty good use of those combined when low on ammo for your regular guns or adam.
It really does everything you want out of a DLC: improvements and more combat, awesome story that didn’t try and rewrite the main story, and more environments to explore.
This has always been one of the few channels where cheap meme edits thrown in from time to time genuinely make me laugh. Gman's always got a good sense for it.
38:43 oh, that was sweet! Such a nice detail. I'm currently playing all the Bioshock games one more time. Last month I finished Bioshock 2 and have now moved to Infinite. I have to agree, playing them back to back like this shows the HUGE difference between the first two games in Rapture and the third in Columbia. I think my favorite is 2 for the exact reasons mentioned in this video: they took the "bad" things about the first game and tried to improve them. Oh, and Minerva's Den DLC has a nice story (even though the gameplay is very linear and even a little bit uninspired)
I really enjoyed how 3 tied into Rapture, and the ending was an absolute mix of love and hate for me. It left the story open to make new bioshocks, but at the same time left an insane amount of mystery. Also, I felt like 3 was much shorter due to how smooth the linear exploration was. It's good man
Great video as always, GMan! But I have to say that Target Bullseye is extremely useful when you want to kill a Big Daddy. If the Big Daddy is going to walk near a security camera, then shoot the Target Bullseye at him, and when the camera sees him, then it sends out the flying turrets to attack the Big Daddy. That way, you don't have to fight him yourself, meaning that you don't put yourself at risk, you don't waste ammunition (not that ammo is ever in short supply in Rapture), and you can keep on photographing the fight, getting points from the Big Daddy and the flying turrets. If the Big Daddy is not near a camera, then you just need to do something to trigger the bots attacking you, such as breaking a shop window in the shopping mall in Fort Frolic, or hacking something and then deliberately failing it by hitting an alarm tile. When the flying turrets come for you, run to the Big Daddy and shoot the target bullseye at him, and the turrets will ignore you and attack him instead. Target Bullseye allows you to kill most Big Daddies without ever needed to fire even one shot at them. Bioshock is still a great game, though with some real flaws, such as the way the enjoyment level of the game drops massively after the mid-game revelation, the endless, tedious hacking mini-game (which is made worse by the way that the game never checks if a newly generated hacking board is actually completable - sometimes it can be literally impossible to complete one, though thankfully you just lose a little heath then restart with a hopefully completable new board, the sometimes bad bot-pathing of the flying turrets, and the terrible boss fight that ends the game. BTW, after playing Bioshock, anyone who is interested should then read the following article, which details how it's author would have ended the game, had he worked on it. It's an amazing idea, monumentally better than the very generic, very unsatisfying end that the game shipped with: www.pentadact.com/2009-04-15-ending-bioshock/ If only the game had been moddable. Still, the utterly fantastic Bioshock 2 fixed most of the problems that it's predecessor had, and to me is by far the best of the three Bioshocks (it's the only one of the three that I regularly replay), plus it has the brilliant DLC 'Minerva's Den'.
Was the only game to truly feel like a new leap in gaming at the time. When they plane came through as you were walking Rapture.. my jaw dropped.I waited for like 3 minutes because I thought the first scene when you land in the water surround by fire was a cut scene.😂🤣
This was the very first game I played after I moved out of my parents and finally built my own computer. I have never been more blown away by a graphical jump. Everything out today just feels like a slight improvement of what came before it. This truly felt like next gen.
I love how the story is told, I know a lot of people don’t like audio logs but with the very few really good cutscenes and the ability to actually play the game the entire time without being forced into cutscene after cutscene makes it one of my most favourite games. Everyone remembers “Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow.” and “A man chooses, a slave obeys.”
Thank you! I've maintained that BioShock 2 has better gameplay for a while so it's annoying that people just write it off. Obviously a sequel wasn't going to compare to the uniqueness and originality of the first game but at least they improved on one of the most important aspects of the game
These were my favorite games these and the first 2 deadspaces were my semi-childhood (teenager) I'd play them constantly and just be in awe at all the detail for the time. Even looking at how 3d the bullet holes were for me was just crazy (I know it's just bump maps) but still the world was so interesting I wish it could have gone on forever. In my opinion (I haven't watched the video yet) yes you should play these games they are still extremely fun. Tho janky at times still a blast.
While I find System Shock 2 superior, Bioshock still has a special place in my heart, if nothing more for the shocking revelation at the end. which caught me completely off guard way back in 2010 despite me being very attentive to the narrative.
I've no idea what the fake family thing is supposed to be for if you were a slave all along. People just remember the twist and the rest of the offal just sloughed off their cortex. Also, thematically, shouldn't have been a cutscene. Absolutely inappropriate.
@@ms.greywolf8228 The entire premise of the control word is that you'll do as you're told. But not mindlessly. It's a meta narrative about video game objectives as a whole. But this one time it magically makes you a total slave. It'd make more sense if Ryan just forced you to lower your weapons and stay a while. "Now run to the right." You can faff around for as long as you want but eventually you'll play ball and do as you're told. Which is how it worked so far. Get it?
@@PutkisenSetä A person doing what they think they chose to do is much easier to control. Though more heavy handed uses of the trigger word could accomplish a “direct” effect. At the point in the story Ryan’s hold on the city has been crippled and the self destruction protocol active. He let himself die in the method he chose as a twisted form of vindication. He was ended by a slave but he chose to fall that way thus he won. Or at least that is what he believes in the end.
@@PutkisenSetä I think the scene is just paced better as a cutscene. Also they spell it out, the whole fake family stuff growing up on a farm was planted in Jack's head by Fontaine and Suchong because Fontaine likes to play the trickster so he gives you a backstory and then plays the character of Atlas appearing as the saviour of those shunned by Rapture kinda including Jack at the end. Despite being programmed to obey because of the keyword, Jack can still make choices and I don't think memories of growing up as lab rat would make him complacent when he wasn't being monitored and he had to be kept away from Ryan too so he's sent to the surface
A friend I had for over 30 years was obsessed with this game. He passed from brain cancer 2 years ago and I always think of him when I see this game. I feel like I want to play it through. Cheers gman.
Bioshock is one of my favourite FPS games ever made by 2K. Can’t wait for your take on Atomic Heart,and the upcoming System Shock Remake that are coming out this year.
I can remember getting the first game on sale, from a gamestop that is now closed in a mall that is now gone, just before going to see an action movie with my Pap. Getting into the car after forgetting only to realize I had Lost Planet, The Darkness, and Bioshock, (3 games I had never heard of and purchased just because of the art and details on the front and back) to play after the hour ride home. What a set of wild rides we were in for. Bioshock eased me into the survival horror genre. What a Gem.
You can actually combine cyclone trap with incinerate, electro bolt, or the freeze by placing the trap down and using any said plasmid on it for an elemental trap. Helps a lot with parts of the game when you’ve got to hold out against waves.
