This is my Number One Game!
- Graphics : The Graphics are just beautiful and i've never seen water like this, i heard they brought in some people who specialized in water effects and texturing and they did a splendid job, Scenery too looks great alot of movable objects for the Telekinesis plasmid. The city has the 50's look they went for, and looking at it from the beginning of the game when you arrive in the Sphere it looks perfect.
- Sound : The sound effects and music blends in perfectly to the game's atmosphere making it both creepy and awesome. Your enemies will mutter talk and sing to themselves as they do their thing in the city sometimes giving you a small insight into their psych, you may hear them reliving the loss of someone dear or something else, anyway it works to set the mood. Also superb Voice Acting on characters.
- Gameplay : OK i will try to keep this spoiler free, The Game starts with a cutscene of the plane you are on going down in the middle of the ocean and no mention of why you were on it, Conveniently there is a light house near by, as you walk through the doors things start to unfold, you begin to figure out how messed up this place is and whats going on down here, Will you be their saviour? or will you sacrifice everything to Save your own skin. Well thats your decision as you have the choices to do it your way. Not far inside you get your first Plasmid which basically is gene modifications that make you a "Demigod" if you use them right, They range from setting your foes on fire to tricking a big daddy to fight for you, i could go on for a long time listing plasmids & Tonics but you get the picture, there are more than 70 of them so you got alot of choices, this includes tonics. You will eventually find things you can hack, this is an awesome feature as it gives you that much more possibilities, When you hack weaponry and drones this mini-game starts where you direct the flow of water into the designated exit by using tubes, this is easy but can get tiresome when you want action, it does however go faster as you add tonics to your inventory, or you can just buyout the drone which automatically hacks it for a small sum. Did i mention you also need something Called ADAM to buy your tonics and Plasmids and something called EVE to use it (sort of like mana potions) The only source of ADAM is to harvest or save the little sisters whom are protected by the most fearsome killing machines in the game Big Daddies.
You have to go through big Daddy before you can take the little Sister this apparently is because the little sisters are so stuffed with ADAM they are almost immortal, so shooting away at them isn't an option. Here comes the Choices harvest the little sister and maximize your ADAM or save the little girl and keep your humanity and maybe the reward becomes clear in the end.
Now that thats covered, it takes roughly 20 hours to complete and thats IF you play on medium and explore Rapture, you can also extend this by looking for Audio diaries which give you some perspective of what went on before and after Rapture went to hell, but in the end you'll find that you've covered alot of ground and experienced alot, but it doesn't ruin the replay value its still fun to play the game over, mostly because anything can happen very few scripted events and taking out a room never goes the same way twice there are hundred ways to do it.
To mention some small things that could be improved.
- Dialog doesn't have that much variation (the enemies say alot of the same things)
- Multi-player well i don't see this so much as a issue, most people expect multi-player in new games on the market, but i'd rather have a Superb story great gameplay and a long Singleplayer, and not just have a tacked on Multiplayer ahem, like The Darkness (great game btw) but the multiplayer is horrible.
- Same models are used for the type of splicers it represents.
So thats my review i went through the elements i think is important, i hope it helped, and if you're a fan of the simple run to the mill FPS games corridor shooters, this probably isn't the game for you, as you're required to use your head to defeat your enemies, But if you're looking for something new and unique then this is a MUST BUY for you, the lengthy singleplayer and great story is more than worth the bucks you spend on this revolutionary game.
I give it a Solid 10. basically because i haven't played anything that made me this involved in the story before, it was one hell of a ride and im proud to have the game on my shelf, Now would you Kindly go buy it ; )