Awe-inspiring. My favorite game of 2007, maybe favorite of this generation
I'll be honest when I say that I've been watching this game since it appeared in Game Informer in March 2006. Reading the article on it seemed to give preview to a world of equal parts awe and fear that I've never seen in a game, and have yet to see again. From the crash to Ryan's opening monologue introducing you to Rapture, up to the final fight with *****Fontaine*****, I was never without one of those two feelings. While it isn't listed as a character in the game, the underwater city of Rapture is more important to the game than Ryan, Atlas, or even the game's mascot, the Big Daddy. The ruined metropolis is the canvas on which this story of equal parts drama and horror unfolds, and it feels as though the city is alive, only barely, and each time I'd see a tunnel collapsed or a frozen splicer I'd be so saddened by it. The game's storyline unfolds as you find yourself in the Atlantic after your plane crashes, and a towering lighthouse stands triumphantly nearby. You swim toward it, knowing death is the only thing that will save you otherwise, and enter the city. Atlas speaks to you through a radio you find, and tells you of the city's history, the splicers who seek your blood at every turn, and Andrew Ryan's stranglehold on what's left of Rapture. He then beseeches you to save his family trapped nearby. *****When you arrive to save the family, Ryan sics the Splicers on them and destroys the bathysphere they hide in, and Atlas enlists you to destroy Ryan. Some levels later Ryan tells you of Atlas/Fontaine's control over you, and the significance of "Would You Kindly" before his death at your now unwilling hands, proving to be the greatest and most unexpected plot twist I've ever come across in a game. Fontaine seeks you dead, but Tenenbaum and her Little Sisters save you and undo some of the control, rendering Would You Kindly useless. You then begin your road to vengeance on Fontaine, now a more powerful and only slightly-less-insane splicer himself.***** While there is no flaw that I came across in either the story or its pacing, the ending seems to be where the writers ran out of great ideas, or good ones for that matter. The game does have multiple endings, which I credit them for, but your either an angel, a demon, or Lucifer himself, thus giving the endings no middle-ground to speak of. It's like driving to Disneyland with your best friends to find the park has been bombed. Regardless, this is an excellent game that has something for everyone, from tactical combat with different ammo types and magic (under the title "plasmids") to the environment I rambled on about and it's tale of a good idea gone horrendously wrong.