Hands down one of the most compelling and aesthetically pleasing and cinematic games of its time. Both Rapture and Columbia were some of the most detailed and well designed fictional cities in gaming, the characters all had a purpose in the story and the sidequests, the gameplay was solid and had depth and variety and lastly the plot twist in all the game along with the multiple endings were extremely well done. Still have very fond memories playing those games
I didn't enjoy Bioshock as much as other people. I liked it but wasn't blown away, maybe it's because all the people who played it blind didn't know what to expect whereas I heard people talk about the game for years until I finally played it myself. Will say, though, the game has the best plot twist in any game ever. Totally throws you for a loop and changes how you see everything afterward. Great art style, too. Might not have been for me but undeniably a classic.
For some reason, I didn’t like Bioshock 2 much back when it came out. However, when I played through it again a couple years ago, I realized that I actually love it. I’m still unsure about why I didn’t enjoy it as much the first time I played it. It’s brilliant. The research camera is great in that game because it encourages you to use all your weapons and plasmids against every enemy in order to get a higher research score.
Splicer by far are the highlight of the series, never seen a game before or since that put that much character into an enemy type which is key considering how often you encounter their presence
Timeless art style. Initially at release I was bummed it didn't go for the most modern photo realism of the time, didn't take long for me to see my error.
I would also love to see a modern Infinite review from you. That games was praised to high heavens back in the day for it's gameplay and narrative. As the years went by, people started to see the game in a way more negative light.
Its by no means a bad game. Would definitely love to see another infinite vid from gman. I can only judge it without the other 2 bioshocks myself, but i really found myself enoying most of the story and art direction.
There was something wrong with combat for sure, most guns were kinda boring and having just 2 doesn't work with the Bioshock formula. Maybe that's why the enemies were so boring and repetitive. But the exploration and immersion were pretty much just as good, the visuals were great and spending time with Elizabeth was quite enjoyable. The plasmids were also pretty cool.
Infinite was praised initially because gamers are a herd of mindless zombies. Back then they followed gaming news media, how they're following gaming TH-camrs, but in essence they've never changed.
The wasp one is my favorite I use that one to distract and do heavy damage or they use other plasmids and I sometimes just use it to like I'll just spam it especially when it's fully upgraded and it just mows the enemies down for me so I can concentrate another stuff like hacking although I think it's somewhat better in the second game
THANK YOU! upgraded wasp swarm was amazing I literally used it before every fight because it was effective on groups. Homeboy doesn't know what he's talking about. Wasps are OP af
Yep, I recently played through Minerva's Den for the first time and the Bees are still pretty effective. You just need to stay back to take full advantage of them. I don't think the last upgrade is needed though.
I remember first discovering this game in I think November of 2009. Not sure of the exact year but I know it was November because my family was getting angry with me for barely participating in Thanksgiving dinner. Mainly because I was too busy being thankful for Bioshock instead of my family haha.
I feel that the DLC's for Bioshock Infinite tied the game together well with Bioshock 1 and 2. Playing Bioshock infinite the first time I really thought the writers had painted themselves into a corner with doing a logical tie-in to the first two games, but as the credits rolled on Burial at Sea part 2, I found it very satisfying.
Ironically Atomic Hearts gameplay felt more closer to Infinite with its nonstop dialogue and action. Gman definitely choose the wrong Bioshock games to to compare playing Atomic Heart, Atomic hearts is too much like Infinite and too simplistic
@@bipstymcbipste5641 Lol! You thought Booker was the main character in Bioshock infinite? 😄 Elizabeth isn't "shoehorned in". She's the main protagonist.
@@PeixeKing biosHock 2 objectively has the best gameplay of the trilogy, it’s loved by immersive sim fans but disliked by the more casual audience who don’t much care for im sims
I absolutely love Infinite. Booker and Elizabeth's journey just captivated me like few games ever have that I could look past it's inferior elements when compared to the first two and it that regard it's arguably the weakest game in the series but personally my favorite.
As someone who cut their teeth on the best of of the immersive sims (system shock 2, deus ex) you - absolutely - need an inventory. It's part of what makes the world feel so rich; you have dozens of items and you don't know yet what is important and what isn't. You also need the character xp system so you can make mistake and learn how to be more refined in later playthroughs; the rush of getting Cybernetic Modules was never the same as getting a flask of Adam. Oh and while I agree the splicers are more interesting than the hybrids, there is nothing more terrifying than the metal footsteps of the Mother cyborg from System Shock 2. Fight me.
Man I love the Bioshock series and I would love to wipe my memory to experience them for the first time again. Great review (like always) but I have to ask if you missed minervas den or just don't care for it enough. It's an overlooked dlc and deserves more attention.
Bioshock and Metro were the two FPS series I used to play the most in middle and high school. No matter how many times I played them, I would always play through both series over and over and over.
Great review, Gman. You nailed it. I remember when I first got to play this game. I think it was around early to mid 2008 when I accidentally stumbled upon and then short after got this game (never heard of it before) on my then quite old rig that barely were able to launch it, let alone play it. But nontheless my initial experience of the game fits your description perfectly. Good on ya, mate.
I got the collection for cheap this weekend, haven't played it since literally 2007.... Oh my god i just wanted to play for like an hour or so but ended up playing through the entire game in one setting, it's just SO damn good.
As much as I love Bioshock 1 I always thought that as a game as a whole Bioshock 2 is the better one. The story is really good(Especially the audios and the enviromental storytelling) and I think that's overlooked compared to 1, The gameplay is ten times better and the DLC is 11/10. The multiplayer was also fun couldn't play that much but the little I played I enjoyed it and the videos were fun. If you never played 2 give it a chance it improves everything from the Original and YES it is better than infinite which imo is the worst of the three.
Great review - my favorite game ever and I’ve gotten all of the achievements probably 10 different times. That said, I noticed you made a throwaway comment on the Insect Swarm plasmid being kinda useless - it’s actually amazing for killing Big Daddies. There’s some bonus room challenges where it’s almost essential!
Infinite is the one I go back to, I love the setting, the metaphysical theory behind the world and the story... It would be better if it didn't have bioshock in the name to not draw comparisons but it's a great game.
Easily my favorite game of all time. I have fond memories of getting this the day it came out after school, having my game freeze after an hour of gameplay, exchanging the disk thinking it was the cause, and then finding out that it was the first signs of the RROD. I did the towel trick dozens of times before my 360 bricked permanently just so I could keep exploring Rapture.
First game is such a masterpiece I remember reading Xbox magazine about it in 2007 and being so intrigued only to not play it until 2016 but needless to say its been an all time favorite ever since
"A man has a choice. I chose the impossible. I built a city where the artist would not fear censor, where the great would not be constrained by the small, where a scientist would not be bound by petty gravity, I chose to build RAPTURE" -Andrew Ryan Bioshock is a certified classic, spawning surprisingly good sequels and even an entertaining prequel book.
I love the games, but playing them over and over does help me see the general problems, both with the story and the gameplay. Still a great experience through and through though.
Love both of these. The first is one of my all time favorites, I was obsessed with it when I first played it. My appreciation for 2 grows as the years pass, even though I was a defender of it from the start. Love it almost as much as the first. Infinite tho….
