bioshock is a game that desarve to be the best !!
Of course, Adam gained an immediate success. Instant genetic modifications became even more and more popular over the years, and then everything went horribly wrong. Rapture’s citizens, drugged to Adam, became to slowly lose their minds. As their personality was fading away, they became more aggressive and more violent. They began to kill each others, starving for some Adam to increase their powers and their physical appearance. Rapture is now corrupted. It’s only a shade of the glorious city it once was. Most remaining citizens, now called slicers, completely deformed physically and mentally by the Adam, are now hunting down the Little Sisters. Those corrupted children wander around Rapture, collecting and recycling the Adam they find in corpses disseminated around the city. The Little Sisters are protected by huge genetically modified protectors: the Big Daddies, whose only goal is to protect, at any cost, the Little Sisters from any aggressor that might show off in the way. The few remaining sane citizens trying to flee from Ryan’s influence are considered as parasites and are hunted down without mercy by the slicers too.
You’re the only survivor of a plane crash over the Atlantic. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, you crashed right near Rapture’s main entrance: a lonesome lighthouse in the middle of the sea. Leaded by curiosity and the will to survive, you blindly ventured there. What is this place? What happened here? Will you be able to fight your way out of this hell? …
BioShock is a very interesting game, where patient exploration and intense fight sequences come along in a perfect combination. I can say for sure that the developers definitely and brightly reached their goal to “reinvent Firs-Person Shooter genre”. The game’s best strength certainly is its deep and intriguing atmosphere created by an ingenious mix of spectacular environments, excellent soundtrack and very realistic sound effects.
First of all, there is Rapture. The idea of a city at the bottom of the sea, completely isolated from the outside world, gave great possibilities to the developers to freely use their imagination. Everything, from the well-thought retro 50s style to the huge metallic structures, seems strange, unreal, but so wonderful at the same time. The game’s different environments such as the creepy clinic of the Medical Pavilion and the luxurious forest of Arcadia contribute greatly to give to the game its so interesting atmosphere. Of course, impressive graphics and visual effects helped a lot to define and improve the beauty of those environments.
BioShock’s soundtrack is also a very important point of the game. Although it isn’t particularly impressive, it helps a lot in creating an intriguing atmosphere and in maintaining a certain level of excitement. The different themes are often cut by long, heavy and stressful silences to add a creepy note to the action. But, as I wrote earlier, those themes aren’t very catchy and I consider that to be a good thing as it helps the player to stay focused on the action. Sound effects are particularly important in creating the desired atmosphere too. While some noises seem a little out of place, screams, cries, footsteps, breaths and especially voices are very well made. The voice acting is surprisingly good, very realistic and, in a certain way, very entertaining. BioShock is very different from other shooters as it’s focused mainly on Rapture’s story and decline. That story is told via Audio Diaries found all around the city. By hearing those diaries, you’ll soon realize that Rapture’s past is extremely deep, complicated and confused, but it’s easy to understand the importance of Adam and Plasmids and the role they played in Rapture’s fall. Characters also play in important role in the game. As the city is now divided by many internal conflicts, the game focuses a lot on how the characters, rebels and Ryan’s henchmen, interact with each others.
The game’s main gameplay and controls aren’t very different from any other shooter. Both novices and experienced FPS players should not have any trouble at all in getting used to the controls. While the game doesn’t offer any co-op or online gameplay possibilities, the single-player campaign by itself is very entertaining and lasts long enough (20-30 hours at least) to be sufficiently satisfied. BioShock also offers some replay possibilities, as it’s always possible to visit new places and to beat the game again in a different way with different plasmids and strategies or with a harder difficulty setting. There are three difficulty settings: easy, medium and hard. But the game is mostly easy anyway, no matter which difficulty setting you choose, as you can’t really die as you will always respawn somewhere near the place where you died with all your ammunitions, EVE hypos and first aid kits and even some health and EVE. The enemies you managed to hurt before your death will still have those injuries; they won’t get healed. So if you’re stuck somewhere against a particularly strong enemy such as a Bid Daddy or a Boss, you could carelessly fight again and again and you would end up victorious anyway.
The gameplay is mostly based on the use of Plasmid, Tonics and Adam. The only way you can survive around Rapture is to genetically modify your own body with different powers (Plasmids) and enhancements (Tonics). Those Plasmids and Tonics can be found hidden around Rapture or can be purchased with some Adam at characteristic machines named “Gatherer’s Garden”. The only sources of Adam in Rapture are the Little Sisters so you must get close to them in order to get the Adam. And the only way to do so is to get rid of the Big Daddies. The Big Daddies are some of the strongest foes in the game. They’re fast, strong, and they can take hits. Fight them wisely, think, act quickly and use your surroundings. They’re not that hard to beat if you use some decent strategy but still, stay focused or you might end up with a hole in place of your head. You’ll also need some EVE to make the Plasmids work. When your EVE bar runs low, you can replenish it with the EVE hypos you find hidden around Rapture and on corpses. EVE hypos can also be purchased at a modest cost at the “Circus of Values” machines.
While Plasmids and Tonics are very important in fights, an interesting arsenal of weapons is available for you to use. Weaponry isn’t as developed in BioShock as it is in other shooters but still, it offers a bunch of nice features and possibilities when used in concert with Plasmids. Totally, there are eight different weapons: the wrench, the pistol, the machine gun, the shotgun, the grenade thrower, the camera, the chemical thrower and the crossbow. Each weapon (except the camera) can shoot three different types of bullets. For example, the shotgun can shoot 00 bucks, electric bucks and exploding bucks. Every enemy is weak to certain weapons and types of bullet. Take pictures of your enemies with the camera to reveal those weaknesses and to fight your foes more effectively. Your weapons can be upgraded for free at the “Power to People” machines. However, those machines can be used only once so think carefully before upgrading your weapons.
BioShock is an outstanding game, but it’s got a few flaws. The PC version requires a bunch of recent and powerful hardware (essentially the graphic card and the processor) to run the game correctly. The game has no real widescreen support and it’s impossible to configure the controls at your ease. The game tends to freeze sometimes, but maybe that just because of my laptop. It is said that the Xbox 360 version tends to lag too, but, again, I believe it depends of the player’s machine. There aren’t any major differences between the PC version and the Xbox 360 version.