BioShock (series)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alas, Poor Villain: Some players might feel a shred of sympathy for Andrew Ryan, when Jack kills him. Especially by the fact that Jack doesn't kill him out of free will, but he got Jack Brainwashed and Crazy and orders him to kill him. It's more of a suicide.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Andrew Ryan, a Control Freak out to commit suicide on his own terms... or a father trying to save his son? By the time he realizes Jack is his son and under mind control, he's basically confronted with his own flesh and blood turned into something worse than a "parasite" and turned against him. He could easily have killed Jack using his control phrase, but what does he do? He orders Jack to kill him, maybe in an attempt at forcing a Heroic Resolve to break the Mind Control. Too bad for him it didn't, though Jack does seem to take an awful time deliberating his swings.
  • Anvilicious: The series isn't subtle in its imagery, which unfortunately means that the messages that are subtle are easily overwhelmed. Extremism in any human endeavour is bad; this is more or less the true message of the games, represented with all of the major villains and settings. Any time you encounter an individual who pursues something to an extreme, it all ends poorly.
  • Awesome Music: Found here.
  • Bittersweet Ending: One of the endings of Bioshock 2, where Delta prevents Eleanor Lamb from being a Complete Monster but leaves her as an orphan.
  • Complacent Gaming Syndrome: For Bioshock 1, unless you're taking down a Big Daddy with Electric Gel/Buck, just use the wrench upgraded to ungodly levels, with maybe an Electrobolt or two if you REALLY need to. For Bioshock 2, same deal, only with the drill instead of the wrench, and Winter Blast instead of Electrobolt, although some people opt to use Insect Swarm instead. Oh, and don't forget to go and complain afterward.
  • Complete Monster: Rapture has quite the collection:
    • Andrew Ryan betrays his principles (which are already themselves viewed by most as immoral) and becomes a brutal dictator, able to get away with murder without bothering to hide the body.
    • Fontaine is a completely amoral profiteer who instigates a civil war solely as both a grab for power (by posing as a rebel leader to overthrow Ryans corrupt regime) and a way to get everyone dependent on his supply of plasmids.
    • Dr. Suchong is a purely mercenary scientist with no scruples, be it concerning research subject or employer, so long as he's paid.
    • Dr. Steinman is an insane plastic surgeon who performs unnecessary operations in his search for a Cubist concept of beauty.
    • Sander Cohen gets his kicks from a captive audience he can murder at a whim or force to "perform" for his pleasure.
    • The sequel introduces Sofia Lamb, who coldly plots out how to make her daughter The Messiah while turning everyone into slaves to "the greater good." And she only in actuality cares for her daughter as much as any other people she wants to bend to her will.
    • In the Bad End, thanks to your influence, Eleanor Lamb.
    • And remember the player himself can become one as well, leading the story to the Evil Endings.
  • Crazy Awesome: Gilbert Alexander was pretty awesome before going mad (leaving behind messages and robots allies to help whoever found him kill him, knowing he was about to suffer With Great Power Comes Great Insanity) but he still pulls off some cool stuff afterwards (such as singing the Fontaine Futuristics jingle at the top of his voice to prevent you from accessing a voice activated door lock, or hosting a live demonstration of Fontaine Futuristics products...that try to kill you.)
    • Brutal as he was to create art, Sander Cohen is quite possibly the most awesome character in the entire BioShock (series) franchise.
  • Demonic Spiders: Houdini Splicers, who appear from thin air, hurl a barrage of fireballs, and disappear, giggling. Spider Splicers, who like to crawl around on dark ceilings before attacking in a storm of thrown meathooks or gymnastic kung-fu, probably qualify as well. But in both cases sufficient camera research will make the fights much easier.
  • Ear Worm: "STRONGER ARM AND SMARTER BRAIN THATS WHY THE FUTURE IS FONTAAAAAAAINE! HAHAHAHAHHA!"
    • "Welcome to the Circus of Values!"
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Sander Cohen and Alex the Great both seem to be more popular among the fans than other characters, if fanart and the like is anything to go by. It may be because they both get some of the most memorable lines and because they are both completely insane, even by Rapture's standards.
    • In spite of being a Complete Monster, much of 2K forums agree Sofia Lamb is damn sexy.
  • Family-Unfriendly Aesop: Rapture is built on these: "Altruism is the root of all wickedness." "I have godlike claims over all of my wealth." "If everyone works for his or her own interests, society benefits the most." "Plastic surgery is a social imperative." But ultimately the good endings solidly turns this on its head with a surprisingly upbeat and heartwarming ending for so morose a series.
  • Fanon: Subject Delta's suit-machinery includes a built-in can opener.
