One of the best FPS games I have played.
From the moment you set foot in Rapture, the eerie, underwater city in which Bioshock is set, you are given a sense that you are playing a game that is going to offer much more than your typical FPS and this sense will be proven true throughout the course of the game as you are thrust into unfamiliar situations, enveloped in a terrific atmosphere and sucked deeper and deeper into an excellently written and well presented storyline.
The game begins with you (or more accurately, Jack, the protagonist of Bioshock) on a plane as it is crashing into the ocean. After the crash you find yourself swimming towards a huge tower rising up in front of you and within it find a Bathysphere (a kind of underwater shuttle) that takes you down into Rapture. On your arrival you are treated to a scene showing what life in Rapture is like as you witness the brutal murder of a man by a Splicer, one of the horrifically disfigured and mentally damaged inhabitants of the terrifying world you have entered. Following the murder you are greeted, via radio, by Atlas, who becomes your guide for the duration of the game and one of the few allies you will have on your mission to find and kill Andrew Ryan, the maniacal founder of Rapture who enjoys sending you taunting radio messages along with legions of Splicers intent on spilling your blood.
Rapture was founded to be a Utopia for forward thinking members of humanity where, in the words of Andrew Ryan: 'The artist would not fear the censor and where the scientist is not constrained by petty morality.' Something however, has gone horribly wrong, as Atlas tells you: 'Plasmids changed everything; they destroyed our bodies, our minds. We couldn't handle it. The whole city went to Hell.'
The story of Bioshock advances via occasional cutscenes (the view never leaving the 1st-person perspective even during these cinematics), through radio messages and through numerous audio diaries found dotted around Rapture that fill you in on some of the back-story of the city and its inhabitants and offer information about where to go next.
As you make your way through Rapture you will find several different weapons, all fairly standard for the genre, such as a pistol, a machine gun and a shotgun. Every weapon in the game, apart from the wrench (your first weapon), can be upgraded during the course of the game, increasing the damage that they deal, their ammo capacity, firing speed, etc. Each weapon also has three separate ammo types with varying levels of effectiveness against the different enemies that you will face. For example the pistol has standard pistol ammo along with anti-personnel rounds, which are especially effective against the Splicers, and armour-piercing rounds, which are particularly useful against the mechanical sentry drones and gun turrets controlled by Rapture's security system.
This security system can be hacked and turned against your Splicer enemies. The hacking is done in the form of a mini-game where you move sections of pipe around a square board in order to create a path for a liquid to flow through. It sounds easy and it is at first, but later in the game the liquid's flow speed increases and the number of pipe sections decreases, making the mini-game much more challenging.
Throughout Rapture you will also find Plasmids, gene implants which grant access to spectacular powers, such as telekinesis or the ability to deliver a stunning, electric shock to your enemies. The use of these Plasmids requires Eve, which can be found in hypodermic needles and can also be replenished by eating or drinking (or occasionally smoking) some of the consumables that you will find during the game. Upgraded versions of almost all of the plasmids can be found or purchased later in the game Plasmids need to be equipped to one of your Plasmid slots, you begin the game with only two slots allowing you to access only two different plasmids at any one time, but this number can be upgraded to six slots during the course of the game.
Similar to the Plasmids are Gene Tonics, also found throughout Rapture, which grant you special abilities. The Gene Tonics fall into one of three categories "Physical Tonics", which have effects such as allowing you to heal more from a first aid kit, "Engineering Tonics", which have an effect such as increasing your hacking ability, and "Combat Tonics", which may allow you to deal more damage with the wrench or take less damage from enemies. Like Plasmids, each of the three categories has slots for the tonics, at first you have only two slots per category but this can also be upgraded to six, just like the Plasmid slots.
A little way into the game you will run into your first Little Sister and her guardian, a Big Daddy. The Big Daddies are extremely tough enemies capable of dealing and receiving huge amounts of damage, making them rather frightening opponents, especially early in the game when you have very few plasmids and weapons. However, you will need to kill the Big Daddies if you want to get to the Little Sisters that they guard, and you will want to get to them because it is they who carry Adam, 'The genetic material that keeps Rapture running', which you will need in order to spend at "Gatherer's Gardens" (special vending machines found throughout Rapture) to increase your maximum health and Eve, as well as to unlock new slots to hold your Plasmids and gene tonics and to purchase new Plasmids and Gene Tonics.
