There will be spoilers! So if you don't want that would you kindly turn away from this post now :)
What a ride! I will admit that my emotions did not stay steady throughout the game.
I started and found nothing remarkable about the gameplay. Which was a real head scratcher for me because I swear I recall people loving the gameplay. So much so whenever I would see new shooters coming out (Atomic Heart is the only one I can think of off the top of my head right now) everyone would say "that looks like Bioshock, and I am now excited". Maybe it's one of those scenarios where you had to be there when it released, and nothing like it was out at the time. I had also gone in with the expectation that it was a horror game. Thematically, yes there is some horror to Behold. However, I was never scared. Nothing made me clench my cheeks in fear of the chase. With the big daddies I moreso found them incredibly annoying. Getting slammed into a wall at mach speed loses it's charm pretty quickly (oh and same with the whale noises, fucking ear grating after a while). BioShock not being scary was probably the biggest letdown for me.
What completely enveloped me though was the setting and story. Holy shit is Rapture a beauty to behold even 18 years later. There were moments where I would just stare out the glass and look for a few minutes. I don't think I have ever played a game in a setting quite like this. The game still holds up really well in the graphics department.
Where the game really picked up for me was the Cohen section. I had fun making his little art project with him then killing him after he told me to leave. That is also when the story started really picking up for me. I'll be honest the intro kind of made me roll my eyes with Atlas begging me for help. I don't really care for "stranger shows up to shit being fucked up, locals act as if said stranger is a force to be reckoned with even when they are just an average Joe" setup for a plotline.
What really kept me going was one specific character, Andrew Ryan. This fucking dude, I have seen well written villains/characters. Holy shit though does Ryan take the cake. I was absolutely infatuated with everything he had to say. He is a god damn libertarian monster, but holy fuck he feels like a villain that is insanely stupid but also insanely intelligent at the same time. Anytime Ryan was speaking I stopped immediatley what I was doing just to hone in on his crazy ideological ramblings. Certain quotes of his displayed throughout rapture have been eating at my brain. "No gods or kings, only man" Specifically. At face value seems like a good quote! However if you really think about it, it signals the only accountability we face is with each other. Which is also later reflected when Ryan talks about him only caring about him and you only caring about you "such is nature". The voice actor fucking nailed this role as well. God. DAMN. He just felt so well crafted and thought out. How fun it must have been to write such a character.
Now the least surprising to me was Fontaine. I really enjoyed hearing the Fontaine uprising through the eyes of Rapture people wanting a better life that Ryan did not care on providing. Yet Fontaine saw opportunity with the desperate. It fundamentally shows why such an ideology is completely unsustainable. "Fontaine fellow… he's a crook… but he's got the ADAM, and that makes him the guv'nor." "Money" talks in this society. I did see Atlas being evil from a mile away, heck I think I even internally said once "is he Fontaine?" But never really was invested in him all that much to care. I cared about Fontaine before I 100% knew he was Atlas. After the facade was gone I kinda lost the will to care.
The end boss is a joke especially compared to absolute turret onslaught around every corner in this game. Seriously. Fuck. Turrets.
Overall great story that I personally felt was held back just a little by some game design choices.