  • Game Breaker:
    • Electro Bolt Plasmids in the first game. The bolts will usually drop mooks in a single hit, and even for tough enemies like Big Daddies the stunning effect will keep them helpless while you pound on them with your other plasmids or weapons... at least until you have to reload. Just don't rely on it in the sequel.
    • There's a unique quirk of the Lot 192 MacGuffin that you come across in Olympus Heights/Apollo Square- when you take the first dose of Lot 192, your plasmid structure will start randomly changing. You won't be able to control what plasmid you have equipped and you can't use Gatherer's Gardens or Gene Banks, but every time your current plasmid randomly shifts, your entire EVE bar will be refilled. Every single time, until you receive the 2nd dose of Lot 192. Not to mention that you can randomly gain access to plasmids you don't ordinarily possess, like Hypnotize Big Daddy 2 if you're on an Evil playthrough.
    • In Bioshock 2, you have the third tier of Decoy, which not only distracts foes but damages them and heals you, a fully-upgraded Rivet Gun, whose flaming shots allow you to juggle-stun enemies when paired with Electrobolt, and the Fountain of Youth tonic, which allows you to regenerate health and EVE while standing in water even as you spam Insect Swarms to clear the level of enemies.
    • You've also got the 'Cure All' Gene Tonic in Bioshock 2, which makes each Health Station refill your EVE meter fully. This lets you pull of tricks like setting up dozens of traps near a Big Daddy or a corpse your Little Sister needs harvested, then hurting yourself slightly and coming back to the Health Station to repeat the process for a pittance.
    • Also from Bioshock 2 is using the second tier Security Command and Hypnotize in conjunction. The former lets you summon security bots, but on your side and the latter lets you brainwash a normally hostile splicer to assist you; summoning two bots and hypnotizing a spider or leatherhead splicer allows you to easily overwhelm opponents whose only real advantage otherwise was strength in numbers. You can even up the ante in numerous ways: the handyman, deadly machines, and hardy machines tonics make it easier to keep bots around and makes them more powerful, while the third tiers of Security Command and Hypnotize let you summon even stronger bots and hypnotize anything but bots and Big Sisters. By the end of the game you can also include Summon Eleanor into the mix, and when you have two elite security bots, an alpha series, and a Big Sister helping you, your enemies become so incredibly outmatched you barely have to fire shots at all. The only real downside to this strategy is the high EVE cost (which is easily remedied with the aforementioned Cure All tonic) and the fact that having so many entities around makes it easy to to get caught in friendly fire.
    • In the first game you can obtain many, many tonics that enhance the wrench's power, as well as one which when you're hit in a melee attack causes electricity to shoot out of you and paralyse your attacker, and yet another which heals you whenever you cause damage with the wrench. Taking all of these together means that you can pretty much make the game a cakewalk by just running up to whatever's pissing you off and smacking it with the wrench - even the final boss is easily dispatched in this way.
  • Goddamn Sploicers
  • Good Bad Bugs: The PC version of 2 has a bug that prevents the vending machines from speaking. Of all the things 2K did wrong with this port, this one is probably forgivable.
  • Hell Is That Noise: The Big Sister screech. Getting surprised by a Circus of Values kiosk's shriek-laugh is pretty unpleasant, too.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Or perhaps Hypocritical Humor. Near the end of the second game, Sofia rants about you "stealing" her daughter from her and about Eleanor's "ungratefulness" to her loving mother. However, some of the earliest tape diaries you found of Sofia reveal just how little she actually cares for Eleanor as anything other then her tool -- Eleanor was never really her daughter in anything except terms of shared genetics. One even says she had "as little to do as possible" with her birth, implying that Sofia may have actually created Eleanor through IVF and had a surrogate carry her to term, simply because having to deal with pregnancy itself would be too much of a hindrance to her plans. The hypocrisy about stealing Eleanor from her takes on another level when you remember that she herself has been stealing little girls form their families on the surface.
    • "Oh rise, Rapture, rise... We turn our hopes up to the skies..." Hilarious, but not Foreshadowing, as Word of God claims they only came up with the "city in the sky" idea after Bioshock's development ended.
    • "Sea-Steading", the idea of building autonomous city-states in international waters to be excluded of political repression. Even better, the creator of The Seasteading Inititive - PayPal founder Peter Thiel - is a fan of Ayn Rand, was inspired by Atlas Shrugged, and said "There are quite a lot of people who think it's not possible. That's a good thing." He's chosen the impossible. He chose...seasteading.
  • Hype Backlash: The overwhelming acclaim the game received from the mainstream gaming press has led to a few cases of "Bioshock is overrated!!" outcries from some gamers and independent reviewers, not to mention those who feel that the game was recycled and/or watered down in comparison to System Shock 2, its spiritual ancestor.