On my third playthrough I discovered the insanely OP combo of Wrench Jockey, Sportboost and Natural Camouflage. What this does is makes the wrench the most powerful weapon in the game, and enables you to grab the attention of nearby splicers, then stand still and go invisible. They'll lurch over to investigate and when they get into range, WHAM, one shotted by a pipe wrench. Combine that with the wonky ragdoll physics and it never gets old.
I recently went through and completed Bioshock 1 and 2 and loved it and just like you said, going into Infinite was a real whiplash where I just did not care as much and didn't feel like finishing it. Love your videos Gman!
I really loved the environmental fact that you find a telekinesis plasmid near the dentist office. In case someone couldn't catch the example ball, they could always fix their teeth next door.
Love System Shock 2's interface. they did dumb this down but it is still a great game. Still love the story being told through audio recordings. Something about that I just love.
So I'm 40, got covid about a year ago, wife locked me in the bedroom and I played #1 on switch and was blown away . Still keep thinking about its that good
You say your wife locked you in the bedroom so casually it actually made me laugh. Apparently she did you a favor since you got to experience this game uninterrupted.
I highly recommend the book by John Shirley - Bioshock: Rapture, not only does it fill the blanks but it enables you to enjoy the great story and follow some of the main characters story even before Rapture was build. Highly recommended.
Legit possibly my favorite mechanic for these games may have been taking pictures and videos of your enemies to get to know them better. What a great idea and some of those perks were just so fucking satisfying to unlock
I think bioshock 2 as time progress has been more appreciated and people realizing that this game is really good while bioshock infinte is the complete opposite especially blurial at sea 1&2. Also how dare you that you didnt talk about minerva's den that dlc imo rivals the first game imo.
For your point at 33:44, the reason the Alpha Series big daddy’s are easier to kill (such as Subject Delta) is that they were a prototype, the first big daddy, but they were deemed failures. Because of this, they weren’t grafted to the suits like the other, more armored Big Daddys, and we're previously used as test subjects for Fontaine Futuristics Plasmids, it’s why the ones you face, and possibly Delta, can use them so easily. Not only that, they aren’t heavily armored, which is a simplified version of my little geek-out above.
I used to play the multiplayer in Bioshock 2, and what I remember from it were good things. like being able to find a big daddy suit on the map to turn you into a underwater version of a CoD juggernaut, with the Rosie version having the iconic rivet gun from the first game, not the one you use in the Bioshock 2 campaign. it was really amazing and using the plasmids against other players really set a new challenge. if anything, the multiplayer took far far more concentration and understanding of the games mechanics that some of the story did, pretty much demanding you know how to use each plasmid in conjunction to others unless you want to respawn over and over.
I loved the days of people not wanting to spoil games back then. The first time I finished Bioshock it through me for a loop. The setup for the ending really was executed perfectly. If you haven't played Bioshock, would you kindly pick it up and play through. You will not regret it!
@@amanchoosesaslaveobeys6510 in generell, if you play bioshock 2 without minerva's you doing it wrong. And if you play infinite without burial at sea you doing it wrong.
Pedant's corner - you don't wake up on the Rickenbacker, you wake up on the UNN Van Braun. The Rickenbacker is the military vessel piggybacking on the hyperspace jump with the Van Braun and you only get onto it sometime after Deck 5.
Bioshock is one of those games that never gets old (the first one especially) i replay it yearly as well. Looking forward to Atomic Hearts, if it is half as good we are in for a treat!
I played bioshock one and oh my god is it boring. The combat gets easier, the enemies are repetitive, the powers are boring and the missions suck. Maybe a 5/10 at best.
I was absolutely obsessed with this game in 2007. God, what a year that was for gaming in general.
Gaming truly had its golden years between 1993 - 2013.
I didn't fully start playing games til much later, but yeah that time zone was just magnificent.
The Orange Box too. I was totally into Bioshock too, mindblown at the time by it and Half Life 2. I hadn't played Half Life as I'm a console person.
Still obsessed with Half Life I might add. Bought a Steam Deck for Half Life and Black Mesa..
2007 is the best gaming year in history
@@ayremember2900 1997 though...
I‘m really suprised that Minervas Den isn‘t even mentioned in this video. Probably my favourite Dlc of all time.
The "the character you are playing are this person all along" trope never get old if well executed
Wow, spoilers! Hahahaha but yeah, the revelation got me surprised. I was already expecting part of it, but not the whole package.
I guess Gman finds that is worth its' own video down the line :)
It’s a top 5 dlc for me it’s what makes 2 the best game in the series for me
amazing story telling
The answer is always "yes". Despite the rough edges, these games are timeless.
There are no rough edges. The game is damn near perfect.
@@juicer6027 the rough edges are completely subjective. I think Bio 1 and 2 are nearly perfect.
People said the same thing about Half-Life and HL2 and they're both... rough to return to solely because of the mechanics.
It's yes without even playing the vid yet
When gameplay + graphics were good
I always cry when I get to the ending when you save all the little sisters and there's shots of them getting a degree, getting married, then finally holding your hand on your death bed. Then Tenenbaum says "What was your reward? A family". It just tugs at my heartstrings. It makes me think about when I meet little ones in real life and how they make me feel.
Unless you harvested all of them
@@zuccsucc476 i made 50/50 :D and had the 3 ending
I harvested all of them. The messages in this game were so shallow and lazy that the moral compass of each choice felt hollow. Could only really see a gameplay motivation for everything
@@zzodysseuszzif you don't harvest then you get all sorts of extra stuff like plasmids that aren't available otherwise. The gameplay motivation isn't as clear cut as you think
@@craigandrews7009 I have heard BioShock 1 and 2 remastered have issues on pc . Is it true? Is there any fix for that
The water tech in this game still impresses. Fantastic.
I seem to have a memory of them demoing an even more involved water stimulation and stuff like water dynamically flowing into the game area and actually filling it up to much higher levels that I remember seeing in the finished game.
Would have been cool to see, but I don't know how much effect it would have had on the gameplay.
Dishonored also had some gorgeous water if I remember.
If only the water acted like it did in Hydrophobia where it was a actual game mechanic with physics.
But the water had no bearing on the game overall it was just a pretty feature outside? I never got why people love bioshock's water environments because as a player you are never IN water so it's just an ornate thing outside? Anyway just my opinion
@@joeschmoe3665 atmosphere, babe. now come kiss daddy
2007 was one of the best years for video games. Bioshock, Mass Effect, Orange Box and Halo 3 to mention a few. Bioshock looked and felt amazing even with the limited power of the Xbox 360. I played it on a projector screen back in the day with surround and it was so immersive.
This comment made me as moist as Rapture.
Indeed 2007 was the best year of gaming but since u started the list here's goats u missed Assassin's Creed, Crysis, COD 4 MW, Gears of War
XBOX360 and PS3 had the best games of any console era. I never owned the XBOXONE, nor wanted one. I did buy a PS4, but I hardly ever used it. Buying it was a mistake.
