BioShock
Developer: Irrational Games
Platform: X360
Release Date: 2007
BioShock is part first-person shooter, part role-playing game, and part adventure game--it doesn't fit neatly into any conventional genre description. But what's particularly important to note about it is that it looks extremely promising, indeed. Though the broad-by-definition action adventure category is always competitive at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, BioShock stood out to us as the most inspired and overall most promising example of this style of game. That's not to say that the decision was easy, since this highly competitive category included other very promising games, particularly the highly impressive Assassin's Creed for PS3.
Though shown exclusively behind closed doors, BioShock's ambitious design and artistic quality quickly spread among GameSpot editors covering the show. The game takes place in an undersea utopia-gone-mad, filled with genetically mutated freaks apparently resigned to face an imminent watery grave, as the whole underwater station threatens to collapse on itself. That such a grim setting could come across as visually beautiful is a feat unto itself. But what's just as compelling about BioShock is the seeming open-endedness of its gameplay. It will be up to the player to decide how to approach any given situation, whether through force, guile, diplomacy, or something else.
Developer Irrational Games announced BioShock as the spiritual successor to its cult classic System Shock 2, but from what we saw of the game at E3, we came away with the sense that BioShock has the potential to be much greater. And considering how great of a game System Shock 2 is in the first place, that's an exciting prospect, indeed.
Finalists
E3 2006 Editors' Choice Awards
In this feature, the GameSpot staff brings its considerable amount of collective experience at covering E3 to bear, distilling all of our coverage down to its most important elements and showing you what the biggest names and events were at E3 2006.