  • Internet Backdraft: After having waited for weeks, the announcement that the single player DLC, particularly Minerva's Den, wouldn't come out for PC anyway was taken poorly by the fanbase. Fortunately, 2K listened and immediately resumed work on it. As of April 2011, the Protector's Trials have been released as free DLC, and Minerva's Den is reportedly on its way.
  • In Name Only: The Minerva's Den DLC is more a sequel to the original game than Bioshock 2 was.
  • It's Easy, So It Sucks: Some people are accusing Bioshock 2 of being this due to the abundance of money, ammo and healing items. See also Complacent Gaming Syndrome above.
  • It's Popular, Now It Sucks: People have been sneering at the thought of people liking this game...especially System Shock Fan Dumb.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks: A lot of Bioshock 2 doesn't expand greatly on what the first game did, which is disappointing to some of the fans of the first.
  • It Was His Sled: Would You Kindly not spoil the ending?
  • Memetic Mutation: Would you kindly note that any discussion of Bioshock must include copious use of this phrase?
    • "A man chooses - a slave obeys!"
    • "GODDAMN SPLOICERS!"

Atlas: There's nuttin' like a fistfolla loitnin', now is 'ere?

  • Moral Event Horizon: If it wasn't already obvious, you know Suchong has crossed it when you find an audio diary in Rapture Central Control containing him testing Jack's mind control by forcing him to break a puppy's neck against his will - when Jack was a little kid, no less! There's also Suchong slapping a Little Sister whilst lashing out at her, but that audio diary has a happier ending.
    • For Andrew Ryan, when he kills a woman in cold blood with a steel pipe after he finds out their conceived child was sold by her, to Frank Fontaine, because she was in money trouble. If it wasn't for that, he would've been more of a Non-Action Big Bad, but the fact that the woman he murdered is the protagonists' mother, and he's the one who finds his mother's corpse, really makes this notorious.
    • YMMV also on whether his Great Chain philosophy even had morals to begin with, given his stance against altruism and religion. Objectivists disagree, are delighted to see the propaganda and are saddened to see Galt's Gulch in such shambles.
    • Sofia Lamb doesn't even have one in-game. She'd have you believe that she's going to initiate a new Utopian era for mankind, but thinks nothing of choice and subjects her closest comrades to half-truths and horrific fates. She leaves Gilbert Alexander to live forever as an abomination, desperate for a taste of ADAM, Mark Meltzer is reunited with his daughter and twisted into a Big Daddy, and Augustus Sinclair becomes an Alpha Series Big Daddy, and she snidely remarks that the two of you should be the last, as you fight to the death. Her intended fate for her daughter, Eleanor, is to become the base in a gestalt of Rapture's greatest minds, creating a 'Utopian' being with the perfect outlook on the world, yet crushing Eleanor's own personality and conscience in the process. She's potentially much worse than Ryan.
    • What makes it worse is that she's the "believes-every-word-she-says" type of crazy. She genuinely, lovingly accepts a few thousand deaths for the common good.
    • What, no mention of the opening cutscene, where she forces you to commit suicide in front of poor Eleanor, your bonded Little Sister and her own daughter? The woman makes new Moral Event Horizons with each appearance just to cross them.
    • Also in 2, Eleanor Lamb can potentially become this in two of the game's endings, and averted in the other two endings.
  • Most Annoying Sound: WELCOME TO THE CIRCUS OF VALUES! HAHAHAHAHAAAAA! Though it's missing in the sequel's PC port thanks to a bug.
    • BIENVENIDO AL AMMO BANDITOOOOO!!!! (Also missing thanks to said bug.)
    • The Big Sister's screech.
    • You always save me from monsters!
    • Anything the Baby Jane Splicer model says.
  • Multiple Endings: In the best endings you're treated to a heartwarming moment as Eleanor takes the rescued Little Sisters to the surface, declaring that utopia is an idea and that with you (your ADAM/essence, specifically) as her guide, she'll work towards it.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Lots. Between claustrophobia, hydrophobia, Body Horror, deadly doctors, mad artists, deadly doctors who think they're artists, fear of surgical implements, fear of needles, fear of the dark, Mind Control, child cruelty, creepy children, Soundtrack Dissonance, animal cruelty, fear of being hunted through a decaying city by gene-spliced psychopaths, and seafood allergies, there's something in BioShock (series) to terrify everybody. See its page for specific examples.
  • Paranoia Fuel: Barring the whole "Would you kindly..." buisness, what if Tenenbaum did some suggesting of her own while she removed Fontaine's?
  • Player Punch: Ryan's dead at this point. Atlas asks "Would you kindly" insert the genetic key into the Self-Destruct Mechanism. Stop. Before you fall into a mind trap, check your goals. Just pause the game right now. There are none. YOU HAVE NO GOALS. That means you are a free man! Go and lea- but wait, the doors are still locked. You are not only being mind controlled by Fontaine, but the game is actually FORCING you to make the only available decision! Still, you know, you could just shut the game off and say you beat it...