@@TurnerTurnip 360 and PS3 had some great games for sure but PS4 has plenty of good ones too. 360 and PS3 has aged fairly well as they support modern standards like HDMI and feel modern enough to still play today unlike the earlier generation that is more difficult to play on a modern TV and often have very outdated game design and controls. I just wish PS5 supported PS3 games and more Xbox 360 games got the 4k60 treatment on Series X as playing the 360 games at 4k60 makes them feel almost new.
@@wertywerrtyson5529 PS4 was aight but it doesn't hold a candle to the previous gen and the incredible games on those consoles. I have a PS4 and an Xbox360 and I tend to use the Xbox more often, the library of games is better
bioshock 1 and 2 are timeless. The art style and direction is so good it will always hold up.
@@First-Last_name we don't talk about that one
@@myztklk3v y’all bugging infinite was amazing
@@yrglito9937 it was over-promised and under-delivered and too linear for a shock game.
@@First-Last_namecome on infinite was still a quality game not as good as the first two but still an easy 9/10
@@myztklk3v It's not as good as the first two, but it's still definitely an above average game, in immersion and visuals at the very least, so I don't mind mentioning it. I also really enjoyed the stealth-focused dlc, and I've been hoping for a stealth Bioshock game ever since. Imagine if Arcane developed it, damn.
Infinite also ran surprisingly well on my pc at the time. I remember it being a bit below spec and I was worried it would not run, but it was pretty much smooth sailing and that main menu screen at the start was gorgeous.
Something else they improved on in 2 was the endings. Not only are there more than just “good” and “bad”, but some of them aren’t that hugely divisive. They sit and that morally grey area.
Also Eleanor is soo good narrating those endings. Creepy or wholesome depending on which ending you get.
along those lines, i loved those little snippets we got of Ryan and Lamb’s public debate, and i wish we’d gotten more. they both come across in such a way you can totally believe that they’d both have devoted followers, making points persuasively using the type of arguments people like them would make. It adds so much realism and texture because while both were deeply morally compromised, both were also very good at getting people to follow them.
i kind of hate it when evil leader types in video games are portrayed as simply loud and evil and their followers as just dumb and bad. It feels like i’m being patronized, like i can’t be trusted to look around and see the way their ideology doomed the world around me. Ryan and Lamb’s ideologies and philosophies are both worth debating but what’s cold hard canonical fact is that they convinced lots of folks to follow them, and in those debate audios you can see that regardless of how you feel abt their ideas, their charisma was undeniable.
i really dig how he calls her “Dr. Lamb” and she calls him “Andrew”, both are being condescending from their own point of view. Ryan distrusts psychiatrists, so for him and his followers, it’s a diss to constantly be reminding everyone of her profession. Meanwhile, she’s talking to him like one of her patients, it’s overly familiar as if he’s a friend who’s a bit tweaked out and needs talking down, like the antagonism is 100 percent coming from him even though she’s definitely a hostile political entity making aggressive moves on his territory
wish i could hear the whole debate
Only complaint I had about 2 was that every other second splicers were getting thrown at you. The game needed more quiet moments like the first one.
Bioshock 2 was awful on the consoles, because they did NOT give you the option to disable auto-aim. Why would anyone want to play a shooter with auto-aim? Kinda defeats the whole purpose of playing a shooter. I wonder if they finally fixed this problem in the Steam version of Bioshock 2?
I remember like 5 years ago playing through bioshock 1 and having quite a great time with it.
Soon after i picked up bioshock 2 and got maybe half way before getting sidetracked and just, stopped playing it.
And now for like 4-5 years i've been trying to play through it on and off when i felt like it but. Between me forgetting what was going on since i last played, the spookiness (which i'm not into), and the sort of repetitive gameplay loop regarding gathering adam, i rarely felt like playing the game more than like half an hour.
Just a week ago i tried forcing myself to play through the remaining quarter of the game or so, but the game kept crashing in seemingly random spots and i had lost progress in weird ways to the point i think my save file is just, borked beyond repair.
Enjoyed bioshock 1, loved bioshock infinite, ended up disliking bioshock 2 because i couldn't get myself to finish it.
@@Verchiel_ Yeah. I didn't like it at all. And rushed through the whole game, wanting it to end as soon as possible. And as I said in my previous post, the main reason I hated the game, is because auto-aim with a gamepad could NOT be disabled. WTF is that??? A shooter that aims for you, is just not fun. I played Bioshock 2 on the PS4. It was the remastered version. Thankfully Bioshock 1 & Bioshock 3, does let you disable auto-aim. BTW, I also LOVED Bioshock 3. Gameplay wise, it's one of my all-time favorite games. It's by far the best Bioshock game.
I played through Bioshock 1 & 2 on my steam deck recently and even thought I've played them loads of times. It still to this day captivates me like no other game has. From the sound track to world design and story (even if BS2 isn't considered as good) I still loves these games.
Bioshock 2 might be a little underappreciated. Imo the story isn't as good as the first game, but it's not bad. The gameplay was vastly improved. Being able to use plasmids and weapons at the sametime is so fun. And the drill is fucking insane.
Minervas Den was my favorite part of BS2😅
@@abelramirez7320 Why do people think 2's story is bad? I'm genuinely curious. It's set 8 laters later after the events of the first game, Sofia is now in control, there's a story about her child, some characters like Gilbert are thrown into the mix, he's a failed adam experiment in a way, etc. If anything, 1 has a simple story like 2. I think people just can't look past how good Bioshock 1 is so they immediately hate everything else.
@@Xenorvya
Bio shock 2 suffered from the same thing as the dead space sequels. The first one was so original it didn’t get the same shock awe feeling when playing the sequels.
bio"SHOCK" while 2 was a nice game set in rapture, there really wasent a whole lot of Shock to it like the other games in the Shock series. The entire shock series is really a horror series at heart so playing as a big daddy was a total miss becasue it took away much of the tension. by the end of Bioshock i really felt like i had enough of rapture and that its story was done @@dontdoxmebro
BioShock still remains my favorite FPS of all time. The deep and awesome combat coupled with the artstyle that still holds up today, all topped off with some of the best writing and storytelling in any game I’ve ever played makes it a masterpiece that I love going back to.
"Deep combat" idk about that man the game crumbles under even the slightest amount of bee spam
@@Aion1os But the bees are fun…
Bioshock 2 was awful on the consoles. It's one of the only console games that wouldn't let you disable auto-aim. Nothing ruins a shooter more, than a shooter that automatically aims for you. How is that supposed to be fun?
@@TurnerTurnip Still the best one in the series
Yeah man no doubt. The design is just masterful. Still holds up all these years later. Where's the new Bioshock? I mean new original games??
The fully upgraded bees in bioshock 2 are nuts, because you can combine them with fire and they spread around. Put that together with any other damage source, and you can chew through mobs like nobody's business
But a kinda scared myself and every time I used them though
You know it👌
Played Bioshock a year or so ago, maybe 2021, and if it had been new and released that year, it still would have gotten my vote for game of the year. It always feels like a breath of fresh air when I jump back into this game.
not at all, it would had been trashed because the little sisters aren't black and asian.
ironic since you're going to the bottom of the ocean.
