Bio shock is a superb experience you wont ever forget, in the land of Rapture there are no kings just men
The Story of this game is the most important and single handedly compells you to keep playing-- You are over an ocean in a plane circa 1950 when the unexplainable happens. Your plane goes down and all of the sudden your thrust into a fight for survival. You make your way to a light house where your troubles are just begining. You start by discovering a strange undersea world of Rapture and help look for a mysterious character named Atlas' family. You uncover very disturbing results of what was suppose to be a world of freedom. In the city of Rapture Andrew Ryan has established a world free of morales, logic, and a certain freedom that is weird and liberating at the same time. The underlining theme is choice and what people do with it. At every turn you uncover old recordings which fill you in on what has been going on and the events that have led to the cities eventual down fall. Things get all twisted later and will shock you when you uncover what seems to be the truth.
The gameplay is well crafted and ties strongly into the story as you possess weapons such as shotguns, pistols, tommy guns, and the like. You also gain things call plasmids which grant geneticly enhanced abilities like fire starting, telekenisis, and swarms of bees. When worked together these powers somewhat make you unstopable......if it werent for those pesky enemies know as Splicers. Splicers are the cities now defunct inhabitants who have been driven mad by all the self experimentation done. They attack without warning and are quite ruthless and unpredictable. Sometimes you'll cacth them fighting one another and at other times they will unite to fight you. They are by no means dumb either as they will retreat to refill their health. Bio shock is one of those games where everything interlocks. You have machine located through out the game that afford you help like health, ammo, and items. Though you can use them so can your enimies or they can be destroyed by you or your enemies. Hacking these machines are important as the contents will be less expensive or yeild rare items. There aren't any real boss fights to speak of besides the end or the games many "big daddies" which protect young girls called "lil sisters" It all ties back into the story so when played everything makes perfect sense.
The only real boss is in the end.
The graphics are stunning!! I was sitting at the begining of the game after the plane crash waiting to see the scene proceed only to find that that was the game and not a cinematic. It is that damn good. One thing that bothers me though is the only thing that is not given justice is the main enemy the Splicer. They look so out of place and cartoony compared to everything else in the game. Everything else is beautiful as you explore Rapture youll see all type of funny and interesting posters that are not only entertaining but quite relevant to whats going on. It help o the fullest to stop and read once in a while. You can tell some time was put into the graphics in every way except the mo cap....which could have been runied for me after playing Heavenly Sword things didnt seem life like after playing that game in comparison. Regaurdless this game looks great.
The music is top notch and serves the puropse of making you feel like your back in the 1950's with some real old time songs and such. The sound effects and voices are killer as it sets and erie mood from start to finish. It also speaks to the intelligent gamer who will not only have fun pieceing together the story through the old recordings, but will also contain some highbrow terms and concepts such as socialism, politics, gene study, and the like. The over all sound of this game helps leaps and bounds with getting the over all feeling to the gamer and that is your trapped in a scary place all alone. Bio Shock is a real breath of fresh air where FPS's are concerned. Sure it plays in similiar fashion to a lot of other FPS's, but what makes it different is the message it sends. Not since Half-Life has the story of a FPS been so intriguing and impotant where as in games like Halo or timesplitters it seems the game drives the story instead. I think Bioshock will speak to the gamer who truly appriciate a quality, and well crafted game. It will take smarts, guts, and a whole lot of exploring to make it through Bio shock and enjoy it to the fullest. Its the type of game you have to play through multiple times to get its full message. PEACE!!