BioShock

The Good
System Shock 2 was one of those game experiences that will stick with you your entire life. It did one thing perfectly: Isolation. You were on a spaceship, thousands of miles away from home. Everyone, save for a mysterious female communicating VIA radio, is dead. No other game has ever captured the dread and feeling of being trapped, isolated, and alone as well as SS2. It even beats out the Silent Hill games, and that is saying a lot. It was a sleeper hit, but a hit nonetheless, and the developers have returned with their latest title: BioShock.

The first thing one will notice about BioShock are its beautiful visuals. I do not like the Unreal 3 engine much; most companies use it to make "realistic" looking games and they all look terrible. Yet when Epic Games and a few other developers have used the Unreal engine to create... well, something UNRealistic the engine looks awesome. BioShock is one of those games. BioShock's visuals are not just technically amazing, the art design is striking and incredibly defined. Combining the beautiful visuals with the ingenious art design makes BioShock one of the best looking games out there aesthetically and technically, even 2 years later.

The story is downright awesome. Like System Shock 2, Dead Space and the first and and fourth Silent Hill games, the games plot isn't so much about the protagonist as it is the world around him and having it all come together at the end explaining his purpose in the grand finale. BioShock's story is about the town of Rapture, and the story flows beautifully is excellently written.

The story reminds me a lot of something David Chronenberg would concoct, and that is HIGH praise because Chronenberg is my all time fav director. Chronenberg's films all have one underlying main theme: The loss of humanity by some bizarre means. Seth Brundle transforms into a fly, Max Renn becomes a killer programmed by a mind controlling TV, and the citizens of Rapture alter their genetic code to the point their bodies begin to degrade along with their minds. The story is extremely deep, and the various PDAs and other items that help fit the pieces together as well as provide insight into the lives of certain citizens in rapture are for once actually fun to find because the story is so involving. I will go as far to say that this story has impressed me more than any other story in a FPS game in a long time. There are too many memorable characters and scenes to count; one of my favourite being an insane artist who wants to make his "masterpiece" by killing his foes and taking a picture of them to "immortalize" them. It has all the grotesque, subhuman horror that pleases me as well as a great political and analytical allegory.

Rapture is a living breathing place. The story helps get you interested, but as you play on you'll feel like a real citizen of the accursed submerged city. Another thing that makes it like this is the games highly touted "Emergent AI." Believe it or not, this concept is executed quite well. The AI doesn't seem like anything special the first time around, but when the game opens its doors a little you'll see why its so impressive. Each entity "lives" in Rapture. Big Daddies go upon their business unscripted, and so do the splicers. Of course there are set-pieces, but outside of these every entity in the game is living in rapture and has a realistic and impressive AI controller.

The environment is also at your disposal. See that splicer standing over by that leaking oil barrel? See that body of water near him? Well, set the oil on fire and catch the splicer on fire, and as he runs to the pool of water, send lightning to fry him! Did you hack that health dispenser? Well, go ahead and let your foe run away and use it.. they'll just get a face-full of poison! The environment is one of the games best weapons, and using the plasmids to manipulate it is awesome and very entertaining.

The voice acting is awesome and helps put emotion and feeling into the story, only making the story even more entertaining. The game will tug several emotions with its excellent audio design. Beautiful music and excellent voice acting makes the game just as impressive in the audio department as it is in the tech department.

There are a lot of secrets to find. The game has replay value because you will miss a lot the first time around. There are tons of treasures to find in Rapture and its worth returning a few times to try and find it all, I'm normally not a completionist but finding these secrets are so satisfying that even I was compelled to do it. The games replay value also benefits from a good skill development system and the aforementioned emergent AI. Save for the set pieces, the game will never be the same when you do a replay.

The Bad
The games difficulty is inconsistent. The game is ridiculously easy thanks to the "VitaChambers" which respawn you with your exact inventory and if you were in the middle of a battle, the enemy will still be damaged. This keeps the flow and it is nice at times, but at others it gives you less reason to continue surviving because Death is never really a penalty. Yet other times, the game is hard as hell. Naturally the game gets harder, but the big daddies on the medium or higher difficulty will kick your ass left and right and sometimes battles with them are frustrating.

The game is somewhat short if you decide to do a bare bones playthrough.

Although skill development is here and it is well done, the game isn't as deep as System Shock 2 in regards to the RPG/FPS hybrid elements. There is no manageable inventory (Which is annoying when you want something in a container that also contains something you DON'T want since the game gives you no choice to just take one item instead of all of them.) and you don't have class choice, which does cut the replay value down a little.

The PC version has some more glitches and bugs than the other versions, and DRM is a pain.


The Bottom Line
I'm pretty much speechless. Sometimes, unanimous critical acclaim is actually founded. This is easily the best shooter since Half-Life 2 and a great spiritual successor to System Shock 2. Its a unique game and a ton of fun, with an incredible design philosophy and technically impressive styling. Well, what are you waiting for? If you haven't played this yet despite it being around for 2 years, then go out and play it now!