Sleeping with the Splicers
Rapture, a vast underwater metropolis created by the 'genius' Andrew Ryan and the setting for Bioshock. After your plane crashes into the see you shortly find yourself in this amazing place and it is instantly noticeable that all is not going quite as smoothly as Mr. Ryan had planned. This is shortly explained by a friendly voice on a radio courtesy of Atlas your friend and teacher. Rapture is a city founded on science and plasmids, which are genetic enhancements made to make everyday life easier. Although something has gone terribly wrong apparently on new years eve leaving the city infested with splicers who are people driven mad by the adam used to create plasmids. You spend the game trying to understand how you got to this place and what happened by hunting down Raptures creater Andrew Ryan.
As gameplay goes Bioshock is a first person shooter on the surface with a lot more when you delve in. You start the game with a wrench and your shortly introduced to your first plasmid in the form of an electric shock. Throughout the game you collect and upgrade both your weapons and plasmids at vending machines around the city. This is a great feature and adds a lot of interesting customisation to your character in the game and its interesting to see how weapons and plasmids evolve with upgrades. The combat however does has some issues with the death mechanice not punishing the player making it extremely easy on the easy setting and very trying on the harder difficulties. Weapons also seem to have very little impact and combat as a whole is not very satisfying.
Rapture is a rich and beautiful city and the atmosphere in the game is truly brilliant. You spend a lot of the time creeping about as you here splicers singing or even nursing guns as if they are children. Enemies are also rich in variety from the average splicers to Big daddy's perhaps the best enemy design of this generation. You can also take photos of all of these enemies to build up your knowledge of different bad guys. This results in you dealing greater damage against or resisting damage better.
Bioshock is a tough game to review because the thing that makes it such a brilliant experience is all in the atmoshphere and brilliantly written story. The graphics are brilliant and you are quickly emerged into the brilliant world of rapture. It is unfortunate the combat is so unsatisfying as it really prevents the game from being truly brilliant. Still anyone who enjoys interesting story and a game with a truly cinematic feel should deffinately play bioshock.
