BioShock

This game presents itself wonderfully, from the music to the beautiful style of the underwater city and the brilliant voice work, putting this game a class above most. The game feels very polished and you can get a real sense of progress throughout the game.

There are a few main story characters, they distinguish themselves nicely and are very exaggerated to fit into the world. Without spoiling the game the story unfolds nicely, comes to a fitting conclusion and overall feels solid, naturally with room for further games in the franchise. BioShock uses music well, whether via brief sequences to heighten tension or to set a mood for an upcoming area. The music played on jukeboxes and record players is from the time and has been nicely selected.

Game wise you wouldn't be punished for likening this to something like Deus Ex, plasmids give you nifty abilities and weapons compliment them. You can upgrade weapons using machines to increase damage or things like clip size. Plasmids require an energy type device called evo collected in the world, in order to gain more plasmids or increase plasmid abilities you need adam. The only place to get this stuff is from little sisters, either by rescuing them or harvesting them. The little sisters move throughout levels and are protected by huge diving suit wearing protectors. These big daddies will leave you alone unless you want some adam and you must defeat them to get it. The have high health, and can rush you quickly or used grenades from distances. Compared to most splicers they are tough. The game world contains many stations that offer health, ammo, gene swapping and are early on placed in order to direct your experience. Later on the game lets you take a more personalized path. Sadly there is no inventory, items like food can't be stored and must be eaten, the looting system feels a bit odd. Hacking is done through a simple flash type game that gets harder as the game goes on, it's not ideal and gets old fast. You also can't die in the game, vita chambers pull you back to the current world with all your ammo/weapons and full health. Often it means its better just letting yourself die than wasting a first aid kit. It does however ensure the gameplay doesn't get frustrating because you don't really have to repeat any sequences, just a bit of trekking.

One of the things I enjoyed most from the game are how enemies react and talk to you, telling you that they can see you or that they “just want to talk” heh yeah right. Little sisters get heavy on the abusive chit chat when their protectors start fighting Some of the plasmids let you sit back and watch the action which I also found enjoyable. There is definitely a certain sense of awe you get from playing BioShock and not just graphically, Rapture is a place most gamers should visit.