Games like Bioshock don't come very often in the world of video games. It's rare that a game that can be so ambitious and so seemingly impossible in scope can still somehow deliver in spades. Now before I get ahead of myself lets talk about the game itself. Bioshock takes place in an underwater utopia gone horribly wrong named Rapture. You are a passenger on a jet liner when your plane mysteriously crashes and your forced to search the depths of this new hell on Earth. Inside you find that the citizens of Rapture are hardly human and through genetic modification have god-like abilities. It is up to you to survive and get down to the bottom of what happened to this once thriving city. The game is classified as a First-Person-Shooter and in many respects it can be seen as that, however there is so much more to this game than shooting. While the game allows you to use guns (and modify them to be pretty awesome weapons) it's the games use of genetic powers called plasmids that really makes this game one of a kind. What's even better is how the environment interacts so well with the plasmids that you use. For example there may be several splicers (one of the main enemies in the game) trying to attack you, with a press of a button you light one of them on fire using your plasmids, from there that splicer runs around catching the other splicers around it on fire to. They then all run to the nearest water source to try and douse the scorching flames only to be met by an electro bolt as soon as they land in the water and thus instantly killed. And that's just one way you can handle that situation. This is where the game really shines. Not only is the AI great, but no encounter will play out the same way twice making the game super exciting and adds a good amount of depth to the combat. It also helps that this game is amazing to look at. The classic 50's art deco style really gives you the feeling that you traveled back in time. The game also has fantastic atmosphere. In the dank, dark world of rapture you can really see the destruction of a once mighty city. You will see sparks shooting off of broken signs, buildings crumbling, and dead bodies littered on the floors. The water effects are very well done (they had a team of designers just focusing on the water effects alone and it really shows) Pools of water look and react realistically as you move through them, and when you go under a waterfall the screen blurs realistically. Character models look really ugly and deformed, but in a good way (they are mutant freaks now) and have great animations. The plasmids also look fantastic as well. People catch on fire realistically and have hilariously fantastic death animations. Needless to say this game looks amazing, The sound in this game is top notch. The music you'll hear in the game is reminiscent of the old big band and jazz that was popular during the era. Sound effects themselves are also well done. The guns have an appropriate kick that sounds great, and the plasmids in the game all have great sound effects as well. Why the game has a lot if great features there are a couple of things that keep it from being perfect. For one thing the games shooting while fun in the beginning towards later levels shooting does such little damage that it almost makes the shooting pointless at times. Also the game doesn't really have much of a death penalty. When you do die (which you'll probably be doing a lot) you just go to the nearest vita-chamber and resurrect. All the enemies still have the same amount of health from when you last fought them and you still have all the eve and health packs you started out with. This makes a game a slight bit on the easy side. The last complaint is that the game has a tendency to force you on rails a little too often. While you can simply ignore the arrow pointing you where to go next the game will constantly urge you to get to the next objective. However these are minor complaints compared to how fantastic this game really is. If you have a 360 or a descent running PC, you must really check this game out, you won't be disappointed.
Have you ever dreamed of a place where morality and religion don’t exist? A place where the sole limit of science and industry is man’s imagination? Dream no more, friend; welcome to Rapture. BioShock is the much-hype... Read Full Review
In a time where there are literally thousands of first person shooters out there, BioShock proves that there still is something for the genre that has not yet been done. It combines atmosphere, story, and gameplay like n... Read Full Review
