BioShock

"Who's Your Big Daddy?"

Sorry to give away the end of the review at the beginning, but Bioshock is one of the best games I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. I say it's an experience, because it is. It's much more than a simple video game that you play through and forget about (unless you suffer from Alzheimer's). It stays with you. In case you were previously unaware, Bioshock is a First-Person Shooter horror game, released on the PS3 in October 2008. It also contains some interesting PS3 exclusive downloadable content, but I won't venture too much into that. The main influences that... influenced Bioshock are; the 1950s monster of a novel 'Atlas Shrugged' and the popular video game 'System Shock 2'.

Welcome to Rapture

The protagonist, Jack, crash lands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean while aboard an aircraft. He swims towards what appears to be a lighthouse, and discovers the city of Rapture. Rapture's creator, Andrew Ryan designed the city at the bottom of the ocean to accommodate the world's finest citizens in the hope that they all might live together in a utopia and eat lots of cake. Of course Rapture goes the way of most Utopias, as they are inherently flawed, and the only thing the citizens end up eating are bullets. Your character Jack, has to find out what happened. Oh, and not be brutally murdered.

How's the weather down there?

Bioshock, oddly enough, plays pretty much how you would expect a First-Person Shooter to play. Jack seemingly doesn't have any legs and you float around Rapture shooting at everything that moves, and everything you think just moved, but didn't.You start off with no weapons at all, then at some point obtain a very nice looking wrench, and eventually work your way up the firearm food chain until you're armed to the teeth. And you certainly will be, with all the ammunition you'll be tripping over. To be fair, though, this changes to reflect the difficulty setting. One thing about the weapons that most people probably don't care about (but I do) is that when you upgrade them, the upgrades you just made actually appear on the weapon, and look pretty cool too. Speaking of things that appear; enemies. The enemies in Bioshock go about their business in Rapture. Babbling incoherently and experiencing delusions. The fact that you hear the constant, creepy chatter, including the scary music and brutal violence is all apart of that wonderful spooky atmosphere that Bioshock does so well. Bioshock is just that, an atmospheric game. This in my view, holds it above almost every other horror game out there, First-Person Shooter or otherwise. There are very little cheap "Oh no, that enemy just jumped out of nowhere, causing me to wet myself" moments. Bioshock may indeed make you wet yourself, but it would most likely be caused by the spooky atmosphere which I can't seem to stop mentioning.

One thing I probably should have mentioned by this point, is that you are able to genetically modify your body, to work in your favor. This can be done using 'Plasmids', which enter your body via syringes. You can utilize all sorts of abilities, all of which are useful, including lighting enemies on fire and shooting bees out of your arm. How many video games allow you to shoot bees from your veins? Not many, that's how many. You can also collect ammo, medkits and money from corpses. you can spend your money at conveniently placed vending machines (though I suppose vending machines are supposed to be conveniently placed) located around Rapture. You can purchase ammo, Eve (for using plasmids) and several other things. You can also 'Hack' them to obtain items at a cheaper price. You also have the option of hacking defense turrets, sentry bots and cameras to make them work in your favor. Hacking isn't particularly difficult, but there are severe consequences if you fail. Such as painful electrocution.

Like any work of art, Bioshock has its flaws. The enemies tend to get repetitive, and sometimes their dialogue does too. Hacking gets tedious and the objectives mainly revolve you running around trying to get object A to get past object B so that you can locate object C and so on. And like (almost) every work of art out there, it has its exceptional qualities. The story is amazing (not at first, but it gets there), the scary level is through the roof, the plasmids make for interesting gameplay varying from your average First-Person Shooter and it looks very pretty.

Graphics/sound

Speaking of Bioshock and things that look very pretty; Bioshock looks very pretty. I've heard Bioshock's graphical style described as 'Cartoony', but I don't agree. The violence in this game looks and is, brutal. The style suits it well, and I personally wouldn't have it any other way. The sound is also great, mixing in music from the 1940s and 50s, along with an exceptional original score.

Bei Mir Bist du Schon

Bioshock is a fantastic game, and one that I feel is one that everyone who has an interest in video games (that's you) should play, and probably own. Experience it now.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/04/09

Game Release: BioShock (US, 10/21/08)