A great FPS that lets the setting improve the entire experience.
It's worth noting that what it does lack is multi-player game-play. I say lack because it's absent, but it in no way affected my enjoyment with the game or made me feel that the game itself was lacking. If anything, the attention to the strong single-player campaign that may have otherwise suffer by trying to fit in a multi-player aspect did nothing but improve title.
So we'll move on to what it does have; let's start with the weapons. Like any good FPS, the selection of weapons is logical and each have their own distinct advantages. The basic choices you'd expect are available, such as a pistol, shot gun, machine gun, and grenade launcher. Some weapons are a little less common like the cross-bow. And the weapon variety is enhanced by providing different ammunition for each. Armour piercing rounds, trap bombs, explosive slugs, incendiary bolts, and in the case of the flame thrower, it becomes a chemical thrower with additions like liquid nitrogen. It's a great way to keep the weapons interesting and fun while providing some extra strategic elements. Adding even more to the experience are the weapon upgrade stations you'll come across. For each station you're given a chance to upgrade one characteristic for one of your weapons. For example, it could increase the rate of fire of a weapon, how much ammo it can carry, or how much damage it can deliver.
Strategy plays a significant role in how you take on the levels. In addition to the weapon options, you'll have access to a number of Tonics which give you special skills. Broken into Physical and Engineering tonics, they'll allow you to do a wide variety of things such as get more health out of health packs, deal with security measures more effectively, increase your speed, and even provide camouflage. At any given time you can only have up to 6 of each type of tonic in use. There are special stations available in each level that will allow you to swap which ones you currently have active.
The final piece to the triad which makes you an effective killing machine are the special powers called Plasmids. Positioned as genetic enhancements, you can gain the ability to perform superhero-like actions such as throw fire, electricity, and even wasps from your hand. Your powers can extend to telekinesis, and the ability to control enemies, and turn defensive systems to your advantage. Like the Tonics, there's a limit to how many Plasmids you can have at the ready, and you can swap out which plasmids your using at special stations. Certain plasmids and tonics have upgraded version of them available as well.
Enemies were a bit of a disappointment to me. I didn't feel there was a lot of variety in who you're up against. There's different names for various enemy types, but for the most part it's only the skin and the weapon they carry that's different. There's a couple exceptions like the "Houdini Splicer" that do this teleportation trick, but in the end it's still just a guy with a weapon in hand. We're talking about genetic mutations going on in Rapture… didn't they put an animal conservatory in the city or something? Throw a monster my way, or something like that. I think part of the disappointment comes from the fact that with all of your weapons, powers, and skills, by half-way through the game you've become leaps and bounds more interesting than any of the foes that stand in your way. It makes even the creepy ash-colour-statuesque-surprise-attack adversaries eventually seem common and boring (blasé if you will).
But living threats aren't your only concern. You'll also have square off against the city's defenses such as gun turrets, and little flying security bots that are activated when a security camera spots you. Because these are all mechanical, that means you can hack them to work for you instead of against you. Hacking consists of a mini game where you get a grid of pipe pieces. You shuffle and rearrange the pieces so that you end up with a pipe that connects point A to point B so a liquid can pass through. The grid will contain tiles of security measures and dead ends. Fail in your hack and you may lose health, or trip an alarm. You can also skip the hack by using an auto-hack tool or buy buying your way through the hack for a few bucks(who would've thought to bribe a machine; this is an advanced society).
Defense systems aren't the only thing available to hack. Vending machines are also vulnerable to your piping skills. The vending machines will allow you to buy items like tools and ammo. If you hack them, you can get better prices and more items. U-Invent machines, which allow you to build new ammo and tools from scraps of materials you find lying around the levels can also be hacked with similar effects as vending machines: you'll need less materials to build something, and there will be more options available to build.
Searching for things can take up a lot of your time in the game if you want it to. You can scrounge for those U-Invent materials, money, ammo, and more. Audio diaries are also strewed about the levels which help provide additional back-story and character development. Although, in all honesty I found the majority of them to be a variation of "That Andrew Ryan is crazy. I've seen him do crazy things, and make people do crazy things, and has made me do something crazy. If you ask me, I think he's crazy."
The relationship in the game I found the most interesting was that between the Big Daddies and the Little Sisters. Little Sisters have something called "Adam" that you require to purchase additional plasmids (powers). To collect Adam from the Little Sisters you can either "harvest" them (which hurts them) or save them (where they're left unharmed). Each method has their own benefits and contributes to the ending of the game. But to get the Adam from them, you first need to get access to them; and Big Daddies are the hulking killers that protect them from people like you. What intrigues me about the relationship is that it's kind of sad. I went the route of saving all the Little Sisters. So I'm trying to get to these little girls to save them, but I have to kill their protectors to do so. And while you're stalking the Big Daddies you can hear the Little Sisters speaking lightheartedly with them, and calling them "Mr. Bubbles" in their sweet little voices. After you take their body guards out of the picture, they'll kneel beside them and cry. It's an interesting dynamic.
It all helps set the stage for what really makes this game shine. Above all else, it's the atmosphere that made the biggest impact on me. The visuals were tailored to really make you feel you were in a broken underwater city. It looked used, wet, rusty, and unsettling. The sound was an incredible mix, taking both the odd and familiar and combining them into something eerie. You'll hear the bending of glass and steel. You'll hear what should be happy music playing with a crackle and hollowness that tells you something isn't right. You'll hear the enemies down the hall. They may be talking crazy. They may be crying. They may even be whistling. It's hard to say which was more disturbing. The presentation is able to tie everything together so that you're pulled into the experience.
The guns, the special powers, even the simple RPG elements; I've seen them all before. And although this game takes those aspects and makes them fun enough to rank up there with other top FPS titles, it's was the atmosphere that took it a little bit further.
It's also thanks to the atmosphere that the more I played, the more the experience changed. At first I took the game nice and slow. The tense environment had me creeping along the halls, peeking around corners, and scavenging every inch of every room. As my inventory of weapons and powers were built up, and as my familiarity with the world of Rapture grew, I became more confident and less intimidated by what could be waiting for me. So the pace picked up and I was willing to take situations head on with less hesitation. So in some respects, the game I was playing at the end wasn't the same game I was playing at the beginning. This is a good thing. At the same time, because it's an evolutionary experience, I'll never capture that feeling I had when I first started playing it.
Bioshock is built with the basics of great First Person Shooters. It then takes those basics, makes them it's own, enhances them, and presents them in a world that will deliver an immersive experience you can grow with.