@@LagrangePoint0 underrated comment lol
I think that in System Shock 2 you started on Von Braun, Rickenbacker was attached to Von Braun to provide security :)
Very close to my fave game of all time. This blew my mind when I first played it, I was about 15, and I played through this 10 times, it's the first game I ever got all the achievements on my x360 - then bought it again on PC later and played it multiple more times. There's something about this art design/level design that has never been bested IMO. Just exploring, finding everything and seeing every perfectly crafted nook and cranny of the city. I also find the gameplay extremely fun and dynamic
Just out of curiosity, what's your favorite ?
Amazing how a game from 2008 still looks better than some current AAA titles thanks to the amazing lighting and art direction. Give me this over the soulless overly clean world of titles like Back 4 blood or Gotham Knights.
Art design > fancy graphics every time
Bioshock does not look better than either of those games, hell, it wasn't even a looker back in 2007. Both Gotham Knights & B4B look better graphically, Bioshock just has an art style that you prefer.
The game was outdated even back then, what are you on about?
The problem is, often good graphics look boring if they don't have a specific art style. I'm currently replaying Prey (2017), the very good FPS/RPG game set on a space station, and the graphics are great, well drawn and realistic (I mean the doors, the furniture, the lights and lighting, the walls, the computer equipment, the rooms, and so on), but since they have no unusual style then they don't catch your eye or make you stop and stare they way they would if they had a strong and unusual art style. Bioshock really does have an individual and unique style, and it really makes the game's world much more memorable.
@@ConkerTS No it doesn't, the art style looked like every game that used unreal 3 at that time. Prey's art style holds up way better and way more effort put into it, I mean tell at least 4 games that look exactly like prey.
My FPS was so low playing that game that I had no option other than to use the wrench the entire game, and it was brilliant!
I think it’s worth mentioning the “Would You Kindly” plot twist. I’ve unfortunately been spoiled prior to playing it myself, but I can’t imagine how mindblowing it would’ve been when playing it in 2007.
It reallllly was!
I wish people didn’t spoil video games especially if you can’t afford the games you want or I’m just poor
So would you kindly do a Wanted Dead review？The gameplay video made me appreciate Evil West(not)
Can confirm, that was a pause the game and put down the controller moment.
Bioshock 1 is still one of my favorite games of that generation of consoles.
Even with the spoiler it blew my mind
Truly, Bioshock is one of the most unique and interesting game worlds I've ever seen. The Art Deco design plus the water outside is as iconic as the atomic 1950s style for Fallout.
I can't say the "twist" is that complex but at the time I had no idea about it. Both Bioshock and The Line are some of my favourite gaming twists of all time.
I think 2007-2010 was an amazing time for gaming even though I probably have rose tinted glasses as I was a teen back then). Lots of games had extremely unique mechanics or looks to them. I've always said I'd adore a Bioshock movie IF DONE WELL.
I was literally telling one of my coworkers how great this series was last week. He put it on his wishlist and is awaiting a sale so he can buy all three. I waited a long time to play Bioshock, and it's now one of my favorite game franchises around! I was even looking into hypnosis to see if someone could help me forget that I played it so I could "play it again, for the first time" ( I did find a guy online but have yet to try it). A fun and beautiful series of games, I always recommend them.
So when you wake up naked in a bathtub with one less kidney, you can get to enjoy the plot twist of the first game all over again. That doesn't seem like a bad idea, so would you kindly send me the contact information of this hypnosis guy?
@@xicufwm I mean god gave us two, a small price to pay to enjoy bioshock fresh and new again.
I’ve been on a 2007 binge and you got me wanting to actually go through the first game, don’t know why I’ve only completed 2
I haven’t even watched the video yet, but the combat in bio shock 2 still stands the test of time. I miss that era of just 6 hour linear shooters, but their well crafted and have great attention to detail.
Bioshock 2s multiplayer was pretty great as well
BioShock 1 takes 12 hours (Main Story) to complete if you play it normal, and 15 Hours with the extra stuff.
BioShock 2 takes 10 hours (Main Story) to complete if you play it normal, and 14 Hours with the extra stuff.
BioShock Infinite takes 11 hours (Main Story) to complete if you play it normal, and 15 Hours with the extra stuff.
For whatever reason the word linear became a dirty word in the corporate games media and amongst publishers. Not every game needs to be an 80 hour time-waster. Hopefully the highly polished and focused linear story driven game will make a comeback.
@@lowerclassbrats77 Yeah, but sell them for a lot cheaper then the 30+ hour games.
Upon replay the levels do seem a bit smallish compared to bioshock 1
Insect Swarm is best plasmid ever. They seek out enemies that might be hiding, it stuns enemies so that during situations where multiple enemies are around you can use the bees to keep some of them busy while you focus on killing the ones who are bee free, and if you upgrade it all the way the bees will linger in corpses meaning enemies that try to run up on you from behind will be stunned in place either giving you time to move on or turn around and counter their attempted ambush. I will turn the entirety of rapture into Nick Cage in the Wicker man!
My favorite fps game series up there with Stalker, Metro 2033, Half-life & Fear.
Utilizing the dummy & having the splicers walk into your proxy mines willingly is pretty good use of those combined when low on ammo for your regular guns or adam.
Love the 2033 series
11:28 The good ending of the first game actually moved me and made my wife tear up. Great game.
Some of the best Narritive driven games ever made, The world and art design were next to none. Phenomenal story.
True, wish some modder would implement VR capabilities for the game.
Like Half life 2 VR. ;__;
There are plentiful of far better immersive sims than Bioshock 1, seriously.
@@mlkvblendzior examples, please
@@danieljohnson6370 Dishonored, Deus Ex (excluding Invisible War), Hitman series (excluding Absolution), Thief Deadly Shadows
@@mlkvblendzior Deus Ex is the only real imsim you named. Bioshock is just an fps too.
God 2007 was such an amazing year for games. Replaying the dead space remake really shows me how much staying power those IPs all had
Bioshock 2’s DLC Minerva’s den is excellent! One of the many times I have cried to that story.
Extremely underrated. It's such a shame that Minervas Den almost gets overlooked in gaming history.
It really does everything you want out of a DLC: improvements and more combat, awesome story that didn’t try and rewrite the main story, and more environments to explore.
Every story dlc in the bioshock series is awesome
@@oscarriveraabal9390 best dlcs of all time
My favorite Bioshock story.
This has always been one of the few channels where cheap meme edits thrown in from time to time genuinely make me laugh. Gman's always got a good sense for it.
38:43 oh, that was sweet! Such a nice detail.
I'm currently playing all the Bioshock games one more time. Last month I finished Bioshock 2 and have now moved to Infinite. I have to agree, playing them back to back like this shows the HUGE difference between the first two games in Rapture and the third in Columbia.
