Confession, I didn't like Bioshock

I played Bioshock for 5+ hours, killed a few Bag Daddies, harvested some sisters, and didn't have much fun. After the newness of the experience wore off I found that the annoying aspects of the game made me lose interest. I'm not going to say something stupid like, "this game is crap," because it isn't! I WANT to like Bioshock. However, there came a point when I just stopped enjoying it and didn't feel sufficiently motivated to keep going.

When I first started playing the game, I immediately loved it. I loved the plane wreck sequence, I was scared to leave the initial elevator/pod that brings you to Rapture. I was confused, and intimidated, and loving every minute of it. There were ideas batted back and forth by the plot line that I liked thinking about. For instance, what would happen if a plastic surgeon got bored with making perfect faces and decided to make art? Or, what would happen if a closed society was engineered to be leaderless? Combine the intellectual curiosity of the plot with good first-person shooter combat, and excellent ambiance and you have an experience first-rate. I figured I was in for a real gaming treat.

Then something happened. Near the first Big Daddy battle the game stopped being scary and just became startling. I was really intimidated by the mood struck in the beginning of the game. Hearing splicers (which are zombies okay...this is a zombie game) fighting with each other in the distance was very intimidating, especially if I heard gunshots or explosions. But, rather suddenly, the game turned away from that and began to favor empty hallways with zombies popping out of closets at you. In this way the game went from tension and intimidation to cheap, pop-out-at-you, bad horror film crap. That kind of cheap thrill does not draw me into the game, it pulls me out of it.

The intellectual level of the game changed. The genuinely scary ideas were abandoned in favor of lining the player up to be startled, BOO! The momentum of the story in the first part of the game revolved around the idea that you have to get out of there, and fast! Then, you find yourself looking at a man through the window on a door, and he refuses to open it until you go get some stuff for him. If they were going for a Super Nintendo RPG vibe, then that's the right way to achieve it.

The difficulty level of the first Big Daddy fight was ridiculous as well. I had only died in combat twice up until that point, but fighting Big Daddy killed me at least 15 times in a row. Then, when I finally got through the battle, what was the first thing I ran into on the next level? 3 Big Daddies! At that point I was ready to be done with Bioshock. I played a bit past that point. There was more cheap death and startles. I quit.

I wanted to like Bioshock, I still do. I want someone to tell me, "oh, that was the bad part of the game, just keep playing, it totally get's better." But, until such time as someone can convince me that the game isn't the cheap horror film that I'm think it is, then I'm done with it.