This blog will contain massive spoilers for all of BioShock 1, but very mild spoilers for the first third of BioShock 2. If you haven't played the original BioShock yet and have somehow remained spoiler-free for the Citizen Kane of video games, stop reading this stupid blog and go buy the game already.

Actually, the title is a bit misleading: I DID play BioShock when it first came out on the PC, and adored it thoroughly. However, after finally getting around to buying BioShock 2 for the 360 (currently about $9 new on Amazon), I figured I should replay the original to get the mythos fresh in my mind. This proved to be both a blessing and a curse, as I will soon explain. So I bought the original for 360 as well - I don't mind repurchasing a great game, even with the tacky Greatest Hits packaging - and prepared to trundle back into Rapture.

I'd love to see the pitch meeting for the original BioShock:

"It'll be like System Shock, of course, except under the ocean and set in the fifties."

"Interesting."

"You'll get cool plasmid powers that you can use to set a guy on fire, then electrocute him when he goes to put the fire out in a pool of water."

"LOVE IT."

"It will also be a thorough deconstruction of Ayn Rand and the philosophy of Objectivism."

"Wait, what?"

"Uh, never mind that. Did we mention the part where you shoot swarms of bees from your hands?"

"Here's five million dollars to get you started!"

I always expected BioShock's Rand-bashing to catch more flak from the American press. Our media here is pretty conservative and in some quarters, Rand is still a high prophet. For once, video gaming's ghetto probably saved BioShock some wrath. Since most people feel that the hobby is nothing but Pac-Man and murder simulators, any attempts to portray political and sociological themes are rendered invisible to the majority. To them, a video game trying to make a philosophical point is like a fish trying to operate a helicopter.

Humorously, all of the ire would end up at the feet of Mass Effect instead, because of the inclusion of a few basic cable sex scenes. The whole thing somehow ballooned into the game being portrayed as an intergalactic pornography simulator. Don't get me wrong; I love BioShock and think the violence and gore serves the atmosphere, but our media is a puzzling beast. To put it succinctly:t wo people enjoying a moment of physical and emotional gratification via sex? Filth. A shattered dystopia full of diced-up bodies where you run around setting mutants on fire? It's all good. You can have Andrew Ryan clubbing his mistress to death with a pipe because she had the temerity to get pregnant, but hey, don't show a woman having sexual pleasure... that's just WRONG.

Anyhow.

Replaying BioShock was an interesting experience. On the one hand, I knew all the twists and turns, so that spark was gone. On the other hand, I got to appreciate the game more on the meta scale. One of the game's big hooks - the deconstruction of false 'player choice' in modern video gaming - is even more satisfying once you know that you're Fontaine's unwitting slave for the majority of the adventure. Every time I heard "would you kindly," a smile crossed my face. Even the gold sparkle around interactive objects took on a new wrinkle, as I imagined that's how they really looked to Jack with Fontaine twisting his brain.

Nothing beats the art design, though. I've always been keen on art deco, but the way BioShock chucks it in a hellish blender results in absolute, twisted beauty. BioShock looked great on my 19 inch monitor back in the day, but it soars on my gigantic living room television, even with whatever concessions it had to make for the 360's hardware. It was easy to understand why Rapture's survivors still want control of the place, even with half of it in tatters. It really drives home what a beautiful idea it was on paper, much like the Objectivist philosophy that built it. And Andrew Ryan makes a great figurehead - even though he prostituted his ideals once Rapture began leaving his control, he never truly forgets them. Even as you pummel him to death with a golf club, he defiantly screams "A man chooses! A slave obeys!" between beatings. It's an amazing scene, only slightly tarnished by Fontaine's over-the-top cackle as he pulls back the curtain afterwards. A guy who covertly captures his rival's offspring in its fetal state to program him as a future sleeper agent should know a thing or two about subtle.

The last portion of the game - assembling a Big Daddy suit to access Fontaine's lair - does feel a bit like padding, but the final fight is pretty damn epic. I mean, if you're playing Screw Ayn Rand: The Video Game, you gotta tussle with Atlas at the end. The ending is a bit short, but that's okay: this is one of those 'about the journey' deals.

Now that I'm playing BioShock 2, I'm realizing that I probably should've waited a bit longer. Playing it right after the first one expands the game's already-familiar feeling into full-blown redundancy. The art direction has also regressed - undoubtedly a side effect of a much shorter development cycle - and a game that is allegedly about the freedom of choice still boils down to doing what people on the radio tell you to do. And while Andrew Ryan made for a great central figure - clearly demented, but with what he thought was good intent, like your weird conservative uncle - Sofia Lamb is pure cult leader from the second she opens her mouth. (It also creates the usual continuity issues when Lamb was allegedly a major muckraker during Ryan's reign, but you didn't hear a peep about her in the original BioShock.)

And yet, the game is solid. The underwater portions (however brief) are gorgeous, the combat and hacking elements are refined and improved, and the Big Sisters are legitimately intimidating. (The poor Big Daddies become glorified ATMs about a third of the way through the original.) And playing as a Big Daddy is great fun, especially when you thrust that jacked-up drill through a crowd of deranged splicers. Hey, that's kinda phallic... somebody call FOX News and get 'em on the case!

Original: A

Sequel: TBD