Hi everyone. I started playing Bioshock again recently and finished the game today. I wanted to open a topic discussion to hear what you have to say about the game, now that it has been out for awhile. I would like to start by saying that I enjoyed the atmosphere the most, especially the water effects. Next I enjoyed the gunplay/plasmid style of mixture. The last thing that I wanted to mention is that I noticed more of the themes in the game as I went through, themes such as salvation, technology, society, medical treatments, power, and corruption. So those are my thoughts as I post this afternoon.

What do you think about the game today? Has your opinion changed on the game since the first time that you played?

Thanks.

I played it for the first time about a year ago, and other than it feeling very old in some ways (gameplay), overall I did really enjoy it and thought a lot of the themes were kind of timeless. The graphics were pretty primitive looking at times too, but other times it was flat out gorgeous. And that first hour makes one hell of an impact by any measure.

Being a Playstation user, by the time the game had been announced for release on PS3 I'd already had all the main story bits spoiled for me by the Bombcast, forum threads and other miscellanea, so I didn't attempt playing it until Bioshock 2 became a PS+ game and the original was on some kind of big sale. I really enjoyed the world they'd built, Rapture is undoubtedly one of gaming's great accomplishments from that generation. The look, sound, everything about it just felt so lived in and right.

Unfortunately, having known all the primary story beats I was left with a game that proved nearly unplayable to me otherwise. I am not a fan of first-person shooters by default, nor do I enjoy horror as a genre, so the cumbersome controls matched with what I found to be truly terrifying enemies in the Big Daddies left me with a game I felt was just too hard to play through, even on Easy. I gave up a few hours in, I'd only ever beat the very first plastic surgeon boss.

By contrast, I absolutely loved Bioshock Infinite. Solved all of my control issues and swapped subtle horror for a bit more whimsy. I wish it could be up-rezzed a little and re-released on PS4 but I doubt that will ever happen.

It feels like I come back to the original Bioshock every few years as it's probably one of my favourite games of all time. Off the top of my head the thing that dates it is definitely the graphics. For me, old games I haven't seen in a long time look beautiful in my mind's eye even though in reality, they're usually pretty dated. Bioshock has texture issues from what I remember but makes up for it with lighting, atmosphere and setting. Just for reference's sake, Bioshock 2 is pretty awesome as well but I don't hold it up with as high regard and Bioshock Infinite doesn't even hold a BIC lighter compared to the blazing ball of fire that is the original Bioshock.

BioShock, much like Dark Souls, is one of those games that I'd always rather be playing than just about anything that has come out since. It definitely still holds up considering that it's much better than the rest of the games in the series. Definitely a top ten game of all time for me.

I like playing Bioshock 2 even more than the first game, but it's also a more difficult game. Both games have Vita chambers they make the difficulty trivial because an enemy's health doesn't come back after respawning. I usually turn those off - are you sure those are on?

@believer258: yeah, you also have those big sister encounters. thats what i loved about bioshock infinite burial at sea dlc. If you havent played it, definitely give it a go. Going back to rapture, no matter what, is always awesome. ive replayed bioshock 3 times. It just never feels old to me. but im also one of those people who still loves playing half life. theres something about those games that feels dated, but considering how much they innovated in the genre (1st person shooters/action adventure games), its always a treat.

Never could get through the first and ended up skipping the second. Played and loved infinite though, kept me engaged the entire eay through even though it ran like crap on my rig lol.

Despite thinking that's it's a bit overrated and has issues, especially with the moral decisions, Bioshock is still a game I occasionally replay. Done so about 3-4 times now. Main issue with replaying it on PC is that it's a mess of a port. Physics are tied to 30fps, making ragdolling look incredibly awkward when playing at 60 (a mod did recently come out that fixed this), and the sound is terrible on PCs with most modern setups and its real difficult to find a consistent fix for it.

I keep thinking about going back to this (and also 2 because I never played minervas dead)

but just thinking about actually PLAYING it puts

me off every time. I loved the first time I played through bioshock, but that was like eight years ago

I love Bioshock, but I played so much of it (completed on insane difficulty with no Vita chambers, got all achievements) that I can never play it again.

