“Welcome to Rapture.”

Developer : 2K Boston / 2K Australia (previously Irrational Games)
Publisher : 2K Games
Available on : XBOX 360, PC

There comes a point in everyone’s life where they must choose to save or end the life of an orphaned girl. To enjoy the rewards of saving a young life, or to club in a skull and take what you need.

Well… maybe that was not the intended lifestyle for denizens of Rapture, but it is now. What was destined to be a great city free from the oppression of law and religion now ruined, remains where it was built – underwater.

To describe the dystopian city of Rapture or dictate the lifestyle and events within would merely undermine the refined and wonderfully executed experience of Bioshock.

From the first foray into the underwater metropolis known as Rapture there’s no doubt some interesting sights are on the horizon. The customized Unreal 3 engine used for Bioshock is of course no hindrance for the 10-15 hour experience.

Opening not only onto a majestic landscape of Rapture and the Bioshock world, the scripting and execution of both story and action is also exemplified when players are thrown straight into the seedy remains of Rapture. A seemingly instantaneous encounter with a hostile mutant of Rapture is also the first instance where Bioshock can cross-genre between action and horror and express the extreme maturity present throughout the game. It’s a great idea too – the advanced lighting effects play out for some terrific horror scenes.

The perspective for narration is nothing special within the FPS genre, as players control a near voiceless and faceless male hero. While our lead character may be a tad soulless, the impressive voice acting and cast of NPC characters are packed with highly developed personalities and characteristics.

Not pictured – little girl remains

While amazing sound and voice acting assist developing a strong story and genre, Bioshock is also truly a visual and technical feat. A few occasions can really set off some great lighting and sound; most notable are the specific scenes of low-lit rooms, set to create some truly scary moments that some players may take to bed with them. Moments like these are true examples of the power Bioshock has to mould genres together to create one of the most immersive gaming experiences to date.

Within such a small timeframe of playing Bioshock, examples of the wonderful sound, setting, story, and atmosphere are all brought into play and drive the rest of the experience. It’s well fortunate then that when the serious combat and gameplay for Bioshock kicks in it expands way beyond your typical 1960 weaponry and you learn that it’s all about the Plasmids.

As the past of Rapture unfolds, Bioshock takes another genre twist into science-fiction. Very early in the game is the introduction to what makes combat in Bioshock fast, interesting, and fun; bio-augmentations. It’s nothing new at all, strapping a player with some powers like lightning and fire. In fact, it’s very un-original. Collected and earned differently each time, these augmentations sporadically appear in needles known as “Plasmids”, which then leads into what seems to be a trend in every successful single player games, customizing characters.

Customizing characters is another element of Bioshock that really isn’t new or original at all. It’s been done to death, but this time it’s been done right. Thanks to responsive and easily navigated combat controls, combat is continually a varying affair. The amount of ways a player can approach combat and meld elements together allows a unique and changing experience that lets combat be fun how you want it to be fun. It’s when you start shifting powers and weaponry to annihilate a horde of mutants and machines that some of the nagging combat-lagging gripes arise.

It’s a tad unexplained, but you can rest assured that if anything were to befall our great hero in his quest through Rapture, Vita-Chambers are here to help. When activating one of the chambers scattered throughout Rapture, a new checkpoint is secured which will automatically resurrect a dead player. It keeps combat fast and fun, especially as you’re restored with your original weaponry and all enemies are how they left. It’s the challenge that is now lacking, sometimes replaced with frustration. There’s no real loss to dying in Bioshock, other than momentarily returning close to where you were, how you were. If you’re out of ammo and money… just try again; and again; and again. If you thought having no detriment to death in Bioshock could lower the difficulty… you were damn right. Sure Big Daddies are menacing, Ryan is an evil tyrant, heck, even the little girls look damn creepy; but having no draw-back to death certainly detracts from a lot of the potential Bioshock could have had in developing a stronger relationship between the player and in-game situations.

If constantly re-spawning to complete one segment of combat doesn’t sound like your thing, maybe you’ll enjoy looking at the floors? It’s amazing how Bioshock can duplicate yet refine so many elements of the FPS genre, yet something as simple as re-spawning or even picking up items can be a tedious chore. Picking up weapons, items, and anything interactive is done so by the A button, simple enough. Unfortunately all the great stuff in the world seems to be on the floor as usual, and you’re going to have to look there. A lot. Enemies will throw weapons off into the distance, scatter loot about, and the only way to pick it up is by looking directly at the ground. If you’re in combat and want to find some ammo, you’re going to be pretty screwed by running around looking at the floor as though the sea pressure has gotten to your neck. To complicate things further, some of the better abilities in Bioshock such as double-checking a search can then be infuriated through more ineffective controls. To search an enemy for potential loot, press A. To search again, press… right trigger? I thought that fired my weapon? Oh, it did. So now I’m running around looking directly down at the ground, pressing A and right trigger, accidentally firing my weapon (of which I’m trying to get ammo for) on occasion through doubled-up controls, and thrashing the unforgiving sensitivity of the second 360 analogue stick around all spectrums of inclinations and declinations.

Possibly a Windows 95 flashback…

It’s not all just fancy-pants combat and scenery throughout Rapture, there’s many hours to be spent hacking, shopping and even photographing. Delving more into science-fiction and out of 1960’s action, Rapture is scattered with machines for shopping, flying defense robots, and even automatic turrets of which are all hackable. Hacking a machine is done via a Pipe Dream mini-game, resulting in a player benefit from the hacked bot. Maybe lower the prices of some ammo, or befriend a flying sentry bot, either way great times are in store when you line up those pipes! The Pipe Dream mini-game is fun, albeit a tad distracting from the action and sometimes literally impossible to finish or in-effective in the long run. It’s obvious that blocks are randomly generated in a way that can still allow a physically impossible puzzle, then spending a few minutes hacking a robot only to have it get blown up in your face straight after can really lose you some time. Still the mechanical allies can be a big advantage and a lot of fun in Bioshock, especially when you amount a few of them to create a small bot army, it’s just another way combat can be varied around how the player chooses. If only the AI (this stems to enemy NPC’s too) was a tad more… observant. Watching a bot or enemy walk straight into a flaming hallway and engulf in flames can be a hoot, but a load of crap. Especially when you then get informed that the machine you just damaged is friendly to you.

So of course, Bioshock is not a perfect game (despite what some of the bigger, blinder media outlets may claim). It’s one of the most unique, exciting, and immersive FPS single player experiences to date, with a few gripes. If you can handle the maturity extending to scenes with orphaned girls that made me feel like a cigarette after, then there’s no reason not to give Bioshock a try. At the worst, you’ll be exposed to a detailed fictional world like none other before.

Bioshock

93%

The Good –

* Story immersion and a world like no other.
* Fast paced combat that varies how you play.
* Big daddies, mutants, robots, and little girls!

The Bad –

* Some doubled-up controls can cause frustration.
* Minimal death penalty, lacking real challenge.
* Some moments of significantly stupid AI.