"Adam is the Canvas…Plasmids are the Paint" They had the adam,but not enough plasmids.
Without spoiling anything,the game starts off with you crashing into the sea and then swimming to a nearby lighthouse like thing(in the middle of the ocean) which leads you to rapture,a utopia thats gone dystopic.
Graphics:9.5
The game's settings are retro,but futuristic at the same time.The game is beautiful,right from the architecture of the city, to the clunky heavy big daddies to the horrific zombie like expressions of the citizens of rapture.It's all there,the lighting effects are stunning in one word,and the water shames real life water.(they actually had a separate water team for the job).This is one game that should be experienced on a high end pc.
Sounds:9
The sounds of rapture will fill you with pity,hatred,love,agony and sadness.The voice acting is fantastic.
The interplay between sound and graphics in this game is really really good.The groans of the big daddies sounds like a rhino in heat(it's a good thing),while the little sisters sound innocent and sweet but look sinister.The contrast occurs with the citizens of rapture too,while you feel sorry for them when you hear their cries,but you also what the smash their skulls.The sound track has a lot of retro songs that suit the environment.
The main theme here is contrast and it works eerily,scarily well...the pleasures of clobbering a splicer with blues in the background...aaah.
Gameplay:7
This is the heart and soul of a game,and this is where bioshock loses it as well,despite having a very good story.
The game in the beginning wows you with its eye and ear candy,but at the heart it's your typical shooter with a few RPG elements embedded.After a while,when the glitter gets off your eyes you start to see that your effectively doing the same thing again and again.There's no variety in the levels at all.Most of the plasmids arent usefull at all.You might never even use them.
The combat doesnt feel good for some reason.The big daddy fights could've been tougher a little more varied.And towards the end it's like trudging through the filler pages in a book to get to the climax.
Value:7
Nothing much to do after you play through twice for the different endings,and the endings aren't really anything to die for,the ending video was pretty disappointing to say the least.
Tilt:8.5
Overall this is a game that had the potential to do so much more but ended up being a decent shooter,with a very good story.Not quite the next half life or system shock two people were expecting,but still should be played by everybody. Overall score:8.0