I think my favorite is 2 for the exact reasons mentioned in this video: they took the "bad" things about the first game and tried to improve them. Oh, and Minerva's Den DLC has a nice story (even though the gameplay is very linear and even a little bit uninspired)
I really enjoyed how 3 tied into Rapture, and the ending was an absolute mix of love and hate for me. It left the story open to make new bioshocks, but at the same time left an insane amount of mystery.
Also, I felt like 3 was much shorter due to how smooth the linear exploration was. It's good man
Why do you say “uninspired”?
Great video as always, GMan!
But I have to say that Target Bullseye is extremely useful when you want to kill a Big Daddy. If the Big Daddy is going to walk near a security camera, then shoot the Target Bullseye at him, and when the camera sees him, then it sends out the flying turrets to attack the Big Daddy. That way, you don't have to fight him yourself, meaning that you don't put yourself at risk, you don't waste ammunition (not that ammo is ever in short supply in Rapture), and you can keep on photographing the fight, getting points from the Big Daddy and the flying turrets.
If the Big Daddy is not near a camera, then you just need to do something to trigger the bots attacking you, such as breaking a shop window in the shopping mall in Fort Frolic, or hacking something and then deliberately failing it by hitting an alarm tile. When the flying turrets come for you, run to the Big Daddy and shoot the target bullseye at him, and the turrets will ignore you and attack him instead.
Target Bullseye allows you to kill most Big Daddies without ever needed to fire even one shot at them.
Bioshock is still a great game, though with some real flaws, such as the way the enjoyment level of the game drops massively after the mid-game revelation, the endless, tedious hacking mini-game (which is made worse by the way that the game never checks if a newly generated hacking board is actually completable - sometimes it can be literally impossible to complete one, though thankfully you just lose a little heath then restart with a hopefully completable new board, the sometimes bad bot-pathing of the flying turrets, and the terrible boss fight that ends the game.
BTW, after playing Bioshock, anyone who is interested should then read the following article, which details how it's author would have ended the game, had he worked on it. It's an amazing idea, monumentally better than the very generic, very unsatisfying end that the game shipped with:
www.pentadact.com/2009-04-15-ending-bioshock/
If only the game had been moddable.
Still, the utterly fantastic Bioshock 2 fixed most of the problems that it's predecessor had, and to me is by far the best of the three Bioshocks (it's the only one of the three that I regularly replay), plus it has the brilliant DLC 'Minerva's Den'.
Was the only game to truly feel like a new leap in gaming at the time. When they plane came through as you were walking Rapture.. my jaw dropped.I waited for like 3 minutes because I thought the first scene when you land in the water surround by fire was a cut scene.😂🤣
This was the very first game I played after I moved out of my parents and finally built my own computer. I have never been more blown away by a graphical jump. Everything out today just feels like a slight improvement of what came before it. This truly felt like next gen.
Bioshock 2 is an underrated gem desu !
I love how the story is told, I know a lot of people don’t like audio logs but with the very few really good cutscenes and the ability to actually play the game the entire time without being forced into cutscene after cutscene makes it one of my most favourite games. Everyone remembers “Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow.” and “A man chooses, a slave obeys.”
I actually loved the audio logs. Especially "Ahahahaha....nice job....BOYO." Still sends shivers up my spine.
The Big Daddies in the thumbnail don't have their faces shown and yet I can still tell that they're smiling.
Thank you! I've maintained that BioShock 2 has better gameplay for a while so it's annoying that people just write it off. Obviously a sequel wasn't going to compare to the uniqueness and originality of the first game but at least they improved on one of the most important aspects of the game
These were my favorite games these and the first 2 deadspaces were my semi-childhood (teenager) I'd play them constantly and just be in awe at all the detail for the time. Even looking at how 3d the bullet holes were for me was just crazy (I know it's just bump maps) but still the world was so interesting I wish it could have gone on forever. In my opinion (I haven't watched the video yet) yes you should play these games they are still extremely fun. Tho janky at times still a blast.
I played bioshock for the first time back in 2017 and I never had the twist spoiled for me so, needless to say, I was absolutely blown away.
While I find System Shock 2 superior, Bioshock still has a special place in my heart, if nothing more for the shocking revelation at the end. which caught me completely off guard way back in 2010 despite me being very attentive to the narrative.
I've no idea what the fake family thing is supposed to be for if you were a slave all along. People just remember the twist and the rest of the offal just sloughed off their cortex. Also, thematically, shouldn't have been a cutscene. Absolutely inappropriate.
@@PutkisenSetä ... you don't realize the fact it was a cutscene is precisely because control is being taken from you?
@@ms.greywolf8228 The entire premise of the control word is that you'll do as you're told. But not mindlessly. It's a meta narrative about video game objectives as a whole. But this one time it magically makes you a total slave. It'd make more sense if Ryan just forced you to lower your weapons and stay a while. "Now run to the right." You can faff around for as long as you want but eventually you'll play ball and do as you're told. Which is how it worked so far. Get it?
@@PutkisenSetä A person doing what they think they chose to do is much easier to control. Though more heavy handed uses of the trigger word could accomplish a “direct” effect. At the point in the story Ryan’s hold on the city has been crippled and the self destruction protocol active. He let himself die in the method he chose as a twisted form of vindication. He was ended by a slave but he chose to fall that way thus he won. Or at least that is what he believes in the end.
@@PutkisenSetä I think the scene is just paced better as a cutscene. Also they spell it out, the whole fake family stuff growing up on a farm was planted in Jack's head by Fontaine and Suchong because Fontaine likes to play the trickster so he gives you a backstory and then plays the character of Atlas appearing as the saviour of those shunned by Rapture kinda including Jack at the end. Despite being programmed to obey because of the keyword, Jack can still make choices and I don't think memories of growing up as lab rat would make him complacent when he wasn't being monitored and he had to be kept away from Ryan too so he's sent to the surface
A friend I had for over 30 years was obsessed with this game. He passed from brain cancer 2 years ago and I always think of him when I see this game. I feel like I want to play it through. Cheers gman.
Bioshock is one of my favourite FPS games ever made by 2K. Can’t wait for your take on Atomic Heart,and the upcoming System Shock Remake that are coming out this year.
I can remember getting the first game on sale, from a gamestop that is now closed in a mall that is now gone, just before going to see an action movie with my Pap. Getting into the car after forgetting only to realize I had Lost Planet, The Darkness, and Bioshock, (3 games I had never heard of and purchased just because of the art and details on the front and back) to play after the hour ride home. What a set of wild rides we were in for. Bioshock eased me into the survival horror genre. What a Gem.
Still one of my favourites to this day, thank you for covering it so well and noting all the lovable bits 💕
You can actually combine cyclone trap with incinerate, electro bolt, or the freeze by placing the trap down and using any said plasmid on it for an elemental trap. Helps a lot with parts of the game when you’ve got to hold out against waves.
