"Jesus loves me this I know... for the Bible tells me so..."
I'm grateful that Gamespot labeled BioShock as a Sci-Fi First Person Shooter rather than a First Person Survival Horror as some other websites of done, because this is not a survival horror game. The city of Rapture is dark, menacing and haunting if not, dare I say it, beautiful; but not once did I ever feel a sense of urgency or desperation that is often attributed to the survival horror genre. Actually, it was just the opposite. With ADAM running through my veins, I felt more like a god among men.
ADAM is really what sets BioShock apart from other generic shooters such as Halo and Call of Duty (I'm really not a FPS fan to be honest). Even though I played the game extensive I'm not completely sure what ADAM is other than that it is some form of genetic enhancement that was harvested from some sort of slug found at the bottom of the sea. But as far as being a drug or some sort of parasite, I have no idea? The point is that ADAM enters the body through injection and then genetically alters the host's DNA to where the "impossible becomes possible." Being able to shoot bolts of electricity out of your hand or moving items with Telekinesis are just some minor examples of what ADAM is capable of doing. In some ways ADAM could be criticized as being unoriginal for its striking similarities to simple magic attacks from standard RPGs. But the fact that these "magic attacks" are found in a FPS and that they are scientifically explained in a fairly convincing manner makes BioShock all the more original to me.
ADAM isn't the only thing that sets BioShock apart as the standard for other First Person Shooters. The City of Rapture is one of the most impressive and unique set designs I've ever witnessed in gaming. I don't believe I'm romanticizing when I say that my breath was literally taken away between the very beginning introduction and my first glimpses of Rapture through a small submarine window. From the very beginning, I knew that this was going to be something different. Of course part of the "awe" was largely due to the equally impressive music score that contained a chilling violin and string ensemble that was on par with epic film scores like Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings.
Still over and over again, when I wasn't in battle, I found myself just staring out the window simply to taken in the different sights and sounds whether it was the city of Rapture or just to watch a school of fish swim by my face. I ate it up like candy and loved every moment.
Though BioShock is not a survival horror, that doesn't mean there weren't any horrific moments. Rapture is just as twisted and demented as it is beautiful and enchanting. It was very unnerving to enter a surgical room with blood and flesh smeared all over the walls and the floor or find corpses that haven been severely burned or impaled. With the exception of a select few, the inhabitance of Rapture are extremely and unexplainably hostile towards you. This was some what disappointing since the only explanation really given for their hostility towards you is that they "don't take too kindly to strangers." Sure there's the fact that they're all junkies (or splicers since they're supposedly genetically enhanced) and the craving for ADAM has driven them to insanity, but if ADAM is responsible for their aggressive behaviors, why then do they seem to only release that aggression when you show up. This is never really explained, unfortunately, and would have helped in making the story more credible.
That's not to say BioShock has a bad story. Far from it! The story, which is always told from a first person perspective as coined first in Half-Life, could pass as a Sci-Fi rendition of an Agatha Christie mystery novel. The story's mystery is really driven by the history of the Rapture which is tastefully conveyed through a series of audio diaries found on tapes scattered acrossed the city. This may seem at first like a set back since there are only three to four actual cutscenes in the entire game, but actually the audio tapes do a brilliant job of walking you through the story without taking you out of the action, all the while making you feel like your discovering this for yourself. It's really well done and brings a special appreciation to the city that otherwise wouldn't be there.
Probably the most disappointing feature in the game for me was the moral choice segments. I was under the impression from other reviewers that this was a game that strongly depended upon the players moral choices as to how the game would resolve. While this is true to an extent, it wasn't as deep or impactful as I was expecting. I was inclined to believe the game shared similarilities with other morality-based games such as the Fallout series. This was not the case. Really the only moral choices you make in the game are whether or not to harvest or rescue the demon-eyed young girls known as the "Little Sisters." While harvesting a Little Sister you reap the immediate rewards of an abundance of ADAM at the expense of killing the little girl, rescuing the Little Sister restores her to her former human self but at the expense of less ADAM. I was always confused on exactly how you rescued the Little Sister, because it's never really explained what your actually doing to her. It actually looks like your performing an exorcism as you place your hands on the little sister and her demon-eyes disappear to which the little girl expresses her gratitude with a simple "Thank You" before running away through a vent in the wall. The only thing that is actually affected by your choices to rescue or harvest the Little Sisters is the ending cutscene, which if you chose to "rescue" ends beautifully. For a morality game, its not very deep, but it does make things a little more interesting.
Another factors that surprised me was how incredibly easy BioShock was compared to other FPS I've played. I was under the impression that this was a hard game, but nothing could be further from the truth. Most of this is due to the Vita-Chambers that are scattered throughout the city, which act as a respawning point when you die. They try to justified these chambers by claiming that Andrew Ryan (the creator of Rapture) had ordered the building of this chamber so that he basically could have eternal life. I thought this was ridiculous and wished that the Vita-Chambers had been removed from the game all together. Part of what made the game so easy was that if you died and respawned from a Vita-Chamber, whatever damage you had given to your enemies before you died they still kept. So if you were really, really, really bad at the game it didn't matter. You could die a hundred times and still eventually kill off your enemies because they kept the damage you gave them. During the loading times between levels the game actually gives you hints about strategies and possible options that you may have missed. This was actually frustrating for me, because they waited till near the end of the game to tell me that you could actually turn-off the Vita-Chambers in the options menu. By that time, I had almost played through the whole game! Oh well, next time I'll know better.
Despite all this, BioShock was still incredibly addicting and by far on of the greatest FPS I've ever played. It was filled with so many memorable moments that really testified to why this game was so unique and special. I will never forget the first time I killed splicers with a shotgun to the tune of Waltz of the Flowers by Tchaikovsky. It was like being in the lead role of a Stanley Kubrick film. Or when I heard splicers singing "Jesus Loves Me" or "It is Well" to comfort themselves during their withdraws. It was morbid, twisted, and absolutely brilliant, which greatly established this game for being unique and innovative. This review sort of developed into being more negative than I intended it to be, which my apologies. Really there's just too many good things to tell about this game without spoiling it for you. This really is an incredible adventure, and if you haven't experience it already then "would you kindly" go play this game... now!
P.S. The creators of BioShock are the same developers of System Shock 2, a game that I've been dying to get my hands on ever since I first heard about it from Gamespot's list of "The Greatest Games of All Time." And the few that have actually played System Shock 2 for the PC say it is way better than BioShock. So I'm pretty excited about it.