Bio-shock may just yet change the DNA of FPS games.
Graphics – Being on the unreal 3 engine usually means the game is going to look good, but great artist work and careful detail to textures means this one looks great. While not as impressive as the overall public hype it still looks great and design is amazing. If you don't find something in Rapture that's awe inspiring then you're just not looking.
Story – its rare now and days that an even partially original story emerges, while the general plot is nothing new. The idea of a under the ocean city being built to harbors the worlds best and brightest during the 50's era, the details in the plot make it unique. Characters and events within the general under the sea city make it a new take on an old story and idea even. Voice acting is of good quality and the overall story is a good one that will keep you wondering and guessing for quite awhile, add in the more or less twist 3/4s of the way through the game and you will have quite the ball just trying to get a grip on who to trust.
Controls and Mechanics – The controls are top notch, not only responsive enough to make sure you don't miss things that happen near or behind you they are just perfectly tuned to make sure that things in the corner of your vision disappear just as you turn to look at that. As for the mechanics, well a lot can be said for them but the best way to put it is amazing. The ability to upgrade your weapons on top of upgrading yourself is great fun and adds a good diversity when playing, of course fans of the original System Shock 2 will be very at home with this style of game play and there is a simple explanation to this. This is System Shock remade, 2k wasn't coy or even shy about admitting this. They believed quite strongly that System Shock 2 was a master piece that was just under played. So when they set out to make bioshock the blue prints they followed to make it were of System Shocks. Not complaining though when the end result is game with the quality of Bioshock's. The A.I won't disappoint either, characters that should be smart are and those that should be just fodder to the frontlines are. Of course the most interesting of these enemies are the Big Daddies and mad scientists that can disappear and reappear. Big Daddies are so interesting merely because not only are they super strong but they aren't bad guys unless you choose to make them that way, only attacking them or their little sister will cause them to go crazy. The core of the game play is built on two things, weapons of course and Adam and Eve. No not from the bible, Adam and Eve are the genetic materials in the game required to alter yourself, giving you the ability to hack computers faster, disable security bots and even control the elements to throw fire and shoot lightning from your fingers. This adds a level of complexity to combat you don't usually see in games, just because shooting them doesn't work well doesn't mean a few thousand volts of electricity won't. This causes the player to have to learn their enemy's weaknesses and strength and exploit them accordingly. As well the almost alive A.I means you don't always have to do all of the fighting, one of my most common tactics in combat against Slicers was to dodge their attacks and let them hit one another. After one or two hits they realize that the other Slicer is doing more damage to them than you are and change their target from you to them. Thus saving you much needed ammo and giving you the ability to bypass them entirely if you wish, though it's usually smart to wait till one finishes off the other and then finish the job yourself. This ensures no one following up behind you.
The Overall – Bioshock is a game meant for bigger things, while it doesn't feel held back there is no question that the next one will have a many new features even better than this one. The game does also boast a great surround sound quality; on 5.1 you can really hear the world around you as if it's alive. In most cases it may just be that way, at some parts of the game you'll really feel like you're not the only person trying to escape the disaster taking place in Rapture. The game starts of strong and keeps going but nearing the end of your journey will really feel like its losing steam in the game play area. While the story stays strong through out, as you deepen into the game you'll gain the ability to improve your weapons and improve your abilities. Making your fire stronger and your guns do more damage, hold more ammo per clip, etc. At first this is great as weapons that virtually were out of usage like the pistol again become a useful item in your inventory, the crutch to this though is that as you improve your weapons your enemies improve as well. At first you feel like your upgrades make a difference, later the game levels back out and weapons will once again fall out of the loop of use as weapons like the pistol just don't do enough damage to warrant thought in tough battles, finally though the enemies will make a final leap in toughness and make all of your weapons feel more like BB guns than actual fire arms and making you depends almost entirely on your genetic skills and abilities as weapons like the Tommy gun and Shotgun eventually feel as little more than pepper spray to your enemies. Even fully upgraded they are under powered, it feels as though one more damage upgrade for all of the weapons would have put you back at par. Since there is only one you and hundreds of them it's only balance that your weapon be useful, still though while this becomes an added challenge to the already testing form of the games list of enemies, puzzles and exploration it doesn't ruin the experience especially for veterans of the FPS genre. It does however diminish the feeling of accomplishment when it comes down to your abilities and weapons upgrading, the better part of abilities in the game must be found and are not buyable at the genetics store, to that weapon upgrades are entirely found only and while there are enough upgrade stations in all of Rapture to max out the stats of all your weapons only 3 or 4 actually are put in front of you, the others are more or less hidden. This treats them like a bonus but at some points you'll find yourself hunting for these upgrade stations because you keep dying. Still though this is only a challenge and doesn't ruin the game, especially as the story progresses it could for some even add to the feeling of things finally coming to and end and all hell breaking loose. When it comes down to it, fans of the FPS genre should buy this, fans of games like Deus Ex and other FPS that involve upgrading your weapons and gaining XP more or less shouldn't even ask question, just buy this game. Others should give it a rent without question because you'll probably want it after you do and any hard core video game collector will have this in their permanent collection without doubt.