Great, although it includes minor gameplay flawls.
BioShock is a FPS Mystery that can only be described as, amazing. There are a few flaws, but you can get passed them without breaking something out of frustration.
BioShock takes you into the shoes of Jack Jolene (other possible last name may contain spoilers), a man who takes a plane to an unknown location. During his flight, Jack goes into some kind of trans that leaves you to believe his either, asleep or blacked out. When he awakens, he's swimming in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where coincidentally lies a lighthouse containing a bathysphere that leads him to the underwater utopia that is, Rapture. While in the bathysphere, you are greeted by Andrew Ryan, (the creator of Rapture) and a radio conversation. After the conversation, you are told to pick up the radio, only to meet Atlas, your guide through the beautiful world of Rapture.
During the events of BioShock, you meet unfriendly psychopaths, mutated creatures called "Splicers", and little girls that hold everything that "makes Rapture turn" and their heavily armored guards AKA, Little Sisters and Big Daddies. The course of the story makes you ask questions like, 'why are you here?', 'who or what are these "splicers"', 'what made paradise under the sea go so awry?'.
The gameplay to BioShock is what you've come to expect from most FPS, except you get to use "Plasmids". Plasmids run on EVE, and EVE is basically your mana, and like RPGs, you take potions to replenish EVE. Plasmids are basically an extension of what the human body can do (such as, make hornets shoot out of your arm, freeze enemies where they stand (or jump and climb), and send enemies flying through the air.) kinda like spells. To receive more Plasmids, you must collect ADAM, which you receive when coming across a Little Sister.
The interesting thing about this game is, the role of the Little Sisters. Little Sisters actually depend on how the game ends, you can choose between harvesting (which results in the evil ending and more ADAM) or rescuing (obviously resulting in the good ending and less ADAM) them, but you can only choose after defeating the incredibly hard Big Daddy.
Along with Plasmids are Tonics or power-ups. Tonics basically can help you with the areas, physical, mechanical, and combat. The way they help you is by either adding something like, gaining more health from first aid kits, or slowing down the speed of liquid while hacking. (this is turning into a guide, I'll stop being so thorough)
A couple things I do despise about the gameplay in BioShock is the hacking minigame, and the use of vita chambers. It's like you have to hack it every five seconds, (if you don't have automatic hacking tools, that is) all I'm saying is that the game could have gone by way quicker if you didn't have to have every vending machine because of the rip-off prices for a damn First Aid Kit. I apologize for my outburst. When you die in BioShock (unlike other games) you get revived by a nearby vita chamber, (which if you ask me seems to be in just about every 3 rooms) making BioShock easy enough to breeze buy without any real death penalty.
BioShock has some of the best voice acting and music that a video game can offer, I'd say it's up there with Oblivion. (Please don't quote me on that). I don't even listen to classical music, but the game makes me appreciate it's existence. Considering the fact that I don't care for who does the voices, I don't have a clue if anybody famous has done VO for BioShock.
The graphics in BioShock are very well done, the lighting from the sea shining through the glass windows is just stunning and even the ice filled areas just looks like a sick and twisted winter wonderland. BioShock can (like most games) run 480p/720p/1080i/1080p resolutions, so if you can run 1080p, tell me if there is any major difference (I only played on 480p).
Alright, I'm pretty sure I'm missing a couple of features, but because of lack of time, I have to rush this out. Despite some of the game's flaws, the drama and twists make up for most of that, leading me to the final score of 4 and a half stars.
