Welcome to Rapture

I'll preface this by saying that i've already played (and thoroughly enjoyed) BioShock Infinite. So, when i wound up surviving a plane crash and swimming to the foot of....a lighthouse...there was definitely a moment where my stomach turned. Was this the same lighthouse? Were the scrawlings on the wall of Infinite's lighthouse full of references i missed? I took a second to marvel at my surroundings before being distracted by a song weezing in the background.

It took a moment but there it was, my wedding song - Somewhere Beyond the Sea - getting creaked out of some phonograph in the lighthouse; the normally upbeat crooning of Bobby Darin replaced with a flourished violin. I dunno if Irrational commissioned this version or just dug deep to find and license it but, damn, nice touch.

i scratched out a mental note to find out who did the song and moved on to the spectacular entrance into the world of Rapture.

(Joker Note: Found it.)


The first section of the game was largely what i expected. Gameplay feels like a slightly devolved version of Infinite. I found myself wishing for a Fishsticks control style but only because i know i'm not using Plasmids enough.

To take a quick aside, 3/4 of the way through my session, Wallaby jumps onto Xbox Live and joins me in a chat. We're roughly at the same point in the game. After going quiet (presumably due to concentration) Wallby proceeds to unleash a highly unmanly scream into my headset. A splicer had snuck up on him and waited patiently for Wallaby to turn around before attacking. BioShock? Creepy? Nawww. Apparently my compatriots have a tendency to scream when they game, one that i do not share. I think it's hilarious.

Overall, Irrational has nailed the ominous feel by pairing the gratuitous smearing of blood with an inherent sense of disorientation. You learn plenty about Rapture, about Andrew Ryan, even about the splicers, but you're never actually told why you're there. It's too hard to believe your presence is a coincidence, plain and simple. So you go on, following Atlas' instructions, partly because this is a game and that's just what you do and partly to find out why you're doing it. My point is that the ostensible reason you're given in the beginning - survival - is easy to discard.

But then that's not a bad thing. i'm a sucker for a mystery. Can't wait to play on.

-Joker

Afterthought. The game always tells me i'm rich. As a scavenger, i like that.