Hands down one of the most compelling and aesthetically pleasing and cinematic games of its time. Both Rapture and Columbia were some of the most detailed and well designed fictional cities in gaming, the characters all had a purpose in the story and the sidequests, the gameplay was solid and had depth and variety and lastly the plot twist in all the game along with the multiple endings were extremely well done. Still have very fond memories playing those games
I didn't enjoy Bioshock as much as other people. I liked it but wasn't blown away, maybe it's because all the people who played it blind didn't know what to expect whereas I heard people talk about the game for years until I finally played it myself. Will say, though, the game has the best plot twist in any game ever. Totally throws you for a loop and changes how you see everything afterward. Great art style, too. Might not have been for me but undeniably a classic.
For some reason, I didn’t like Bioshock 2 much back when it came out. However, when I played through it again a couple years ago, I realized that I actually love it. I’m still unsure about why I didn’t enjoy it as much the first time I played it. It’s brilliant. The research camera is great in that game because it encourages you to use all your weapons and plasmids against every enemy in order to get a higher research score.
Splicer by far are the highlight of the series, never seen a game before or since that put that much character into an enemy type which is key considering how often you encounter their presence
Timeless art style. Initially at release I was bummed it didn't go for the most modern photo realism of the time, didn't take long for me to see my error.
I would also love to see a modern Infinite review from you. That games was praised to high heavens back in the day for it's gameplay and narrative. As the years went by, people started to see the game in a way more negative light.
Its by no means a bad game. Would definitely love to see another infinite vid from gman. I can only judge it without the other 2 bioshocks myself, but i really found myself enoying most of the story and art direction.
Infinite didn’t work on any level. Realised it first time I played it. People just thought it was good because it said Bioshock on the box.
There was something wrong with combat for sure, most guns were kinda boring and having just 2 doesn't work with the Bioshock formula. Maybe that's why the enemies were so boring and repetitive. But the exploration and immersion were pretty much just as good, the visuals were great and spending time with Elizabeth was quite enjoyable. The plasmids were also pretty cool.
Infinite was praised initially because gamers are a herd of mindless zombies. Back then they followed gaming news media, how they're following gaming TH-camrs, but in essence they've never changed.
Infinite is like the F.E.A.R 3 of the franchise. It's a good game but not a good Bioshock game.
The wasp one is my favorite I use that one to distract and do heavy damage or they use other plasmids and I sometimes just use it to like I'll just spam it especially when it's fully upgraded and it just mows the enemies down for me so I can concentrate another stuff like hacking although I think it's somewhat better in the second game
THANK YOU! upgraded wasp swarm was amazing I literally used it before every fight because it was effective on groups. Homeboy doesn't know what he's talking about. Wasps are OP af
Yep, I recently played through Minerva's Den for the first time and the Bees are still pretty effective. You just need to stay back to take full advantage of them. I don't think the last upgrade is needed though.
@@burningsheep4473 In bioshock 2 and DLC bees are one if not the most OP plasmids.
I remember first discovering this game in I think November of 2009. Not sure of the exact year but I know it was November because my family was getting angry with me for barely participating in Thanksgiving dinner. Mainly because I was too busy being thankful for Bioshock instead of my family haha.
I feel that the DLC's for Bioshock Infinite tied the game together well with Bioshock 1 and 2.
Playing Bioshock infinite the first time I really thought the writers had painted themselves into a corner with doing a logical tie-in to the first two games, but as the credits rolled on Burial at Sea part 2, I found it very satisfying.
Ironically Atomic Hearts gameplay felt more closer to Infinite with its nonstop dialogue and action. Gman definitely choose the wrong Bioshock games to to compare playing Atomic Heart, Atomic hearts is too much like Infinite and too simplistic
It's trash tho. It's shoehorning Elizabeth and making the world feel smol
@@bipstymcbipste5641 Lol! You thought Booker was the main character in Bioshock infinite? 😄
Elizabeth isn't "shoehorned in". She's the main protagonist.
Fun fact: I had no idea you could aim down sights because it's only an option if you play with a controller (press the thumbstick).
To this day Yahtzee criticizing BiosHock 2 but then going on to praise Infinite will never not be baffling to me
Neither are good, but I still think that Infinite is slightly better.
@@PeixeKing biosHock 2 objectively has the best gameplay of the trilogy, it’s loved by immersive sim fans but disliked by the more casual audience who don’t much care for im sims
I absolutely love Infinite. Booker and Elizabeth's journey just captivated me like few games ever have that I could look past it's inferior elements when compared to the first two and it that regard it's arguably the weakest game in the series but personally my favorite.
As someone who cut their teeth on the best of of the immersive sims (system shock 2, deus ex) you - absolutely - need an inventory. It's part of what makes the world feel so rich; you have dozens of items and you don't know yet what is important and what isn't. You also need the character xp system so you can make mistake and learn how to be more refined in later playthroughs; the rush of getting Cybernetic Modules was never the same as getting a flask of Adam. Oh and while I agree the splicers are more interesting than the hybrids, there is nothing more terrifying than the metal footsteps of the Mother cyborg from System Shock 2. Fight me.
They can't fight you, cause most people never played System Shock 2
Man I love the Bioshock series and I would love to wipe my memory to experience them for the first time again.
Great review (like always) but I have to ask if you missed minervas den or just don't care for it enough.
It's an overlooked dlc and deserves more attention.
Bioshock and Metro were the two FPS series I used to play the most in middle and high school. No matter how many times I played them, I would always play through both series over and over and over.
I remember the demo dropping on the 360 and my mind being blown. Such a great game. So intriguing.
I played that demo more times than I could count.
Can also use telekinesis to move the wire traps, learned that in the last 20 minutes of bio shock…
Great review, Gman. You nailed it. I remember when I first got to play this game. I think it was around early to mid 2008 when I accidentally stumbled upon and then short after got this game (never heard of it before) on my then quite old rig that barely were able to launch it, let alone play it. But nontheless my initial experience of the game fits your description perfectly. Good on ya, mate.
I got the collection for cheap this weekend, haven't played it since literally 2007.... Oh my god i just wanted to play for like an hour or so but ended up playing through the entire game in one setting, it's just SO damn good.
Oh man, since 07? No wonder you had a blast. The remaster is also really good with textures and shadows.
As much as I love Bioshock 1 I always thought that as a game as a whole Bioshock 2 is the better one. The story is really good(Especially the audios and the enviromental storytelling) and I think that's overlooked compared to 1, The gameplay is ten times better and the DLC is 11/10. The multiplayer was also fun couldn't play that much but the little I played I enjoyed it and the videos were fun. If you never played 2 give it a chance it improves everything from the Original and YES it is better than infinite which imo is the worst of the three.
Great review - my favorite game ever and I’ve gotten all of the achievements probably 10 different times.
That said, I noticed you made a throwaway comment on the Insect Swarm plasmid being kinda useless - it’s actually amazing for killing Big Daddies. There’s some bonus room challenges where it’s almost essential!
Stop making me want to give this game another go god damn it
Hey, it's the guy who hates Bioshock!
Infinite is the one I go back to, I love the setting, the metaphysical theory behind the world and the story... It would be better if it didn't have bioshock in the name to not draw comparisons but it's a great game.