I tried playing it for the first time a while back...and I couldn't finish it, I ended up stuck at a spawn point with the big enemy just standing outside of it and I just didn't like the game enough to start over or keep trying to continue,

I tried and tried but I just could not enjoy that series at all, I didn't make it far in Infinite either, I always wanted to see how it ended though

I only played it once, but I did so approximately four years ago, long after it had come out. I'm not a big FPS player and don't get a lot out of shooting mechanics or that perspective in general, but Bioshock was one of those famous games that I wanted to pick up when I got a 360 just to see what all the fuss was about. It was a frustrating experience. The combat is very chaotic with a lot of weapon dispensers, alarms, drones, turrets and splicers screaming at you every second in dark levels. Because I'm not used to them, I wrestled with the aiming and how to dodge/avoid/defend from enemy attacks. And yet, it's the easiest game I have ever played. I've heard that this game has in-story explained Vita Chambers that revive you when you die, but that never happened to me at all. Like, I'm not some super great player here. I die all the time during Kirby games. But Bioshock just never made me lose until the part where I had to babysit someone else. There are few enemy types and only one bad boss at the end, which means I remember the combat as one big noisy mess. The underwater city that got so much praise never seemed magical to me, just a bunch of claustrophobic sewer chambers with leaks. The progression of the story annoyed me, because it mostly involved going to one place and then fixing the railroad along the way when the roof caved in. The story itself didn't engage me because I never felt like I got to know the characters, I couldn't link a single face and voice in that game besides Andrew Ryan. The Big Daddies were cool though. I especially liked that they were wandering around all friendly until engaged. Before attacking one, I would set up an entire array of traps that would hopefully take care of most of its health, and then flail in close range with the ice powers and the shotgun.

I never played 2, but I did pick up Bioshock Infinite later and liked that one much more. The open air that could be traversed with the rails in the sky, the beautiful colors and the characters you could both see, meet and have conversations with helped me throught the parts that were annoying in similar ways. It's not my favorite game in the world, but I look back fondly on it.

I loved it. It had an atmosphere that straight up shook my nerves at times. There was a lot of spectacle and I always felt like I was in danger. The backdrop and story of the rapture was a fun one to explore. I've played it and Infinite, and I enjoyed the first more.

I always thought it was a stunning game, with such an incredibly realized and comprehensive world - and I never liked or particularly enjoyed the way it played.

I love it, definitely a top 10 game all time for me, possibly top 5. The world of Rapture, characters with deep backstories, and gameplay were all great. The ending is bad though, I must say.

^^^^^

I haven't revisited this game since I beat it, god, 6-7 years ago. I'm glad people didn't turned on this game like they did with Infinite. It's one of the few Triple A games last gen that truly felt inspired. I thought of it highly then and I think of it highly now.

I started Bioshock at a time when I was super busy with college stuff, and it took me something like four months to complete, even though I don't remember playing anything but at the time. I thought that it was very impressive, even though I played it in late 2012. I thought that the writing was a cut above anything else I had played and found Rapture to be the one of the most astonishing settings in a work of fiction.

I enjoyed its brand of storytelling; being able to put the pieces together and figure out "would you kindly" and who Jack was right before meeting Ryan was pretty satisfying. A lot of people seem to feel that the game loses steam after the big reveal, but I really liked the level after meeting Ryan. I think that it would've served as a great epilogue. It's a shame that the game doesn't end on a satisfying note.

I enjoyed the gameplay overall, despite the shooting being not as exciting as you would've hoped. I think the Plasmids and Rapture's "eco-system" compensate for the mediocre shooting. My biggest gripe when it comes to the gameplay is how the game's economy is balanced. Early on, due to the scarcity of resources, combat is all the more thrilling because of it; however, later on, I found myself always full on ammo and money, which made the combat less tense.

I actually didn't find it hard to go back to Bioshock, even after having played Bioshock 2 and Infinite. I didn't mind the fact that you couldn't use guns and Plasmids simultaneously and, in a lot of ways, I kind of prefer Bioshock's gameplay to its Bioshock 2's.

Thanks everyone for posting your thoughts. I have enjoyed reading them while reflecting on what I had said originally.