    • Bonus points if you shoot a few Electro-Bolts into the walls of the vent the Little Sisters are guiding you to safety through. Guess what? The vent didn't break. Talk about a thirty Mind Screw pile-up...
    • The area before you fight Fontaine, The Proving Grounds, has you having to protect the Little Sisters from waves of splicers. It's utterly painful to see one die, most especially when you've spent the entire game saving them all.
    • In the sequel, finding Mark Meltzer. Those who followed the ARG know this moment. In fact, an entire thread entitled "How DARE you 2K..." was started on the forums for players to chronicle their reactions to the discovery, which ranged from stunned incoherence to ragequitting the entire game. Many felt more strongly about this event than the actual ending of the game.
    • Also in the sequel: Augustus Sinclair. As a punishment for helping through your journey, he gets turned into a Big Daddy. To pile on the Punch, he struggles through his mind control to give you more information, and asks that you end his life in return.
  • The Untwist: Lets just say the sequel doesn't feel the need to succumb to Shyamalan Syndrome, and never feels pressured to throw in a mindblowing plot twist towards the end just because the first game had one. Also josses all the Epileptic Trees speculating that Sinclair was Fontaine, or at least would pull a Fontaine.
  • The Woobie: You'd be surprised, but some fans view some of the Splicer models (in particular Rosebud, Toasty, and Pigskin) as this.
    • Grace Holloway's life in Bioshock 2 reads like a checklist of misery and misfortunes.
    • Gil Alexander, believe it or not, at least before he became Alex The Great. His audio diaries show his admiration for Sofia Lamb, her intelligence and her philosophy, but there are subtle hints that he's also in love with her, even though he knows she doesn't reciprocate. He's perfectly willing to volunteer to be made into a monster for her, and when she abandons him as a failed experiment, he never shows any resentment, only a regret that he failed her. There's even some fan speculation that he might be Eleanor's biological father.
    • Jack is one for being a Laser Guided Tykebomb with no control over his actions.
    • Poor Eleanor Lamb. She spent her entire life being raised by an emotionally distant mother who fully expected Eleanor to further her own ideals by getting turned into a Hive Mind that would only serve society. Depending on the player's moral choices, she can also become a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.
    • C.M. Porter from Minerva's Den. He couldn't handle the death of his wife, so he spent all of his time uplaoding as many memories of her as possible into Rapture's central computer in the hopes of recreating her. And when he finally finished he was horrified by what he had done, because it wasn't really his wife, and had the computer shut the whole thing down. Then he was captured and turned into a Big Daddy.
    • And then, there's many of the multiplayer characters, leading to much Fridge Horror when you realize what their ramblings actually mean:
      • Why does Barbara seem to think the Little Sisters she captures are her children? Because her daughter was turned into one, and what's more, her abductors came in the guise of ADAM merchants-ADAM which she wanted to protect her daughter with.
      • Jacob acts as though it's just another day at his job because he's been so browbeaten by the generally miserable working conditions that he's convinced himself he's on a work strike against them.
      • Buck seems like an unsympathetic jerk until you discover that he just wanted to find his wife, and that his last encounter with her was him discovering that she had joined Atlas-while she nearly murdered him. No wonder he's bitter.
      • Shuresh Seti may be Crazy Awesome but keep in mind he may be telepathic...and that he's perfectly effing sane. Now, imagine what it would be like for you to be privvy to the thoughts of Splicers.
      • Blanche is a good example of how Rapture's cosmetic business can destroy a person. She just didn't want to be lonely...
      • Let's face it, Louis is a violent jackass but he knows full damn well how Big Daddies are created and he's actually scared out of his mind of being turned into one-he actually thinks the enemy players are trying to sent him to processing.
    • Diane McClintock is a huge contender for the award of People Who Need a Hug.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The whole storyline dealing with Mark Meltzer; a lot of players found his story more intriging then that of Delta.
  • What an Idiot!: Wadsworth, an opportunist only mentioned in the loading quotes for the multiplayer. He was under the impression that the Sisters could be tempted with another job. Keep in mind that there were several PA announcements (one of which is another loading quote) saying "Don't mess with the Little Sisters, or the Daddies will hurt you."
    • You'd Expect: Him to see the warning for what it is and leave them alone.
    • Instead: "I wonder what I can use to offer the job? Kids like candy, right?" His unrecognizable corpse is found with signs of Big Daddy damage on it, and he is reported to have attempted giving a Little Sister a lollipop when the Daddy noticed and flipped out.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Gil Alexander. When given the choice, the player can either kill the creature Gil has become (thus going along with his final wish, according to his audio diaries), or simply let the creature live. As it turns out, letting the creature live is considered the "good" choice.
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