View All (21)

View All (19)

Both Big Daddies are extremely tough to take down, but they have one very important weakness. They won’t bother you until you bother them. This lets you take your time and prepare for the fight. You can heal up, set traps, scout the environment for areas you might be able to take advantage of, etc. Preparation is the most important factor if you hope to take on a Big Daddy without dying horribly.

Once you’ve downed a Big Daddy, you are presented with a moral choice regarding the Little Sister and the Adam she carries. You can harvest her (kill her), and take all of the Adam she’s carrying for yourself, or you can save her by turning her back into a normal girl and only gaining half the Adam you would have gotten if you had harvested her. Why would you want to save them if it only nets you half the Adam? Well aside from the promise that one of the characters in the game will “make it worth your while” if you save them, saving the Little Sisters instead of harvesting them will also have an effect of what direction the story goes towards the end. Harvesting little sisters will net you the “Evil” ending, while saving them will reward you with the “Good” ending. Though to be completely honest and without going into spoilers, both are fairly underwhelming.

On the visual side of things, BioShock looks absolutely fantastic. While it may not be as technically impressive as Gears of War in terms of textures and character models, it more than makes up for it with its unbelievable water effects and fantastic art design. Any game that makes you stop for a second and look around at all of the scenery the room has to offer is something special. Every visual aspect of the game works together to give you this sense that Rapture truly is a decaying shell of a former underwater metropolis that was at one time a thriving and flourishing civilization. Late in the game, you can even take a look outside one of the windows and find neon signs advertising areas of the city that you have already been to in the game. It gives you a nice sense of the progress you’re making and the amount of distance you have traveled since the start.

The visuals go hand in hand with the excellent sound design to absolutely suck you into the world of Rapture. There is always something going on in Rapture, and even if you can’t see it, you certainly will be able to hear it. Whether it’s a splicer mumbling to himself about how his life used to be, the thunderous footsteps of an approaching Big Daddy, music from the 40s and 50s playing from a jukebox, or even just the water gushing in from cracks in the walls and ceiling. Rapture looks, feels, and sounds like a living and breathing underwater city, and you’ll hear every single breath it takes. Apart from the sound and music, you also got professional quality voice acting for every single character in the game. Since Rapture is a city that welcomes intelligent minds from all over the world, you’ll hear a variety of different kinds of accents that are all pulled off perfectly and never sound forced.