Another item that you will find in Rapture is the camera, a very useful item by all accounts. By taking pictures of your enemies you begin to research them and after accumulating enough research points from a particular enemy you are given a bonus relating to that enemy, often you will be rewarded with the ability to do more damage to that type of enemy in the future, but sometimes you will gain a Plasmid or Tonic or gain a small increase in your maximum health and Eve.
The number of research points you gain after taking a picture of an enemy can be altered by several factors. If you manage to take an 'Action Shot' (such as a Splicer leaping through the air towards you) or take pictures of multiple enemies, then you are rewarded with a greater amount of research points than you would otherwise receive. If you photograph the same enemy twice though, or take a picture once they are already dead, then you will gain a smaller amount of research points. You can usually take three or four pictures of any one enemy before you cease gaining research points from it.
Bioshock has some of the best atmosphere that I have ever experienced in a game (and I have played a great deal of games), forcing you through a series of emotions, from a nervous tension, as you walk through the eerily quiet corridors of Rapture, to out-right panic, as you are attacked by a group of Splicers that seem to come from nowhere, to pity as you bring down a Big Daddy, leaving behind a Little Sister to cry over his corpse, imploring him to get up.
Speaking of the Little Sisters brings up another important part of the game, and one of the things that causes Bioshock to stand out from the vast amount of first-person shooters released in recent months, the choice that you must make when you come across a Little Sister to either harvest her, or to rescue her. Harvesting the Little Sister gives you a larger amount of Adam than if you are to rescue the Little Sister, but kills her (and makes you feel like a real bastard). Rescuing the Sisters not only saves you from feelings of guilt, but also results in you being sent rewards later in the game by Dr. Tenenbaum, who was involved in the creation of the Little Sisters, in the form of extra Adam and other items, such as Plasmids, first aid kits and money.
Graphically, Bioshock looks amazing, the water and fire effects are some of the best in any game, the textures are all highly detailed and the animations are extremely realistic. The game's physics engine is also very impressive, with thrown objects following a realistic path through the air, enemies crumpling to the ground when struck with small arms fire and flying back when hit with an explosive. Everything in the world seems to have a real sense of weight to it. The lighting in the game is impressive for the most part with realistic bloom effects and reflections, but I did notice the occasional peculiarity. For example, at one point I was standing directly between a light source and a wall and yet I cast no shadow whatsoever on the wall. It hardly ruined the game for me, but it did take me out of the experience just a little.
The world of Rapture is divided up into several distinct parts, managing to have quite a varied selection of environments to explore, despite the relatively small world in which the game is set, from flourishing arboretums and gardens to frozen-over or flooded sections of the city. The sections of the city that you visit are not presented in a totally linear fashion and you are free to go back to previously explored sections of the city whenever you want to try out your new powers and weapons or to find useful pick-ups that you may have previously missed, however, the game never forces you to re-tread old ground.
Checkpoints are frequent throughout Rapture in the form of Vita-Chambers. Upon dying you are almost instantly brought back to life (along with a decent amount of health and Eve) at the nearest Vita-Chamber. The Vita-Chambers are one of the only problems that I have with the game, they make progress through the game too simple, as every time that you come back to life all of your enemies remain at the health they were at when you were killed. This means that with enough patience you will always be able to advance through every part of the game, without the need to go back and pick up some more ammo or health, because you can simply come back to life again and again, each time slowly whittling down the health of your enemies until they are all dead and you can continue on your journey. This is not a terrible thing, as it can be very frustrating when you reach a point in a game where you simply cannot go on without first retracing your path and finding more items/weapons/ammo, but it certainly cheapens your sense of accomplishment as you do not really need to be good at the game to advance, you simply need to have a little patience. You can elect to turn off the Vita-Chambers, but if you want to do this you will have to learn to frequently use the quick-save feature as you will be dying a lot throughout the course of the game.
If you are looking for shooter with a deep, involving storyline and an exceptionally immersive world, that pulls you in and does not let you go, then Bioshock is a game you will certainly want to check out.
It is a pretty good length for a game of its genre, taking about 10 hours to beat the first time around and you will probably want to play through it at least twice in order to see the two different endings, one if you rescue all the Little Sisters and one if you harvest them.
The ease with which the game can be completed, due to the Vita-Chambers, is a little disappointing and the final boss is very easy and seems to be a little bit forced, as if the development team felt that they needed to include a boss fight, but the game's flaws are easily over-shadowed by all of the things that Bioshock does well, such as its brilliant story, beautiful environments and impressive technological achievements, and certainly does not detract much from the experience of this exceptionally fine game.