Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Worth playing"

First-person shooters are growing more predictable year by year, but BioShock is a memorable and fresh addition to the first-person shooter genre. It's not the gameplay or the graphics that make this adventure so breathtaking; it's the story and atmosphere that stand out, and it proves to be a journey unlike any other.

The incredible story begins with a explosive plane crash during 1960 in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The main character(who remains speechless for the rest of the game), survives, and notices a interesting and unusual lighthouse out in the distance. This leads you to a bathysphere which plays a speech from the mysterious Andrew Ryan. Then you are given a unforgettable view of a city underwater known simply as Rapture, where you will most likely spend many hours absorbed in it's clever world. After you arrive it is obvious something has gone terribly wrong, as you are immediately attacked in the darkness. You are not alone though because you meet a man known as Atlas, who speaks with you only over a simple radio. This launches a series of events that is filled with many unexpected twist and thrills, as you try to survive and escape from this nightmare.

Splicers are crazy residents of Rapture, but for story-purposes, I will not reveal why they are so violent. You can often hear them around dark corners, talking to themselves as if a person was standing directly in front of them. Sometimes they start to go crazy, and confusion is always in their eyes. It creates a disturbing atmosphere, since they all want to kill you and everything around them.

You can get about ten to twenty hours out of the game, depending on how you play it. With four different endings, it has a decent amount of replay value too. Not only that, but the audio recorders add even more to the value of the game and after your first playthrough hardcore players will most likely be happy about a survivor mode, which is basically a very hard setting.

The atmosphere and detail makes the city feel believable and that much more interesting. Each area is crafted with a realistic feel, and it really seems like people lived in this world at one point. A market has vegetables lying around untouched, while a bar has empty bottles all over the place and feels very broken, just like the city around it. The city has a whole system running, with workplaces and apartments creating a alive feel to a rather dead world. The water effects are also noticeably good, and most players will notice this as soon as they take control of the character. Overall it's a impressive looking game.

The back-story is told through audio recorders which works to strengthen the atmosphere, and the story. It's a good way to experience the city's history without leaving the area you are in, and keeps you in the moment while you relive the past. Some are even disturbing, and collecting them helps you learn about the city itself; not just the people living there.

Throughout the game you can collect powers known as plasmids. Plasmids can shoot lightning, ice, or even hornets. Weapons are also put to good use, like a wrench, pistol, shotgun, and grenade launcher. You can find weapon upgrade stations scattered throughout the massive city, and upgrade plasmids which makes them more powerful. You can also purchase extra slots for your plasmids, allowing you to carry more than just two plasmids at a time. In order to get more of a power known specifically as 'Adam' which can be used to buy more plasmids, you must look for the slightly disturbing Little Sisters. These horrific-looking children are filled with 'Adam', but getting it is not a easy task.

They are guarded by huge creatures known only as 'Big Daddies', and they put up a good fight. After dealing with these unmistakeably thrilling encounters, you have a choice to make, which effects what ending you receive. You can harvest the Little Sisters, which gives you more Adam than normally, but it also kills them. But if you prefer to be the good guy, you can take enough Adam to turn them back to their normal selves. If you save them, it feels heart-warming and meaningful, but if you harvest them it feels dark, but also rewarding. Sadly though, there are only two different kinds of 'Big Daddies', and I felt the game was lacking in the enemy category. By the time you get halfway through the game, you probably know all of the enemies and the best techniques to take them down. This starts to lead to repetitive gameplay, and isn't what BioShock is all about. BioShock feels fresh, and is a creative, original and outstanding adventure but when the gameplay starts to feel slow, the 'fresh' feeling of it is removed for certain gameplay moments that heavily depend on combat.

Tonics are similar to plasmids, but require no activation and are often more strategic than plasmids. These upgrades include damage increases to certain attacks, turning invisible or if you prefer a more defensive way of fighting, you can get upgrades which makes you able to withstand more powerful attacks.

The overall gameplay is unique. It feels slow near the end, since the weapons and plasmids don't pack much of a punch later in the game because the Splicers become more stronger. It's still good, but the intense fights at the beginning were exciting and later in the game, that feeling vanishes. For example, it shouldn't take two shotgun shells to the face to bring down a single enemy; so the only major problem is the weapons and plasmids feel underpowered near the end of the game.

The weapons still feel intensely satisfying, and have a decent amount of weight to them. Plasmids are fun to use, and help keep the repetitive gameplay at the halfway point a bit more enjoyable, since you will probably want to try out the many different combinations. Using the environment to your advantage is also a important aspect to the gameplay, since lightning has a large effect on water. Fire can also melt ice and open up new doorways which often lead to ammo and more audio recorders. The creation of the role-playing aspect in the game is definitely welcomed, especially since it helps to keep the gameplay unique: And that's one of the most challenging problems first-person shooters face today.

BioShock has a few other problems too though. The pacing is really slow, and for a while it feels like nothing is happening. Luckily, this is not a memorable issue once you finish the game, since the second half is even more explosive than the opening. Even if at one point BioShock starts to feel old, it leaves you with a good feeling no matter what ending you get. Finally, when you want to hack into a machine you are forced to do a mini-game, where you line up pipes from point A to point B trying to beat a clock. This mini-game never feels challenging; only pointless. It's fun near the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, it feels like a simple distraction and is one of the few things that takes you out of the stunning atmosphere. Sometimes you can use a auto-hack tool but it still doesn't speed up the process enough to make it a fun experience. Instead, it ends up being brutally repetitive.

Audio is undeniably striking in many different ways starting with voice-acting. Despite your character only speaking one line in the opening, he sounds just as realistic and believable as the other characters. Two of the most note-worthy mentions though is Atlas and Andrew Ryan, who shocked me countless times just over how believable their voice-acting was. The audio recorders really show just how bad the city became thanks to the extraordinary voice-acting. You may hear a splicer around the corner dropping a bottle, or water rushing through a nearby corridor and this all helps to get you into the game's world. Soundtrack fits the 1950's era, and adds just that much more to the games amazing atmosphere it is so very well known for.

Truthfully, BioShock has a few problems. However, this can all be forgiven by the end of the adventure: With a gripping storyline, a vast environment, revolutionary audio and a shocking conclusion, BioShock is definitely a game worth playing, and will be remembered for years to come.