Easily my favorite game of all time. I have fond memories of getting this the day it came out after school, having my game freeze after an hour of gameplay, exchanging the disk thinking it was the cause, and then finding out that it was the first signs of the RROD. I did the towel trick dozens of times before my 360 bricked permanently just so I could keep exploring Rapture.
No Gods or Kings, only man. That line has stuck with me for so many years, and i will never forget it,and will live by it as best i can
oh but there is one God, don't mistake that
Please for the love of god, DO NOT SKIP ON MINERVAS DEN. Story is one of the best i have ever played....dlc for Bioshock 2
First game is such a masterpiece I remember reading Xbox magazine about it in 2007 and being so intrigued only to not play it until 2016 but needless to say its been an all time favorite ever since
"A man has a choice. I chose the impossible. I built a city where the artist would not fear censor, where the great would not be constrained by the small, where a scientist would not be bound by petty gravity, I chose to build RAPTURE" -Andrew Ryan
Bioshock is a certified classic, spawning surprisingly good sequels and even an entertaining prequel book.
Played through Bioshock 1 (remastered) again couple of months back, didnt regret that a single bit. So absolutly.
I love the games, but playing them over and over does help me see the general problems, both with the story and the gameplay. Still a great experience through and through though.
Totally yes
Haven't play the sequel but I played the first game and it was fun, hopefully I get into the sequel
Well you definitely should play the entire trilogy dlc including
Many are already aware of this, but Bioshock 2 was directed by Jordan Thomas, the level designer responsible for Fort Frolic.
Love both of these. The first is one of my all time favorites, I was obsessed with it when I first played it.
My appreciation for 2 grows as the years pass, even though I was a defender of it from the start. Love it almost as much as the first.
Infinite tho….
On my third playthrough I discovered the insanely OP combo of Wrench Jockey, Sportboost and Natural Camouflage. What this does is makes the wrench the most powerful weapon in the game, and enables you to grab the attention of nearby splicers, then stand still and go invisible. They'll lurch over to investigate and when they get into range, WHAM, one shotted by a pipe wrench. Combine that with the wonky ragdoll physics and it never gets old.
I recently went through and completed Bioshock 1 and 2 and loved it and just like you said, going into Infinite was a real whiplash where I just did not care as much and didn't feel like finishing it.
Love your videos Gman!
I really loved the environmental fact that you find a telekinesis plasmid near the dentist office. In case someone couldn't catch the example ball, they could always fix their teeth next door.
Love System Shock 2's interface. they did dumb this down but it is still a great game. Still love the story being told through audio recordings. Something about that I just love.
Prey felt a lot like System Shock 2 to me
So I'm 40, got covid about a year ago, wife locked me in the bedroom and I played #1 on switch and was blown away .
Still keep thinking about its that good
You say your wife locked you in the bedroom so casually it actually made me laugh. Apparently she did you a favor since you got to experience this game uninterrupted.
I highly recommend the book by John Shirley - Bioshock: Rapture, not only does it fill the blanks but it enables you to enjoy the great story and follow some of the main characters story even before Rapture was build. Highly recommended.
Loved that book. RIP the homie
@@rando3939 he's still alive, don't worry
@@julianjaimes197 was talking about a character in the book
Legit possibly my favorite mechanic for these games may have been taking pictures and videos of your enemies to get to know them better. What a great idea and some of those perks were just so fucking satisfying to unlock
I think bioshock 2 as time progress has been more appreciated and people realizing that this game is really good while bioshock infinte is the complete opposite especially blurial at sea 1&2.
Also how dare you that you didnt talk about minerva's den that dlc imo rivals the first game imo.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
For your point at 33:44, the reason the Alpha Series big daddy’s are easier to kill (such as Subject Delta) is that they were a prototype, the first big daddy, but they were deemed failures. Because of this, they weren’t grafted to the suits like the other, more armored Big Daddys, and we're previously used as test subjects for Fontaine Futuristics Plasmids, it’s why the ones you face, and possibly Delta, can use them so easily. Not only that, they aren’t heavily armored, which is a simplified version of my little geek-out above.
Do you guys agree if immersive sim games didn’t die out during the early 2010s, a lot of games would have been more successful and beloved?
YES
Especially games like Prey 2017 which I honestly feel like didn't get enough recognition in my opinion.
I just got my cousin to beat the game for the first time, the final parts of the first game blew his little mind.
If ONLY I could play the fr#cking second game without crashes on PC...
Normal or remake? Remake has issues
@@drivanradosivic1357 well, it is a remaster...I must play the original yet
I used to play the multiplayer in Bioshock 2, and what I remember from it were good things. like being able to find a big daddy suit on the map to turn you into a underwater version of a CoD juggernaut, with the Rosie version having the iconic rivet gun from the first game, not the one you use in the Bioshock 2 campaign. it was really amazing and using the plasmids against other players really set a new challenge. if anything, the multiplayer took far far more concentration and understanding of the games mechanics that some of the story did, pretty much demanding you know how to use each plasmid in conjunction to others unless you want to respawn over and over.
You're dead wrong about "spoiler culture". People were already spoiling this game on Reddit back in 2007.
At least spoiler culture wasn’t that bad then it’s much worse now
Reddit was 2 years old no one really used it like today.
@@darring1550 Yeah, and? That's still where I got the ending of Bioshock spoiled back in 2007, mere weeks after the game came out.
I loved the days of people not wanting to spoil games back then.
The first time I finished Bioshock it through me for a loop.
The setup for the ending really was executed perfectly.
If you haven't played Bioshock, would you kindly pick it up and play through.
You will not regret it!
The editing in your videos is always impeccable and at times just hysterical, I love it!
But would your mom like it! That is the question sonny jim!.
I hope you make a comparison video between 2016's Doom and Doom Eternal somewhere in the future.
Loved the first game along with Infinite and currently completing the 2nd one and it's really good despite being linear.
The dlc for the 2nd story is brilliant
@@amanchoosesaslaveobeys6510 in generell, if you play bioshock 2 without minerva's you doing it wrong. And if you play infinite without burial at sea you doing it wrong.
@@eve-llblyat2576 yeah definitely
Glad he called out Spoiler Culture.
Pedant's corner - you don't wake up on the Rickenbacker, you wake up on the UNN Van Braun. The Rickenbacker is the military vessel piggybacking on the hyperspace jump with the Van Braun and you only get onto it sometime after Deck 5.
Bioshock is one of those games that never gets old (the first one especially) i replay it yearly as well. Looking forward to Atomic Hearts, if it is half as good we are in for a treat!
39:00 AKCHUALLY the ship in System Shock 2 is called the "Von Braun", the Rickenbacker is just the military ship accompanying it.
I played bioshock one and oh my god is it boring. The combat gets easier, the enemies are repetitive, the powers are boring and the missions suck. Maybe a 5/10 at best.
System Shock 2 starts on the Von Braun. You go to the Rickenbacker near the end of the game.